The emergence of the chief online officer position at many institutions is strong evidence that online education is becoming more mainstream
Revenue generation and tuition
most responding institutions have online program tuition rates that are aligned with standard tuition or that are higher. Those higher tuition rates ranged from 12 percent of private institutions to 29 percent of four-year public institutions, and lower than standard tuition rates ranged from 3 percent of community colleges to 37 percent of private institutions. None of the larger online programs reported tuition rates for online students that are lower than standard tuition rates, and 20 percent reported higher tuition rates for online study.
Course development
Forty percent of chief online officers in larger programs larger programs use instructional design support, and 30 percent use a team approach to online course design. Ten percent outsource course design.
This kind of course development is in stark contrast to practices of chief online officers in mid-sized and smaller programs. Among the smallest online education programs, 18 percent of chief online officers expect faculty to develop online courses independently, and 53 percent treat instructional design support as a faculty option. This means that a combined 71 percent of smaller programs do not mandate the use of instructional design specialists.
In 13 percent of mid-sized programs, faculty are expected to develop courses independently, and in 64 percent of mid-sized programs, they are free to choose whether or not to involve instructional design specialists, yielding a combined 77 percent of programs that do not require the use of instructional design expertise.
Teaching, learning and technology
The CHLOE survey also asked chief online officers to name three technologies or tools they consider most important or innovative for their institution’s fully-online programs. Eighty-one percent first listed an LMS, while others named audio and video conferencing and lecture capture. The technologies most-cited for second- and third-most important were conferencing, video and lecture capture software. (see Plamen’s effort to start faculty discussion on lecture capture here: http://blog.stcloudstate.edu/coursecapture/)
“There was no sign of much-hyped innovations like adaptive learning, competency-based education LMS solutions, or simulation or game-based learning tools,” according to the study. “Such tools may be in use for specific courses or programs but based on responses to CHLOE, these have yet to achieve institution-wide adoption at any scale.” (see Plamen’s efforts start a discussion on game-based learning here: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=game-based+learning
Blended learning is in one dimension broadly defined as “The convergence of online and face-to-face Education” as in the study by Watson (2008). At the same time it is important to also include the dimension of technology and media use as it has been depicted in the multimodal conceptual model in Figure 1 below. This conceptual model was proposed and presented in an article published by Picciano (2009). Critical Factors for Implementing Blended Learning in Higher Education.
online face to face hybrid
Several studies that argue for the need to focus on pedagogy and learning objectives and not solely on technology (Hoffinan, 2006; Garrison & Vaughan, 2008; Al amm ary et al., 2014; McGee & Reis, 2012; Shand, Glassett Farrelly & Costa, 2016). Other findings in this study are that technology still is a critical issue (So & Brush, 2008; Fleming, Becker & Newton, 2017), not least in developing regions (AI Busaidi & Al-Shihi, 2012; Raphae1 & Mtebe, 2016), and also the more positive idea of technology as a supporting factor for innovative didactics and instructional design to satisfy the needs in heterogeneous student groups (Picciano, 2009). Critical Factors for Implementing Blended Learning in Higher Education.
Critical factors:
technology
didactics – pedagogy, instructional design and the teacher role
Course outcomes – learning outcomes and learner satisfaction
collaboration and social presence
course design
the heritage from technology enhanced distance courses
The New York Times VR app (available for iOS and Android) we can now experience parts of Antarctica in virtual reality. As a part of their Antarctica series The New York Times has published four short films (9-15 minutes) that can be viewed in virtual reality.
The numbers reveal a year-to-year online enrollment increase of 226,375 distance education students–a 3.9 percent increase, up over rates recorded the previous two years. More than 6 million students are now online learners, according to the report.
More than one in four students (29.7 percent) now take at least one distance education course (a total of 6,022,105 students).
Graduate students are twice as likely to take all of their courses online (26 percent) as undergraduate students (12 percent).
The number of students studying on a campus has dropped by almost 1 million (931,317) between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of “exclusively distance” students live in the same state as their institution (55 percent), while 42 percent are studying online at an out-of-state institution.
Public institutions educate the largest proportion of online students (67.8 percent), though more online learners in private institutions attend nonprofit schools than for-profits, according to the data.
And according to LMS provider Docebo, the 2016 world-wide revenue for self-paced online learning products and services (in US$ millions) exceeded $23 million in North America, beating out Europe and even Asia by a large margin.
Going corporate: According to the latest market study by Technavio, the size of the global corporate online learning market is predicted to reach an approximate amount of USD 31 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.
An important component: Within online learning, the LMS market is expected to grow at an incredible rate—a CAGR of 24 percent by 2020.
The biggest growth: Within online learning, the cloud is also growing at a tremendous rate. IT spending is steadily shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services, and the aggregate amount of cloud is expected to go from $111 billion in 2016 to $216 billion in 2020.
The Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, and advancements in online learning have changed the way universities reach prospective students, engage with their current student body, and provide them the resources they need.
The Internet of Things has opened up a whole new world of possibilities in higher education. The increased connectivity between devices and “everyday things” means better data tracking and analytics, and improved communication between student, professor, and institution, often without ever saying a word. IoT is making it easier for students to learn when, how, and where they want, while providing professors support to create a more flexible and connected learning environment.
Virtual/Augmented Reality
Virtual and augmented reality technologies have begun to take Higher Ed into the realm of what used to be considered science fiction.
some of the findings in Kahoot!’s first-ever EdTrends Report : Google is gaining a stronghold in United States classrooms, with Chrome OS expanding its presence on school computers, while Apple’s iOS has been on the decline since the first quarter of 2015 among students and teachers.
Chromebook had the highest number of users among teachers (44 percent) and students (46 percent), when they were asked about their top devices used. Google’s Productivity Suite (G Suite or Classroom) was the most widely used productivity suite in U.S. classrooms, with 57 percent saying they used it, compared to 23 percent saying they used Microsoft Office 365.
a majority of educators (more than 60 percent) said the purpose of adopting education technology was to increase student productivity and efficiency. Their key educational priorities for 2017-18 are “to improve student learning and outcomes” (88 percent), and to “better leverage available time and motivate students” (71 percent).
Educators saw the top ed tech trends in the next school year as:
Digital platforms for teaching, learning and assessment;
Personalized learning;
Computational thinking, coding and robotics;
Increased understanding of data; and
Gamificiation.
Some other key findings in the report include:
A majority of U.S. public school educators surveyed said they are challenged with budget restraints and lack of resources when it comes to implementing education technology;
A majority of U.S. private school educators said they lack training to understand or adopt new technology;
Many public and private school educators said they saw the adoption of “technology for the sake of technology” as a challenge;
Educators in California struggle with lack of training and “technology for the sake of technology,” while teachers in Texas struggle with bureaucracy, budget constraints and a lack of resources.
MPS students will be receiving devices that come with 3GB of high-speed LTE data (with unlimited data available at 2G speeds if usage exceeds that amount). Students can keep their device up to four years while they are in high school no cost, according to initiative site. Additionally, devices are equipped with filters to block adult content that cannot be disabled and are Free Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) compliant.
a number of recommendations for helping online programs attract students, including:
Cater to students’ career goals. “Since online students are so career focused, understanding which programs will best educate students for the job market is critical to online program success,” the researchers noted;
Make sure admissions offices provide fast responses to online students, as well as upfront figures on financial aid and transfer credits; and
Adapt online access to accommodate mobile technology.
The design of blended learning curriculum will be more diversified and personalized with the integration of creative in-class active learning strategies and innovative educational technologies, such as adaptive learning, virtual reality, mobile technologies
Quality assurance is the biggest challenge with implementing blended learning in the higher education environment today. I would propose institutions to adopt evidence-based standards for course evaluations. For instance, the OLC Quality Scorecard for Blended Learning Programs
cyber security experts say that weaving your personal and professional lives together via a work laptop is risky business — for you and the company. Software technology company Check Point conducted a survey of over 700 IT professionals which revealed that nearly two-thirds of IT pros believed that recent high-profile breaches were caused by employee carelessness.
DON’T: Save personal passwords in your work device keychain.
DON’T: Make off-color jokes on messaging software.
DON’T: Access free public wi-fi while working on sensitive material.
DON’T: Allow friends or non-IT department colleagues to remotely access your work computer.
DON’T: Store personal data.
DON’T: Work on your side hustle while at the office.
