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by Halona Black, Education Dive
The American Bar Association (ABA) recently adopted a resolution stating that law schools can now grant students permission to take up to one-third of the credit hours needed to complete a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree via distance education. This equates to about 30 credit hours at most U.S. law schools, National Jurist reports. Previously, law students could take up to 15 credits online. The ABA defines a distance education course as “one in which students are separated from the faculty member or each other for more than one-third of the instruction” and uses technology to support interactions among students and instructors. Credit for a distance education course is only awarded if the academic content, course delivery method and student performance evaluation method pass the institution’s regular curriculum approval process. The new resolution is a plus for prospective students who do not live near institutions that offer in-person law degrees.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/can-law-schools-increase-enrollment-with-online-learning/530802/

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by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed
U.S. News will consider them unranked for the rest of this rankings year, but that punishment will last only a few weeks. Errors included graduation rates, spending per student, average faculty salaries and more. It’s just a few weeks from the next edition of the U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges” rankings, widely questioned by educators but relied on by many students and parents (and boasted about by some of the same educators who say that the rankings are a lousy way to pick a college). But it turns out that eight of the colleges ranked a year ago submitted information that was sufficiently incorrect that it would have changed their places in the rankings. And so U.S. News has declared them to be “unranked,” a punishment that lasts until Sept. 10, when the new edition comes out.

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2018/08/24/eight-more-colleges-identified-submitting-incorrect-data-us-news

By Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

EdSurge: MOOCs were once headline news around the world and now you hardly hear about them. How would you describe the state of MOOCs and where are things going?

Dhawal Shah, founder and CEO of Class Central: Yeah, they might have fallen off the big newspapers and the public eye. But they’ve figured out a monetization model. They might not be profitable but they’re making a lot of money. Udacity itself announced that they made 30 million dollars last year. So I think they’re grinding it out there. More people are using them than at any point in time before. They’re making money and now they are looking forward going into the online degree market and the corporate learning training market.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-08-21-moocs-are-no-longer-massive-and-they-serve-different-audiences-than-first-imagined

by Open Access Government
The Royal Air Force have partnered with digital transformation experts AVADO and the CIPD to announce a new learning initiative for their service personnel. Formed in 1918, the RAF is the oldest independent airforce in the world, employing 32,000 military service personnel globally. Since its very conception, the organisation has paved the way for technological advancements and today (Wednesday 22, August) they are announcing a new and innovative way to use digital learning to support their employees. This new learning partnership is part of the Royal Air Force’s ongoing commitment to enhancing career development for those currently serving, as well as extending the post-service qualifications for those who are moving, or have moved onto new employment. Alongside AVADO , and the CIPD, the Royal Air Force will be supporting the opportunity for Service Personnel, both Regular and Reserves of the Personnel Support Branch, to study with AVADO for the online HR qualifications (Level 5 Diploma in HR and Level 3 Certificate in HR) in order to gain accreditation to CIPD.

RAF embraces digital learning in centenary year

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology

As part of a two-hour workshop, students pop on a virtual reality headset (most recently, that’s the $199 Oculus Go) and attend a virtual meeting that brings together a small group of people from the United States, China, India and Singapore. In the opening scene of “First Impressions,” the user observes a global business meeting taking place in an office in China. It’s apparent as the meeting progresses that the interactions among the various characters are leading to tensions. All of the students see the same thing, remove their headsets and go through a bit of discussion. They’re asked simply to be observers first, “and not apply any judgment to what’s going on,” said project lead Ilin Misaras, assistant director for the university’s Global Training Initiative (GTI). “Don’t tell me that [somebody] is weird. Tell me what he said.” Following that, the headset is pulled on again to watch the same scene repeated. But this time, each user has been assigned to one of three people in attendance at the global meeting and assumes his role from a first-person point of view.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/21/using-vr-to-help-students-understand-cultural-differences.aspx

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By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
According to our 2018 Teaching with Technology Survey, while some faculty still see technology as a hindrance, most think it has had a positive impact on teaching and learning. In a recent survey of faculty members at colleges and universities across the country, nearly one in five respondents (19 percent) reported that technology has made their jobs “harder” or “much harder.” That’s up from 17 percent who said the same last year. Still, many more faculty members said that technology has made their jobs “easier” (44 percent) or “much easier” (29 percent). And a mere 8 percent of respondents said tech hasn’t had much of an impact either way.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/22/1-in-5-faculty-members-say-technology-makes-their-job-harder.aspx

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By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
Students in Generation Z would rather learn from YouTube videos than from nearly any other form of instruction. YouTube was designated as the preferred mode of learning by 59 percent of Gen Zers in a survey on the topic, compared to in-person group activities with classmates (mentioned by 57 percent), learning applications or games (47 percent) and printed books (also 47 percent). A majority (55 percent) believe that YouTube has “contributed to their education.” In fact, nearly half of survey participants (47 percent) reported spending three or more hours every day on YouTube.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/21/gen-zers-look-to-teachers-first-youtube-second-for-instruction.aspx

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by Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Schools are rapidly changing course from traditional teaching methods to more technologically based options. Higher education isn’t immune to those changes, but there are some notable differences. For example, not all universities are interested in using the learning analytics. However, these numbers can provide a great deal of insight into how students are doing and areas where the university needs to improve. Looking at the numbers could provide a major benefit to students and faculty members, but everyone has to get on board with them first. Here are a handful of ways we can start getting higher education faculty to embrace the newly available data.

Getting Higher Education Faculty to Embrace Learning Analytics

By Cait Etherington, eLearning Inside

In the past, when you arrived on campus for college orientation, you may have been handed a map if you were lucky. Much of what happened next depended on being in the right place at the right time or simply following the crowd. By contrast, freshman orientation 2018 is all about apps, virtual tours, and online seminars. While incoming college kids can still get into a lot of trouble in person, the important parts of orientation week are increasingly being delivered online and tracked to ensure that no one misses anything critical.

Apps, Virtual Tours, and Online Seminars: Welcome to Freshman Orientation 2018

by Halona Black, Education Dive
The American Bar Association (ABA) recently adopted a resolution stating that law schools can now grant students permission to take up to one-third of the credit hours needed to complete a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree via distance education. This equates to about 30 credit hours at most U.S. law schools, National Jurist reports. Previously, law students could take up to 15 credits online. The ABA defines a distance education course as “one in which students are separated from the faculty member or each other for more than one-third of the instruction” and uses technology to support interactions among students and instructors. Credit for a distance education course is only awarded if the academic content, course delivery method and student performance evaluation method pass the institution’s regular curriculum approval process. The new resolution is a plus for prospective students who do not live near institutions that offer in-person law degrees.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/can-law-schools-increase-enrollment-with-online-learning/530802/

By Rob Marvin, PC Week

Attorneys general from 22 states, led by New York AG Barbara Underwood, filed a new brief in an ongoing lawsuit to reverse the FCC’s net neutrality rollback.  Led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, the group includes AGs representing California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and numerous other populous states comprising more than 165 million Americans. The brief states that the FCC’s order to roll back net neutrality rules is “arbitrary and capricious” because it puts consumers at risk of abusive practices, and that the order unlawfully preempts state and local regulations. The fight to bring back net neutrality is far from over, but in the meantime, you might want to invest in a VPN.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/363246/22-states-ask-court-to-restore-net-neutrality-regulations

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by LESLIE RUBI, Fox 11

It’s hard to believe, but today’s first-graders will go on to be the Class of 2030. The class already has an iPad for each student, but the future could look a lot different. A study by educational policymakers looking at possibilities by the year 2030 said there is a 62 percent chance that students will be carrying around artificial intelligence devices. There is a 70 percent chance that face-to-face instruction will give way to online courses. Textbooks will be a thing of the past and teaching robots could be a real thing.

https://wvah.com/news/local/todays-first-graders-prepare-to-succeed-as-the-class-of-2030

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by Chelsea Jones, University Affairs (Canada)

If we are serious about accessible online learning, we must talk openly about disability as if it is right here, right now – because it is. As online learning becomes the norm across Canada, faulty conversations about making online learning accessible are cropping up in higher education conferences. These conversations fall short when they fail to uphold standards of inclusivity that are at the heart of basic, proactive Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies – that is, when they do not include gestures of access such as transcripts, live captioning, or American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation. Or, when they present disabled people in stereotypical ways.

Accessibility must be more than an add-on to online pedagogy

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By David Raths, Campus Technology

Kennesaw State University (GA) faced a challenge common to many universities: explosive growth in the number of online courses it offered and no easy and affordable way to scale up the closed captioning required to make all the course video and audio files fully accessible to all students.  With its previous captioning processes proving unsatisfactory, Kennesaw partnered with a vendor to develop a solution that provides speedy machine-generated captions and an embedded editor that allows faculty to do more of the captioning in a self-service mode. However, that level of faculty involvement came with another requirement: making the solution easier to use.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/15/working-together-for-quicker-easier-captioning.aspx

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology
According to our 2018 Teaching with Technology Survey, while some faculty still see technology as a hindrance, most think it has had a positive impact on teaching and learning. In a recent survey of faculty members at colleges and universities across the country, nearly one in five respondents (19 percent) reported that technology has made their jobs “harder” or “much harder.” That’s up from 17 percent who said the same last year. Still, many more faculty members said that technology has made their jobs “easier” (44 percent) or “much easier” (29 percent). And a mere 8 percent of respondents said tech hasn’t had much of an impact either way.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/08/22/1-in-5-faculty-members-say-technology-makes-their-job-harder.aspx

By Rob Marvin, PC Week

Attorneys general from 22 states, led by New York AG Barbara Underwood, filed a new brief in an ongoing lawsuit to reverse the FCC’s net neutrality rollback.  Led by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, the group includes AGs representing California, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and numerous other populous states comprising more than 165 million Americans. The brief states that the FCC’s order to roll back net neutrality rules is “arbitrary and capricious” because it puts consumers at risk of abusive practices, and that the order unlawfully preempts state and local regulations. The fight to bring back net neutrality is far from over, but in the meantime, you might want to invest in a VPN.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/363246/22-states-ask-court-to-restore-net-neutrality-regulations

By Dieter Holger, PC World

JavaScript is the language of the web. It makes websites interactive, creates animations, draws data-driven graphics, and more. It even runs natively in your web browser so you don’t have to install it and you can get to coding right away. Alongside HTML and CSS, JavaScript is an essential language for any aspiring or current web developer.  In any case, if you want to create for the web you’re going to need JavaScript. Because of the close relationship between HTML, CSS, and the web, it’s useful to have a well-rounded skill set, and fortunately, most of the courses we recommend will have you code HTML and CSS as you learn JS. There are a ton of online courses where you can get experience coding websites and apps. I’ve put together some of the best out there from a variety of sources. Some courses I tried myself, but others I selected based on their customer reviews, popularity, and breadth of material. With various lengths, difficulty levels, and specialization, you’re sure to find one that meets your particular needs.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3297962/application-development/learn-javascript.html

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by Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

Second Life is many things, but among them is an attempt to build a virtual world that works more like the web (where anyone can add a site or a page) than a finished product that can only be modified by the corporation that manufactured it.  Higher ed institutes around the world built islands in Second Life for virtual instruction, and some of these are still online, seemingly paying $300/month to keep them alive. Splinter’s Patrick Hogan toured the remnants of the higher ed campuses in Second Life, finding them utterly abandoned and haunting — vaulted halls and manicured gardens, and whimsical classrooms in forests or on pirate ships, designed for throngs, empty save for the odd 2D cutout of a person.

Touring the haunting ruins of abandoned Second Life university campuses

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by Business Standard, New Delhi

In a country with a relatively greater proportion of younger people who aspire to be an entrepreneur, companies are actively working to create ease in the jumbling lives of youth. The millenial generation is so hard at work that they always feed on platform that can add comfort and structure to their future planning’s. This year’s World Entrepreneur Day is the perfect occasion to draw attention to the wide variety of challenges that today’s entrepreneurs face in their daily lives. Here are few platforms that are important for today’s Entrepreneurs to be future ready.

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/5-platforms-helping-entrepreneurs-to-be-future-ready-118082100773_1.html

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by LESLIE RUBI, Fox 11

It’s hard to believe, but today’s first-graders will go on to be the Class of 2030. The class already has an iPad for each student, but the future could look a lot different. A study by educational policymakers looking at possibilities by the year 2030 said there is a 62 percent chance that students will be carrying around artificial intelligence devices. There is a 70 percent chance that face-to-face instruction will give way to online courses. Textbooks will be a thing of the past and teaching robots could be a real thing.

https://wvah.com/news/local/todays-first-graders-prepare-to-succeed-as-the-class-of-2030