Find An Expert and Build a Community

Posted 04/25/2015 in Interactive Technology, Online Education, Product Updates, Social Networking, Tips & Guides

Often students enrolled in any class, from any institution, will look for guidance from others, preferably expertise. Students will seek out professional tutors when looking for academic help, but that can be expensive. Students exploring music may need to seek off campus to find a musician to help them practice. Others may need help navigating around an online course and setting up a program, in which they would need to find a computer technician. Many students feel that they need to find these specialists separately, and may spend hundreds of dollars doing so. However, a college institution is full of thousands of intuitive teachers, specialists, and experts. Some of these people may in fact be the same students that walk the campus. Why not look to student peers, whom are attending the very same institution as those looking for help, to be the experts? By allowing students to teach other students, universities can easily create an environment in which there is a strong sense of community. Students can feel comfortable in confiding in teachers and students from the same school, and will want to give back to their school. In addition, students will be able to learn immensely from teaching […]

MOOCs: How Massive Open Online Courses Work

Posted 04/16/2015 in Industry Trends, Interactive Technology, Mobile Technology, Online Education

Anyone living the 21st century has probably heard of online courses somehow or another, and the motivation for online education has increased even more in recent years. But what is it exactly that is taking over the pupils of traditional education? The answer: MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. These classes are what students are looking for; they’re practically free. Not to mention that thousands of students can take the same online course, with the same teacher and classes never fill up. Even more, those who do not have access to high quality education and live in all corners of the world can enroll in an institution. Those who have busy schedules can take classes around their schedule. In reality, MOOC is what students all over the world has been looking for. However, MOOCs are the prototype for what has to come in the online education world. Online courses are a work in progress, and MOOCs certainly have fallbacks. In fact, there is a main component of MOOCs that create a barrier for those students who have chosen the online route-a lack of collaboration with both students and teachers. Traditional classrooms have a valuable and critical building block for conversation […]

Gates Foundation Ideas for College Success

Posted 04/08/2015 in Education Issues, Industry Trends, Online Education

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been one of the largest private foundations in the world and has influenced the world globally for the last 15 years. The foundation is dedicated to supporting countries that have suffered from extreme poverty and innovated new ways to provide quality healthcare for those in need around the world. However, in the United States, the Gates Foundation is focused on something entirely different. The foundation has realized the increasing education fallback in young students and their inability to compete with the rest of the world in almost all subjects. Even more importantly, the foundation wants to support struggling students and find relevant ways to allow them to receive quality higher education. The foundation, in addition, knows that times have changed for young students, and older education systems are just not working anymore. Similar to the beliefs of iQ technology, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation states, “We live in a globally connected, information saturated world. To thrive, our students need to learn in and out of school, in person and online, together and independently.” From this belief, the Gates Foundation has created two new programs that are built for to support and inspire […]