Education IT News For VARs — September 17, 2014
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In news this week, Education Dive presents some lessons learned from MOOCs. The Oculus founder makes a large donation to fund computer science at University of Maryland, while colleges gain free access to Epic Games’ Graphics Engine. And an enlightening infographic looks at how technology has changed higher education.
10 Lessons Learned From MOOCs
Although MOOCs have not become the disruptive effect predicted on traditional college offerings, they are still a force to be reckoned with. Education Dive presents 10 lessons learned from MOOCs in this provocative article on the learning system. Including such insights as traditional content cannot just be transferred to MOOCs, and that fees for ID verification raise pass rates, the article provides plenty of food for thought about the future of MOOCs.
Oculus Founder Donates $31M to U of Maryland
Tech Crunch reported that The University of Maryland has received a $31 million donation — its largest ever — from the founder of Oculus, the virtual reality headset maker acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. The donation will fund a new computer science center at the school. Iribe's donation to UMD will also be used for a $1 million computer science scholarship fund. The new computer science center will include labs for virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, computer vision, and artificial intelligence.
Colleges Get Free Access To Epic Games’ Graphics Engine
According to Ed Tech Magazine, Epic Games, the studio behind Gears of War and other shooting games, recently announced that it will give college students free access to its newest 3D-graphics engine for creating video games. The program, Unreal Engine 4, is provided free to students enrolled in accredited video game development courses, as well as students in computer science, art, architecture, and simulation and visualization courses. In addition to encouraging video game creation, this licensing model provides a catalyst for the development of education technology. Besides learning how to build games on the platform, academic users can access and modify its source code, and create textbooks and other instructional materials.
Technology Defines Much Of Higher Education’s New Normal [#Infographic]
An infographic from Ed Tech Magazine demonstrates that today’s college students have more options than their 1980s counterparts had, but their time is also stretched more thinly across the school day. Created by Flat World Education, it highlights the differences in college costs, student demographics and factors affecting work-life balance, among other features of college life, between college students of the 1980s and those of today. The data also shows that 45 percent of today’s students will take at least one online course, whereas learning in the 1980s was confined to classrooms.
Education IT Talking Points
According to a press release, The University of California Office of the President has found that 34 of Edgenuity’s blended and online courses meet the school’s a-g subject area requirements. Among the approved courses: biology and chemistry with labs; seven AP courses; traditional and integrated Common Core math pathways for algebra I, algebra II, geometry, math I, math II, and math III; electives like psychology, economics, sociology, and geography; and seven language courses. With this approval, completing any of these Edgenuity courses is now just as good as taking the face-to-face class in high school, which is particularly good news for those who may be using the platform for remedial study.
For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Education IT Resource Center.