Until now, online learning has been regarded as the poor stepchild of the higher-education world – widely suspected of being a second-rate substitute for the real thing. But that’s about to change. The digital revolution is going to disrupt higher education in the same way it’s disrupted so many other industries. And it’s about time. Higher learning still relies on the medieval model, when scholars gathered in one place to listen to professors lecture at them. It’s increasingly expensive, and doesn’t do a very good job of delivering what a lot of students want and need in a way that society can afford. The digital revolution will make higher education better, cheaper, more accessible, more engaging and far more customized than anything that exists today.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/were-ripe-for-a-great-disruption-in-higher-education/article2325979/

The University of Missouri System will soon unveil a new e-learning portal, a one-stop shop where potential students can browse online courses and enrolled students can better manage their schedules. Zac March, UM’s director of distance and e-learning education, showed off the technology at yesterday’s Board of Curators meeting. It’s expected to be running in the coming weeks in time for would-be students to start enrolling for summer and fall classes. System administrators have been focusing on boosting e-learning for several years not only to compete in a changing market but also as a way to find new streams of revenue. Last year, MU developed Mizzou Online, which combined previous programs aimed to educate students from a distance.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/feb/03/um-almost-ready-to-open-e-learning-portal/

Over the last few years technology implementations in the K-12 sector reached record levels with tablets, laptops, social networking, and other e-learning technologies making their debut in classrooms around the nation. The frenzy is expected to continue in 2012 as districts implement e-learning tools that impact all aspects of the educational and administrative experience. To find out what’s on tap for the next several months THE Journal conferred with several academics and instructional technologists who revealed the following top five trends to watch in the year ahead.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/02/02/5-k12-e-learning-trends.aspx

The stars are aligned for this new disruption to emerge — whether you call it “the unbundling of the university,” the “modularization of education” or “eliminating the middleman” (the College). Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” However, when some of the bread crumbs start to line up, it is an indication that a change is coming… In any case, we think that the Arab Spring of higher education is already starting to take place, and will change the face of higher education in fundamental ways. Whether it is an Amazon model, or an eBay model, or some combination of both, we’ll have to wait and see.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/guest-post-an-arab-spring-of-free-online-higher-education/2012/02/03/gIQAXiOFnQ_blog.html

Two Iowa school districts will launch online-only academies next fall, a development that Department of Education officials say highlights the need for expansion of virtual learning opportunities in the state. “(This proposal) addresses the diversity among Iowa school districts,” he said. “We have small, rural districts and large urban districts … and both will be able to offer courses that are now impossible (to offer) because of the limitations of the personnel that you need in a rural school.” The provision would allow the state to better “level the playing field for all school districts in the state,” Nagel said.

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2012/01/23/online-learning-key-part-of-education-reform-backers-say/

Amgen has unveiled a new website that aims to educate patients, the lay public, and maybe even some clinicians about bone biology. The various animations in the site titled New Insights into Bone Biology are visually quite striking and really show off the biological processes involved. If you like this style of learning, do check out their other site that teaches about angiogenesis: Pioneering New Frontiers into Angiogenesis.

http://medgadget.com/2012/02/a-quick-and-beautiful-online-course-about-bone-biology-from-amgen.html

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 which schools are opening their classes and educational materials to global audiences online. Peer institutions like Stanford and Yale universities were among those that partnered with Apple. For its part, Penn’s smattering of online learning opportunities is growing from the ground up, through a number of different venues. One of Penn’s oldest offerings in free online education is Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s online business journal. The publication, which began in May 1999, publishes interviews, lectures and articles that tackle issues in the business world. “The goal is to take the school’s intellectual capital and make it available for free online,” said Mukul Pandya, executive director and editor-in-chief of Knowledge@Wharton.

http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2012/02/online_education_growing_from_bottom_up

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 construed as the new education system emerging from the development of information and technology. We have come to the age of smart Learning after e-Learning (electronic Learning), m-Learning (mobile Learning), and u-Learning (ubiquitous Learning) developed in the onset of the21st century. Dr. Kwak Duk-hoon, CEO of Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) in Korea and Chairman of Korean Smart Learning Forum, is the pioneer of smart learning and lifelong education. He is the fearless leader who led EBS to become the world’s best education media group and helped the country to learn more about the significance and vision of smart learning.

http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/19513/along-e-learning-and-cloud-computing-comes-advancement-smart-learning

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 National Conference in Orlando, FL last week, Evans covered data from the 2010 and 2011 editions of the Speak Up Survey, with a specific focus on the use of digital media for learning. The Speak Up surveys include input from hundreds of thousands of teachers, students, parents, and administrators each year. What the data pointed to, she said, is a growing “frustration among students, not just with the lack of technology in their schools, but by the lack of sophisticated use of that technology.”

According to Evans, the data from those surveys indicated that students:

Have a growing interest in social-based learning;

Want to connect with and develop a personal network of expert resources;

Are looking for tools that increase untethered learning; and

Want a digitally rich learning environment, unencumbered by traditional rules.

http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/02/01/digital-learning-what-kids-really-want.aspx

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 fee for the requisite assessments. The kicker is that the certificate will not be issued under the name MIT. According to the University: “MIT plans to create a not-for-profit body within the institute that will offer certificate for online learners of MIT coursework. Then, Sebastian Thrun, who invited the world to attend his fall semester artificial intelligence course and who ended up with 160,000 online students, announced he had decided to stop teaching at Stanford and direct all his teaching activities through Udacity, a start-up he co-founded that will offer online courses from leading professors to millions of students.

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/02/03/essay-massive-online-courses-not-game-changing-innovation