Education Database Online

The Youtopian Ideal: Using Badges to Transform Learning

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Check in on Foursquare, get a badge. Complete your Civil War essay, get a badge? Is this real? With edtech startup Youtopia, it's already happening. And it's building student engagement and interest in a tech-savvy, fun to use way.

The Power of Student Engagement

When students participate in activities at school, they build a sense of belonging. By being active, they're building both knowledge and relationships, but it's not enough. Students don't just need to belong and participate; they need to be engaged and invested in learning.

Student engagement happens when learners emotionally invest in their studies. Instead of going through the motions for grades, they're motivated to learn because they truly want to do so. Motivated, engaged students are excited about what education has to offer, and students who are positively engaged in learning are more likely to be successful. Higher student engagement is linked to higher grades and re-enrollment, making it an essential resource for learning.

Despite the importance of student engagement in education — especially higher education, where students are more likely to drop out — it's tough to maintain. A 2012 Gallup poll of K-12 students indicates that student engagement declines over time and hits a low in high school, with only four out of 10 students engaged.

Professors are pushing back against this decline by bringing in new tools including Twitter backchannels and mobile apps that can be used in the classroom to increase participation and motivation. They're even using adaptive learning systems to give students valuable real-time educational feedback.

But it's Youtopia, an educational startup that supports classroom management and student engagement, that's taken an interesting approach to mixing learning and game-playing. The app/service offers valuable tools for student engagement, bringing gamification to learning in a way that motivates learners to do their best, and it's growing in K-12 and higher education.

Rewards for Any Activity

Youtopia's tools allow professors to set goals and track any student activity, from completing a multi-part assignment to just getting to their seats on time. As they work toward goals, students are rewarded with badges to signify their achievements. This "allows teachers to plug in and gamify their course's rubric," according to Youtopia cofounder Simeon Schnapper.

Professors using Youtopia build a set of activities for students to perform, and students are awarded for completing activities with points and badges that acknowledge their hard work. "As students complete activities, they earn points on their path to mastery," explains Schnapper. Activities can be tracked using any type of metric, including hours of volunteering, pages read, or problems solved, encouraging students to see their progress and keep going, even when faced with long-term goals.

Youtopia also encourages collaboration with group goals and badges. For one project, the A/V Storytellers, students have the opportunity to earn a Collaborator badge by achieving tasks like creating a supportive environment, maximizing group performance, and showing respect for others. Instructors confirm these achievements and award points.

Motivation Beyond Grades

Class participation in Youtopia's system is completely transparent, spurring motivation and encouraging participation. Students can not only see what their classmates have done, but also find out where they rank among their peers. This, Schnapper says, "naturally spurs them to work harder with a little dose of healthy competition." Students can even share their badges with social media integration.

Youtopia supports a system of positive feedback for students, which motivates and encourages students to continue doing a great job. Feedback is most effective when delivered to an individual quickly and in reference to a specific action or behavior. By awarding badges or providing instructor comments on individual activities, professors can share positive feedback that resonates with students. And in Youtopia's system, the task of remembering to support each student with feedback is streamlined with management reports.

Trading Grades for Badges

Why badges? They just work. They're a staple of social networking and gaming, and even in more serious settings like scouting or the military. They represent achievement, rather than winning or losing. And they encourage students to develop competencies in very specific measures.

Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan believes in the potential of badges: "Badges can help engage students in learning, and broaden the avenues for learners of all ages to acquire and demonstrate — as well as document and display — their skills. Badges can help speed the shift from credentials that simply measure seat time, to ones that more accurately measure competency. We must accelerate that transition. And, badges can help account for formal and informal learning in a variety of settings."

With badges like the ones earned through Youtopia, students can earn recognition for, and show off, what they've done. What students learn in school may not have a clear connection to what they'll do after graduation. But with badges, students can highlight their skills in a way that colleges and employers can understand.

Student Engagement in Action

Service learning is a great resource for building student engagement. With service learning opportunities, students are able to challenge themselves as they apply their education to real-life situations and see how their schoolwork is significant and valuable to others. Youtopia's system is designed to encourage these learning projects, giving students positive reinforcement and encouragement every step of the way.

Youtopia shared an example of Mr. Johnson, the head of service learning and an English Teacher at a prominent charter school in Chicago, who is using Youtopia to track service-learning curriculum. In Johnson's class, students are able to see real-time results and find out where they are on the pathway to completion in their service projects, and they can reflect on their experience with reports on what was meaningful to them. This gives students a chance to connect their learning projects to real life, not just in achievement, but in what their coursework has done for them personally.

Badges can be used to support positive learning practices as well. Ms. Hart, a Connecticut high school history teacher, uses Youtopia to reinforce essay research and writing tasks. In Youtopia, Hart maps out the steps required to write a research paper with badges for technical and experiential skills. A student who turns in all of their drafts, complete with bibliography and proper citations, gets points for each individual accomplishment as well as a badge for the overall project.

Student accomplishments can also be exported in a Youtopia Resume that highlights statistics like service hours, dollars raised, and activities and badges they've earned. This resume can be used to supplement college applications, and even find a place in noncognitive measurement that place value not just grades and numbers, but achievements and perseverance.

Tips for Using Badges in the Classroom

Experts see a future full of badges in higher education. What can you do to make them a part of your courses?

• Award badges for positive actions, no matter how small. Badges can be awarded for showing completion of tasks, mastery of skills, or even just showing up to class. Professor Rey Junco suggests that teachers can encourage lecture engagement by awarding badges to students for class time check-ins with challenge questions. Other small badge ideas: those for posting on Twitter, commenting on the course blog, or offering peer review.
• Scaffold learning with badges. Guide students through the steps of learning by allowing them to earn badges as they go along.
• Encourage soft skills.: Achievement of 21st century skills like collaboration and problem-solving are difficult to quantify with a letter grade. With badges, you can show students what mastery of these skills should look like, and reward them when they've achieved levels of proficiency.
• Make badges an incentive for letter grades. While badges haven't replaced grades just yet, they can be used in conjunction with the traditional grading scale. In professor Alex Halavais's courses, students earn letter grades by collecting an equivalent number of badges.
• Search for badges within your field. Badges from Disney-Pixar, NASA, NOAA, and YALSA are available, and there are plenty more where they came from: Mozilla's Open Badges project supports 30 different badges so far. In addition to classroom-created badges, badges in this project can be added to a student's digital resume.
• Keep it positive. Badges are inherently positive. They're fun, even cute, and they point out what a student has accomplished. Alternatively, grades (and especially low grades) can be negative, highlighting what a student has not been able to achieve. Maintain badges as a positive force, using them to reward students for commendable educational activities.

Achievements Unlocked

Badges, motivation, and engagement are all great, but do they work? Youtopia's clients believe so. "We've gotten positive feedback from teachers across the country telling us that their students are more focused and engaged when they know their positive actions are being observed and acknowledged," says Schnapper. "We're looking to connect with that same community in higher education to see how Youtopia can optimize how teachers and students teach and learn in the university setting."

Tools like Youtopia represent the next generation in student assessment, engagement, and growth. Students thrive on feedback and competition, this app greatly encourages that. And now, when students earn a Foursquare badge for checking out that new Indian place around the corner, they can earn a classroom badge for cultural diversity, too.

Is Apple Still a Game Changer in Education?

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The words "Apple" and "innovation" often go hand in hand, but the tech giant has been less dominant in education than it has been in other areas. While the iPad has continued to change the way many classrooms function, Apple's once-leading online education platform, iTunes U, is now left out of most discussions about online learning and OpenCourseWare.

In the 1970s, when mainframe computers had a monopoly on academic research, Apple started donating Apple 1 computers to schools. This allowed more students than ever to use computers and led to the rise of computer instruction and technological developments in education.

Today, though, the field is so varied that Apple has had a harder time making the waves in education it once did. Google and Apple have been in an innovation arms race, and small companies that specialize in ed tech are popping up every day. Without a singular focus on education, and faced with trying to keep up with (or ahead of) Google across the board, can Apple still be a game changer in education? Or will schoolchildren someday be saying "Apple who?"

Apple's Bright Spots

One of the biggest things to come out of Apple in the last few years is the iPad. It has opened up the new world of tablets, giving people more convenience than a laptop and more ease of accessibility than a mobile phone. It has also changed the possibilities found in the classroom. In a one-year period in 2012, Apple sold 3 million iPads directly into education in the United States. Worldwide, that number is 8 million, and it will likely keep growing as prices of older versions of the tablet fall, making it more affordable for schools.

Many schools across the nation have implemented one-to-one programs where each student is provided with an iPad to use for their schoolwork. At Hillbrook School in Los Gatos, Calif., where one of the first one-to-one pilot programs in the country was created in 2010, administrators were looking for a way to incorporate technology into the curriculum and learning methods. "We weren't necessarily sold on the idea of laptops," Mark Silver, head of Hillbrook, said in a promotional video. "It involved a lot of equipment; it needed a lot of support. And, at least the models we had seen, seemed to be kind of working. So we were kind of in a holding pattern, and along came the iPad. We saw an opportunity."

Hillbrook Director of Technology Don Orth — who is now an Apple Distinguished Educator — said the open-faced concept of iPads made them great tools for collaboration. There's no physical barrier between students and their peers or teachers like there is with a laptop. Hillbrook, an Apple Distinguished School, now provides an iPad for each of its students in the 5th through 8th grades and shared iPads for 1st through 4th grades.

Students can download apps for each class, create presentations, and access information from anywhere. Apps are available for almost anything — studying with flashcards, taking notes that won't get thrown out with the day's love notes, and helping students keep track of assignments when their brains are filled with more important things, like lunchtime and new crushes.

"Students who struggle with organization have been helped by having their work and resources all in one place," Orth says. "It's a one-stop shop for a lot of their assignments and notes, and there are no crumpled-up things in the bottom of their backpacks."

Teachers can design textbooks for the iPad, make learning more engaging, and get feedback from students on curriculum development. While teachers help struggling students, other students can be independently learning or practicing on their iPads. Orth says that in this way, it had really decentralized the classroom. Students rely less on the teacher to deliver the materials, and can instead research independently or watch demonstrations on the iPad.

Language teachers can give students the tools to improve verb conjugation, pronunciation, culture lessons, and more. History teachers can incorporate current events; English teachers can develop writing skills with brainstorming apps and videos of them annotating a student's essay live.

These programs have not only changed the way lessons can be taught. They have eliminated the need for computer labs at schools where bulky machines are only used for research and word processing. Students can do it all through their iPad.

While many other tablets have been introduced by competitors since the iPad was first brought to market, the iPad is still one of the best, if not the best, for ease of accessibility, engagement, and resources available. Apple's wide range of other products also makes it easy to create a streamlined network. Hillbrook uses Apple TVs in the classrooms, allowing students to instantly show their work on the iPad to the class without having to plug into the TV.

Schools are starting one-to-one programs in droves, sharing ideas for how the iPad can revolutionize the classroom. There are dozens of conferences across the country on iPads in education, including Hillbrook's own conference series coming up. It's no longer just the most innovative educators that have access to the technology; schools and teachers can share the best practices for integrating iPads into their curriculum.

Funding, though, is still keeping iPads from dominating the education sector. At $400 or more apiece, low- and middle-income schools can't afford to implement one-to-one programs. Just supplying 100 students with the device would cost a school $40,000. Grants are available for many districts, but there aren't enough to make it feasible for the majority of schools in the country. This entry cost into the world of the iPad's benefits may be slowing its growth in the education market, though some schools continue to find room in their budget for the technology.

The iPad, the variety of apps, and even the vast wealth of knowledge available through podcasts on iTunes have kept Apple in the education game. With Apple's purported watch on the horizon, it's yet to be seen if another Apple product can have a huge impact on learning like the iPad is having.

Falling Behind

The talk in the edtech world recently has largely revolved around massive open online courses (MOOCs) and their providers, like Coursera, Udacity, and edX. But not that many years ago, Apple's iTunes U was stirring things up in the online education world. While the service has been growing its audience, its pace is slower than necessary to keep it competitive in the rapidly growing online education sector.

Launched in 2007, iTunes U allows professors to build lecture-based courses. It bills itself as the world's largest online catalog of free educational content, including files from top schools, libraries, and museums. Apple recently announced that its content had been downloaded more than 1 billion times.

Universities can create their own page on iTunes U and post lectures and resources from professors and other content. Many prominent schools have pages, including Stanford University, Harvard University, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

Ohio State University uses iTunes U, with 16 public courses available currently. One course has been particularly successful: Ohio State chemistry lecturer Dr. Matthew Stoltzfus, or Dr. Fus as he is often called, has a complete General Chemistry course available on iTunes U that has built more than 108,000 subscribers since it was posted in May 2012.

Stoltzfus has had incredible success with his course, praising Apple's marketing, ability to get his content out globally, and analytics to help continue to improve. Using analytics on uploaded content, teachers can see which of their files are being downloaded the most, making it easier to know which subjects to invest further time into. For Stoltzfus, this is part of the process of bettering the quality of his content, an attitude that carries over into his opinion of iTunes U and all edtech. "We just have to keep continually improving. It's not one and done. There will be several iterations," he says. "If we keep that mindset, we'll continue to make progress."

And there is certainly progress to be made with iTunes U. While other online course providers have user-friendly interfaces, interactive content, and ways for users to test themselves, iTunes U has fallen behind. To access content, users of course need the iTunes program, and the most useful interface is only available through the iTunes U app, which you need an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to download. This leaves people without these products to download and use the video or audio files without some of the more exciting features of the app, such as being able to take notes within the app.

And of course, accessing these features means shelling out anywhere from $199 to $929 to buy a device if you don't already have one. For many online students or lifelong learners, this can make online courses that are the same on tablets as they are desktops much more attractive or even the only option.

While Stoltzfus offers a complete course that can be used to gain new knowledge, many of the materials on iTunes U aren't full courses. In fact, that's part of what Stoltzfus thinks has made his course so popular; there just aren't many full chemistry courses available on iTunes U. Much of what is on iTunes U is supplementary content, making it most useful for students who are already enrolled in a course elsewhere. Those who want to take a full course have to look elsewhere for the most options.

They also have to look at other providers if they want to test or practice their skills. With no assessment tool, iTunes U content is often no more engaging than a YouTube video (and less accessible).

Copyright scrubbing is also a huge deterrent for creating innovative, engaging content. Professors who create courses can't use any visual aids that they don't own, or they risk being sued by the publisher. If a professor records class lectures in which he uses images or figures from a textbook, he has to go through those videos and edit out the copyrighted material before iTunes U will accept it. This is a time-consuming and often expensive process; instead of facing this tedious task, many professors, like Stoltzfus, choose a very basic format for their content.

"The critique from a pedagogical perspective is that I'm just making video of a lecture with notes," he says. "For me it's best because I don't have to worry about violating copyrights and it's the quickest way to get it done."

For students looking for the best online learning experience, though, the lack of features could be a turn-off.

Who Else Is in The Game?

Google and Apple are archnemeses in the tech game, and in the education sector, Google may actually have the advantage. While iPads had a head start in the marketplace and were picked up in many schools because of it, Google tablets are less cost-prohibitive. Google's Nexus 7 tablet sells for $199 and may go down in price in July when a new version is rumored to come out. That's compared to more than $300 for the lowest-priced iPad Mini. For low-income schools, affordable tablets and other devices (like the Chromebook) can be game-changers as increased student engagement can potentially combat high dropout rates, according to several different studies.

Apple's closed system of proprietary software and hardware, which makes it hard to use Apple products with non-Apple products, may also be holding it behind Google. Google's Chrome OS and Android OS can be used to operate devices created by several different companies, allowing Google to benefit as those companies compete. Companies like Acer and Samsung build a Chromebox, a compact desktop computer that runs on Chrome, and the newest Acer version is rumored to be hitting the stores at $99 apiece. The ability to get the price so far below that of Apple's products puts it well within the $250 to $300 price range that many teachers say they look for in digital technology.

In terms of online education, Apple's barely showing up. MOOC providers like Coursera, edX, and Udacity are offering high-quality, complete courses for free while iTunes U is growing slowly and works better as supplementary material than an actual course for the most part. Though it may work well for students enrolled at the schools with their own pages, it's not an attractive option for the lifelong and DIY learners. MOOCs are working out some kinks with credit and cheating, but iTunes U has a long way to go with its platform to get to the point of useful, fully engaging content for the online learner.

How Teachers Can Succeed

When Starting a Tablet Program

• Think about what works for your situation. Jumping into a one-to-one program without doing your research can lead to a lot of headaches and maybe even failure. Consider different brands of tablets, apply for grants, and think about how your tablets will work with your other technology. If you can afford Apple products across the board, they could be worth it just for the ease in connecting them all, but if you can only afford the iPads, you may need extra support to get everything to work together.
• Start a student support group. Orth says that having a group of students become your iPad gurus can help in numerous ways. Not only does it empower those students, but it relieves the tech department and teachers. These trained students can work with their peers and help them troubleshoot their problems. Technology staff are then free to take on the more serious issues, and teachers can focus on instructing.
• Educate parents. "The biggest mistake is keeping parents in the dark," Orth says. Parents need to be educated on how the program works and how they can monitor their students. With concerns over screen time and privacy, it's important to show parents that iPads can be used as tools in education without being harmful or distracting. With the right knowledge, they can help keep students engaged at home.

When Starting an iTunes U Course

• Figure out your time investment. Stoltzfus put his entire course on iTunes U at once, a process that he says was very time-consuming. If you have tighter time constraints and don't know how long uploading content will take, prioritize. "It doesn't have to be the entire course up at once," Stoltzfus says. "First tackle the toughest learning objectives, and then work your way down." Understanding things like copyright scrubbing — which requires educators to remove all copyrighted material from videos and lectures that they don't have permission to post — can also help you create content that fits your time commitment.
• Think about full courses. Though you don't have to put up a full course all in one go, providing a course rather than just supplementary content can contribute greatly to your success. It makes the content more attractive to DIY learners.
• Add unique content. If you have the expertise, why not add some upper-level content? Stoltzfus says there is plenty of content on iTunes U for the freshman level, but not much for upper-level learners. If he adds another class, he'd think about adding inorganic chemistry material because there simply isn't much out there. While this kind of content may reach a more specialized audience, its uniqueness can lead to a very engaged research community.

Staying Alive

While Apple is making strides and certainly has a following among some students and schools, the company isn't having the impact on education that it had in the past. The iPad's head start in the market has given it an edge in changing the potential of the classroom, but other, more cost-efficient tablets are gaining ground in many school districts that can't afford to buy only Apple products. Cost is again an issue with iTunes U and what devices are compatible with the app, keeping Apple straggling behind in the online education sector, a sector that's going to be increasingly important in the years to come. We'll have to wait and see if Apple can come with anything as revolutionary as its Apple 1 again.

The At-Risk Students' Guide to Finishing an Online Degree, Part 2

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In the first part, we laid out some of the risks facing online students with heavy time demands from work and family. This time, we're looking at a related group of at-risk online learners: those with financial constraints. Although working students may be short on time, their paycheck can help them avoid some of the pitfalls that face students struggling with the economics of education.

While college attendance has gone for both affluent college students and their poorer counterparts, the gap between them in completing bachelor's degrees has increased from a 31% difference in 1972 to 45% in 2012. In the bottom 25% of incomes for the U.S., fewer than a third even enroll in a four-year college, and less than half of those go on to graduate.

However, the good news is that low-income students are high achievers at a rate much higher than was previously thought. The Brookings Institution recently published findings from data on millions of American students that the rate of high-achieving, high-income students only outnumber high-achieving, low-income students two to one (a rate 8-15 times higher than some college admissions offices had estimated).

So the data proves what low-income students hopefully already knew: they can achieve great heights in their education. It just takes the right approach.

Risk 1: You don't have adequate access to necessary equipment.

It's easy for those with ample access to high-speed Internet — including college professors and administrators — to forget that not all Americans enjoy the same luxury. According to the Economics and Statistics Administration, an estimated 100 million citizens cannot access the Internet from home. And the lower the income level for the household, the lower the rate of both computer and broadband use. While a quarter of households at incomes $25,000-$50,000 have no computer, that number jumps to almost half of households (46%) with incomes below $25,000.

How you can overcome it:

• Use it where you find it: The most common places students without home Internet access get online are at their jobs, their school, public libraries, or a friend's house. Many college campuses offer free wifi for students, so if you have your own Internet-equipped device you don't have to be tied to a computer lab. Sites like Wi-Fi-Freespot are good resources for finding businesses like Panera Bread and McDonald's that offer free wifi to customers.
  
• Take advantage of discounts: Students in low-income households may not be aware that they qualify for discounts on things like broadband Internet service. For example, Comcast provides a plan called Internet Essentials where families with children who are eligible for reduced-price lunches at school can receive Internet at home for $9.95 a month. (But just 100,000 of the 2.3 million eligible families have signed up). There's even a new startup called FreedomPop that allows users in certain areas to get broadband access for free (with data limits), or for as little as $10 a month.

Tools to use:

• Tablets: Many people from poorer households site the high initial cost of buying a computer as a barrier to getting broadband Internet access at home. One way to cut the cost is to purchase a comparatively inexpensive netbook or tablet that would allow you to access Blackboard, watch lectures, take notes, and keep track of assignments. Google's Nexus 7 sports a fast processor, vivid 7-inch display, and easy connectivity with other Google products like Gmail and Drive. At $200, it costs about 10% of a Macbook Pro.
• Netbooks: You may find you need the full range of computing features a laptop provides, like a built-in keyboard. If that is the case, you still have some cheap options. On the low end of the computing power and price scale, there are Chromebooks starting at $199. Netbooks represent a nice middle ground, giving you solid computing ability for $300-$400. Keep an eye on sites like Microcenter.com or Tiger Direct for deals on refurbished laptops, or check the sales at local electronics stores like Fry's.

Risk 2: Your family doesn't support you.

In about 80% of cases, being a low-income college student means also being a first-generation college student, and the risks of this group are well-documented. As of late 2010, the rate that low-income first-gens left college in six years without a degree was an astounding 89%. Financial troubles are frequently part of the problem, but for many, they drop out or fail out because they simply weren't prepared, and because they did not get the moral support of their friends and family.

Parents who did not go to college themselves can be misunderstanding and even critical when their children choose to pursue a degree. Even those who are supportive usually cannot offer any advice on selecting a major, managing time and finances, or other skills critical to success in college. Moreover, according to the American Psychological Association, students who self-identify as low-income often report feelings of not belonging in school and an intention of dropping out before graduation.

How you can overcome it:

• Lean on others: Even more than other students, first-gen and low-income students need to seek out their online academic advisors or go see them in person on campus. A good counselor will be able to answer your questions about counseling services, special programs for first-gen students, mentor and tutoring services, and financial aid.
  As we said in Part 1, making connections with other online learners is crucial to staying motivated. It will also have the added benefit of giving you a sense of belonging that may be lacking as a first-gen student. So taking part in class discussions and attending on-campus events to meet your fellow learners is highly advisable.
• Take the wheel: Joel P. Spiess, academic advisor at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said he also emphasizes the importance of each student being his or her own advocate. "I often remind students that they are in the driver's seat when it comes to their education," he said, "and they are the ones to decided when to hit the gas, when to slow things down, and when to turn and change directions. For so many students, this is a big adjustment from high school, where much of their education was dictated for them."
• Brush up on your study skills: There's no shame in admitting you need help preparing to be a college student; earning your degree online will be every bit as difficult, if not more so, than earning it on a traditional campus. Many first-gen students begin their classes without understanding how to maximize their study time or how to interact online with professors. Somewhere on their websites, most schools include a section of study tips, often tying it into student orientation. Be sure to read them over thoroughly.

Tools to use:

• Mentors: While college counselors are a good place to start, they're often overloaded with a high volume of students. So before even settling on an online college, you might want to inquire as to whether it offers a mentoring program of some kind, like the student mentoring program at Western Governors University. At WGU, the student mentor works with the enrollment counselor to develop a "personalized degree plan." Such a system is an excellent way to set yourself up to complete a degree.
• Online resources: Some schools offer special programs for first-generation students to help them get acclimated and succeed, so be sure to ask your advisor about them. But even if yours doesn't, you're already online — use the Web. Online resources from other schools' programs like MIT's First Generation Project or .orgs like First in the Family offer some helpful resources. The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies also features useful info for adult and distance learners on its site, as does the Illinois Online Network.

Risk 3: The stress of dealing with finances causes your grades to drop and/or your graduation to be postponed.

According to a 2012 survey by Inceptia, a branch of the National Student Loan Program, the stress of finances has negatively affected one-third of college students. An additional 20% said finances had created a need to reduce their course load to deal with the problem. The researchers were convinced of a direct link between financial stress — whether the worry over college borrowing, the need to repay loans, or the pressure to find a job after graduation — and academic performance.

Rather than drop out, some students even take the reverse route. Spiess said has had numerous students tell him they want to stay in school as long as possible so they can delay the start of payments on their loans. He said this "avoidance mentality" is common among students who don't understand the nature of financial aid, particularly loans.

How you can overcome it:

• Get a scholarship or loan: Hopefully you weren't under the false impression that online students can't get scholarships. With all the grants and scholarships at individual universities, plus private scholarships, there is money to be had. There are even scholarships strictly for first-generation students, like the Mercedes-Benz "Drive Your Future" scholarship and the Coca-Cola Foundation First Generation Scholarships. The low-interest federal Stafford loan is also available to online students.
• Get a job: We don't mean to imply you don't already have a job, or that you're sitting around with all kinds of free time. This is mainly for students who want to make a little extra cash when they have time, close to where they live, doing something they already know how to do or that can also be done while studying. Thanks to the Web, it's never been easier to find these jobs.
  Although only currently available in nine cities, Taskrabbit is a fast-growing network of people that need a task like furniture assembly or pet sitting completed, and the "task rabbits" who sign up for work. Fiverr works in a similar manner and includes hundreds of small jobs that don't even require moving away from your computer. If you want to sell your services as a tutor, Thumbtack is another good option.

Tools to use:

• Financial aid counselor: Spiess says this is the appointment he encourages his students to make "first and foremost," because in a school as big as UWM, it's not possible for an academic advisor to stay up-to-date on all the intricacies of financial assistance. A financial aid advisor can tell you what scholarships are available to you as an online student and guide you through the process of dealing with your loans after you graduate, even if such exit counseling is not required by law. Spiess said the information they give you may seem overwhelming or irrelevant to you now, but he urges students to power through all the same.
• Mint.com: Getting your finances under control now is the smartest way to give yourself the confidence that you can live within your means once you graduate. A good, free financial planning program like Mint can help you track where you're spending too much, set goals for saving, and receive mobile alerts when you're in danger of going over budget.

It's not just online students who are feeling the sting of economic troubles; the student debt didn't get to $1 trillion on distance learners alone. Across the country, college students and graduates of all kinds are dealing with high unemployment and underemployment. If there is a silver lining to facing these financial concerns, it's that you won't be as unprepared for life in this economy as many of your fellow graduates from brick-and-mortar campuses will be. Consider this time your financial training period, just another lesson to be learned.

The At-Risk Students' Guide to Finishing an Online Degree, Part 1

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Ready for a shock? We're fans of online education. To us, there is no better way to mold your pursuit of a degree to fit the schedule of your life, and not the other way around. It puts access to schools, courses, and professors within your reach that you never would have had otherwise. In many cases it makes an affordable undertaking out of what's become an outrageously costly endeavor.

However, just like traditional campuses, online schools are not without their share of students who drop out. Online students drop out at a rate that is 15-20% higher than students who attend class in person. All things being equal, this would seem to imply that in-person education is the option that ensures success more readily.

But as is almost always the case in life, all things are not equal, particularly when it comes to education while working. Fewer than 40% of online undergraduates go to school full-time, and according to a recent survey, the "average" online student works full-time (compared to just 20% of college students as a whole who do so.

Because of their busy schedules, these online students with job and families face risks that can put their degree completion on the line. If you count yourself among their number, check out these tips and tools for guaranteeing you see the quest through to the end.

Risk 1: You get fired, fail class, or both.

The most obvious risk of being a degree-seeking online student with a job is that you'll spread yourself too thin and succeed at nothing. Dedicate too much night time to studying and you'll be too tired to do your job well the next day. Try to put in too many hours at work and your grades will slip. It's definitely a balancing act, and one that every student will have to experiment with on his or her own to find the perfect ratio of time spent.

How you can overcome it:

• Communicate with your professor and boss: The worst thing you can do is wait until the day a major project is due to frantically email your professor with excuses for why yours isn't ready. Reach out to your professor at the start of the semester and let him or her know that you also work or have family obligations that may conflict with schoolwork. Individual profs may be willing to work with you, but not if you wait until the last minute.
  

  Scott Mason is the program manager in the Office of Distance Education at the University of Houston. He says, "If students tell their employers and professors that they're working and going to school, it might make them more sympathetic to their issues or concerns, especially if asking for an extension for an assignment or test. However, students shouldn't expect to receive special treatment. Most of their fellow classmates are probably doing the same thing."

• Combine the two: Most businesses give employees some kind of lunch break or other rest breaks during their work period. Don't waste that time gossiping with coworkers or reading a magazine; spend that time cracking the books or knocking out a little homework. If you're asking, "What work breaks?", you need to look into whether your employer is breaking state law by not giving you a rest period. Although there is no federal law requiring employers to give lunch or other breaks, several states mandate short breaks for every four hours worked.
• Don't take on too much: Jillian Reading is an academic advisor in the School of Public Health & Health Professions at the University of Buffalo. Although she said working while going to school is beneficial not just for the economic aspect but for the experience a student can gain, Reading cautioned against trying to work more than 20 hours per week. She said students in certain majors might want to consider leaving work entirely to focus on their degree, if possible.
  

  "Students who are pursuing science-based degrees that require extensive laboratory components come immediately to mind," she said, "or those students who are looking to apply to competitive graduate or professional programs and need extremely high GPAs in their coursework."

Tools to use:

• Time management apps: If you're like two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds, you own a smartphone. With the planning and calendar apps of an iPhone or Android at your side, there's no excuse for ever letting an assignment fall through the cracks. Without a smartphone, a good old-fashioned calendar or personal planner work just as well. The key is to write everything down somewhere.
  

  Don't worry about buying a calendar app; free options abound. For Android, My Class Schedule, School Helper, and Yasp have very strong ratings by users. For iPhones (and Android), Trello is a great app for individual or group project task scheduling. CalenMob, a reliable version of the Google Calendar for Apple, is also a solid choice.

• Efficiency tools: Reading gave us two special recommendations of productivity apps that she finds particularly helpful to all her students. The first is Evernote for taking and storing notes and class documents that can be easily accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection. She also likes iAnnotatePDF for highlighting or taking notes on lecture slides and other PDF documents. We would add to those a flashcard app like Flashcards+ and a dictionary app.

Risk 2: Your health suffers.

In any situation where a person is under significant pressure to perform, is faced with a seemingly never-ending list of tasks that need addressing, and is constantly stressed, maintaining good health is going to be an issue. The harmful effects of stress — high blood pressure, depression, muscle pain, loss of sex drive — are well-documented, but stress is not the only risk factor.

Being constantly on the go encourages people to eat fast food, which we don't even need to mention is usually a health no-no. It may also mean cutting back on sleep, which would be bad enough if stress wasn't already causing you sleep problems. Sleep is vital to overall health but particularly knowledge retention, so those long nights you're studying may be doing more harm than good when it comes to remembering information.

In short, working online students run the risk of damaging their health to the point they get sick and can neither work nor study. And, really, is education even worth it if you have to damage your health in the process?

How you can overcome it:

• Exercise: If your job requires you to be up on your feet moving around, thank your lucky stars; sitting at a desk for both work and school is far too much inactivity. If that's your situation, look for every opportunity to move your body. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Get your textbooks on tape and walk around while you listen to them. Even just standing at your desk instead of sitting could literally save your life. The general rule of 30 minutes of exercise per day still applies.
• Don't sacrifice your sleep: Contrary to the longstanding 8-hour rule, the optimum amount of sleep for health and productivity seems to be between 6.5-7.5 hours. But what's more important than sleep quantity is sleep quality. Good quality sleep comes from having a restful environment, exercising regularly (another good reason to move around), cutting out caffeine, and going to bed at the same time each night.
• Watch what you eat: We understand the temptation of fast or packaged food: it's generally cheap, it's easy to pack and eat on the go, and it's usually pretty tasty. But since you're going to such an effort to improve your life by earning a degree, why set yourself back by not taking care of your health? Or think of it this way: junk food may be cheap, but an angioplasty is not.
  

  Instead of throwing a candy bar in your backpack, bring along a banana (which cost about $0.15 each) or an apple (about $0.50) and some peanut butter, which will give you protein and fiber. For an easy dinner, throw a russet potato (about $0.33) in the oven for an hour while you study. Simple tips like these are all over the Internet; all you really need is the determination to eat better.

Tools to use:

• Health apps: It's never been easier to find an app that streamlines your efforts to get healthy and lets you have fun doing it. Take your workouts social with apps like Fitocracy and Zombies, Run!. Apps like Pocket Yoga and Workout Trainer teach you hundreds of exercises that you can do without going to a gym. For tips and recipes for healthy eating, apps like Fooducate have you covered, and Food Planner helps you save time at the grocery store.
• Stress and sleep apps: Sometimes you have to make time to just zone out, even if it's only for a few moments. In those instances, a meditation app like Self can work wonders. Or you can play a mindless game of slingshotting birds through space. For sleep help, try Relax Melodies to drift off and Sleep as Android to track your sleep and wake you up gently.
• Study area supplies: Setting up a healthy, ergonomic study area is extremely important for online students. For your mouse, we're fans of the Logitech Trackman to stave off carpal tunnel. Microsoft's 4000 is a good, inexpensive ergonomic keyboard. Whatever chair you use should give you good back support and let your knees bend at a 90-degree angle. Refer to OSHA's guide to computer workstations for more ergonomic tips.

Risk 3: You lose your motivation.

At a certain point in your journey toward an online degree, there is a risk that your motivation will begin to wane. You may forget why you wanted to get that degree in the first place and begin to come at your schoolwork halfheartedly. You may think you can just power through on sheer stubbornness, but you shouldn't underestimate the power of motivation in learning.

For example, a new study by researchers at the Educational Testing Service entitled "Motivation Matters: Measuring Learning Outcomes in Higher Education" found personal motivation enables students to perform "significantly and consistently" better on tests than their peers. Researchers from Reed College found in 2004 that college roommates who are studious can have "strong effects" on academic performance. This means that for online students, especially ones with families, the risk of distraction from "roommates" harming your grades might be a concern.

How you can overcome it:

• Remember why you're there: Sure, you're making money at your current job, but what are you missing out on without a degree? Well, on average over a lifetime, about $1 million for those with just a high school diploma. You're also ensuring your job security. During the recession, jobless rates were inversely proportionate to education levels: 7% for bachelor's holders, 11% for associate degree holders, and 16% for those with just a high school education.
• Get involved: Connecting with your fellow students is a crucial part of the college experience. Commiserating with them over your shared problems understanding a certain lesson will help you realize you're not going it alone. Reading suggests interacting with students who've successfully taken classes while working to get their tips and tricks.
• Set goals and reward yourself: We mentioned not trying to take on too much, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't set reasonable study or grade goals for yourself. Make sure they're realistic, otherwise you'll burn yourself out. When you reach your goals, celebrate by spending an evening with family or watching a movie with friends or whatever it is you do to recharge.

Tools to use:

• Class forums: Many individual online courses will have class forums that are required for class participation grades; most of them have an area dedicated to homework questions and off-topic discussions. Make use of the former if you need it, and the latter early and often. Find out who your classmates are, what they do, how old they are, what they think about the class. That's what college is all about.
• Motivational apps: There really is an app for everything. Lift lets you set any kind of goal, from ceasing to bite your fingernails to passing the GMAT, and get support from your friends along the way. For motivational sayings on the go, use Inspirational Quotes. For movie pep talks, just fire up the YouTube app and queue up the Braveheart speech.
• Lean on family: While they can be a distraction, family members are a built-in support team you'd be foolish to overlook. According to Reading, "I recommend sitting down with family members and explaining what you are undertaking and how much work/commitment it will require. Family members who are supportive of student efforts are key." Being up-front and honest may also help you avoid arousing resentment in them over how much time you are spending studying and working.

There's nothing easy about getting a degree, online or otherwise, and for students with time constraints it's even harder. Knowing what you're up against is half the battle of making it all the way through to graduation day.

Autism and Online Learning: A Guide for Teachers

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Today, one in every 88 American children is on the autism spectrum. Autism affects more than 2 million people in the U.S. and tens of millions worldwide. But it hasn't always been this way. Statistics show a tenfold increase in autism in the past 40 years, and prevalence rates are increasing 10%-17% each year.

With autism on the rise, many schools struggle to meet the needs of autistic students. Often, autistic adults do not take the next step to go on to college or meaningful employment, even though they may be incredibly gifted. Letting students fall behind should not be an option.

If traditional classrooms struggle to effectively educate autistic students, what can online education offer autistic learners? Tech tools and virtual learning environments present an opportunity to better serve autistic students with flexibility and resources that are well suited to guide them in learning. The more educators learn about working with autistic students, the better equipped teachers and students will be for success.

The Needs of Autistic Students

Autism represents a broad spectrum of students, from high-functioning individuals to those with significant disability. "You've got some kids who are brilliant in one area and can't work at all in another area. There's really a range," explains autism consultant Lisa Jo Rudy. Each autistic individual is unique with their own set of needs, making it difficult for some educational programs to reach every student. But there are common characteristics that online educators should be aware of and work with, including anxiety and difficulties with attention, communication, and social interaction, as well as a need for multiple learning styles.

Strong feelings of anxiety are common among those with autism or Asperger syndrome. Researchers have found that more than 80% of children with autism have at least one anxiety disorder, and many young adults with Asperger syndrome feel intense anxiety, some to a point that requires treatment. Bullying, being put on the spot, time limits, and win-lose situations can be a source of anxiety for autistic students.

Communication abilities will vary among individual students, but all people with autism experience language and communication difficulties of some kind. Teaching Students With Autism: A Resource Guide for Schools identifies common language difficulties among autistic students, including a lack of eye contact, unusual gestures, a lack of expressive language skills, and a difficulty in changing topics.

Social interaction for autistic students can be a challenge, which makes it difficult for these individuals to participate in class discussions. Teaching Students With Autism explains that people with autism have difficulty reading body language and may not pick up on important social cues. They also typically have trouble understanding the perspectives of others.

Attention difficulties are also common among autistic students. They may find it difficult to give their attention to important concepts, instead focusing on insignificant details. A short attention span, and difficulty shifting attention from one stimulus to the next is also common.

Autistic students often need to be presented with a variety of learning styles. Stephen Edelson of the Autism Research Institute explains, "It appears that autistic individuals are more likely to rely on only one style of learning." That means autism educators will need to offer multiple learning styles — visual, auditory, and hands-on — to discover the method that works best for each student.

Success for Autistic Students Online

The benefits of online education can be life-changing for autistic students. One 17-year-old with autism, Daniel, found success participating in massive open online courses (MOOCs) with Coursera. Daniel took a modern poetry class from Penn, thriving in the exclusively online format. He and his parents discovered that the online learning system worked well with his social skills and attention deficit, and the rigorous academic curriculum required him to stay on task. Says Daniel, "I can't yet sit still in a classroom, so [Coursera's online offering] was my first real course ever. During the course, I had to keep pace with the class, which is unheard of in special ed. Now I know I can benefit from having to work hard and enjoy being in sync with the world."

College student Ryan Fox has experienced similar success in online learning. For Fox, high school was distracting and stressful. He had trouble keeping up with teachers and had to start his school day all over again when he got home, relearning all of the information he didn't understand or hear the first time around. But when Fox was introduced to an online learning environment, it made him feel "very organized, calm, and safe." With online learning, he was able to find order and correctness, and knew what to expect, with no surprises and limited changes.

Where Fox struggled in traditional school, he thrives online. He's able to get his schoolwork done quickly and needs almost no accommodations. Says Fox, "When I was really little, I was curious and loved to learn, but then for a while I got so frustrated I forgot what that was like. I think any student who has certain needs and wants to rediscover his or her love of learning should try online learning. I really believe that in the future everyone will learn this way! We will all be able to learn from the very smartest people on Earth, and we will do it at our own pace every day. Our abilities will matter more than our disabilities."

How the Online Environment Helps Autistic Learners

Online learning can be a good idea for students with Asperger's or high-functioning autism. "For these students, open-ended time limits, the ability to repeat activities over and over again, and other modifications could be quite helpful," says Misty Jones, Board-Certified Behavior Analyst with Kids First Spectrum Services.

Studying online can remove elements of anxiety for autistic students. Although cyberbullying exists, online learning tools may allow autistic students to study without fear of negative interaction. The digital environment also offers the opportunity to remove anxiety triggers like being put on the spot and working within time constraints.

Autistic students can benefit from focused communication available in the online learning format. Many struggle to learn in a classroom environment where most communication is verbal. Online, autistic learners can benefit from visual tools, cues, and guided notes, as well as interactive and scenario-based learning. Autistic adult learners may also be more comfortable communicating online, especially through social media.

Online learning is also useful for catering to the social needs of autistic students. Communication is often more black and white, with limited social cues, and a lack of non-verbal communication that can be difficult to understand. Additionally, the typical discussion board format takes away students' pressure to respond immediately.

Educators can support autistic students' attention needs with clear, guided online instruction. In the online format, autistic students who may struggle with short attention spans and misplaced focus can be carefully walked through concepts in a step-by-step guide that emphasizes the most important information.

The online learning environment also offers the ability to teach the same material in multiple ways for a variety of students. As autistic learners typically benefit from learning in one specific style, each lesson should be available in multiple formats to allow students to choose the learning method that they can use best, whether they're visual, auditory, or hands on. This is difficult in the traditional classroom but possible online. Educators can offer lectures in audio or video, written text, or even in step-by-step interactive guides, all in one learning hub.

Additional benefits of online learning for autistic students include the ability to repeat learning materials and interactive elements over and over, flexible course offerings for students with "splinter skills," and open time limits. Autistic students also appreciate the consistent format of online learning, as it can be difficult to deal with small differences in each individual classroom.

There are many benefits to online learning for autistic students, but there can also be challenges. The online environment is so appealing to the autistic brain that some students struggle with cyber addiction, creating an unhealthy imbalance. Additionally, autistic students who need to develop in-person social interaction and appropriate behavior will not find many opportunities online. "Most of our students need so much real life practice to develop skills that the Internet is more of a leisure activity. It's supplemental to what they are learning in vivo," says behavior analyst Jones.

Recommendations for Online Teachers with Autistic Students

• Make use of discussion boards: Being put on the spot can make autistic students feel anxious. But online course discussion boards give them the opportunity to create a planned and well-crafted response. Avoid live chats or group Skype discussions that may cause autistic students to freeze up.
• Help students build their responses: A great way to improve online participation among autistic students is through planned, guided discussion. Autism consultant Lisa Jo Rudy recommends that online educators "have the conversation ahead of time, and prep them, and actually have them go through and prepare. ... Give them a lot of time and a lot of extra prep before the event itself." An online tool with question prompts that allows students to build responses for later discussion may be helpful.
• Allow students to try again and again: Autistic students may need to take extra time to process information and complete tasks. They may even need to do activities more than once to understand the concept and focus. You can cater to this need by offering learning materials without limits on time or turns.
• Carefully monitor for cyberbullying: The online learning environment can make autistic students feel safe, but bullying may bring up feelings of anxiety. Preventing cyberbullying can make all students feel more comfortable and open in online learning.
• Allow students to pick and choose courses: Autistic students with splinter skills may do well in math but struggle with writing. Rather than restricting students to freshman- or senior-level courses across the board, give students the opportunity to pick the right course level for their skills.
• Offer multiple learning formats: Encourage autistic students to adopt the learning style that works best for them by providing students with materials that fit different learning styles. Lectures may be delivered in audio/visual format or interactive walk-throughs, as well as in text documents.
• Guide students on a learning path: Give students the freedom to spend as much time as they need, try tasks multiple times, and allow them to do it all in a variety of different formats, but remember to guide their learning at all times. Keep their focus and attention by always showing them the next step to take.

Online learning for autistic students is largely still in development, but there's growing potential, especially at the high school and college level. "So much of what goes on in high school is not about learning academics but about fitting in with other kids. If that is what's standing in the way of a young person finishing school or excelling academically, then online is the way to go," says Jones. "For those individuals who could go to college if it weren't for the social aspect, it is a great way for them to get an education."

What's next? Dictation tools, resources for turning ideas into outlines, and even exclusive online degree programs for autistic students. Says Lisa Jo Rudy, "A lot of those types of support can be built into virtual learning environments, and probably will be, because they're not only useful for students with autism, but for any student."