Baker's Guide to Christian Online Learning

There's an interesting piece in the EdTech Trends section of Medium about Claned Co-founder Vesa Perala and his efforts to use artificial intelligence machine-learning algorithms to promote effective individualized learning.  

John Mark Reynolds wrote an insightful post at the Patheos Philosophical Fragments blog entitled Why You Should Attend a Christian College – And Why You Should Not. Reynolds, a professor at Biola University and a graduate of both Christian and secular institutions, offers five reasons to attend a Christian college, three reasons not to, and a number of questions that a prospective student should ask before choosing a college, regardless of type.

One of the perennial questions associated with online learning is how to prevent cheating.  Not surprisingly, the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has given new energy to the issue.  While most MOOCs are currently taught and taken for personal development or a certificate of completion, there's a growing interest in offering them for credit or certification.  I recently saw two news items that are approaching the issue of online cheating from opposite angles.

The signal to noise ratio in Twitter can get quite low; however, if you know how to search, Twitter can be a great resource to find information that you might otherwise miss.  One of the best ways of finding such gems is to use relevant thematic hashtags.  To assist, the folks over at TeachThought have developed a helpful resource entitled The Complete Guide To Twitter Hashtags For Education.

Coursera plans to expand their MOOC offerings beyond traditional university courses into continuing education courses for teachers, according to articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Huffington Post.  These courses will be developed in partnership with universities and other organizations experienced in professional development of teachers.