Experimenting With Aid

By Paul Fain

The U.S. Department of Education continues to work on its plan to grant experimental federal aid eligibility to partnerships between accredited colleges and alternative providers, such as job skills boot camps, coding academies and MOOCs.

A wide range of experts have been summoned to the White House for a meeting at the end of July to discuss this growing space. And department officials say they are seeking comments on how best to spot and ensure quality with nontraditional providers.

“We think that a new set of quality assurance questions will need to be developed to ask hard, important questions about student learning and outcomes,” said Ted Mitchell, under secretary of education, in a blog post last week. “These questions will help students, taxpayers and those evaluating educational programs separate programs that are high quality from those that do not meet the bar.”

Growing numbers of students are enrolling in noninstitutional programs. For example, roughly 16,000 students are expected to graduate from boot camps this year, Fast Company reported, which is up from 6,740 last year.

The White House wants to encourage that growth, at least among what it sees as high-quality providers. As a result, the department has been mulling an “experimental sites” project that would open up federal aid to a limited group of academic programs that colleges and nontraditional providers would offer jointly.

As Inside Higher Ed reported in April, the department would waive certain rules for federal aid eligibility under the experiment, such as the regulation that fewer than 50 percent of academic programs can be outsourced to nonaccredited, noninstitutional providers. The results of the experiment could be used to inform future policy and regulatory decisions.

Details are still being sorted out for the project, sources said. But the goal is to announce its creation in the next two months.

In June, Jamienne Studley, deputy under secretary of education, told a meeting of accreditors that the department was considering the partnership approach to an experimental site. She said the feds are seeking to “encourage dialogue” on how to ensure quality with approved boot camps and noninstitutional online providers.

“We’re very much in listening mode about what we might do,” said Studley, adding that the department’s goal is to strike a “balance between being deliberative and creative.”

To participate in the project, an accredited college and its partner provider -- perhaps a boot camp like General Assembly or an online course provider such as Udacity -- would need to apply to the department and be accepted as an experimental site. Qualifying programs would include the imprimatur of some third-party, such as an accreditor, that does quality assurance based on minimum thresholds the department would establish.

This pathway to alternative accreditation could be managed by a regional accreditor, perhaps through a newly created subsidiary. Another possibility would be a new national accrediting body that specializes in nontraditional providers.

The WASC Senior College and University Commission, a regional accreditor, could be a player in this space. Recently the commission released a policy for how a nonaccredited provider could partner with a traditional college for a “period of incubation” and eventually evolve to hold its own accreditation.

Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire University’s president, recently wrapped up a three-month stint as an adviser to the department. One of his tasks was to work on the experimental site project for alternative providers.

The blog post from Mitchell, LeBlanc said, “speaks to the desire to bring new, effective partners into the Title IV ecosystem.”

One goal in this work is for the feds to help students get financial support for the “best of these programs,” he said. But just as important is for the department to ensure quality control and consumer protection, said LeBlanc. That's because the department wants to avoid opening the floodgates of federal aid to subpar providers -- “bad actors” in the parlance of Washington.

“We don’t want to go down the path of Corinthian,” LeBlanc said, referring to the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, a controversial for-profit chain.

Partial Agreement
Mitchell’s statement includes three general categories for questions the department should ask in deciding which programs meet the bar. They revolve around “measurable claims” a provider makes about student learning, the reliability and validity of learning assessment, and the outcomes completers achieve -- including both academic transfer and employment and salary.

Senator Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate’s education committee, also has floated ideas for opening up accreditation to noninstitutional online course providers and other new entrants.

On Wednesday Alexander’s committee is holding a hearing on “exploring barriers and opportunities within innovation.” In a news release the committee’s staff said the “hearing will be an opportunity to explore new models of delivering education that could provide high-quality and affordable education, such as competency-based education and personalized learning models.”

In many ways Alexander and other Senate Republicans, including presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, are on the same page as the Obama administration when it comes to upstarts in higher education. All three have said they would like to expand opportunities for students to attend promising providers that exist outside of the models of traditional colleges.

For example, Rubio recently called higher education a "cartel" and promised that, as president, he would create a new accreditation process that "welcomes low-cost, innovative providers."

Yet Rubio and Alexander differ with Obama in their view of the federal role in encouraging and overseeing that sector’s growth. A heavier hand for the feds, where the department controls the path to accreditation, will be less amenable to Republicans.

Andrew Kelly is director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. He applauded the department’s desire to experiment with alternative providers, and to study the results of such a project.

“There is a clear role for the federal government to play in research and development,” said Kelly.
However, Kelly said he is wary of the department playing favorites with the experimental sites project, as he said they did with the gainful employment regulations, which largely target programs at for-profit colleges.

“I don’t think the department is the right institution to make all the calls about who gets in and who gets left out,” he said.

Kelly said he generally likes the approach of bringing in outside entities to do quality assurance. But that still might not be enough to prevent the department from bigfooting the process, he said.

“I don’t have as much confidence about where they end up,” said Kelly. “There’s almost an inevitable momentum to federalize these decisions.”

Students seek MOOCs as course add-ons

Researchers at Duke University have found that students are using MOOCs to explore new subject areas and complement traditional learning.

Duke University. Photo: Nan-Cheng Tsai.

About Beckie Smith Beckie graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Japanese, during which she lived in Kyoto for a year. She loves travelling to report on different areas of the world as it enables her to fulfil both her childhood dreams of being either an explorer or a writer. Beckie can be engaged in discussion about feminism, politics and the media and is very fond of brunch food.   

Many of the enrolees under the age of 18 reported taking MOOCs to learn about topics not taught at their school and to explore different subjects
 

A study entitled Fulfilling the promise: do MOOCs reach the educationally underserved? found that Duke’s 13 MOOCs on the Coursera platform provide students with access to content they might not encounter on their formal course of study, thus complementing existing courses.

The study analysed qualitative data from pre-course surveys issued to all of the MOOCs’ 9,000 enrolees in the autumn 2014 semester to identify the core demographics taking the courses and deepen understanding of their motivations for study.

“Coursera classes were supplementing or enhancing their education that they were getting from other either K-12 or higher education formal courses”

“The theme that was most pronounced was that Coursera classes were supplementing or enhancing their education that they were getting from other either K-12 or higher education formal courses,” commented lead researcher Lorrie Schmid.

The 13 MOOCs were particularly popular among non-traditional student groups. The study identifies three groups that make up the core demographic of the courses: under-18s, over-65s and people without access to higher education.

Although some students felt that limited mobility and finances dictated that MOOCs were their only option for continuing study, many gave other reasons as their primary motivation for pursuing a course.

Many of the enrolees under the age of 18 reported taking MOOCs to learn about topics not taught at their school and to explore different subjects, offering them insight into options for their future academic or career paths.

Meanwhile, those over 65 said their aim was to pursue lifelong learning and keep their minds active. Some adults in this category also said they would like to mentor younger students in their professional field.

The study says that, contrary to what was envisioned when MOOCs first began being developed, “MOOC students are not underserved in terms of educational opportunities; the typical MOOC learner already has a college degree”.

However, it contends that “this does not mean that MOOCs are failing to fulfil the promise of democratisation”.

“The idea was trying to get a better handle on individuals who were underserved, because so much of the popular press has focused on highly-educated, white (for the most part), upper middle class folks taking Coursera courses,” Schmid said.

Technology and Its Possibilities Are the Future

Madelyne Xiao, a student at Stanford University, is press director for she++, which aims to create community and momentum for female technologists and computer scientists.

Updated July 22, 2015, 11:09 AM

I'm not alone among my peers at Stanford University in seeing technology as the future. Indeed, for many of us, technology is the path toward change, and the Internet has democratized opportunities and communication.  Not all effects are good, but technology's capacity for positive change is undeniable.
We’re acutely aware of the ways in which the Internet can magnify cruel behavior, like cyberbullying. But the social flip side can be just as powerful. Take Brandon Stanton, the street photographer behind Humans of New York. He harnesses social media to share the stories of strangers he meets and interviews.

Far from settling with one-click Internet approval in the form of "Likes" — which he gets in spades — followers of Stanton's Facebook page recently raised over a million dollars to establish a scholarship fund for graduates of the Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brooklyn, which will also let them visit Harvard University on class trips, and it all started with a photograph of a student who cited his principal as his role model.

Or take a look at Khan Academy, coursera, Udacity and other providers of online courses. They provide free learning materials to their users, and an international network of namebrand universities and instructors to reach a classroom of millions.

Sure, not all effects of technology are positive — some social-impact goals on mission statements are dubious, to say the least, and the lack of diversity undercuts the industry — but technology’s capacity for positive change is undeniable. The building of life-changing inventions — like 3-D printed prosthetic limbs — show that the industry has the potential to continue to grow in beneficial ways, and we’d like to see this potential come to fruition.

How You Can Get A Degree In Music For 62% Cheaper Than Normal

 

“The Logic class is kicking my butt a little bit… in a good way,” – Stefan Lessard, Bassist, Dave Matthews Band

For those of you outside of America, the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) is one of the most successful touring bands of all time (I’ve seen over 20 shows… I’m kind of a fan). What makes them so successful is not their high ticket prices, but their demanding tour schedule. For the past 20 years, the band has toured relentlessly. Spending the majority of your life on the road doesn’t give you much time for traditional education. Lessard, who joined DMB when he was just 16, never went to college. He has the real world experience, but never got the formal music training he craved. “I’ve always wanted to go to school. I’ve always wanted to learn more,” Lessard explains. He signed up for a few Berklee Online classes like Theory 101 and Logic to take while on tour.

The beauty of online classes is that students can take them on their own schedule from anywhere in the world.

Berklee College of Music started its online program in 2002 when the internet was still figuring itself out. This was pre YouTube or Facebook.  Now, over 10,000 students from 140 countries each year enroll in Berklee Online certificate programs including 12 week courses like Pro Tools, Music Video Editing, Commercial Songwriting, Orchestration, Music Theory, Guitar, Afro-Cuban Drums, Music Production, 3D Design, Ear Training For Mixing Engineers, Arranging: Horn Writing, Artist Management, Music Licensing, Music Marketing and over 100 others.

$100,000 is spent on the development of every online course.

I sat down with Berklee Online’s CEO, Debbie Cavalier to understand the online school and new degree program a bit more.

She described Berklee’s online offerings as a wedding cake (the metaphor, she credited, was created by Berklee President Roger Brown):

The bottom layer are the free YouTube lessons Berklee offers on their YouTube page which have over 16 million collective views.

The next layer of the metaphorical cake are the MOOC (classes they offer for free) via Coursera.org which over 1.4 million students have taken. Cavalier explained that many of the MOOC classes are meant to help students prep for the degree programs.

The next layer of the cake are the stand alone courses which Berklee offers for $1,449 a pop (for credit).

The next layer are the certificate programs which can be obtained by completing a combination of courses.

And the top layer of the Berklee Online wedding cake are the new degree programs.

+Sample A Course On Berklee College Of Music's Online Education Program

Berklee started the Bachelor of Professional Studies program last year. In its first year, 350 students were admitted. 700 submitted (completed) applications though (although thousands more started applications). If you do the math, I’ll wait till you grab your calculator, that’s a 50% acceptance rate. Unlike other for profit online schools, Berklee is quite picky about who they admit. “We only take people that we feel are going to succeed. It would be irresponsible of us to bring people in who we don’t feel are going to succeed academically,” Cavalier admitted. The Berklee College of Music in Boston admits about 30% of applicants.

“We only take people that we feel are going to succeed. It would be irresponsible of us to bring people in who we don’t feel are going to succeed academically” – Debbie Cavalier, CEO, Berklee Online

As someone who doesn’t have a bachelors degree, but has had a successful music career, I asked Cavalier why would musicians spend the time and money to get a degree? She countered, “I’ve personally benefited from getting my degree from Berklee.” She went on to say that a degree is necessary for musicians who may want to get off the road and start teaching. Most Universities require their professors to have degrees. And it can be a stepping stone to getting a Masters degree (Berklee’s Valencia, Spain school offers a Masters program).

Being fully immersed in the LA music scene, I meet, tour and play with many Berklee alumni. The thing that I’ve found most enticing about Berklee is the tight-knit network Berklee provides for their students. It’s an instant ice breaker, instant coffee date, or freelance gig. Berklee’s reputation is known and respected world wide. But the school is expensive. At $155,760, Berklee Boston’s Bachelor’s degree can be quite cost-prohibitive. And this doesn’t include living expenses and other fees. Berklee Online is 62% cheaper at $58,000. I asked Cavalier if the online students can enjoy the same network as the Berklee Boston students and she said that Online students are able to tap into the same resources Berklee Boston students can.

The online program is taught, in part, through WebX, video streaming environments where the professor can meet with all the students at once in an interactive (and quite intimate) way. Students also work through media rich lesson material, upload their assignments (audio, video, orchestration, compositions, etc) and professors grade them typically within 24-48 hours. Many times professors will offer video responses to the assignments (especially for the musical courses where a guitar riff explanation is much easier understood when played than written out). There’s lots of collaboration amongst the students in the class, and each class is limited to 20 students.

“You would think that in the classroom you have the maximum amount of communication with the students,” says Gary Burton, who teaches online courses in improvisation. “But I’ve discovered that the students interact with each other constantly. Everybody sees everyone else’s homework and my comments on it. This offers a tremendous amount of information going back and forth, and in all directions. I don’t recall that sort of thing ever happening in the classroom—except among the most extroverted students.”

Currently Berklee Online offers 5 Degree programs: Music Production, Music Business, Electronic Music Production and Sound Design, Composition for Film, TV and Games, and “Interdisciplinary Music Studies” which is a create your own major program. The next majors to be added are Songwriting and Guitar.

85% of Berklee Online professors are also Berklee College of Music Boston faculty and the other 15% currently work in the music industry.

Most of the assignments are focused to bring real world experience.

In the jingle writing course, students are challenged to get real (paid) placements within 12 weeks. And many of them do. I’d be very curious to see if any enrolled students have ever made enough off of licensing to pay for their full tuition. One major movie, trailer or commercial placement could do it and then some.

Student (and working music supervisor), RC Cates, placed his professor, Brad Hadfield, for the show he was working on and they got an Emmy nomination for it.

Many of the students of the online school are working in the industry. Frazier T Smith who co-wrote “Set Fire To The Rain” with Adele, is a student. As is Rolling Stone Magazines “Artist To Watch of 2014,” Lindsay Ell. And, as mentioned before, Stefan Lessard of the Dave Matthews Band takes classes on his tour bus.

Berklee Online is currently accepting applications for the Fall semester. You can read more about the degree programs and apply here.

You can sample some of the courses for free here.

Ari Herstand is a Los Angeles based singer/songwriter and creator of the music biz advice blog, Ari’s Take. Follow him on Twitter: @aristake

Photo is by Rodrigo Simas and pulled from the Dave Matthews Band website.

Five Ways Your Kids Can Acquire Coding Superpowers Over The Holidays

Photo Credit: Simon Laroche_8 via Compfight cc

Coding is one of the most important skills to have in the world right now, as it is the language that drives the digital universe. In the next twenty years, even jobs without a direct link to computing sciences, will require employees with a basic understanding of computing and coding.
Thanks to the internet and the awareness of the need to code, it is now easier and accessible to learn how to code. There are numerous ways your kids can be gainfully occupied over the summer holidays.

1. Buy them a personal computer

Photo Credit: oddmenout via Compfight cc

Although this might come across as pretty obvious, it is worth saying. Children need the opportunity to learn basic computer skills. And no, don’t share your own computer with them,buy them THEIR own PC. It’s called “personal computer” for a reason”. If you are are worried about the dangers awaiting your children on the internet, as you should rightfully be, there are several ways to ensure your children’s safety online.

2. Buy them a Raspberry Pi

Photo Credit: vrypan via Compfight cc

For good measure, you should consider throwing in a Raspberry Pi kit. Raspberry Pis are credit card-sized computers that can be used to make really cool stuff, and learn programming languages like Scratch and Python.

What really makes them great is that not only are they cheap, they are designed to be intentionally easy to programme so that kids can learn and build cool things with them. Raspberry Pis are available for sale in Nigeria.

3. Enroll them in a summer coding programme

Increasingly, there are many initiatives in Nigeria that are teaching children to code. CcHUB Nigeria is organising a four week summer programme in Lagos as part of their initiatives to raise a new generation of digital makers. Tech Quest also has a summer camp programme in several major cities in Nigeria this year.

Not all of these are free, as you will see, but even where you have to pay, it will be money well spent.

4. Invest in games

Photo Credit: Clearwater Public Library System Photos via Compfight cc

Games are an awesome way to engage kids in learning a new skill largely because using games as a learning aid is fun and doesn’t feel like a chore.

For younger children, Lightbot, Code Monkey Island, Robozzle, Robot Turtles, and Kodable are good options to introduce them to the world of  programming.

SpaceChem, CodeCombat, Codemancer and Machineers provide gaming experiences that are more suited to older children and teenagers. Like we say in Nigeria, “not everytime” Soccer or Car Racing…

5. Online Learning Resources

One can learn virtually everything on the internet, including coding, obviously. There are several online learning resources with varying levels of learning involvement and complexity.

Code.org is uniquely suited to kids because it was actually created to get coding into the mainstream student curriculum. The site provides basic programming lessons and also offers a gamified approach, as it can be linked with gaming applications and other online resources such as Tynker, Scratch and Khan Academy.

If your child is already a programming whiz or prefers a more traditional learning experience, Coursera and Codecademy offer more advanced, structured and formal approaches to learning programming languages.

This post was brought to you in partnership with Tech+. Want to learn more about how technology can improve your lifestyle? Register to attend the Tech+ conference and exhibition.

7 Negotiating Techniques Musicians Need To Use To Get Paid

So Bruno Mars was paid $0 for his Super Bowl performance. Some are up in arms about that. I’m not.

Every gig I get offered I put on a career building (exposure) vs. compensation scale.

If the gig has high career building potential (ala playing the Super Bowl in front of 100 million people), I’ll accept much less pay. If I’m background music at a private event, I’ll need a huge payment. Those gigs are soul sucking.
Most gigs fall somewhere in the middle.
Musicians get offers to play private events all the time. Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, corporate parties, mall music, proposals (“so just hide in the closet until I bring her into the room”), and the like. It’s safe to say that most of these gigs will not bring you instant fame or shoot you to the top of the iTunes charts (like Bruno Mars’ album the day after the Super Bowl).
Too many musicians accept free gigs because they are promised great exposure or high merch sales. If you want to actually make a living playing music you’re going to have to learn some negotiating techniques (before you get an agent or manager to do this for you).
Here are 7 negotiating techniques that will hopefully help you get the most coin for the gig.

1) Never Accept The Asking Price

When a buyer pitches you a rate for a gig always negotiate this. Never settle for the asking price. This goes for when promoters and other bands offer you a guarantee for a club show as well. You don’t need to go all Ari Gold on their ass, but if they pitch you $100, ask for $300. You’ll most likely settle at $200.

2) Have A Normal Rate

More times than not, a buyer will ask you what your rate is. It’s good to always have a rate (and set length) you fall back on. You can set your “normal” rate at, say, $1,000 per show up to 2 hours (for private events) – with a “normal” set length of 70 minutes. I’ve done 70 minute gigs for way more than my “normal” rate and for way less, but, by default, I ask for my “normal” rate + expenses. Remember everything that has to be factored into this price: (local) travel, rehearsal, equipment, years of practice honing the craft, writing the songs, recording the album, creating the website, building your reputation, on and on. And above all, you’re better than anyone else they will ask who is cheaper! Sure, the buyer could get his brother to play, but he only showers once a week, gets drunk before he begins and is kind of racist.
Also, the further out you lock in a gig the higher your price should be. If you reserve a date, that means you have to turn down other (potentially higher paying or better exposure) gigs.

3) Price Points

Set different price points depending on time like:
0-2 hours = $1,000
2-3 hours = $1,500
3-4 hours = $2,000
The reason I say 0-2 hours and not set a specific set length is because once I’m setup it’s no difference to me if I play 15 minutes or 90 minutes. And they will think you’re charging based on performance time. They’ll try to get extra services out of you. “So since you’re only playing for 45 minutes but you’re charging for 90 minutes, can you give my son a guitar lesson for 45 minutes?” I kid you not this happened to me. I learned – after I gave her son a guitar lesson.

4) Feel Out the Gig

My rates definitely vary depending on the gig. College gigs I charge more and friends’ events I’ll charge less. If a company hits you up to play their holiday party, you can bet they have a large budget. Pitch them your “normal” high rate. They can always come back at you and say that’s more than they have budgeted and you can negotiate from there. If you ever pitch a rate and they immediately say “sounds good,” you under sold yourself. Up your rate!

5) Get All Details Up Front

Do they provide sound? Lights? Stage? Seating? What kind of event is this? Can you sell your own merch? How many sets? How many breaks? Do they provide dinner/drinks? Lodging? All of this factors into the price. I have my rate + sound, lights, food, lodging and travel. If they don’t provide any of that, then I factor that into the price and explain that to them. Your rate could be $1,000, but once you work out plane tickets, sound and light rental, hotel, dinner and rental car, it may cost around $2,000.

6) Have set points of expenses that are factored in:

* hotel buyout = $100 (either they provide one or add $100 to your check – if you have more band members factor in the extra rooms)
* food buyout = $15 per member
* plane and rental car you’ll have to look up and factor in per show basis

7) The Massage

If you pitch a rate WAY above their estimated budget, they may not respond to your email.  You may need to follow up and ask if your rate is in their budget and if they are “ready to move forward and discuss details.”  Massage them – metaphorically of course… or in actuality… whatever works.  If they reply stating your rate is way out of their budget, come up with an excuse as to why you can be flexible with them (you like the organization, it’s last minute and you’re free, you have a close mutual friend, whatever) and ask what they can afford.  Then negotiate from that point.
Club gigs are another beast and you’re most likely going to get a cut of the door.  Those are the “career building” gigs.  You’re not going to get paid much initially, but you build that fan base and the 3rd or 4th time through the city you’ll not only be able to negotiate a better cut of the door (or even a guarantee), you will be bringing out the numbers that will actually earn you good money.
+Worst to Best Club Deals (and Paying To Play)
When to play for free?  Free free?  Like no chance of receiving a dollar following the performance?  Reserve that for when you’re in front of millions of eyeballs tearing up the 50 yard line.

Ari Herstand is a Los Angeles based DIY musician who’s played over 550 shows and is the creator of Ari’s Take.  His record release show is March 29th at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood.  Get tickets here.  Follow him on Twitter: @aristake

GW to offer MOOC on baby boomer retirement

by Vaidehi Patel

As baby boomers get ready to retire, GW is gearing up to teach on the generation’s latest transition.

GW announced this month its fifth free online course, covering retirement for baby boomers, set to begin in September 2016. The details of the course, including its structure and its target audience, have not been announced because the course won’t go live for more than another year.

The baby boomer generation, made up of those born between 1946 and 1964 after the end of World War II, is now reaching retirement age which could have dramatic economic and social consequences as the largest generation eases out of the work force.

Frank Sesno, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs, isfeatured in a video on the website introducing the MOOC. He said in the video the online course will discuss how the retirement structure is changing and how members of the baby boomer generation are taking pro-active steps toward changing their lifestyle choices.

“The objective is to give solid, unbiased viewpoints and relevant information to help people understand and enrich their next stage in life,” Sesno said in the promotional video.

Sesno declined to comment further through a spokeswoman on the course’s structure and the importance of teaching a class about retirement.

Peter O’Shea, the associate vice provost of online learning at the State University of New York at Albany, said that baby boomers, who account for more than 75 million people in the U.S., will face a more complicated retirement process because of the number of people leaving their posts at the same time. O’Shea said a course specifically on retirement is unique.

“Considering the shifting demographics in the U.S. and globally, it does seem to me that a MOOC on retirement decisions for baby boomers could be of great interest to many,” said O’Shea.

The Graduate School of Political Management launched a MOOC last April that teaches students about how companies can anticipate other businesses’ actions. The course was an attempt to increase enrollment at GSPM, where enrollment for the most popular degree decreased by 30 percent from 2010 to 2013.

Paul Schiff-Berman, vice provost for online education and academic innovation, said in a statement that more details on the baby boomer course will be released as the project progresses.

“GW has chosen to launch a small number of MOOCs in areas of distinctive strength for the University or where we can make a unique contribution,” he said.

Schiff-Berman also noted the increasing number of online programs across the University, including MOOCs. More than 70 online programs are now offered by GW.

James McCrary, a retirement plan consultant at Sage View, an investment firm, said in an email that most students currently enrolled in college have parents from either the baby boomer generation or Generation X, which generally refers to people born in the years from the early 1960s until the late 1980s. By learning about the most recent changes to retirement, such as the introduction of 401(k) plans, baby boomers are able to personally set aside money for their retirement instead of relying on their employer.

“Bottom line is there has to be accountability at the employer level to want retirement plan health and for employees to be willing to learn on company and personal time,” he said.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical U MOOC To Investigate Aviation Accidents

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/20/15
• • Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide will be delivering a massive open online course (MOOC) on aircraft accident investigation at the end of the summer. Students will have the chance to try out their data collection skills in a virtual crash laboratory hosted by the Daytona Beach, FL-based institution.
    The new course will cover various aspects of the aircraft accident investigation process, from initial field investigation to publication of the final accident report. The university said an emphasis will be placed on the study of human factors and survival investigative techniques and the application of accident investigation findings in industry and research. The class will analyze aircraft accidents and evaluate causal factors.
    
    Participants will be given the chance to practice data collection skills in Worldwide's Virtual Crash Laboratory. Launched in May 2014, the lab introduces students to an animated crash using a short video. They then choose a male or female avatar to be the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator who walks through the crash site. They'll collect and export data that satisfies accident investigation criteria: survival factors, human factors, aircraft structures, aircraft systems, operations and maintenance.
    The MOOC, which is limited to 2,500 students, runs August 17 to September 13, 2015 and is hosted on the Canvas Network. It's expected to take between four and eight hours of work per week. All study materials will be provided within the course, and students who complete all four modules will receive a certificate of completion. There are no pre-requisites.
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business for a number of publications. Contact her at dian@dischaffhauser.com. 

MOOC - Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media Platforms

Prof. Randal Picker (Chicago) guest-blogging about his MOOC, ‘Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media Platforms’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/09/prof-randal-picker-chicago-guest-blogging-about-his-mooc-internet-giants-the-law-and-economics-of-media-platforms/

I’m delighted to report that Professor Randal Picker of the University of Chicago Law School will be blogging in the coming days about his forthcoming free massive open online course (MOOC), “Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media Platforms.” This is the University of Chicago Law School’s first course being done using Coursera’s on-demand format, so the content is always available and students have access to all the content all the time.

Professor Picker’s posts will mostly be about how we should think about MOOCs, the experience of preparing a MOOC and the experience of running it. Here, though, is a summary of the substance of the MOOC, as background for his posts:

Internet Giants: The Law and Economics of Media platforms focuses on the law, economics and technology that define the online world that we live in today. This means the world of Microsoft, Google, and Apple, and ideas like network neutrality. There is no single body of law that applies to this world, but we repeatedly see cases and regulations centered on antitrust, copyright, patents, privacy and telecommunications. And the economic underpinnings of these firms — two-sided markets and the like — are quite different from most conventional markets.
All of this makes for a rich mix of law, economics and technology. And all of the issues arise in tools and technologies — from Microsoft Windows to Google search to iOS and Android and then to Netflix and ebooks — that we use every day. We will look at all of that historically and through cases being decided today.

CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education

CEO Of The World's First MOOC Provides Hope To Former Prisoners Through Education

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhigh/2015/07/21/ceo-of-the-worlds-first-mooc-provides-hope-to-former-prisoners-through-education/

Mike Feerick leads a company that has been credited as being the first ever massive open online course or MOOC. He founded ALISON in 2007. Unlike other prominent MOOCs such as Udacity, Coursera, and edX, ALISON’s content is not drawn from elite US-based universities. Rather, the Galway, Ireland based company focuses on practical workplace skills that can be tested by employers to gauge growing competencies. Since I last spoke with Feerick, the company registered its five millionth user, and much of the growth has been in the developing world. India, for instance, is the company’s fastest growing market. ALISON has thrived on serving traditionally underserved education marketplaces.  

As Feerick probed for opportunity to serve additional groups of people that have been underserved, perhaps the most marginalized group of all became a target: the population of formerly incarcerated people. In the US alone, 20 million people are among the formerly incarcerated, and one of the triggers of recidivism is solid job opportunity. As Feerick describes in this interview, he believes ALISON is perfectly suited to serve this often marginalized population while reducing the rates of recidivism in the process.

Peter High: Mike, I was intrigued to hear this announcement about ALISON getting involved with the formerly incarcerated to provide training to make them both more employable and presumably less inclined to recidivism. The data is actually quite stark. There has been a lot written recently on the incarcerated population in the United States. The data indicates that 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in the United States, there are up to 20 million ex-offenders, and that up to six million people are still under supervision of one kind or another. There certainly is a big population you might serve. Could you talk about the genesis of this idea?

Mike Feerick: I enjoy using new technologies and business systems to organize solutions to address social issues. With ALISON, we are making education more accessible the world over, but some marginalized groups have greater challenges than others in accessing what we provide – incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people among them. The need is huge, not just in the USA, but globally. For instance, there was one article in the Guardian yesterday that said that 92 percent of those being released from UK prisons feel unprepared for the world outside the penitentiary. These people have some of the greatest educational need in society.

The percentage of the US population in prison is just extraordinary. You have 25 percent of the world’s prison population, and yet America has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. Something is seriously wrong. For the 20 million people you mentioned who are already out of prison—if you have a felony, it is hard to get on with life as there are so many roadblocks. The one thing a formerly incarcerated person can do however is educate themselves, and the beauty of ALISON providing a massive number of free courses at many different levels is that the starting point can vary to suit every potential student.

As we have been leading this education revolution, I have had an eye on this social group and I thought, “OK, there are very few education dollars left for these people when they get out, yet it costs $100,000 on average per year to keep prisoners in jail. But when they get out, the government pays very little money to keep them out.”

So how do you educate these people in basic skills? First, a large number of formerly incarcerated people do not know how to learn. You need to pick them up at a very low level and bring them on with a focus on the fundamental stuff like how to study. The second thing is that a lot of them have been behind bars for quite some time. Many simply do not know what a mobile phone is, or how it can be used. When they come out you need to teach them basic technology. Then the soft skills: do they really understand why it is important to turn up on time for work and why you have to work a full day? Now that might sound patronizing, but actually it is an issue in terms of reliability, dependability; there are issues that are not engendered in people that are under supervision all the time.

...read the full article 

SUNY Broome MOOC targets workforce gap

When her mother had a stroke in 2013 and lost the use of her left side, Kelli Ligeikis struggled with the best ways to help her.

“Not knowing anything about how to care for her, trying to help her with the littlest of things because she was in a wheelchair — like just to get her dressed and to the bathroom — were huge,” she said. “There are so many of these stories.”

People in similar situations, or those exploring the idea of a career as a home health aide, now can get some free education through SUNY Broome’s new Foundations for Assisting Home Care massive open online course, or MOOC.

MOOCs often include a mix of lectures, readings, online discussions and quizzes, much like traditional college courses. But most MOOCs offered by colleges are free and open to anybody with an Internet connection.

Foundations for Assisting Home Care is SUNY Broome’s first MOOC, and it is designed to introduce people to the basic knowledge and skill competencies required of home health and personal care aides, said Erin O’Hara-Leslie, an instructor at the college and its chairwoman for Medical Assisting and Health Studies.

Though the course doesn’t count toward any certifications in the field, O’Hara-Leslie said it allows students to see what a job in home healthcare entails. It also can be useful to those, such as Ligeikis, who would simply like to learn about caring for a loved one in the comfort of their own home, she said.

The college designed the course to address a need in the area workforce, said the former SUNY Broome administrator who proposed the class.

Andrea Wade, now the provost at Monroe Community College in Rochester, was chairwoman of the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council’s healthcare workgroup in 2012, when the group wanted to strengthen the pipeline of healthcare workers at all levels.

She said that the group was primarily concerned with the huge need for entry-level home heathcare workers, where there was and is still a huge need with the combination of high worker turn-over and an aging population.

“I thought: how can we use what is beneficial to students in online learning — access — to help connect them with this workforce need?” Wade said.

At the time, Wade was associate vice president and dean of distance education and health sciences at SUNY Broome, so she thought a MOOC could be part of a solution.

Wade remains involved with the SUNY Broome course, which now has more than 500 registered learners from more than 85 countries.

The course started June 29 and ends Sept. 20. It includes video demonstrations of basic home healthcare skills, text with images, and a variety of interactive exercises such as short quizzes, matching and drag-and-drop activities, O’Hara-Leslie said.

Recently, the college received a $20,000 Innovative Instruction Technology Grant to convert it into an on-demand format, O’Hara-Leslie said.

“That means people can register anytime and complete it at anytime,” O’Hara-Leslie said, “It will be like Netflix.”

She said that with the grant money, the college is creating a companion textbook and recruitment and referral resources for the course.

The course is based on the state curriculum for a career in home healthcare, O’Hara-Leslie said. SUNY Broome also plans to work with Allied Health to provide resources for people seeking a certification in home healthcare, she said.

“When people see this and realize it is what they would like to do as a career, it will direct them where to go,” she said.

People still can register for the course, but must catch up on the first several weeks of work and finish by the Sept. 20 end date. The course is available athttps://www.coursera.org/course/hha.

Follow Shannon Hazlitt on Twitter @ShanHazlitt

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Instructed by Rob Percival Development / Web Development

Course Description

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Curriculum

Section 1: Getting Started & HTML
1		What does the course cover? Preview	03:05
2		What You Get With The Course - Free Web Hosting And Book Preview	01:17
3		Frequently Asked Questions	Text
4		Setting Up Your Free Web Hosting	07:33
5		Your control panel	04:14
6		Uploading files to your server	10:32
7		Getting Help	02:57
8		Hello World	02:40
9		The Structure Of A Webpage	07:45
10		The structure of a Webpage Take challenge	1 question
11		The Structure Of A Webpage: example.html Preview	3 pages
12		Your Own example.com	03:58
13		Header Tags	02:57
14		Header Tags: headertags.html	2 pages
15		Header Tags in Html	1 question
16		Paragraphs Preview	04:35
17		Paragraphs: paragraphs.html	2 pages
18		Formatting Text	03:31
19		Formatting Text: textdecoration.html	2 pages
20		Text Decoration	1 question
21		Unordered Lists	02:11
22		Unordered Lists: unorderedlists.html	2 pages
23		Ordered Lists	01:44
24		Ordered Lists: orderedlists.html	2 pages
25		Images	04:51
26		Images: images.html	2 pages
27		Forms	11:54
28		Forms: forms.html	2 pages
29		Links	04:47
30		Links: links.html	4 pages
31		Tables	04:20
32		Tables: tables.html	3 pages
33		HTML Entities	04:11
34		IFrames	04:57
35		IFrames: iframes.html	5 pages
36		Putting it all together: HTML Project	19:31
37		HTML Project: project_helloworld.html	4 pages
38		How to earn $10,000 while learning to code (Part I)	15 pages
39		HTML Further Reading	2 pages
40		HTML Reference	4 pages
41		HTML - Quiz	5 questions
Section 2: CSS
42		What is CSS?	03:48
43		Inline CSS	04:25
44		Inline CSS: inlinecss.html	2 pages
45		Internal CSS	04:36
46		Internal CSS: internalcss.html	2 pages
47		Classes and IDs Preview	07:59
48		Classes And IDs: classesandids.html	2 pages
49		Divs	05:07
50		Divs: divs.html	3 pages
51		Colors	03:44
52		Floating	04:43
53		Floating: floating.html	3 pages
54		Positioning	09:57
55		Positioning: positioning.html	3 pages
56		Margins	04:46
57		Margins: margins.html	3 pages
58		Padding	06:41
59		Padding: padding.html	3 pages
60		Borders	10:55
61		Borders: borders.html	2 pages
62		Fonts	05:17
63		Fonts: fonts.html	2 pages
64		Styling Text	06:05
65		Styling Text: stylingtext.html	2 pages
66		Aligning Text	04:19
67		Styling Links	03:18
68		Styling Links: stylinglinks.html	2 pages
69		CSS Project: BBC News Website (1)	21:10
70		CSS Project: BBC News Website (2)	19:10
71		CSS Project: BBC News Website (3)	23:43
72		CSS Project: BBC News Website (4)	20:28
73		CSS Project: BBC News Website (5)	29:21
74		BBC News Website: bbc.html	18 pages
75		External CSS	02:50
76		CSS Reference	12 pages
77		CSS Further Reading	3 pages
78		CSS - Quiz	6 questions
Section 3: Javascript
79		What Is Javascript?	03:41
80		Internal Javascript	02:09
81		Internal Javascript: internaljavascript.html	2 pages
82		Accessing Elements	05:24
83		Accessing Elements: accessingelements.html	2 pages
84		Responding To A Click Preview	02:34
85		Responding To A Click: respondingtoaclick.html	2 pages
86		Changing Website Content	08:01
87		Changing Website Content: changingwebsitecontent.html	3 pages
88		Mini Challenge: Disappearing Circles	02:16
89		Mini Challenge: Disappearing Circles minichallenge.html	2 pages
90		Variables	06:34
91		Variables: variables.html	2 pages
92		Arrays	09:49
93		Arrays: arrays.html	2 pages
94		If Statements	06:37
95		If Statements: if.html	2 pages
96		Javascript Game - How Many Fingers?	10:25
97		Javascript Game - How Many Fingers?: howmanyfingers.html	2 pages
98		For Loops	09:46
99		For Loops: forloops.html	2 pages
100		While Loops	11:39
101		While Loops: whileloops.html	3 pages
102		Functions	05:48
103		Javascript Project - Reaction Tester (1)	10:15
104		Javascript Project - Reaction Tester (2)	08:13
105		Javascript Project - Reaction Tester (3)	13:38
106		Javascript - Quiz	7 questions
Section 4: jQuery
107		jQuery - Quiz	6 questions
Section 5: Twitter Bootstrap
108		Twitter Bootstrap - Quiz	6 questions
Section 6: Wordpress
109		Wordpress - Quiz	5 questions
Section 7: PHP
110		PHP - Quiz	10 questions
Section 8: MySQL
111		MySQL - Quiz	8 questions
Section 9: APIs
112		APIs - Quiz	5 questions
Full curriculum

Instructor Biography

Rob Percival , Web Developer And Teacher

Hi! I'm Rob. I have a degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University and you might call me a bit of coding geek.

After building websites for friends and family for fun, I soon learned that web development was a very lucrative career choice. I gave up my successful (and sometimes stressful) job as a teacher to work part time and today, couldn't be happier.

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Full biography

Reviews

Average Rating

4.8

10649 ratings

Details

1. 5 Stars 
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2. 4 Stars 
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3. 3 Stars 
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4. 2 Stars 
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5. 1 Stars 
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