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US to go for Datapalooza in Education | Datapalooza Actually means in education ? | Colleges and Universities Will Find Their Performances In Analysed by Students

It is with great interest that I read a Fact Sheet published by the White House discussing the potential to improve learner performance, while simultaneously reducing learner’s costs, that technology can offer in education.
 There is a growing view internationally that countries must contain the ever-growing costs of education to students, their families and their exchequer. The context of the White House Fact Sheet is to offer middle class Americans a better financial deal on education and a big part of the answer lies in edtech and Datapalooza!

So what is Datapalooza? In this case, it is “big data” given to edtech vendors to build tools, services and apps to support this student evaluation process. This is a hugely exciting idea, and has the potential to impact upon Higher Education and Further Education very significantly. At Virtual College we have collected data from over a million learners about their learning experience with us, and we use this data to inform our plans, but access to really big data is a whole new opportunity.

The Fact Sheet clearly points out the disparity in the growth of family incomes and the increased cost of education: “The average tuition at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades, while incomes for typical families grew by only 16 percent, according to College Board and Census data.”

I am delighted to see that the US presidential view is to turn principally, but not exclusively, to technology to bring costs in the US education system under control.

It is not just technology that will provide the solution, but greater competition amongst education providers and an ever growing level of innovation into developing new education models. By using technology to share and compare the data collected from these many providers, we have a basis for our “Education Datapalooza”.

Technology led innovations highlighted include MOOCs, (which we have discussed in prior blogs), flipped classrooms (a design of setting videos and lectures to be watched at home, while ‘homework’ is completed in the classroom, allowing teachers and lecturers to spend more 1:1 time with their students) and Hybrid classrooms (making use of online tools to engage students and track learning in the classroom); all of which are designed to deliver accelerated degree programmes, designed to save time and money, and there is real evidence of these savings:

To quote “The National Center for Academic Transformation has shown the effectiveness of the thoughtful use of technology across a wide range of academic disciplines, improving learning outcomes for students while reducing costs by nearly 40 percent on average.”

Over the years, results from our learner surveys certainly support this argument; we know we save our clients significant amounts of time and money. We certainly tailor our development process and customer service offer closely to this data we collect from our learners.

The White House also anticipates “smart learner support”, ”e-advising services” and ”online learning communities”, and proffers a very interesting project to allow students to select the most time effective qualification:

“To help students choose the courses that will allow them to earn a degree as quickly as possible, Austin Peay State University has developed the “Degree Compass” system that draws on the past performance of students in thousands of classes to guide a student through a course, in a similar manner to the way Netflix or Pandora draw on users’ past experience to guide movie or music choices.”

My background in engineering meant I saw first-hand just how important training was, but at the same time how difficult it was to juggle time away from the factory floor to implement it, while making sure orders were shipped on time. This made the cost of time in learning one of our early motivations in setting up Virtual College, allowing learners to use their time effectively, to support employers to train their workforces effectively, and we are now using our proven time saving technology to work with the UK’s colleges to deliver time and cost effective learning.

The ethos of competition amongst the education providers is also very strong in this proposal. The student ratings of colleges and courses will be used to enhance competition and deliver innovation into the US College market and here is how:

“The Department of Education will enlist entrepreneurs and technology leaders with a “Datapalooza” to catalyze new private-sector tools, services, and apps to help students evaluate and select colleges.”

Datapalooza means Colleges and Universities will find their performances no longer just published in newspapers and on websites, but analysed by students, and these students will, quite possibly, choose services from more than one provider at a time to create compendium courses and qualifications.

We will see learners selecting from courses that are timely or most aligned to their learning needs or learning styles or offering the best value for money – but all in real time, and I am sure our developers could come up with a raft of ideas to analyse education provision given access to such data sets.

Datapalooza, until now, has really focused on healthcare, and you can learn more from these presentations, but what is exciting is the move to education. In the UK the debate in open data for education is just beginning as we can see from the Universities UK Blog.

I welcomed the UK Governments recently published Industrial Strategy for Education, highlighting the role the Education sector plays in UK PLC. I was pleased in particular to read of the importance of educational technology and Big Data in the sector. However, the USA, perhaps our biggest competitor in the global education market has just taken another step forward with Datapalooza for education.

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Recently News : Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion | Bill Gates Top And Latest News | Higher Education News

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will buy Nokia's phone business and license its patents for 5.44 billion euros ($7.2 billion), a bold foray into mobile devices that also brings potential chief executive contender Stephen Elop back into the fold.
Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion
Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion
Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion
Two years after hitching its fate to Microsoft's Windows Phone software, the Finnish phone maker that once dominated the global market collapsed into the arms of the U.S. software giant, its mobile business ravaged by nimbler rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.

Shares in Microsoft slid as much as 6 percent in the afternoon, lopping more than $15 billion off the company's market value, as investors protested the acquisition of an underperforming and marginalized corporation that lost more than $4 billion in 2012.

Retiring CEO Steve Ballmer is trying to remake Microsoft into a gadget and services company like Apple, a move that has not won the endorsement of all shareholders.

Nokia CEO Elop, who ran Microsoft's business software division before jumping ship in 2010, will return to the U.S. firm to head up its mobile devices business just as the company's board considers a successor to Ballmer, who announced last week he will retire within a year.

Elop, who presided over Nokia's market share collapse and a shriveling share price during his three years at the helm, is being discussed as a potential replacement because he remains respected and is considered one of the few who can fully grasp Microsoft's sprawling empire.

But disgruntled Finnish media labeled him a Trojan horse who handed over the keys to one of the few remaining European technology powers. Nokia, whose market value topped $200 billion over a decade ago, will now concentrate on its networking equipment unit, navigation business and technology patents.

The Nokia deal thrusts Microsoft deeper into the hotly contested mobile phone market, despite some investors urging it to stick to its core strengths of business software and services. Activist fund manager ValueAct Capital Management, which has been offered a board seat, is among those concerned with Ballmer's leadership and his attempts to plough headlong into the lower-margin, highly competitive mobile devices arena.




"Adding to the cost structure when shareholders may be looking for steps in the other direction is not likely to be well received...," said Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund. "Perhaps a decision to repurchase stock and up the dividend would be a good idea right about now."

Others applauded Ballmer's aggressive gambit.

"Microsoft cannot walk away from smartphones, and the hope that other vendors will support Windows Phone is fading fast. So buying Nokia comes at the right time," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.

"In today's market it is clear that a vertical integration is the way forward for a company to succeed. How else could Microsoft achieve this?"

As part of Microsoft, Elop will head an expanded Devices unit. Julie Larson-Green, who in July was promoted to head a new Devices and Studios business in Ballmer's reorganisation, will report to Elop when the deal is closed.

CRUNCH TIME

Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion
Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion

It is a pivotal moment for Microsoft, which still has huge revenues from its Windows operating system, Office suite of business software and Xbox game console, but has failed so far to set up a profitable mobile device business.

Microsoft's own mobile gadget, the Surface tablet, has sold tepidly since it was launched last year.

"We think we have made excellent, excellent progress with the partnership and yet we also know we have a long way go and felt on balance that together this is the best approach for both companies' shareholders," Ballmer told Wall Street analysts in a conference call to explain the deal early on Tuesday.

Microsoft said it would make more than $40 profit on each smartphone it sells once it owns the Nokia business, as opposed to less than $10 now, due to development and marketing costs it pays to Nokia.

However, it said the business would not be fully profitable until fiscal year 2016, and needs to sell more than 50 million smartphones a year to break even. Last quarter, Nokia sold 7.4 million smartphones.

The deal leaves the Finnish company with Nokia Solutions and Networks, which competes with the likes of Ericsson and Huawei in telecoms equipment, as well as a navigation business and a broad portfolio of patents.

In 2011, after writing a memo that said Nokia lacked the in-house technology and needed to jump off a "burning platform", Elop made the controversial decision to use Microsoft's Windows Phone for smartphones, rather than Nokia's own software or Google Inc's ubiquitous Android operating system.

Nokia, which had 40 percent of the handset market in 2007, now has just 15 percent, and only 3 percent in smartphones.

Shares in Nokia surged 34 percent to close at 3.97 euros by late Tuesday. While up from their decade-low of 1.33 euros hit last year, they are still only a fraction of their 2000 peak of 65 euros.

After today's gains the whole company is worth about 15 billion euros, a far cry from its glory days when it reached over 200 billion euros.

Tuesday's deal includes an agreement to license Nokia's patent portfolio for 10 years. Without it, Nokia's devices and services business would have been worth about 3.7 billion euros, the companies said.

"It's very clear to me that rationally this is the right step going forward," Elop told reporters, though he added he also felt "a great deal of sadness" over the outcome. "I feel sadness because inevitably we are changing Nokia and what it stands for."

SOLD FOR "PEANUTS"

While some investors credit Elop for bringing urgency to Nokia, which has stepped up its pace of product development in recent months and is due to announce a "phablet" large-screen handset this month, his legacy will be a bitter one for Finland. The company, which began life as a paper mill and has sold an eclectic range of products from television sets to rubber boots in its 148-year history, was a national champion in its heyday, accounting for 16 percent of all exports.
Microsoft swallows Nokia's phone business for $7.2 billion
nokia+marketing+Developers+entertainment+advertising+connsumers+store+location+Operators+Search+Devices= Microsoft ( Bill Gates )

Hired by former chairman Jorma Ollila, Elop was Nokia's first foreign CEO.

For many Finns, the fact that a former Microsoft executive had come to Nokia, bet the firm's future on an alliance with Microsoft, laid off about 40,000 worldwide and then delivered it into the software giant's hands, was a galling snub to national pride.

"Jorma Ollila brought a Trojan horse to Nokia," a column in widely read tabloid Ilta-Sanoma said.

"As a Finnish person, I cannot like this deal. It ends one chapter in this Nokia story," said Juha Varis, Danske Capital's senior portfolio manager, whose fund owns Nokia shares. "On the other hand, it was maybe the last opportunity to sell it."

Varis was one of many investors critical of Elop's decision to bet Nokia's future in smartphones on Microsoft's Windows Phone software, which was praised by tech reviewers but hasn't found the momentum to challenge the market leaders.

"So this is the outcome: the whole business for 5 billion euros. That's peanuts compared to its history," he said.

Alexander Stubb, Finland's Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, said on his Twitter account: "For a lot of us Finns, including myself, Nokia phones are part of what we grew up with. Many first reactions to the deal will be emotional."

Nokia's new interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa painted a picture of just how grudgingly the call to sell had been arrived at, describing how the board had met almost 50 times after the approach by Microsoft around February.

Ballmer, at a news conference in the Finnish capital, sought to assuage fears the deal would hit jobs in the Nordic country and said Microsoft would build on the recent growth of Nokia's flagship Lumia smartphones.

Nokia said it expected around 32,000 people of its roughly 90,000 staff to transfer to Microsoft, including about 4,700 who will transfer in Finland.

FIRE SALE

Analyst Tero Kuittinen at consultancy Alekstra said the sale price of Nokia's phone business, about a quarter of its sales last year, represented a "fire sale level." Others were less clear about what a shrunken Nokia was worth.

The price agreed for the devices and services business gives it an enterprise value of about 0.33 times sales for a loss-making business, about half what Google paid for Motorola's handset business in 2012.

"What should be paid for a declining business, where market share has been constantly lost and profitability has been poor?" said Hannu Rauhala, analyst at Pohjola Bank. "It is difficult to say if it's cheap or expensive."

Nokia remains the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker behind Samsung, but it is not in the top five in the more lucrative and faster-growing smartphone market.

Sales of Nokia's Lumia phones have helped the market share of Windows Phones in the global market climb to 3.3 percent, according to consultancy Gartner, overtaking ailing BlackBerry Ltd for the first time this year. Still, Google's Android and Apple's iOS make up 90 percent of the market.

Credit default swap spreads on Nokia tightened by more than 30 basis points to around 200 basis points after the news, meaning it now costs $200,000 to insure $10 million worth of Nokia debt, which is rated junk due to worries about its shrinking cash position and market share.

Nokia said it expected that senior executives Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber would transfer to Microsoft when the deal is concluded, probably in the first quarter of 2014.

Goldman Sachs acted as financial advisor to Microsoft, while JP Morgan advised Nokia, according to people close to the deal. Law firm Simpson Thacher represented Microsoft, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom represented Nokia, they said.

($1 = 0.7582 euros)

U.S. schools face tough decisions on Obamacare benefits | USA Education


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hit by years of budget cuts, some U.S. public school boards are looking to avoid providing health benefits to substitute teachers and supporting staff under President Barack Obama's reform law, education officials say.
According to the law, employers will have to offer health coverage to all full-time employees, defined as those who work an average of 30 or more hours per week each month, or else pay a fine starting in 2015.
School boards, already struggling to manage after years of state budget cuts, are trying to get ahead of the potential costs of Obamacare for the current academic year, education and labor officials say. The need to find creative solutions, or risk cutting back staff hours further, will increase as they finalize their budgets, they say.
In Pennsylvania's Penn Manor School District, Superintendent Mike Leichliter said there is no room in its constrained budget to provide additional employee insurance. Instead of cutting hours, the district used a substitute-teacher contracting service to pay part of the salaries for 95 employees. Money for such a service does not count against the school's budget.
"When we looked at our costs, (healthcare) was one area that really had the potential to skyrocket," Leichliter said. "This is absolutely the worst time for school districts to be faced with mandated increases."
The National School Board Association said many states and school districts have at least explored reducing hours, according to Linda Embrey, a communications officer. Several school officials contacted by Reuters said they could not find a way around cuts.
In Indiana's Fort Wayne Community Schools district, one of the state's largest, administrators reduced hours for 610 of its 4,050 employees, including substitute teachers and support staff, who were working 30 or more hours a week. Providing them with health insurance would have cost $10 million annually, said Krista Stockman, public information officer for Fort Wayne.
"You get to a point where there's a danger that you're cutting too much and that the quality of education you're providing isn't as great," Stockman said. "We're just going to have to do the same amount or more with less."
Most of the employees affected are substitute teachers, classroom aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers or similar support staff, according to school officials and labor representatives. They had not been receiving healthcare coverage from their employers in the past. Now, instead of getting such employer-sponsored benefits under the reform law, they may be eligible for government-subsidized coverage that will be offered by new state insurance exchanges starting on October 1.
SEQUESTER TAKES A SECOND TOLL
During the 2012-2013 school year, 26 states provided less money to local school districts than the prior year, and 35 states provided less funding than in 2008 (a better year), according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
This year they are also grappling with across-the-board "sequester" spending cuts introduced after Congress deadlocked over how to fix the deficit. An Obama administration official said those cuts plus the states', and not healthcare reform, are the main reasons for staff losing work-time at schools.
"We are seeing no systematic evidence that the Affordable Care Act is leading to a shift to part-time work," the official said. "There are a variety of factors impacting schools, including sequestration, which is cutting budgets and is a completely separate issue."

The National Education Association is working with union leaders across the country to figure out how to encourage employers to avoid cutting hours as a result of healthcare reform, said Joel Solomon, NEA senior policy analyst. The effort has included a training session for dozens of labor representatives in June, and more sessions are planned for this year.
Solomon said one popular solution offered by the NEA is to help schools get a more precise accounting of employee hours to see whether staff are truly working an average of 30 hours a week each month when holidays and other time off are included. That has helped some schools make less drastic cuts in employee hours, he said.
Many school employees are expected to qualify for Obamacare's tax subsidies, which are available starting in January to people who make within 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four in 2013).
Even if they don't, the new plans are preferable to what they currently have to buy on the individual market because insurers cannot deny coverage based on prior illness.
In Nebraska, the Plattsmouth Community School District is limiting the hours of permanent substitute teachers, who typically work every day, said Marlene Wehrbein, a labor union official who advocates for employees in the state's public school districts.
"It creates a lot of inconsistency in staffing, and I can't see how that would be good for students," Wehrbein said. "How could you have a teacher teaching English four days a week and then on the fifth day you have someone else?"
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Prudence Crowther)