Online: Trending Now

Unique biweekly insights and news review from Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA.

Quantum Leap Into the Future of Education

May 1, 2019

Quantum computing will burst onto the educational technology scene. Are you preparing now? The quantum era will soon be upon us. The changes we will see will far outpace even those we saw in the development of personal computers, smartphones and broadband networking — combined. IBM has already created a commercial quantum computer prototype, the IBM…

VR, AR, AI Worldwide Perspectives

April 26, 2019

U.S.-China conference highlights similarities among innovators in ed tech around the world. How should colleges react? In mid-March of this year, some 250 higher education faculty, administrators, programmers and others involved in the educational technology policy and development areas gathered for the fourth annual U.S.-China Smart Education conference at the University of North Texas. It was a…

Information (Learning Materials) Wants to be Free

April 12, 2019

The long-standing tension between “free and open” and for-profit business models is now playing out with textbooks and open educational resources. Over the decades, there has been considerable debate over just who first uttered the phrase “information wants to be free.” It is widely reported that this arose in a discussion between Stewart Brand, editor…

A Visit From the Risk Management Office

March 21, 2019

How can we be sure we are identifying the most important risks in our changing field and are prepared to mitigate their potential impact? I recently visited with a representative from the University of Illinois’s Enterprise Risk Management unit. The philosophy of the risk unit is that the people closest to a risk are best…

The Maturing MOOC

March 15, 2019

Online courses are changing — sometimes less open, sometimes less massive — but they’re still relevant. In the summer of 2011 we produced eduMOOC — a constructivist massive open online course about online learning with the help of a small group of talented and expert professionals at the University of Illinois Springfield as well as colleagues around…

Georgia Tech Is Creating the Next in Education

March 1, 2019

With its online master’s in computer science and its recent commitment to a lifetime of education for its students, Georgia Tech challenges MIT as most innovative university. Over the decades, I have always considered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to be the leader in innovation in higher education. Ever since its open courseware initiative was…

A man (Ray Schroeder) is dressed in a suit with a blue tie and wearing glasses.

Ray Schroeder is Professor Emeritus, Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) and Senior Fellow at UPCEA. Each year, Ray publishes and presents nationally on emerging topics in online and technology-enhanced learning. Ray’s social media publications daily reach more than 12,000 professionals. He is the inaugural recipient of the A. Frank Mayadas Online Leadership Award, recipient of the University of Illinois Distinguished Service Award, the United States Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame Award, and the American Journal of Distance Education/University of Wisconsin Wedemeyer Excellence in Distance Education Award 2016.