Education IT News For VARs — December 4, 2014
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In news this week, Coursera will offer material on JetBlue flights, a look at how some institutions are adapting their MOOC policies, the Ed. Department’s efforts to regulation teacher prep, the rise in the Assessment Market, and a push for interoperability among the digital-content market.
Coursera Takes To the Skies With JetBlue
According to a Coursera blog post, the company is taking its product to a whole new level: 30,000 feet in the air. Learners can now access 10 e-learning videos on flights provided by JetBlue. The courses include offerings from The Wharton School, University of Edinburgh, and Berklee School of Music, and will be accessible on any personal device on all JetBlue aircraft by the end of 2014.
The Continuing Approaches of Six Universities To MOOCs
This article from Education Dive examines how six institutions are continuing to address the use of MOOCs through their campus offerings. This is the time to re-examine and adjust policies nationwide, and the article investigates how Cornell University, Northwestern University, George Washington University, University of Texas System, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University are tweaking their approaches to maximize returns.
Education Department To Institute Regulation Of Teacher Preparation Programs
According to The Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Education has announced a new plan that would require all states to submit a report card for any teacher preparation programs within their jurisdiction. The proposal includes assessment of programs including not only traditional education school but also alternative certification programs such as Teach for America, and is designed to address the number of unprepared K-12 teachers. The regulations are anticipated to be published by September 2015, with report cards required as of spring 2019.
Common Core and Need For Formative Assessment Fuel Spike In Testing and Assessment Market
An article from Education Week examines how the implementation of the common core and demands for formative assessment have fueled the testing and assessment market. New data released by the Software & Information Industry Association demonstrates that the market for pre-K through 12 testing has increased by almost 60 percent in just two years, currently at an estimated $2.6 billion.
Publishers Pressured by Big School Districts For Digital-Content Delivery
This article from Education Week discusses the move by a handful of large school districts that are threatening to boycott content vendors who do not adopt “interoperability standards” adopted by the IMS Global Learning Consortium. This shift could radically transform how schools purchase and consume digital content by allowing districts to procure only parts of content from each vendor (an individual chapter, lesson, or video, for example) thus providing flexibility and maximizing budgets. Some large vendors, including Discovery Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Pearson, have already begun to meet the interoperability standards.