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LinkedIn to buy online education company lynda.com for US$1.5 billion

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LinkedIn to buy online education company lynda.com for US$1.5 billion

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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/technology/linkedin-to-buy-online/1775058.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2015/04/09/linkedin-buying-lynda-com-1-5-billion/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/09/linkedin-to-buy-online-education-site-lynda-com-for-1-5-billion/#.onilg8:N9nV

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-09/linkedin-to-buy-online-learning-firm-lynda-com-for-1-5-billion

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/04/09/linkedin-just-dropped-1-5-billion-to-buy-online-learning-company-lynda/

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LinkedIn Corp. agreed to acquire online-education business Lynda.com Inc. in a deal valued at $1.5 billion, continuing the professional-networking service's expansion beyond its roots.

The transaction will be 52 percent in cash and the rest in stock, LinkedIn said Thursday in a statement. The deal is expected to close this quarter, the companies said.

Lynda.com, based in Carpinteria, California, offers more than 5,700 courses and 255,000 video tutorials for professional development. The company sells to individuals and large corporate customers.

Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn's chief executive officer, has been expanding the company beyond its roots as a portal for recruiters and job seekers. To attract users more often, the Mountain View, California-based company has bolstered content publishing, including contributions from such people as Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt, personal-finance commentator Suze Orman and Arianna Huffington, the founder of the Huffington Post.

Lynda.com's courses "make it possible for anybody to easily and effectively acquire a skill needed to get their first job, get a promotion, land a business deal or advance their career," Weiner said in a blog post Thursday.

James Cakmak, an analyst at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., said the deal should boost LinkedIn's revenue by 3 percent to 5 percent this year.

"Lynda.com offers LinkedIn a trusted entry into the education space," said Cakmak, who has a buy rating on the networking site's stock. "It's really about making sure their professional community has the tools to achieve what they want. That's the near-term. I think the longer-term is greater penetration into educational institutions."

LinkedIn's shares rose 1.5 percent to close at $256.14 in New York, putting the stock up 12 percent this year.

Sales increased across all three of LinkedIn's business segments in the fourth quarter. Revenue from its core service, which helps recruiters and companies find job candidates, gained 41 percent to $369 million. Sales in Marketing Solutions, offering tools for advertisers, rose 56 percent to $153 million. Revenue for the premium-subscription segment rose 38 percent to $121 million.

Lynda.com was founded in 1995 by Lynda Weinman, a Web graphics and design veteran, and her husband, illustrator-designer Bruce Heavin.

The company raised $186 million in January in a funding round led by TPG Capital. Investors including Spectrum Equity, Accel Partners and Meritech Capital Partners also participated in the funding.

"Lynda.com's business model meshes well with LinkedIn's broad strategy and focus on job training, hiring, development and job skills," analysts at RBC Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients.

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LinkedIn to Buy Education Firm Lynda.com for $1.5 Billion

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LinkedIn Corp. agreed to acquire online-education business Lynda.com Inc. in a deal valued at $1.5 billion, continuing the professional-networking service's expansion beyond its roots. The transaction will be 52 percent in cash and the rest in stock, LinkedIn said Thursday in a statement. The deal is expected to close this quarter, the companies said.

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S'pore education system has capacity to take more risks: Expert

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S'pore education system has capacity to take more risks: Expert

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As adults age, vision deteriorates. One common type of decline is in contrast sensitivity, the ability to distinguish gradations of light to dark, making it possible to discern where one object ends and another begins.

When an older adult descends a flight of stairs, for example, she may not tell the edge of one step from the next, so she stumbles. At night, an older driver may squint to see the edge of white road stripes on blacktop. Caught in the glare of headlights, he swerves.

But new research suggests that contrast sensitivity can be improved with brain-training exercises. In a study published last month in Psychological Science, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, and Brown University showed that after just five sessions of behavioral exercises, the vision of 16 people in their 60s and 70s significantly improved.

After the training, the adults could make out edges far better. And when given a standard eye chart, a task that differed from the one they were trained on, they could correctly identify more letters.

"There's an idea out there that everything falls apart as we get older, but even older brains are growing new cells," said Allison B. Sekuler, a professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior at McMaster University in Ontario, who was not involved in the new study. "You can teach an older brain new tricks."

The training improved contrast sensitivity in 16 young adults in the study as well, although the older subjects showed greater gains. That is partly because the younger ones, college students, already had reasonably healthy vision and there was not as much room for improvement.

Before the training, the vision of each adult, young and older, was assessed. The exercises were fine-tuned at the beginning for each individual so researchers could measure improvements, said Dr. G. John Andersen, the project's senior adviser and a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.

During each session, the subjects watched 750 striped images that were rapidly presented on a computer screen with subtle changes in the visual "noise" surrounding them - like snow on a television. The viewer indicated whether the images were rotating clockwise or counterclockwise. The subject would hear a beep for every correct response.

Each session took an hour and a half. The exercises were taxing, although the subjects took frequent breaks. But after five sessions, the subjects had learned to home in more precisely on the images and to filter out the distracting visual noise. After the training, the older adults performed as well as those 40 years younger, before their own training.

The older participants were also better able to make out letters on an eye chart at reading distance, although not one 10 feet away. The younger students were better able to see the distant eye chart, but not the closer one.

"We think that a behavioral intervention where learning is going on changes brain structure in older adults," Dr. Andersen said.

In the absence of a disease like glaucoma or changes in the retina and optic nerve, contrast sensitivity is processed by the brain's visual cortex. This study suggests that certain areas of the brain can be strengthened. "It means the visual system has a high degree of plasticity, even in old age," Dr. Andersen said.

Dr. Andersen and his colleagues, including Denton DeLoss, a graduate student and the paper's lead author, say they do not know how long the effects of this modest intervention will last. But an earlier study in which older adults received training to sharpen their ability to discern texture showed that the improvement was sustained for at least three months.

Dr. Andersen said that as people aged, the random firing of neurons in the brain's visual system increased, creating a kind of internal noise. At the same time, the aging brain struggles harder with external visual noise, such as snowflakes in a blizzard that obscure words on a road sign.

The latest study's exercises were designed to train adults to filter such external visual noise so they could better discern edges of contrast. "It's possible that the brain might simultaneously have been trained to reduce internalized noise," Dr. Andersen said.

Researchers are increasingly focused on perceptual learning, the brain's ability to discriminate among stimuli - training the ear, for example, to distinguish between Shostakovich and Bartok, or the palate to discern a cabernet sauvignon from a pinot noir. There is also much research on the aging brain. But until now, few scientists have thought to examine the possibilities for improving perceptual learning in older adults.

"These researchers are leading the charge," Dr. Sekuler said.

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As adults age, vision deteriorates. One common type of decline is in contrast sensitivity, the ability to distinguish gradations of light to dark, making it possible to discern where one object ends and another begins. When an older adult descends a flight of stairs, for example, she may not tell the edge of one step from the next, so she stumbles.

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http://elearn.unisim.edu.sg/earticles.htm

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Make yourself valuable, even after getting your degree: Indranee Rajah

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Make yourself valuable, even after getting your degree: Indranee Rajah

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Will answer these 2 queries over weekend - watch this space (Poh Sun)

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Will answer these 2 queries over weekend - watch this space (Poh Sun)

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http://www.mededworld.org/Learning-Technology.aspx

https://www.blogger.com/features

https://padlet.com/

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- What do you think of bringing back apprenticeship or some essence of it?

- How do you share an attitude or a mindset? I think as a healthcare professional, that is more important than the technical knowledge that is so available everywhere.

- How can we make learning addictive (like the computer games?)

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- I want to intentionally curate materials for sharing- create a curating habit daily.

- Think of ways to challenge myself daily ( I want to be that exponential curve)

- I will hire someone to help me in my learning.

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- How do you keep the discipline?

- How do you organise your curated materials?

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-It is possible to interact with students real time with technology.

-Education and teaching is a lifestyle of curating materials and sharing them.

-To fail to share is to fail to teach.

- In this day and age, anonymity allows for more open learning.

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I am interested in Technology part for teaching. It is good to develop pre-teaching exercises for students

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I am interested in Technology part for teaching. It is good to develop pre-teaching exercises for students

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Great sharing on the use of technology, Dr Goh. Will looking into implementing it in teaching both students & continuous education in newbies. I felt there still should be face to face interaction for communication between teacher and students/newbies for a more holistic education.

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Great sharing on the use of technology, Dr Goh. Will looking into implementing it in teaching both students & continuous education in newbies. I felt there still should be face to face interaction for communication between teacher and students/newbies for a more holistic education.

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For sharing your experience & motivation...

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Inspiring session. Hope to utilize this soon.

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Inspiring session. Hope to utilize this soon.

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Fresh perspective to incorpprate technology to learning pedagogy

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Engaging conversation with students in clinical attachment

How to create webpage to engage the students

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New way of teaching to get audience engaged and participate 

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New way of teaching to get audience engaged and participate 

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Found one thing in this seminar: the motivation to use technology to enhance learning and teaching for myself and students.  Thank you, Dr Goh (the incidental motivational speaker).

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Found one thing in this seminar: the motivation to use technology to enhance learning and teaching for myself and students.  Thank you, Dr Goh (the incidental motivational speaker).

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Thanks for the new information or ideas that can be use in teaching or presentation to a large group of students or audience .Its really interesting and useful to all of us.

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Ensuring students are following the lectures instead of playing games or doing their own activities using IT devices.

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Thank you for sharing how different a class can be and how doing things differently can help to deepen engagement. 

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Thank you for sharing how different a class can be and how doing things differently can help to deepen engagement. 

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I look forward to trying out some of the tools you have introduced and hope that the students will not get tired of this new method before the end of the semester.

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Technology should complement our existing teaching materials

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Commitment to try and show evidence that this works is important. On-going, sustained effort required. 

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Commitment to try and show evidence that this works is important. On-going, sustained effort required. 

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The sky is the limit for what we'd like to develop and adopt this way of teaching & learning with our students. Thank you, Dr Goh.

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Please give their contacts nad

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The use of technology in teaching may actually get students to be more engaging

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The use of technology in teaching may actually get students to be more engaging

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Is this padlet page stable?will it disappear  suddenly

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Is this padlet page stable?will it disappear  suddenly

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Wow. I should stop procrastinating N start taking videos for my students presentation.  :)

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Wow. I should stop procrastinating N start taking videos for my students presentation.  :)

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Cant wait to start....

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Thank you for inspiring me on how to motivate students. And myself as well.

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Thank you for inspiring me on how to motivate students. And myself as well.

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Idea of use of techno in learning is a great idea, moving in trend with todays society

Seems educator will require more time in class preparation, not only in the learning materials/ lastest knowledge, but also the use of the techno.

end of the day is still how educator engaged students in class.

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After today's session, will think abt hope to utilise technology more n facilitating students to learn at their 

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After today's session, will think abt hope to utilise technology more n facilitating students to learn at their 

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The Possibilities of Technology Enhanced Teachings Blew me away! 

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The Possibilities of Technology Enhanced Teachings Blew me away! 

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Indeed it is how much we want to do as educators that comes forth from the innate passion that gives intense pleasure and joy !

I need to start somewhere to build up my "bank" to start somewhere (with a word document-- Links (Reference) & Create new materials (launch in the cloud)

Ur Passion for teaching n learning is infectious and contagious! i can sense ur excitement!

Thanks for sharing not only your knowledge & but also ur passion!

I have 2 enquires:--

--May we have the links to the available & free tools that you utilise

--How do we protect the information (shared) for copyright reasons (for faculty)

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I am extremely impressed with your commitment, discipline, belief and passion for education. Well done and thank you for sharing what you have shared. 

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I am extremely impressed with your commitment, discipline, belief and passion for education. Well done and thank you for sharing what you have shared. 

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challenge: time management as there will be so many  website to share, easy as lecturer to get distracted to share many different things. 

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challenge: time management as there will be so many  website to share, easy as lecturer to get distracted to share many different things. 

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Geting students to post... what if they write something inappropriate 

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Geting students to post... what if they write something inappropriate 

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I need to change my mindset since I am already 62.

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I am keen to use pad let to increase interaction

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I am keen to use pad let to increase interaction

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Interesting, wish there is WiFi as we need to reload so many time when using 4G

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- diverted attention

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Technology enabled active learning environment to enhance student learning

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Something new to me! thanks for invitation

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Challenge is to get student(s) to be prepared for tuts

Hope technology will create interest n motivate student to participate actively in tuts

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Fun with technology ;)

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Cool

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Hello... To non NYPian, welcome to NYP

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Challenge: being logged on, the temptation for students to get into other webpage, answer email, facebook etc is high. The learning activity must be very engaging for them to stay focus. (of course nothing stopping them from doing those in a face to face lecture too)

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Challenge: being logged on, the temptation for students to get into other webpage, answer email, facebook etc is high. The learning activity must be very engaging for them to stay focus. (of course nothing stopping them from doing those in a face to face lecture too)

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This is so cool

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What if students do not have

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Excellent way to engage students

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It does work.... In lecture and in tutorials... Awesome

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It does work.... In lecture and in tutorials... Awesome

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Good if we can

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Active learning

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Problem based learning classes to learn theory

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Problem based learning classes to learn theory

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This is soooo amazing!!!!

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The most difficult part of teaching is to Engage the students n knowing tat they actually take back some msg 

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The most difficult part of teaching is to Engage the students n knowing tat they actually take back some msg 

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must  use

mobile plan.....

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Sounds awesome but unsure i can do it...

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Sounds awesome but unsure i can do it...

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Challenge:

--Large Group Sessions & E-Learning

--Active Interaction

--To be Self Directed & Committed

--to do Prior reading

--Translation of current issues (Link to principles)

Currently Do:

--Large Group, Small Group, E-learning

Hope Technology Used for:

--Segmented Prior to lecture

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Hi ! you can login to sch wifi using your staff acct if you are NYP staff.

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Hi ! you can login to sch wifi using your staff acct if you are NYP staff.

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New training centre in NYP to cultivate productivity among students

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New training centre in NYP to cultivate productivity among students

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Shortest lunar eclipse seen in Singapore over weekend

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Shortest lunar eclipse seen in Singapore over weekend

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Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#1400 A Flexible Future for Higher Education

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Tomorrow's Professor Msg.#1400 A Flexible Future for Higher Education

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1400 A Flexible Future for Higher Education

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Tomorrow's Professor - Desk-Top Faculty Development, One Hundred Times A Year

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Schools of the future

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Smart Nation an opportunity to ‘shift tone of society’: Vivian Balakrishnan

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Smart Nation an opportunity to ‘shift tone of society’: Vivian Balakrishnan

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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/community-smart-screens/1772250.html

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Mountain Climbing: Work Your Way Up From Beginner to Advanced Climbs

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Mountain Climbing: Work Your Way Up From Beginner to Advanced Climbs

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If you've never climbed before, you'll have to start small. Adrian Ballinger, founder of Alpenglow Expeditions in Olympic Valley, Calif., recommends beginners start with climbs in the U.S. and build up to bigger climbs around the world. Mr. Ballinger is leading Aaron Ollivier's trip to Ecuador's Cotopaxi. Here are some of his favorite climbs, from beginner to advanced.

The Grand Tetons, Wyoming

It may look steep and intimidating, but this rocky peak can be ascended in just a few days by beginners, he says.

...

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Mountain Climbing: Work Your Way Up From Beginner to Advanced Climbs

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If you've never climbed before, you'll have to start small. Adrian Ballinger, founder of Alpenglow Expeditions in Olympic Valley, Calif., recommends beginners start with climbs in the U.S. and build up to bigger climbs around the world. Mr. Ballinger is leading Aaron Ollivier's trip to Ecuador's Cotopaxi.

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Can you win at anything if you practise hard enough?

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Can you win at anything if you practise hard enough?

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If you had enough practice, advice and expert training, could you become a success at anything? How much is achievement based on natural ability and how much hard work?

For instance, could an "unco-ordinated computer geek" become a table-tennis star in one year?

In an international experiment, a table-tennis coach gave an "unsporty" adult an hour's coaching every day for a year in a bid to make him one of the top table tennis players in Britain.

Ben Larcombe, a young coach from north London, gave 24-year-old Sam Priestley more than 500 hours of personal tuition and took him to elite training centres in Hungary, Denmark and Middlesbrough.

He predicted he could make Sam one of the 250 highest-ranked players in Britain within 12 months.

That year has come to an end.

"I became interested in the idea that you can achieve mastery by the quantity and quality of your practice, not innate talent," says Ben.

More stories from the BBC's Knowledge economy series and how to get in touch

To test the theory, he needed someone without experience of table tennis or natural aptitude for the sport. Perhaps unflatteringly, he turned to his childhood friend Sam, a budding entrepreneur who describes himself as an "unco-ordinated computer geek".

"I was always one of the worst at any skill-based sport at school," says Sam. "No one would call me sporty."

Purposeful practice

In the book Bounce, former Commonwealth table tennis champion Matthew Syed supports the research of K Anders Ericsson which suggested that to become an expert in anything you need to put in an average of 10,000 hours of "purposeful practice".

There are not 10,000 hours in a year, so Ben focused on the quality of Sam's training.

"If you go to a table tennis club you see lots of people who have played for many, many years, but they are just hitting balls mindlessly and playing matches," says Ben.

"Sam and I were always thinking about what we should do with the time we had. Everything we did was focused on Sam's improvement."

Most lessons were held in the kitchen of Sam's shared flat on a table which also served as a dining table.

Ben recorded every session and made a video compilation which shows one second of Sam playing on every day of the challenge. The result is a modern-day Rocky montage in which the streets of Philadelphia are replaced by a cramped flatshare in east London.

Worse than an 11-year-old

The video shows Sam improving dramatically. After six months he was holding his own against seasoned club players. But he was still a long way from his target when the year ended.

Rory Scott, a coach who has trained juniors who later played for England, watched Sam in a recent tournament.

His verdict? "He is nowhere near the standard of the top under-11 player in the UK."

Why did the project fail? One reason might be that Ben chose the wrong sport.

"It is probably the most difficult sport to pick for this challenge," says Steve Brunskill, head coach at the Swerve Table Tennis Centre in Middlesbrough.

"Table tennis has the smallest court, the smallest ball, the smallest bat, the quickest reaction times, the most spin, and it's the only sport where you play on one surface but stand on another.

"You have to play so much to develop the skill, co-ordination and timing, and you have to learn to cope with different styles of opponent."

'Natural gift' versus practice

Ben is still convinced the challenge is achievable. He thinks a lack of practice time was the main obstacle to Sam's success.

"The idea of showing people what the average Joe can achieve by squeezing in table tennis training after work was a lovely one, but to be successful someone would almost certainly need to do the challenge as a sort of gap year and play full time," Ben says.

"It's clear that talent matters and perhaps results would have been quicker with a more natural sportsman who has better movement and anticipation, possibly a tennis player.

"But I can still see no reason why anyone who works hard in a purposeful way cannot achieve their goal, in table tennis or any field."

Matthew Syed is excited by Sam's progress.

"It debunks the idea that when you watch somebody who is good at something, they must have been blessed with a natural gift," he says.

"Most people have to train for a minimum of 10, sometimes 15 years, to reach mastery, but even by being committed for one year there has been a very big change in Sam's ability level and this is because the human brain is very adaptable."

Cultural differences

Mr Syed says this is an important lesson for anyone involved in education.

"In subjects like mathematics, if young people are not very good at the beginning they tend to give up because they don't think they have got a brain for numbers," he says.

"Whereas in places like China there is a very widespread cultural belief that you get better with training, so people tend to persist longer.

"The very belief about how success happens shapes the behaviours that we adopt."

This is a view supported by OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] education expert, Andreas Schleicher, who has argued that attitudes to natural ability are key factors in test results.

Mr Schleicher says in western countries failure to succeed in maths is frequently attributed by students to an innate lack of ability, arguing that success depends on being naturally gifted.

In contrast, studies of top-performing Asian countries have shown pupils attribute their success or failure to their own efforts and the ability of their teachers.

Instant gratification

Jonathan Osborne, professor of science education at Stanford University in the US, agrees that changing students' attitudes is important.

"The problem is the motivation to practise, as any child who has learnt the violin or piano will tell you," he says.

"The real challenge is that practice is hard work, and the challenge for contemporary culture is that it is too dependent on immediate gratification."

Michael Reiss, professor of science education at UCL Institute of Education, argues that dividing school pupils by ability encourages this idea of differences in talent rather than application.

"We should avoid putting students into sets according to attainment as much as possible and we should promote the message that effort matters," he says.

As for Sam, he has not given up hope of reaching the top 250.

His housemates should prepare to eat their dinner off a table tennis table for another year.

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Can you succeed at anything with enough practice?

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If you had enough practice, advice and expert training, could you become a success at anything? How much is achievement based on natural ability and how much hard work? For instance, could an "unco-ordinated computer geek" become a table-tennis star in one year?