How learning journals can help students grow - JIANG XUEQIN, Big Think

Jiang Xueqin is a China-based educator and writer and researcher at the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard Graduate School of Education.  Jiang Xueqin endorses learning journals as a good method to promote meta-learning for students during the coronavirus pandemic. Learning journals can be kept for any activity and have three components: defining a goal "concretely and precisely," writing down the process, and writing down observations and reflecting on the experience.
While learning journals are primarily a personal exercise, Xueqin says that teachers can play a crucial role as coaches who motivate the student and find ways for them to improve with new learning strategies.
https://bigthink.com/future-of-learning/learning-journals

When Learning Becomes Leading, Leading Becomes Learning - Mary Grush, Campus Technology

At Georgia State University, students learn not only the technical competencies deemed necessary for "digital literacy"; they learn how to pair their new technical understanding with fledgling leadership skills. And while the GSU program, "Digital Learners to Leaders" (DLL) began as a popular co-curricular option back in 2018, it has gained recognition on campus as a solid support for students' academic, career, and personal choices. It is now incorporated into many of GSU's undergraduate programs.
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/07/13/when-learning-becomes-leading-leading-becomes-learning.aspx

7 Things You Should Know About the HyFlex Course Model - EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative

The hybrid flexible, or HyFlex, course format is an instructional approach that combines face-to-face (F2F) and online learning. Each class session and learning activity is offered in-person, synchronously online, and asynchronously online. Students can decide how to participate. The flexibility of the HyFlex model demonstrates a commitment to student success, and that flexibility can also enable institutions to maintain educational and research activities during a disruption. The 7 Things You Should Know About... series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies.
https://library.educause.edu/resources/2020/7/7-things-you-should-know-about-the-hyflex-course-model

How Designing Accessible Curriculum For All Can Help Make Online Learning More Equitable - Paul Darvasi, WQED

Some educators who want to make online learning more engaging and accessible are exploring the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. UDL – originally developed by researchers at the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) in collaboration with Harvard University – supports special education students, but its flexibility, technology guidelines and aim to individualize learning are best practices that can serve every student. “While UDL can benefit students with disabilities, it’s a way of thinking about how to make instruction accessible for all,” said Kavita Rao, a professor in the department of special education at the University of Hawai‘i.
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/56205/how-designing-accessible-curriculum-for-all-can-help-make-online-learning-more-equitable

What's Next for Remote Learning? - Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

Colleges spent millions of dollars facilitating the pivot from face-to-face to remote instruction last spring. Administrators who oversee online learning don’t want that investment to go to waste. The Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) report, published today, is the fifth in a series of annual surveys on online learning conducted by Quality Matters and Eduventures. This report, however, focuses specifically on the pivot to remote teaching that occurred this past spring. The report includes responses from 308 chief online officers at two- and four-year public, private nonprofit and for-profit institutions.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/21/survey-hints-long-term-impact-spring-pivot-remote-learning

College leaders weigh in about online learning - EMILY DERUY, Bay Area News Group

The leaders of the UC, CSU and California community college systems spoke about the challenges of educating students during the coronavirus pandemic. During a broad conversation hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California, the leaders of the state’s three public higher education systems — UC, CSU and the community college system — urged students and their families on Friday to recognize that sweeping changes at colleges and universities will not just last a few weeks or months, but potentially years. “This is not a grin-and-bear-it for two or three months, this is a couple-year, three-year issue,” said CSU Chancellor Timothy White, who in 2019 announced plans to retire later this year.
https://www.dailydemocrat.com/2020/07/19/uc-csu-community-college-leaders-weigh-online-learning-police-reform-coronavirus-changing-higher-education/

A Coursera Report Finds Economic Recovery to be Dependent on Broad Re-Skilling - IBL News

Coursera’s CEO, Jeff Maggioncalda, announced the release of the 2020 Global Skills Index (GSI), a report that benchmarks skills proficiency for 60 countries, 10 industries, and 11 fields of study in business, data science, and technology. The index analyzed data from 65 million learners on the Coursera platform, including 15 million new users since March. Coursera’s GSI highlighted that recovery in a post-pandemic world will rely on broad reskilling. “I hope this report inspires institutions to prioritize skills development as the foundation of economic revival,” wrote Jeff Maggioncalda in a blog post.
https://iblnews.org/a-coursera-report-finds-economic-recovery-to-be-dependent-on-broad-re-skilling/

Ensuring data security during remote and hybrid learning - PIYUSH PANDEY, eCampus News

Lost in the headlines is the amount of work that IT teams must do to enable remote access to HR applications for nearly all university staff and faculty. For Cal State, more than 53,000 faculty and staff need access to essential information and systems. Along with student users, in total, that is 535,000 (mostly remote) users accessing student information and HR systems from all over the world.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/07/13/ensuring-data-security-during-remote-and-hybrid-learning/

IU Report Offers 4 Recommendations for Online Teaching this Fall - Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

Indiana University has released preliminary findings from a survey of undergraduates and instructors across its all of its campuses, examining their experiences of the transition to remote instruction this past spring.  The IU survey asked 6,156 current students and 1,538 instructors for their feedback and insights. Based on their responses, researchers offered four recommendations for faculty who are planning their online courses for the fall semester:
https://campustechnology.com/articles/2020/07/16/iu-report-offers-4-recommendations-for-online-teaching-this-fall.aspx

Trauma-Informed Online Teaching: Essential for the Coming Academic Year - Matthea Marquart, Janice Carello, and Johanna Creswell Báez, Social Worker

As educators prepare for a fall semester that will likely include expanded online courses, we urge schools and institutions to prioritize a trauma-informed approach, whether or not courses move online. Students and educators are worried about their own health and the health of their loved ones, experiencing or witnessing increased racist attacks and police violence and other forms of institutionalized racism, grieving those they’ve lost, being stressed about the economy and the world, being impacted by extreme disruptions to their daily routines, and generally experiencing trauma right now.
https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/education--credentials/trauma-informed-online-teaching-essential-coming-academic-year/

The State of Private Student Loans in 2020 - Mike Brown, LendU

Analyzing our own data from 2020, LendEDU highlighted private student loan marketplace trends like the average applied credit score vs. the average approved credit score.  The data points that you will find below contained sufficient data from 2020 to include that year in the analysis.
Approval Rates
In 2020, the overall private student loan approval rate was 21.61%.
In 2020, the private student loan approval rate for applicants who applied with a cosigner was 36.09%.
In 2020, the private student loan approval rate for applicants who did NOT apply with a cosigner was 8.84%.
https://lendedu.com/blog/state-of-private-student-loans-2020/

Virtual Laboratories: Convergence of Learning and Career Practice - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

In the months of COVID-19 isolation, the gulf between college science labs and professional labs has narrowed; they both are converging in online practice.  Academic virtual science labs have improved year by year as more and more learners seek to advance their education and careers through online learning. At the same time, professional laboratories have increasingly utilized robotics, distant sensors and associated technologies to make the labs more versatile, efficient, accurate and operable at a distance. The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) is overhauling laboratories to provide remote (distant) control and monitoring.
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/virtual-laboratories-convergence-learning-and-career

Online learning and education for all during and after Covid-19 pandemic - Anvinti Singh, Financial Express

Since the COVID -19 pandemic has disrupted the normal lifestyle of people across the globe, the virtual world has come to the rescue. Amongst many institutions schools have also shifted their base to virtual platforms to conduct classes online. Consequently, catering to the needs of all stages of education from pre-primary to university level, online education has emerged as an alternative to ordinary face to face classes. Accordingly, various stakeholders such as government and private organizations are trying their best to assist each other by sprucing up their existing online platforms, apps and providing training to teachers to use these apps and platforms to the optimum level.
https://www.financialexpress.com/education-2/online-learning-and-education-for-all-during-and-after-covid-19-pandemic/2021940/

Fighting Misinformation in the Age of COVID-19 - Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge

Information literacy has long been hard to teach, especially with the landscape of online platforms changing so fast these days. And during this COVID-19 pandemic, it can seem harder than ever to sort out reliable information from falsehood, rumor and conspiracy. So on this week’s EdSurge Podcast, we’re talking to two experts working to help educators and others sharpen their info literacy and critical-thinking skills. [key skills sought by employers -ray]
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-07-07-fighting-misinformation-in-the-age-of-covid-19

Making Online Learning Active - Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed

We must engage, motivate and challenge our students, tap in to their innate curiosity and challenge them with activities that they find authentically meaningful. Active learning in virtual environments is not a mission impossible. It’s eminently doable. The keys are to ask our students to interpret conventional and unconventional primary sources; invite them to experiment with new ways of organizing, visualizing, analyzing and presenting data; encourage them to undertake investigations, solve problems and engage in role playing, brainstorming and debates; and create their own multimedia projects and presentations.
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/making-online-learning-active

Pandemic reveals opportunities for 5G connectivity - MIT Technology Review

Demand for the wireless technology’s speed and power has reached astronomic heights—while supply remains conspicuously low. The coronavirus health crisis may have changed that. Once implemented, the long-anticipated 5G experience will be dazzling: smart factories, telemedicine, and augmented reality will be commonplace. Users will have ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity everywhere, whether moving or at rest. “When you have to re-create all of these experiences—from education to health care to transportation to work—you suddenly realize what you’re missing,” said John Roese, president and CTO of products and operations at Dell Technologies.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/30/1004555/pandemic-reveals-opportunities-for-5g-connectivity/

3 ways remote learning changed my instruction forever - Phil Cox, eCampus News

As the school year comes to an end, educators are looking at how our classrooms have changed over the past few months and the various possibilities of what the future of learning will hold. And while my school, like many, has not made its final decision on how learning will take place in the fall, I’ve taken an opportunity to look back at the successes with online learning to understand how my class will forever be changed, for the better.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/07/07/3-ways-remote-learning-changed-my-instruction-forever/

Learning online at night - Aarushi Datta, University of Washington Daily

Four months ago, I was living in Lander Hall and walking to and attending classes during the day. Then, all of a sudden, with the onset of this pandemic, I had to return home to Bangalore and attend online classes from the other side of the globe. As a UW student living in India, I had to attend my classes at night. I lived an inverted day, with a routine of sleeping at 5 a.m. and waking at 2 p.m. I spent most of my afternoons completing assignments and studying. Evenings were when I made use of all the extra time I now had - while confined to our apartment under a strict lockdown stretching more than two months. Even now, as the number of Covid-19 cases continues to rise, I continue to live under virtual lockdown.
http://www.dailyuw.com/opinion/article_ee144cd6-bd58-11ea-86e4-0753d58dd8ae.html

How Should the Edutech Industry Preserve Momentum During and After the Covid-19 Cataclysm? - Anant Goyal, Entrepeneur

It is nothing short of a prospective moment under the sun for the online learning lobby, provided it wholly capitalizes on such a chance offering. With students facing a severe discontinuity of their learning process, it is up to the e-learning platforms to supplement the educational loss of students as well as the professional void of teachers. As the essential procurers of knowledge, the students as guided by their teachers will naturally turn to online learning modes for continuing their learning trajectory. It is then up to the edutech players to preserve the momentum, even more so after the initial popular and massive adoption of e-learning platforms and new-age knowledge portals amongst the primary stakeholders as the go- to-mode for acquiring education.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/352727

The Wild Card For An In-Person Fall: College Student Behavior - ELISSA NADWORNY, NPR

Around the U.S., coronavirus cases are rising among young people. The spread of the virus has been connected to college-related events such as fraternity parties, drinking at off-campus bars and athletic practices. For colleges planning to bring thousands of students together in the fall, student spread is a real worry. And the stakes are high: If there are outbreaks, campuses may once again be forced to shut down, scattering students and disrupting academics and college finances all over again.  To keep that from happening, schools have created robust guidelines — but those plans rely on a major wild card: students following the rules.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/873798541/the-wild-card-for-an-in-person-fall-college-student-behavior

Bracing for a Fall - Teresa Valerio Parrot and Erin Hennessy, Inside Higher Ed

Each day, colleges and universities announce their fall semester plans with great confidence, fanfare and media coverage. And yet somewhere out there is the first institution -- and the second institution, and the third and so on -- to be forced by circumstances outside its control to pivot from those plans to something different. Fall plans were created with wiggle room built in, however, communications about a shift must be carefully constructed to retain credibility and preserve enrollment while accepting the reality that health and safety of our communities have to supersede the value of the on-campus experience and ideology of in-person learning.
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/07/01/if-colleges-have-change-their-fall-plans-they-must-communicate-carefully-preserve

Looking Beyond the College Degree - Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

As the pandemic wreaks havoc on the job market, a quarter of American adults say they plan to enroll in an education or training program within the next six months, according to the latest results of a national poll conducted by the Strada Education Network. That share was 37 percent for 18- to 24-year-olds and 23 percent for 25- to 64-year-olds. A quarter of Americans say they would pursue education or training within six months if they lost their job, but most prefer nondegree training over the traditional college route.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/24/americans-seeking-change-job-fields-prefer-nondegree-training-make-jump

Learning Communities Can Save Colleges—and Engage Remote Students - Senegal Alfred Mabry, EdSurge

As colleges plan to welcome students back for the fall semester—while preparing for a possible second outbreak of the coronavirus that would force classes back online–one thing is for sure: Community is more important than ever. Families debating the value of virtual college classes fear that schools in the fall will lack the real “college experience,” and that students will struggle with online learning and feel more isolated than engaged. And so many students will fail to get the most out of their education—and dollars—if colleges don’t innovate what they are doing to make students feel welcome.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-06-29-learning-communities-can-save-colleges-and-engage-remote-students

A New Guide Helps Faculty Plan Equitable Online Courses For Fall - Sara Weissman, Diverse Education

A new guide for faculty, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to help professors plan their online courses for fall as the coronavirus pandemic continues. The faculty playbook, called “Delivering High-Quality Instruction Online in Response to COVID-19,” came out of a collaboration between Every Learner Everywhere, a network of non-profits focused on student outcomes, and two of its member organizations, the Online Learning Consortium and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). Their aim is to offer equity-minded online education strategies, especially for faculty who made their first foray into online education this year.
https://diverseeducation.com/article/180188/

Experimentation in higher education must become the norm - Dara Melnyk and Daniel Kontowski, University World News

Not all universities will survive the COVID-19 crisis. Many niche institutions will alter their models to stay afloat. Other vulnerable higher education institutions without effective safety nets may downsize, consider mergers or declare bankruptcy. New institutions with new solutions will come to replace them.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20200624152437652

The Smart Way to Improve Online Learning - MICHAEL M. CROW and JEFFREY SELINGO, Politico

Thirty years after the internet age began, the pandemic has shown us that it is long overdue for the federal government to help higher education capitalize on the promise of digital resources. If digital education is a critical piece of our national security infrastructure, we need to know more about its reach and efficacy.  A similar benefit to the nation can occur with a new digital education interstate system, one that might initially be built to deal with a national emergency like the one we’re living through now, but whose ultimate impact will be far greater on a generation of learners.
https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2020/06/25/the-smart-way-to-improve-online-learning-338664

Get A Comfortable Chair: Permanent Work From Home Is Coming - Uri Berliner, NPR

Tech companies Twitter and Facebook captured headlines with announcements about permanent work from home. But the news from a 94-year-old company based in the heartland — Columbus, Ohio — may have been even more significant. Nationwide Insurance is shutting five regional offices since remote work has gone off so smoothly during the pandemic. And thousands of employees will permanently ditch their commutes for home offices. According to Global Workplace Analytics, "a typical employer can save about $11,000 year for every person who works remotely half of the time." And workers can bank between $2,500 and $4,000 a year working remotely half time.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/22/870029658/get-a-comfortable-chair-permanent-work-from-home-is-coming

Just-in-Time Online Tutoring: Supporting Learning Anywhere, Anytime - Stefan Hrastinski, EDUCAUSE Review

Although there is an abundance of digital education resources, we must find better ways to support learners when and where they have a need.  What if learning could be supported anywhere, anytime, based on the needs of learners?  Although an abundance of digital education resources are available online, learners have questions and need guidance when they are studying. Just-in-time online tutoring attempts to meet this need. It also has great potential as a complement to scheduled education. Just-in-time learning has been defined as "anywhere, anytime learning that is just enough, just for me and just in time."1 Margaret Riel outlines three principles of just-in-time learning.
https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/6/just-in-time-online-tutoring-supporting-learning-anywhere-anytime

How AI-Based Interviewing Will Transform Career Preparation in Higher Education - Alan Jones, Suzan Harkness and Nathan Mondragon, EDUCAUSE Review

The increased growth of emerging technologies and AI interviewing provides a multifaceted approach to candidate profiling and screening.  Competency and personality-trait profiles can be created with AI-trained algorithms to identify and score behaviors and responses during the recorded interviews. The AI-based profiles can then be mitigated for bias (which, if successful, could increase the diversity of candidate pools). The resulting profiles would then be used to screen and select candidates to move forward in the process, thereby significantly improving the efficiencies of the hiring process.
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/6/acts-of-meaning-how-ai-based-interviewing-will-transform-career-preparation-in-higher-education

Universal Broadband: The Time Has Come - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

In the weeks of COVID-19 isolation, the disparity of access to the internet has become more obvious as school-age children and adult learners have been deprived access to education and livelihoods. After we emerge from the pandemic, the internet will be even more prominent than before in education, business, government and social engagement. In isolation, we have built a deeper reliance upon the net and we will soon see an expansion of “work from home,” requiring a wider variety of network access for an increasing number of occupations. Katherine Guyot and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution predict, “In the post-pandemic world, it may stay with us as a popular practice that, if done well, can improve job satisfaction, raise productivity, reduce emissions, and spread work to more remote regions.” In order to avoid further disenfranchising the rural and lower-income workers, it is critically important that we find a way to provide universal access to the massive education and work venue that the internet has become.
https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online-trending-now/universal-broadband-time-has-come

COVID-19 ushers in a new era of cybersecurity - BILL CONNER, eCampus News

This semester, higher-ed institutions around the world have struggled to keep up with the digital demands of remote learning. As these organizations build the infrastructure that will support distance learning moving forward, it’s more critical than ever for the education industry to consider the safety and security of its students and faculty members as we look ahead to how COVID-19 will continue to impact learning institutions. College campuses have long been a target for cyber threat actors. In fact, EDUCAUSE reported that the number one IT issue academic institutions face in 2020 is adopting a sound information security strategy.
https://www.ecampusnews.com/2020/06/19/covid-19-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-cybersecurity/