In a business context, upskilling refers to how we teach employees new skills. When we talk about upskilling at All Campus, we’re thinking about the bigger picture. On a large scale, upskilling refers to students and employees putting heightened emphasis on rapid career and practical skill development.
Just as online learning made it possible to go to school from anywhere, the growing market for graduate, non-credit and professional certificate programs will push flexibility even further.
For students, shorter non-credit courses and certificate programs provide more opportunities to develop skills and advance their knowledge in smaller blocks of time and lower cost.
According to Strada Education, 65% of the U.S. workforce does not have a four-year degree and, as more people question the value of degree programs in general, micro-credentials and other alternative education options are bound to generate long-term momentum.
“Passively watching a recording is not as good as being an active participant in class, so these videos are a supplement, not a substitute. I’ll keep posting the videos as long as you keep coming to class.”
My note: I wonder if the instructor uses the “VideoQuiz” option in MediaSpace/Kaltura and place questions at important places of the h/er video lecture recording and thus make the experience more engaging
Flipgrid is a free service that you can use to post prompts for your students to respond to with short videos that they record through their laptops, Chromebooks, iPads, or phones. Your prompts and your students’ replies can be kept private or you can make them public. a complete set of Flipgrid tutorial videos available here.
Wang, Q., Quek, C., & Hu, H. (2017). Designing and Improving a Blended Synchronous Learning Environment : An Educational Design Research. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3), 99-118
Definition: blended synchronous learning has attracted much attention and it is often labelled with synchronous hybrid learning (Cain & Henriksen 2013); synchronous blended learning (Okita, 201 3 ); multi – access learning (Irvine, Code, & Richards, 2013); or simultaneous delivery of course s to on – campus and off – campus students (White et al ., 2010). Adapted from the definition given by Bower , Dalgarno, Kennedy, Lee, and Kenney (2015), blended synchronous learning in this paper is defined as a learning method that enables online students to participate in classroom learning activities simultaneously via comput er – mediated communication technologies such as video conferencing . By following this approach , on – campus students attend F2F le ssons in the physical classroom. M eanwhile, online students who are situated at multiple sites participate in the identical class room learning activities via two – way video conferencing in real time .
With regard to educational benefits , blended synchronous learning can help to establish rich teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence ( Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 200 0 ; Szeto, 2015 ). A BSLE provides a mimic classroom environment (White et al. , 2010) , where teachers ’ direct instruction and facilitation can be easily carried out a nd the teaching presence is hence naturally established.
The Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit conducted the national study in collaboration with 3Play Media. The researchers surveyed 2,124 students across 15 public and private universities throughout the United States. Of all respondents, 19 percent reported hearing difficulties, and 37 reported vision difficulties. However, only 13 percent had registered with an office of disability services, and less than 12 percent reported they require academic accommodations.
The study revealed that students find closed captions and video transcripts helpful, whether the student is deaf or hard of hearing or not.
Key findings from the study:
Almost 100 percent of survey respondents had at least one course — either face-to-face or online — that included some video content;
75 percent of students use captions as a learning aid in face-to-face and online classrooms;
98.6 percent of students who use captions say they are helpful;
71 percent of students without hearing difficulties use captions at least some of the time;
Students reference video transcripts as a learning aid 85 percent of the time;
66 percent of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students find captions extremely or very helpful;
61 percent of students with learning disabilities find captions helpful;
More than one quarter of students were unsure about the availability of closed captions for video content in their course; and
Almost one-in-five students were unsure about the availability of video transcripts for their course.
Further details about the study and a link to the full report can be found on 3Play Media’s site.
GameMaker: Studio Grades: 5–12 Pricing: Free, paid Concepts: Digital creation, programming and coding, game design
GameMaker: Studio is a robust game-making tool that appeals to both entry-level novices and game-development pros alike.
The Orchestra Grades: 6–12 Pricing: $13.99 Concepts: Music theory, memorization, listening, part-whole relationships
The Orchestra is an interactive iPad app for exploring classical music, the orchestra and orchestral instruments.
WonderBox Grades: 2–8 Pricing: Free Concepts: Design, geography, curiosity, imagination, making new creations
As its name suggests, WonderBox is an app that piques kids’ natural curiosity through video, drawing, taking pictures, messaging with family and friends and engaging in multistep challenges.
A.D.A.M. Interactive Anatomy Online is a 3D visualization and curriculum-development tool all about the human body. Teachers can select and create assignments that allow students to manipulate 3D images of the human body.
Construct 2 Grades: 7–12 Pricing: Free, paid Concepts: Digital creation, programming and coding, game design
Construct 2 is a Web-based 2D game-creation tool for students and teachers who want to get into game design without the need to know programming languages.
Set in a tropical jungle full of brightly colored fruit and animated birds, Fruity Fractions teaches fractions concepts to kids in first through third grades.
How mainstream is this technologyreallygoing to be?Facebook sees VR as the next big computing platform, but that will depend on it becoming a truly mainstream device
