Untethering in the Classroom

I hate being tethered to the podium computer in my classroom. Seriously. I have a strong preference for being able to move about the room, but I also frequently need to use the projector, which is connected to — you guessed it — the podium in the front of the room. There’s really no simple way around this.

In my ideal world, I’d be teaching in a classroom equipped with a wireless projector. But since I don’t anticipate having access to such a projector anytime soon, I’ve had to look for other solutions.

By Amy Cavender

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http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker

Coursera Expands Its MOOC Certificate Program

Coursera, the online education company, announced on Wednesday that it was expanding a program that awards special certificates to students who pass multiple MOOCs.

The company unveiled the program, called Specializations, earlier this year. The idea was to create certificates that, while not supplanting traditional degrees, carry more weight than a certificate of completion from a single massive open online course.

By Steve Kolowich

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http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus

Optimism About MOOCs Fades in Campus IT Offices

MOOC fever is cooling, at least among campus information-technology administrators, according to the 2014 edition of the Campus Computing Survey, an annual report on technology in higher education.

While a little more than half of last year’s respondents thought MOOCs “offer a viable model for the effective delivery of online instruction,” just 38 percent of this year’s participants agreed with that statement. And only 19 percent of respondents in 2014 said MOOCs could generate new revenue for colleges, down from 29 percent last fall.

By Rebecca Koenig

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http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus