Ray S.

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Presidents lament budget cuts draining state's universities - Katherine Long, Seattle Times

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 9, 2012, 6:10 am
Cutbacks to higher education are causing a brain drain at Washington public universities, and the state is gaining a national reputation for the severity of its cutbacks, the presidents of Washington's six four-year higher-education institutions said Wednesday. "Washington is now known as a place to...
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Missouri Higher education leaders describe effect of state cuts - RUDI KELLER, Columbia Tribune

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 9, 2012, 6:05 am
In a little more than 10 years, the state and students have changed places as sources of money for University of Missouri operations, school officials told lawmakers yesterday. In fiscal 2001, state appropriations paid 55.4 percent of costs while students paid just more than one-third through tuitio...
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Rutgers University faculty calls for cuts to athletic department subsidies - Jarrett Renshaw, NJ.com

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 9, 2012, 6:00 am
Battered by budget and salary cuts, the faculty at Rutgers University’s school of the Arts and Sciences overwhelmingly supported a resolution today that called for cutting university subsidies to the athletic department and giving students a voice in how their money is spent. The resolution, which...
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Penn opts for decentralized, 'nimble' approach to online learning

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 7:10 pm
By KYLE HARDGRAVE, Daily Pennsylvanian While some peer schools are hedging their bets that online education is part of the future, Penn is taking a more decentralized approach. On Jan. 19, Apple announced the launch of 100 free college courses through iTunes U — the latest in a recent trend in wh...
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Online Learning + Cloud Computing = Smart Learning Environment

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 7:04 pm
by KIM SUNG-MI, IT Times The combination of education and cloud computing has created the wind of change to the education system. Today, we live in a world of digital information, which makes us enjoy smart education unhindered by spatial or time restrictions. Smart education or smart learning is c...
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Digital Online Learning: What Kids Really Want

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 7:01 pm
By Chris Riedel, THE Journal According to Project Tomorrow CEO Julie Evans, “Today’s students have their own ’student vision’ for how they want to use technology for learning. That vision,” she said, “is really a statement of how students want to learn in general.” Speaking at FETC Na...
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Cash-Strapped States Cut College Financial Aid - CRISTINA LOUROSA-RICARDO, Wall Street Journal

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 6:09 am
College financial-aid season has just kicked off, and experts say students seeking state grants had better act fast. At least six states, including Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, now have "until funds depleted" policies on grants, meaning late filers risk getting nothing. Other states are shrinki...
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Missouri system eyes tuition increases - Alan Scher Zagier, Associated Press

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 6:06 am
Faced with yet another round of likely state budget cuts, the University of Missouri system wants to increase tuition next year by 7.5 percent at its flagship Columbia campus and even more at its campuses in St. Louis and Rolla. A proposal released Tuesday afternoon spells out proposed in-state tuit...
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Occupy CU-Boulder protesters criticize tuition increases, state funding decreases - Brittany Anas Camera

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 8, 2012, 6:00 am
University of Colorado geography professor Elizabeth Dunn said the seminar she teaches was once capped at 25 students. Most recently, it enrolled 108. And her introductory lectures have grown to more than 400 students, up from about 250 five years ago. Students are not getting the quality of educati...
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What Schools Are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:40 pm
by Craig Watkins, Huffington Post Education administrators block social media because they believe it threatens the personal and emotional safety of their students. Or they believe social media is a distraction that diminishes student engagement and the quality of the learning experience. Schools a...
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Schools link smarts, phones

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:35 pm
By Collin Binkley, The Columbus Dispatch Westerville North junior Noel Hilling uses her cellphone in her U.S. history class. Students were tweeting about the lesson; teacher Damon Mollenkopf keeps an eye on his tablet computer to watch their dialogue. “I can say, ‘Hey, this person makes a good ...
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Want your kid to be a scientist? Start in elementary school.

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:30 pm
By Priya Natarajan, Washington Post The Khan Academy has pioneered the use of technology to encourage unstructured learning outside the classroom and now provides teaching supplements in 36 schools around the country. For instance, recent reports describe a San Jose charter school using Khan’s in...
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Adventures in Wonderland – Open Online Learning Leaps Forward

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:10 pm
by Ryan Craig, Inside Higher Ed First, MIT announced that it would extend its successful OpenCourseWare initiative and offer certificates to students who complete courses. MITx will allow students to access content for free. But students who wish to receive a certificate will be charged a modest fe...
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Online learning courses propel UND growth

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:05 pm
By: Pamela Knudson, Grand Forks Herald Online education accounts for an increasing portion of UND’s enrollment, officials there say, and will be an important component as the school develops a new model for ensuring enrollment stays stable. “Online education is very important for our growth opp...
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'Change.edu' and the Problem with For-Profits in Online Learning

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 7:01 pm
By Robert M. Shireman, Chronicle of Higher Ed It is clear that Andrew Rosen, the chief executive of Kaplan, wants to leave readers of Change.edu with the idea that for-profit colleges are innovative, efficient, and effective in serving people left out by traditional higher education, and that their...
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WSU proposes tougher policy for admissions - KIM KOZLOWSKI, THE DETROIT NEWS

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 6:05 am
Wayne State University officials will unveil today a proposed tougher new admissions policy that is expected to reduce the student population by about 5 percent. Under the proposal to be presented to the Board of Governors, incoming freshmen in 2013 would be evaluated on their entire academic record...
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No Money Down! - Kevin Kiley, Inside Higher Ed

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 6:00 am
With public university administrators continually arguing for tuition increases to counter state appropriations cuts, it seems far-fetched that their budget problems could be solved by eliminating student tuition and fees altogether. But that’s the idea put forth by a group of students from the Un...
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Gov. Rick Scott will reject tuition increase - STEVE BOUSQUET AND KIM WALMATH, Miami Herald

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 7, 2012, 5:29 am
The first budget confrontation of the legislative session emerged Tuesday when Gov. Rick Scott declared his opposition to an 8 percent tuition increase at state colleges and universities that Republican lawmakers support. “I don’t believe in tuition hikes,” Scott said. “We have to do what th...
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Google Launches Redesigned Education Site

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:40 pm
by Mindshift KQED Google has revamped its site for educators, creating a redesigned repository for all its educational tools and resources for teachers, schools, and students. The newest feature is News and Calendar, a listing of all events and deadlines for Google’s education endeavors. Google a...
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How to Create Your Own Textbook — With or Without Apple

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:35 pm
By Dolores Gende, Mind Shift KQED Apple’s announcement last week about its new iBooks2 and authoring app created big waves in education circles. But smart educators don’t necessarily need Apple’s slick devices and software to create their own books. How educators think of content curation in ...
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In some schools, parents and PTAs to buy technology

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:30 pm
By Ann Doss Helms, Charlotte Observer Asking families to buy their own educational technology runs counter to the normal way of doing things in public education. But Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools say that’s the best hope for embracing the digital age, which moves faster than government budgets an...
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Collaborative Online Learning in Health Care Education

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:10 pm
Catherine Westbrook and Anglia Ruskin, EURODL At our University, the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education has delivered a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses via flexible distance learning for many years. Distance learning can be a lonely experience for students who may feel i...
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Effects of a Self-instruction Communication Skills Training on Skills, Self-efficacy, Motivation, and Transfer Learning Online

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:05 pm
by Mark A. Hommes and Henk T. Van der Molen, EURODL This article describes a study on the effects of a self-instruction training programme in communication skills for psychology students at the Open University of the Netherlands in comparison to a fully supervised training. We expected both trainin...
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Servant-leadership: the Online Way! Online learning where community building is key

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 7:02 pm
by Sylvia van de Bunt-Kokhuis, Nabil Sultan, EURODL The digitalisation of educational communities has increased rapidly in the last decade. Modern technologies transform the way educational leaders such as teachers, tutors, deans and supervisors view and manage their educational communities. More o...
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Higher education cuts hurt faculty retention at UW - Meg Coyle, KING 5

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 6, 2012, 6:10 am
The University of Washington has long relied on its reputation for excellence in education and research. But that reputation could soon be at risk. "Hard to recruit, hard to retain, under circumstances where resources are this tight," says Professor Paul Hopkins who chairs the Department of Chemistr...
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National Online Textbook Database

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 5, 2012, 7:37 pm
by UCSD Guardian The U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance proposed the creation of a national online textbook database to reduce costs of course materials. The cost of attending college is rapidly rising, and with it are the escalating costs of textboo...
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Professors replace MyCourses with Canvas

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 5, 2012, 7:35 pm
by Morgan Johnson, Brown Herald Canvas will replace MyCourses by spring 2013. More than 3,000 students this semester will use Canvas, Brown’s new online course management system, before its slated replacement of MyCourses in spring 2013. Canvas, officially selected last spring after receiving pos...
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More interaction, less lecturing impacts Purdue classes

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 5, 2012, 7:30 pm
by Eric Weddle, Journal-Courier As part of the redesign, lectures are mostly online videos and classes are taught in a special room inside Hicks Undergraduate Library. There, small moveable tables allow students to interact more easily and white boards are used at each table. “Everyone has a pen ...
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Big Data's Arrival – Predictors of Online Learner Success, Vulnerability

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 5, 2012, 7:10 pm
By Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed A broad range of institutions, including American Public University System, Community College System of Colorado, Rio Salado College, University of Hawaii System, University of Illinois-Springfield, and the University of Phoenix are participating. Six major for-profit...
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U.S. Youth Reluctant to Pursue STEM Careers, ASQ Survey Says

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 4, 2012, 7:40 pm
By ASQ While teens rank some STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) -related careers as offering the best chance of getting a job in the future, 67 percent of youth in grades 6-12 who are interested in pursuing a career in STEM say they are concerned about the obstacles they would face, a...
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The Faculty Project – Free Courses from University Professors

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:40 pm
by Free Tech 4 Teachers Udemy, an online course hosting service that I’ve previously written about, recently launched a new project called The Faculty Project. The Faculty Project is a series of free online courses developed by professors from top-notch universities including Northwestern, Dartmo...
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Cheating reports continue to increase

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:35 pm
By KAITLYN BYRNE, the Reflector During the fall 2011 semester, 201 cases of academic dishonesty were reported at Mississippi State University. By comparison, 271 cases of academic dishonesty were reported for the entire 2010-2011 academic year. James Orr, director of the student honor code office, ...
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Sebastian Thrun Aims to Revolutionize University Education With Udacity

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:30 pm
by Peter Murray, Singularity Hub  This past August fellow Singularity Hub writer Aaron Saenz wrote about Udacity, the online university created by Stanford artificial intelligence professor and Google autonomous vehicle leader, Sebastian Thrun. At the time Thrun was gearing up to teach his Introdu...
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Emerging Tech Trends for Online Courses

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:10 pm
by Bruce Johnson, Online College Courses The use of technology to enable the learning process already seems cutting edge; however, what makes online education even more exciting is that advances are continually being made that may improve the online learning experience. Some of the latest technolog...
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Online learning for K-12 students is growing

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:05 pm
by CNN Computers have long had a place in many classrooms, but what about learning online completely? The number of full time online K-12 students is growing. An estimated quarter of a million students in kindergarten through 12th grade were enrolled in full-time online schools last year, a 25 perc...
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The Coming Paradigm Shift in Higher Education

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 3, 2012, 7:01 pm
by Justin Fritz, the Wall Street Daily The online learning landscape is changing at a rapid pace, thanks to new platforms that allow students to take full, quality courses online. Take Apple’s iTunes U, for instance. Then there are websites like Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCours...
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The TV on Your Shirt

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:40 pm
by David Zax, Technology Review Wearable electronics gets a new boost, with a new platform from Adafruit Industries, the brainchild of DIY-goddess Limor Fried (hacker handle: Ladyada). The new platform, dubbed the Flora, points to a future where people are wearing TV screens–or at least, somethin...
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'Super Wi-Fi' Blankets First County in U.S.

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:30 pm
by Christopher Mims, Technology Review New Hanover County, North Carolina, just rolled out Super Wi-Fi, which is its actual name, not just a patronizing euphemism I’m deploying because I think you can’t handle “a new Wi-Fi standard operating in the ‘white spaces’ between 50-700Mhz, where ...
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New Virtual Helper Challenges Siri

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:25 pm
By Rachel Metz. Technology Review The market for sweetly named smart-phone assistants is heating up, as Siri, Apple’s iPhone-based virtual helper, just got a new “frenemy” named Evi. Created by True Knowledge, a Cambridge, U.K.-based semantic technology startup, Evi, like Siri, can answer que...
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Teaching excellence in online learning at Bainbridge College

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:09 pm
By CAROL HEARD, Post Searchlight Tucked away in a newly-renovated building of Bainbridge College’s main campus is a center devoted to supporting instruction at the college — but not the type of instruction from yesteryear. The Center for Teaching Excellence, which is located in a recently renov...
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Multimedia Lectures: Tools for Improving Accessibility and Learning Online

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:05 pm
By: Mary Bart, Faculty Focus College course work is meant to be challenging. The content and the vocabulary used are often unfamiliar to many students. For at-risk learners, the challenges are even greater. In some cases, these students have physical or learning disabilities that create accessibili...
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Scholars Seek Better Ways to Track Impact Online

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 7:01 pm
By Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Ed An approach called altmetrics—short for alternative metrics—aims to measure Web-driven scholarly interactions, such as how often research is tweeted, blogged about, or bookmarked. “There’s a gold mine of data that hasn’t been harnessed yet about ...
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Michigan State proceeds with nuclear research facility plans despite federal budget concerns - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 6:10 am
Michigan State University decided Friday to proceed with preparations for a nuclear research facility despite questions about how the federal budget squeeze might affect the project's future. The university's governing board approved the administration's request to take the next step for the project...
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Public university presidents wary of Obama plan to contain college costs - Associated Press

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 6:05 am
Fuzzy math, Illinois State University’s president called it. “Political theater of the worst sort,” said the University of Washington’s head. President Barack Obama’s new plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition or face losing federal dollars is raising alarm among educat...
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Higher education braces for proposed 12.5 percent cut - Rob Roberts, Lee's Summit Journal

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 2, 2012, 6:00 am
Gov. Jay Nixon’s proposal to slash 12.5 percent of Missouri’s spending on public colleges and universities was not entirely unexpected given state government’s projected $500 million budget shortfall. But the proposal, announced during the governor’s Jan. 17 State of the State address to the...
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Delay for January Stanford Online Courses

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 1, 2012, 7:39 pm
by Sue Gee, I-programmer Online Computer Science classes that have attracted tens of thousands of students have been put back for a couple of weeks. Is this on account of Sebastian Thrun’s resignation from Stanford? Students who are signed up for Stanford University Online Computer Science Classe...
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Online College Courses Make Learning More Accessible

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 1, 2012, 7:35 pm
by Philjaelearning, Philadelphia Online Learning With significant advancement in the field of information technology, many impressive changes have taken place in many sectors including education. Previously, only classroom courses were available, but nowadays, lots of online college courses are off...
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Computer Coding: Not for Geeks Only

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 1, 2012, 7:30 pm
By Barrett W. Sheridan and Brendan Greeley, Business Week Free online courses are instructing non-techies in JavaScript and other coding and design of Web apps. A growing number of people agree that not only should Congress understand how software is made, so should everyone. Designers, economists,...
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Free Online Learning Courses, Elite Colleges

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 1, 2012, 7:10 pm
by Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed Udemy, a company that allows anyone to create and sell courses through its online platform, has announced a new area of its site, called The Faculty Project, devoted to courses by professors at a number of top institutions, such as Colgate, Duke University, Stanf...
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Advice to Teachers on Online Learning

Ray S. posted an article on - Feb 1, 2012, 7:04 pm
by Stephen Downes, Half an Hour I generally describe my process under three major headings: interaction, usability, and relevance. I foster a wide and diverse network of contacts and connections from around the world, in order to draw from the widest range of experience and feedback. To that end I ...
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About Me

University of Illinois at Springfield Prof Emeritus / Director of Office of Technology Enhanced Learning and Center for Online Learning Research and Service

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