ONLINE EDUCATION
Anthology | September 02, 2022
Anthology, a leading provider of education solutions that support the entire learner lifecycle, today announced that BYU-Pathway Worldwide will implement two of Anthology's flagship solutions – Anthology Student and Anthology Reach – to deliver dynamic, data-informed experiences to its nearly 60,000 learners as the online institution enjoys continued and rapid growth. "As an online institution, our systems are our campus, and we are excited to use the maturity and flexibility of Anthology products to serve our students throughout the world in multiple locations and languages," said Troy Davis, Chief Information Officer at BYU-Pathway Worldwide. "Our certificate-first approach is changing lives, helping students to gain the skills needed to obtain new or better employment early in their degree. The partnership with Anthology will enable our service missionaries, administrators and faculty to access more efficient processes and clearer insights that will allow them to intervene at the right times in the right ways with students across the globe." Growing from 50 learners in three locations in 2009 to 57,000 in 188 countries currently, BYU-Pathway chose Anthology's student information system (SIS), Anthology Student, to streamline workflows for the entire education lifecycle and save time for faculty, staff, mentors and learners, centralizing everything from admissions applications to academic advisement and program catalogs in one solution. Anthology Reach, a modern cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool that includes Anthology Apply and Succeed solutions, will enable BYU-Pathway to better manage and connect admissions, student success and retention. It will allow the institution to respond dynamically to each learner's unique experiences and needs at every stage of their journey in one central hub.
"By combining insights across critical systems to inform more relevant engagement between staff, faculty and learners, our solutions break down data silos and allow institutions to provide better services and support at the right time with the right actions and messages,BYU-Pathway Worldwide has entrusted Anthology as a partner on its mission to support learners and change lives around the globe. We look forward to helping BYU-Pathway establish and scale a fully connected online community that serves an expanding student population worldwide in multiple locations and languages."
Jim Milton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Anthology
About Anthology
Anthology offers the largest EdTech ecosystem on a global scale for education, supporting more than 150 million users in 80 countries. With a mission to provide dynamic, data-informed experiences to the global education community through Anthology Intelligent Experiences™, we help learners, leaders and educators achieve their goals by offering over 60 SaaS products and services designed to advance learning.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Texthelp | August 18, 2022
Today, Texthelp, a global leader in literacy and digital learning tools for education, released new survey results on the current state of teaching and learning for students with dyslexia. The survey, concluding in March 2022, reflects insights from more than 3,000 school staff representing thousands of schools across the country. The goal was to identify common problems in student teaching and learning that could be addressed, and to help build better, more inclusive learning environments.
According to nearly half of the teachers surveyed, assistive technology is one of the top approaches that helps students with dyslexia, along with reading and phonemic awareness instruction. With one billion people globally living with a non-visible disability, such as dyslexia, it is critical that all students have the tools they need to understand and learn. How students digest information and communicate their knowledge looks different for everyone. More inclusive approaches to learning, such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), are the future of education. "I have severe dyslexia and looking back, I could have benefited from having early access to assistive technology that was designed for people just like me," said Sierra Goodfellow, a current student. "Instead, I endured many barriers and obstacles while learning. It wasn't until much later that I finally found an assistive technology tool that understood me. I had thought something was wrong with me when really I needed a tool that was made for someone who thinks differently."
"It would be extremely valuable for students like Sierra and teachers of students with dyslexia if the right accommodations were always available from the start, Texthelp. "All students should have a choice in how they learn. For Sierra, that was being able to understand the text by listening to it being read aloud."
Martin McKay, Founder and CEO, Texthelp.
More than 52 percent of teachers surveyed find 'a lot of value' in providing students with dyslexia access to assistive technology tools. However, more than 54 percent of the respondents said their district will only provide accommodations to students who show a need. Providing tools to only those students who 'show' signs of their disability or disclose their learning challenges leaves out many students who are either undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or are afraid to disclose their diagnosis to indicate the support that they need."It is critical that all school districts provide assistive technology tools to every student, whether or not they are neurodivergent, neurotypical, or physically disabled," said McKay. "Providing tools for all students can bolster inclusivity in the classroom and welcomes all types of learners. Students should be attuned to how they learn best. Thoughtful, inclusive practices in the classroom make learning easier and more enjoyable for everyone."
Additional findings from the survey include:
52% find assistive technology tools to be highly valuable for students with dyslexia
Assistive technology tools can benefit all students, especially those with hidden disabilities, such as dyslexia. Providing assistive technology tools with various capabilities that are designed using UDL principles is most effective in supporting student success.
Most districts provide free tools, such as built-in tools (71.73%) and free accessibility apps (54.87%), to students as a source of reading/writing accommodations
Free tools and built-in tools aren't accessible everywhere throughout a students' education journey. When using these tools, students are limited in where they can utilize their accommodations. Oftentimes, users cannot access these tools when taking tests or searching online, which can create more barriers than solutions.
Respondents felt that the best ways to make assistive technology more impactful for students with dyslexia are:
Having the ability to identify student needs and match those with appropriate digital learning tools (55.51%)
Having teachers embrace assistive technology in the classroom (52.10%)
More training for staff (50.55%)
About Texthelp
Founded in 1996, the Texthelp Group is a global technology company helping people all over the world to understand and to be understood. It has led the way in creating innovative technology for the education and workplace sectors for the last three decades.Texthelp believes in a world where difference, disability or language are no longer barriers. It is focused on helping all people learn, understand, and communicate through the use of digital education and accessibility tools.
With over 50 million users worldwide, the Texthelp suite of products includes Read&Write, Equatio®, WriQ®, OrbitNote®, ReachDeck® and FluencyTutor® which work alongside existing platforms such as Microsoft Office and G-suite, enabling them to be integrated quickly into any classroom or workplace with ease.In 2021, Texthelp acquired the Lingit Group, Wizkids and Don Johnston Inc. By combining capabilities and knowledge across the group, Texthelp can now provide a whole suite of literacy and numeracy support to a greater number of end-users across more geographies.
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CORPORATE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Coursera | October 03, 2022
Coursera, Inc. today announced the expansion of Clips, which now provides employees access to nearly 200,000 short videos and lessons designed to help them begin learning high-demand skills in under 10 minutes.
“Lack of career development is a key reason many employees leave an organization. Yet employees have less time to devote to learning than ever before, A growing number of employees are now looking to gain job-specific skills much faster through shorter, more targeted content. With this shift towards microlearning, Clips enables employees to learn specific skills with 5-10 min videos. It also provides clear pathways into courses for deeper skill development, while driving continuous learning to ensure employees have the right skills to accelerate company growth and innovation.”
Leah Belsky, Chief Enterprise Officer at Coursera. “
The initial Clips on Coursera offering featured bite-sized videos focused on business, tech, data, leadership, and human skills. The expanded Clips offering now provides a more comprehensive library of content, including a higher volume of videos for skills that are becoming increasingly more important like leadership and management. Currently, 83 percent of businesses feel it is important to develop leaders at all levels. Yet less than 5 percent have actually implemented leadership training across every level within their organization. To help address this growing need, Coursera has increased the number of leadership and management-related Clips by 10x. As learners quickly gain skills through Clips, many then seek opportunities for deeper development. Thirty-six percent of learners that have viewed Clips to address their in-the-moment learning needs have gone on to enroll in at least one course1.
The most viewed Clips to date include a range of data, cloud, and productivity-focused content such as:
Welcome to Python, by University of Michigan [1 min]
Fundamentals of Data Science, by IBM [2 min]
The Business Case for Visionary Leadership, by University of Michigan [7 min]
Why is Storytelling Important?, by Macquarie University [9 min]
Key Cloud Service Providers and their Services, by IBM [6 min]
What is SQL Anyway?, by University of California, Davis [7 min]
Customize Google Calendar, by Google [4 min]
Taking Charge of Excel, by Macquarie University [6 min]
Global industry leaders and government organizations like Google, New York State Department of Labor, Alstom, and Bosch have adopted Clips to help accelerate skills development within their workforce. Google in particular has made Clips available to all employees worldwide, helping many learners obtain skills that will help them elevate their job performance and begin unlocking new advancement opportunities. With Clips, Coursera now offers fully scalable learning paths featuring everything from short videos and lessons to professional certificates, and degree programs. For my role, developing skills in programming, camera hardware, and design is crucial. Finding relevant courses to acquire these new skills, and gaining practical, hands-on experience has been a challenge,” said Doris Chen, hardware design engineer at Google. The Clips videos provide relevant content focused on everything from camera and imaging to optical system design. As I continue my training, I’m looking forward to enrolling in more advanced classes and potentially earning an additional degree online to help further my career.I have always been fascinated by the concept of skills development programs and self-paced learning, and the ways it can assist to level up your career,said Rajat Batra, software engineer at Google. “Clips takes this concept to the next level by adding short and focused job related videos. These videos act as a good starting point to develop a higher level of understanding for several concepts.Coursera for Business now enables over 3,500 companies across the globe to deploy world-class skills development content from top businesses and universities. The company’s skills platform gives organizations the ability to assess, measure, and benchmark skills in their workforce. Recent platform innovations including LevelSets are helping employees to quickly determine their proficiency in key skills and identify areas to focus on moving forward. In addition, SkillSets help employees develop specific skills for specific roles. These Skill Sets provide the foundation for Coursera’s Leadership and Data & Analytics Academies, which offer a packaged learning experience based on the depth of skill needed for specific roles across an organization.
About Coursera
Coursera (NYSE: COUR) was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 107 million registered learners as of June 30, 2022. Coursera partners with over 275 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including Guided Projects, courses, Specializations, certificates, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Institutions around the world use Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in many high-demand fields, including data science, technology, and business.
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