Late last year I wrote a post about Desire2Learn’s laying off more than 7% of the workforce, speculating that something had changed at the company. In particular, I didn’t buy the company line about continued growth. In the end, I have trouble believing that these recent cuts are solely based on improving Desire2Learn’s growth without needing […]
ITC Survey: Four trends to watch in LMS market for community colleges
The Instructional Technology Council (ITC), an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), has conducted a distance education survey since 2004 focusing on online education trends among community colleges in the US and Canada. With this focus, the member colleges tend to be those with a stronger interest in online education programs […]
UCF and Temple IPEDS corrections lead to new Top 20 in online enrollment
In response to the new distance education (roughly equivalent to online education) data released by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I have written a series of posts showing different ways to view the data. In short, the data allows much greater insight into degree-granting online higher education in the […]
White House report on big data will impact ed tech
Yesterday the White House released its report on big data and privacy implications. The focus was broadly on big data, but there will be implications for ed tech, with several key recommendations specifically focused on the education sector. Specifically, there will be a push to update and revise the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, […]
GSV+ASU EdInnovations Conference: A proxy for ed tech’s big challenge
Last week Michael and I attended the GSV+ASU EdInnovations conference commonly known as “Davos in the Desert”. This conference is growing in importance, especially in the effect on ed tech investment, as can be seen by the rising attendance. Just five years ago there were less than 300 attendees, and this year’s event had well […]
New e-Literate TV Series on MOOCs
If 2013 was the year that MOOC mania peaked in the Gartner hype cycle, then surely 2014 is the year in which they have entered the trough of disillusionment. And just as it was important last year to push back on the inflated expectations, it will be equally important this year to make sure we […]
Partial Transcript: Richard Levin (new Coursera CEO) on Charlie Rose
I have written two posts recently about Coursera’s appointment of the former president of Yale as the company’s new CEO, with the implicit argument that this move represents a watershed moment for commercial MOOCs. In particular, Coursera seems likely to become the third generation of Richard Levin’s dream, following AllLearn and Open Yale Courses. I’ve […]