New MOOC ‘Instreamia’ Offers Language Learning With A Twist

Scott Rapp and Ryan Rapp are purveyors of a new twist in the MOOC trend, what I’m calling ‘’mini-MOOCs.’’ That is, a startup or professor launching an open online course intended for the masses on their own, without the help of a large university or consortium of universities.

Scott, a former Spanish teacher turned computer data systems specialist, is teaching a free Spanish language MOOC course that started in January 2013. It’s a way to test the concept of their Instreamia language-learning startup. The Rapp brothers are a team to watch in the ed tech space.

In the Wild West of MOOCs, their experiment shows how some teachers and entrepreneurs see the trend as a way to either make a buck, test an idea, build an audience, market their product or all of the above. In addition to powerhouse MOOC providers out there such as Coursera, edX and Udacity, we are seeing superstar economics professors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok launched a MOOC course in development economics at their Marginal Revolution University via their popular blog Marginal Revolution. Similarly, the Rapp brothers are programmers and consultants turned startup entrepreneurs who are launching a MOOC Spanish course to boost their startup, Instreamia.

Scott was a data systems engineer at Deloitte & Touche consulting firm, where he helped Fortune 500 companies re-engineer their systems. He learned Spanish and lived in Honduras once. His brother lived in Japan and learned Japanese. They like learning and teaching languages and had an idea for a product they thought would be better than Rosetta Stone and others on the market.

‘’’We want to be the experts in blended learning rather than in the consumer markets where Rosetta and others are,’’ Scott says. ‘’The teachers like it. We have interviewed a dozen teachers and administrators.’’ More than 7,000 users (many of them teachers) have signed up to use the product so far and more than 1,500 have enrolled in a Spanish MOOC course Scott is teaching starting this month.

So they built Instreamia, which uses open source video such as popular music videos in Spanish or other languages to ask you questions and teach you a song. ‘’It teaches you as you go,’’ Scott explained during a recent phone call and software demo. He programmed Instreamia to track when you know a word by listening, reading, writing and speaking. They are launching Instreamia versions in English, Spanish, Japanese and Portuguese.

The New York City-based brothers have created dozens of exercises to guess the correct translation, write a word, chose a sound for the word. They use a speech tagger that analyzes parts of speech for each word. ‘’It’s an intelligent learning platform that adapts to users needs as they go along,’’ Scott explains. Scott has another startup called BlueCube, which does data systems engineering for large companies.

The brothers are waiting on a patent for some of the adaptive learning functions they built into the system. They’ve boot-strap funded ($50,000 or so) the startup so far. They are partnering with Blackboard in coming months to offer Spanish lessons via Blackboard’s Coursesite platform. The Rapps hope to integrate into high schools and colleges with that partnership and charge $30 per classroom of 30 students per year in an asynchronous format.

Meanwhile, they launched a MOOC, in Spanish for free to build their marketing and buzz. Scott will teach the course, which he says is equivalent to a first year university course (he taught spanish for two years at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah). In addition to marketing the Instremia brand, Scott says he will also pick up valuable data about usability of the product and the course will help them ‘’prove the quality of our content and the efficacy of our product.’’

The Spanish MOOC will use Google hangouts, where groups of 10 can practice with each other. So far, 1,300 have signed up for the course. That surpassed Scott’s initial goal of 1,000 students. Now, he hopes to get to 5,000 students before the late January start date. When the x-week course ends, the content will remain up for students to use but Scott doesn’t plan to keep teaching the course in coming semesters.

He thinks this is one of only two Spanish-language MOOCs on the Internet he knows of. The other one is from a community college named Wallace State. ‘’We think there is significant likelihood we’ll want to do a MOOC for English as a second language. Probably millions of people from countries like India, Philippines and Central America.’

@PaulGlader is a European Journalism Fellow at Frei Universitat in Berlin and co-founder of @WiredAcademic. He’s been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Associated Press and has written for Spiegel Online, FastCompany.com, ESPN.com and others.

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The Differences Between Projects And Project-Based Learning

There’s a big difference between using projects in the classroom versus project-based learning in the classroom. What are those differences, you ask? Lucky for you, friEdTechnology (great name) whipped up this snazzy side-by-side comparison outlining the biggest differences.

In the visual, they describe what ‘projects’ are and how they work in the classroom. For example, projects can be done at home without teacher guidance or team collaboration. They are based upon directions and the folks from friEd say they’re “done like last year” (curious if you agree with that or not!)

On the flip side, Project-Based Learning is a fluid technique to enhance learning that really looks nothing like projects as they’re described below. For example, in a PBL scenario, the teacher’s work is typically done prior to the start of the project, it’s graded on a clearly defined rubric, and has driving questions that keep the learning going.

As you can see, this is quite a slanted look at how projects are different from project-based learning but it’s interesting nonetheless. What do you think of this chart? Is it accurate? Are the descriptions correct? What would you change?

 

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Distance Learning PR Communications Degree Programs

Public relations (PR) professionals utilize communication techniques to present a positive identity with the community and target audience. Most PR studies are offered as a concentration through communication programs. Students interested in distance learning may pursue a bachelor's or master's degree program.

Bachelor's degree programs in PR communications cover areas that include media relations, corporate communications, community relations, crisis management and positive relationship building. A focus on communication strategies is often prominent in a public relations program. PR programs, like the Bachelor of Science in Public Relations, Bachelor of Arts in Communications with an emphasis in PR or B.A. in Public Relations, give students the basic knowledge they need to cultivate a career acting as a public relations specialist for businesses, government agencies or non-profit organizations.

Most programs offer two focuses - communications and public relations. Students will also have to complete general education courses in these 4-year programs. Most schools offer all courses online, so the degree can be completed fully through the school's online platform.

Coursework in a PR communications program generally covers communication skills and methods, as well as public relations-specific information. Common general courses introduce students to the field of public relations and cover different aspects of a career in this field, such as public speaking and writing.

This course covers public relations basics, such as developing press releases, PR strategies and problem-solving techniques. Most core courses require an introduction to public relations as a requirement.

Courses in how the law influences public relations may cover topics such as invasion of privacy and copyright issues. The First Amendment is also typically covered. Some courses may present case studies, which allow students the chance for practical study of legal issues in public relations.

An ethics course usually focuses on the issues that arise when dealing with public relations issues. Students may learn about professional behavior. This course usually introduces students to ethical situations and allows them to apply theories to solving the dilemmas.

Students who want to advance in their careers to a management level often pursue a master's degree program in public relations communication, such as the Master of Science in Public Relations or Master of Arts in Communication with a focus public and media relations. Students will usually learn about social media and brush up on writing and speaking skills. Many programs also have a strong focus on research, so students can develop their skills to assist them with creating PR campaigns and other materials.

Master's programs are typically offered fully online, but some schools may offer hybrid programs where some classes may be campus-based. Programs can be completed in less than two years and some may be offered in an accelerated format to allow students to complete the program more quickly. Master's programs in PR are designed mostly for professionals who are already working the field. As such, these programs are flexible, allowing students to take as many or as few classes as they feel comfortable with each semester.

PR courses at the master's level cover basic topics, such as writing, speaking and research. Professionalism is also usually covered, as is ethics. Programs also may include a thesis project, which is an individual research project on a PR communications topic.

PR specialists often act as leaders or managers of others within the PR department. In a management course, students learn how to properly guide others to form a solid and functional PR team. Leadership styles, challenges and general relations between the PR department and other company departments are other topics covered in this course.

Most PR master's programs include a course that allows students to examine different PR case studies. In this type of course, students analyze different PR situations and apply their knowledge to produce solutions and make recommendations on how to handle the situations.

Developing a public relations campaign is a large part of this career, so students learn about how to effectively create a campaign in this course. The course may cover fund raising, meeting planning and volunteer efforts.

This is a basic course that introduces students to the fundamentals of communication. Students learn how the simple communications skills people exhibit affect the PR field.

Public relations specialists serve as the main spokesperson for a company, agency or organization. In this career, a person must have excellent communication skills and be able to handle problems quickly. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2008, PR specialists held around 275,200 positions (www.bls.gov). Change for PR specialists was expected to grow by 24% from 2008-2018, with a 13% growth rate predicted for PR managers over the same period.

The BLS reported in 2010 that the average salary for PR specialists was $59,150. In the same year the average salary for public relations managers was $104,390.

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