RPP #137: ProctorU - Interview with Don Kassner

• Interview with Don Kassner, CEO & President, ProctorU Inc.

Don Kassner, CEO

• We answer these questions:
• Why do Universities need identity management and authentication and remote proctoring?
• How does ProctorU and UCard work?
• What kinds of biometrics do you use?
• How reliable are biometrics?
• Can clients use ProctorU for large scale simultaneous use in testing centers?

• Links
• ProctorU Inc.
• Utilizing webcam-based proctoring to deter misconduct in online exams
• Federal aid recipients illegally received millions in Federal Student Aid (PDF)

• Podsafe Music Selection
• Autumn Day by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license

Duration: 24:30

RPP #136: ApprenNet: Interview with Paul Freedman, CEO

• Interview with Paul Freedman, CEO of ApprenNet, Inc. 

• We discuss the ApprenNet learning platform
  
• Turning passive videos into active learning
• Combining low-cost, distributed eLearning with the power of simulation
• Practice > Feedback > Mentoring
• Building skills using video
• Merger with HandsFree Learning
• Competency-based education
• Use with MOOCs
• Links
• Case Study: Learning Hands-on Skills Using the ApprenNet Video Platform
• Remembering former CEO, Rachel Jacobs
• RPP #106: ApprenNet: Interview with Karl Okamoto & Emily Foote on LawMeet MOOC

• Podsafe music selection from Magnatune
• Vivaldi: Concerto No. 3 in F Major “Autumn” (Allegro movement) by the American Baroque Orchestra. 

Duration: 27:19

RPP #135: Disruptive Innovation in Education: Interview with Michelle Weise

• Interview with Michelle R. Weise, the Executive Director of Sandbox ColLABorative, the R&D arm of strategy and innovation at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), formerly Senior Research Fellow for Higher Education at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.

  

  Michelle R. Weise, PhD

• We discuss:
• Disruptive innovation with regard to education 
• Moving from institution/faculty-centered to student-centered education
• Online competency-based education aligned with workforce needs
• Performance-based assessments
• Business model moving way from Carnegie (seat time) Unit
• Grade inflation and credit transfer problem
• SNHU's success with online and other schools that are spinning off online units
• LMS vs CRM solutions
• What traditional universities and incumbent LMS vendors should do in the face of disruptive innovation
• Rod's Podcasts on Disruptive Technology in Education
• RPP #19 Disruptive Technology in Education
• RPP #20 Disruptive Technology in Education II
• Disruptive Technologies in Education (Youtube)
• Reading List
• Hire Education: Mastery, Modularization, and the Workforce Revolution by Michelle R. Weise
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen
• The Undoing of Disruption by Evan Goldstein
• The University As Ed Tech Startup: UMUC, Global Campus, Texas, and SNHU Roll Their Own by Phil Hill

• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• Too Long by Yael Naim, acclaimed singer/songwriter from Israel. She gained fame when her song New Soul played during Apple's Macbook Air ad campaign

Duration: 39:33

RPP #134: Bb World 2015 Recap: SaaS vs Ultra

• Rod discusses his experience at Bb World 2015, especially what he learned about the new SaaS offerings and Ultra Experience. Listen to the audio podcast as usual or listen and watch accompanying slides via Youtube. 

• Thanks go to Jim Chalex, Sr. Director of Product Management, and Greg Ritter, Product Management Director at Blackboard Inc, for their BbWorld presentations on this topic. I hope I got it right!

View Rod's #bbworld15 Tweets

• SaaS vs Ultra
  
• Bb Learn 9.1 & Ultra Roadmaps
• Bb Collaborate Ultra Roadmap
• Bb Mobile Ultra Roadmap
• New Persona-based Apps
• Benefits of SaaS
• SaaS: Standard, Plus & Advantage
• Transition and Migration Options
• Ultra Tabs and Modules
• Blackboard up for sale!

• Links
• try.blackboard.com
• www.bbworldlive.com

• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• Don't Be Long: The Beatles v Elken, a mashup of George Harrison's Blue Jay Way by Elken, a 60's influenced band from Dublin, Ireland. 

Duration: 21:58

RPP #133: Blackboard Ultra: Interview with Mark Strassman

• Interview with Mark Strassman, Senior Vice President, Industry and Product Management, Blackboard Inc.
• Mark Strassman oversees the company's product and integrated
  
  portfolio strategy to ensure Blackboard continues to build solutions that serve institutions, administrators, educators and students. 
• We discuss the new Blackboard Ultra:
• What are Core, Essentials, Insight, Student Retention?
• What is the update roadmap for hosted systems?
• Versions of Ultra SaaS, multi-tenant, single-tenant
• New web REST API
• Is Ultra completely adaptive/responsive? 
• New Bb Student app
• Ultra workflows subset for Community
• Mobile compatibility; adaptive design
• Future of Mosaic
• "Persona Apps" 
• New Collaborate Ultra
• Links
• Blackboard Inc.
• Bb Student App
• What's the Ultra Experience for Bb Collaborate?
• EdTech Connection
• Podsafe Music Selection
• Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (Summer) by the American Baroque Orchestra. Purchase the full CD: The Four Seasons by Vivaldi 
• Duration: 35:26

RPP #132: D2L Brightspace - Interview with John Baker, CEO, D2L

• Interview with John Baker, CEO, D2L
  D2L (formerly Desire2Learn) announced the next generation of its learning platform, Brightspace. By featuring a new faculty user experience and bringing adaptive learning to the masses, D2L says that Brightspace is more flexible, smarter, and easier to use.

• We discuss D2L and their next generation LMS, Brightspace
• We answer the questions:
  
• Does it replace "legacy" D2L?
• What is adaptive learning and LeaP?
• What features can be used in-class?
• What about student retention support and e-portfolios?
• What's the new faculty UI?
• How is it delivered? Multi-tenant Cloud? Hosted? On premise?

• Links
• D2L Launches Next Generation of Learning Platform Brightspace

• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• "Fly Fly Fly" by singer/song writer Adrina Thorpe - Influenced by Sarah Mclachlan, Tori Amos, and Coldplay

Duration: 27:12

RPP #131: Echo360 Active Learning Platform - Interview with Greg Golkin

• Interview with Greg Golkin, Head of Platform Innovation, Echo360, Inc. This is not your father's lecture capture system!
• We answer the questions:



Learn more about Echo360 ALP

• What is an Active Learning Platform?
• Lecture Capture:
• software or hardware?
• live streaming?
• cloud?
• Instructional Content Managment:
• content & assignments?
• replaces LMS?
• integration or just SSO?
• Student Engagement:
• discussions, polls and quizzes?
• audience response?
• polls within videos?
• Analytics and Dashboards:
• engagement scores?
• success metrics?
• Links
• RPP #71: Blackboard World Interview: Mark Jones of Echo 360
• RPP #27 Educause Interview: Apreso CourseCaster Interview: Geoff Allen, Chairman and Founder of Anystream Inc.
• RPP #6 Bb World Interview: Wes Barnes, Systems Engineer, Anystream Inc.
  
• Podsafe music selection from Music Alley
• Kiss This! (Hey IRS)" by Robert Lund of the Funny Music Project, a parody of Faith Hill's "This Kiss"

Duration: 29:55

RPP #130: Learn to Code

• Rod discusses why he thinks everyone should learn to code. 
• I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think. - Steve Jobs
• Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains. - Bill Gates
• Don’t just play on your phone - program it. - President Obama
• We answer the questions:

  

  Rod with his TRS-80 circa 1977

• Why am I interested in coding?
• Why do I think that everyone should learn how to code?
• What's the best approach to start learning how to code?

• Learn the Basics
• How to Design Programs, 2nd Edition - Good programming requires thought, but everyone can do it and everyone can experience the extreme satisfaction that comes with it. 
• Google CE First - K-8 Computer Science Club program from Google.
• Google Computer Science for High School - Google grant program to teach K-12 science teachers how to program and bring it to their students.
• Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Lately, Coding

• Should All Majors, Not Just Computer Science Majors, Learn to Code?
• Why You Should Learn To Code (And How To Actually Do It!) 
• 9 coding schools higher ed should keep an eye on
• 10 Places where anyone can learn to code

• Learn Coding
• Bento - A guided tour through curated, free coding tutorials on the web.
• Code.org - Offers a number of excellent free beginner’s tutorials for learning how to code.
• Code Academy - Learn to code in HTML/CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails for free.
• Code School - Learn By Doing. No setup. No hassle. Just learning.
• Girls Who Code - To inspire, educate, and equip girls with computing skills.
• Khan Academy - Program drawings, animations, games and web pages.
• SkillCrush - Become a Ruby-on-Rails developer.
• Thinkful - With 1-on-1 mentorship from industry experts.
• Udemy - Your place to learn real world skills online.
• w3Schools - Teach yourself for free.

• Build Mobile Apps
• Appcelerator
• BuzzTouch
• MIT App Inventor
• Xamarin
  
• Links
• www.PharmPCS.com - The author's pharmacology calculation software. 

• Podsafe Music Selection 
• There's nothing impossible by Deus, a techno-classical musician from the Ivory Coast.

Duration: 20:58

RPP #129: Interview: Bryan Alexander on the Future of Higher Ed

• Interview with Bryan Alexander, educator, futurist, speaker, writer, and senior researcher for the New Media Consortium (NMC). We discuss the future of higher education.
• Education Contexts
  
• Changes in international education, demographics, enrollment decline, education for seniors
• Technology
• 3d printing, Internet of Things, social media, augmented reality, cloud computing, digital video, alternative means of education, makerspaces
• Education Issues
• Too much testing
• Carnegie Unit vs competency based advancement
• ePortfolios
• the LMS dark web
• adjunctification of higher ed
• online education
• Creative Commons
• open education

• Links
• Bryan Alexander Consulting, LLC
• @BryanAlexander
• Makerspaces
• Alexandra Pickett
  
  
• Podsafe music selection
• A Passage Of Life by Kitaro
• Duration: 47:09

RPP #128: Highlights from PADLA Annual Distance / e-Learning / Ed Tech Conference & Expo

• Interviews at the 12th Annual Pennsylvania/Delaware/New Jersey (PADLA) Distance Learning Association Conference & Expo
• Louis Stricoff, MEd, CTS (starts at 3:36 min)
• Executive Director, PADLA
• Director of New Business Development, IMS Technology Services
• Conference Introduction
• Steven Hart, CPBA (4:48)
• PADLA President
• Assistant Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
• Reflections on Conference 
• Will Thalheimer of Work Learning Research, Inc. (6:54)
• Keynote Speaker
• Reflections on Research-Inspired Learning Maximization (PDF) 
• Jeff Rothenberger (13:45)
• Program Adminstrator, Office of Professional Development and Currriculum, Berks County Intermediate Unit
• Discussion about Nearpod
• Scott Beadenkopf (17:41)
• Director, Academic Technology, Neumann University
• Reflections on asynchronous vs synchronous teaching
• Podsafe Music Selection 
• Comcast Connection Blues by Miller & Pirillo from Music Alley

Duration: 27:28