MOOCs Could Help 2-Year Colleges and Their Students, Says Bill Gates

Chronicle of Higher Education (10/03/13) Katherine Mangan

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) that "flip" homework and coursework using outsourced lectures could help community colleges and students, said Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at the recent Association of Community College Trustees' leadership meeting in Seattle. Gates encouraged attendees to offer resources to instructors who want to try using technology through methods such as flipped classrooms. "I'd be the first to say this is a period of experimentation, but we'll learn much faster if people jump in and engage," Gates said. Like a flipped classroom, a flipped MOOC involves videotaped lectures viewed on a student's own time, with homework completed during class. Flipped classes at edX, for example, have helped reduce the failure rate of online classes. Classroom professors will face a challenge in competing with MOOC lectures as they advance, offering such high quality that "no individual performance is likely to come up to that level," Gates said. However, he said that such an arrangement frees up the professor for more-personalized instruction in the classroom. Meanwhile, he predicted that as students begin to do more work at home and online, they will reduce their time on campus, making room for more students.


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U.S. Agencies Revamp Standards for Cybersecurity Program

Chronicle of Higher Education (09/30/13) Megan O'Neil 

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are releasing new curriculum standards for the joint National Centers of Academic Excellence cybersecurity program. The designation currently covers 181 cyber­-security programs at colleges and universities, and the overhaul will require institutions to reapply for the program. "Every cybersecurity professional that comes out of college and takes a job is a win for the government, whether they work for John Deere, Boeing, or Target," says DHS cybersecurity­-education awareness branch chief Robin Williams, noting that global cybercrime costs $388 billion annually. "We are losing intellectual property. We are losing our nation's work and our nation's vision and our nation's ingenuity because we are not able to protect it." The Centers of Academic Excellence label carries prestige for colleges and universities, helping attract students and federal scholarships and grants. However, the program's former training guidelines, the Committee on National Security Systems standards, were criticized for recommending that students learn how to execute specific technical functions. In addition, critics argued that too many programs received the designation, thereby lessening its value. NSA and DHS have changed the standards to include new knowledge units with a core curriculum and additional, optional units that colleges can implement to promote specialties.

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Fed Says Tech Demand Outstripping Supply in Boston, San Francisco (Computerworld (09/09/13) Patrick Thibodeau )

The U.S. Federal Reserve's recently released Beige Book states that in some markets, particularly Boston and San Francisco, demand for certain types of technology skills is outpacing supply. For example, the report found that in New England, "there remains a shortage of skilled technical workers to fill high-end [information technology] and engineering jobs," and that despite a large pool of available workers, the skills mismatch prevents staffing firms from fully meeting client demand. In addition, the Federal Reserve reported that demand in the Bay Area is forcing firms to compete for a limited pool of qualified workers, which is leading to significant wage growth in those positions. One of the most in-demand skills is experience and expertise in building the Web infrastructure and applications that can handle millions of visitors, says HireMinds' Sean McLoughlin. Recruiters also cited a demand for programmers skilled in Java, Ruby on Rails, and Python. Large technology firms, such as Twitter, have created a lot of competition, forcing salaries up, and 10 to 15 percent increases are now the norm, says ICI Software Recruitment founder David Freier

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UK Five-Year-Olds to Learn Programming and Algorithms in Major Computing Curriculum Shake-Up

V3.co.uk (07/08/13) Michael Passingham 

The United Kingdom's Department for Education (DfE) recently overhauled the country's computing curriculum, removing the teaching of software basics such as Microsoft Word and adding programming and algorithm teaching for children as young as five years old.
The new curriculum will be mandatory starting in September 2014, and spans the breadth of all four key stages, beginning when a child first enters school at age five through age 16. 

Students will be taught to understand what algorithms are, how they are implemented as programs on digital devices, and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions. 

"We are introducing a tougher, more rigorous national curriculum," says Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove. "For the first time children will be learning to program computers. It will raise standards across the board--and allow our children to compete in the global race." 

The British Computer Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering wrote the original draft of the new curriculum and DfE revised it. Students will be expected to create and debug simple programs by the end of key stage one, and they will be taught how to understand computer networks by key stage two.

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