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Researchers at the EdTech Evidence Exchange recently published an “EdTech Genome” study in collaboration with teachers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in education identifying and quantifying variables that determine the efficacy of edtech in the classroom. We spoke with an expert who managed the research project to learn more about the study’s findings, useability, and implications for students, teachers, schools, and companies engaged in edtech.

Over the past year and a half, learning turned online for most students. Almost overnight, colleges and universities around the world had to shift to distance-based learning methods, as well as online assigning and grading, as efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19 kept people out of classrooms and offices.

In particular, the University of Pittsburgh’s new program presents several innovative and remarkable features. For one thing, Pitt has decided to throw this master’s program wide open to potential students without a data science-related bachelor’s degree, including those with no prior STEM or computer programming experience.

Wait, what? Whoever heard of an Ivy League university that’s offering a 100 percent online degree—and for only about one-third of the price of its on-campus equivalent? Yet this is precisely what Dartmouth College appears to have announced in September 2023, when the school launched a new computer engineering master’s degree for working professionals.

Course building platforms, or CBPs, are software suites that enable instructors to easily and efficiently create content for their online classes. Before the pandemic, university professors and graduate teaching assistants were the main users of course building platforms. But because 66 percent of Americans have been more motivated to seek out online learning since the advent of the pandemic, that’s all changed.

One less discussed benefit of online education programs is how they help students develop virtual work skills. As increasing numbers of companies adopt work-from-home and work-from-anywhere policies, these skills have become increasingly important to career success among managers and professionals in today’s economy.

We spoke with an expert working with schools and institutions to design spaces for education and learning opportunities in the Metaverse and other virtual and extended reality platforms. She shared her thoughts on the development, implementation, risks, and potential of these tools for education.

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a federal subsidy providing discounted high-speed broadband internet service to more than 23 million low-income households and 60 million people across the United States, is set to run out of funds at the end of May 2024.

Surprising new survey results indicate that first-generation college students whose parents never graduated from college prefer online education by a substantial margin over peers with college alumni parents. The polling shows that 76 percent of first-generation students reported that they’re interested in taking future online education courses. That’s almost ten percentage points more than peers who grew up with parents who are college alums.

Open educational resources (OERs) are free online alternatives to commercial textbooks that turned into a hot political issue in California in 2021—and Governor Newsom’s support for OERs is poised to disrupt America’s $3.2 billion university textbook industry.

Proctoring means the supervision of examinations, primarily to prevent cheating. Developed because of the Covid pandemic, online proctoring is a new way of supervising testing in real time through a computer’s webcam, microphone, and software that closely monitors the device’s desktop and running applications.

Just as important as the reasons for the Great Resignation are the questions of when that resigned workforce will return—and in what capacity. Some of the answers could lie in another pandemic-accelerated trend: the rise of online education, which is helping to transform what it means to be a learner and a worker in the 21st century.

The most popular online education class in the world—with 40,000 students enrolled virtually each semester—is Harvard University’s CS50. This introductory computer science course is Harvard’s largest on-campus class, with 1,600 students attending each year in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Moreover, almost five million students have enrolled since the university’s undergraduate division Harvard College first offered this class in 1989.

Some heartening news for educators regarding the brain and online learning is that “if you understand some of the principles about the brain and learning, you can make online instruction as brain-compatible as face-to-face,” Dr. Zadina shared. The reasoning? The same principles generally apply with regard to the brain and learning in both contexts. However, there are three important aspects of how the online environment affects cognition that are important to consider.

New research out of UCLA’s psychology department suggests that students who leave their computer’s camera turned on during live online classes learn significantly less than classmates who shut their cameras off.