background image
13
dened down with a great big three-inch
binder," said Casey. "They can showcase
their work using a hyperlink."
Using Google's website builder, education
majors create their own websites and popu-
late them with lesson plans, résumés and
their own individual teaching philosophies.
Casey said this eFolio system, in addition
to an already challenging curriculum, has
helped lead to impressive statistics from
Bonaventure education majors.
Of the 2013 education graduates, "96
percent of our students were either em-
ployed or in graduate school within six
months," said Casey. Casey also said the re-
maining 4 percent were unemployed by
choice.
Elizabeth Moran, '12, graduated from the
University of Albany with an M.A. in child-
hood education with a focus on literacy.
"When I went to grad school, there were
people who had never even heard about
Common Core," said Moran. During her un-
dergrad years, "(Common Core) was so new
that it wasn't necessary to use them yet, but
Dr. Casey knew that it was coming and here
to stay and something we needed to know
about."
After earning her degree, Moran applied
and got a special education teaching job. On
the online application was a space specifically
for a portfolio link.
"The thing I have found most valuable is it's
a place I know where all my best work is,"
she said. "I can go onto my eFolio and refer-
ence everything I did at Bonaventure."
Moran has kept her résumé up-to-date on
her eFolio, while posting a "Grad School"
page that is currently under construction.
"It's a good way we, as teachers, can show
that we meet all the standards to become
teachers," Moran said.
"It proves not only that they're competent
teachers, but also that they know how to use
technology," said Casey. "They have to be
better than everyone else."
(Steves will be a senior journalism and mass
communication major at St. Bonaventure this
fall. She is spending the summer in Corning,
N.Y., as a social media and digital communi-
cations intern at Corning Incorporated. She
blogs at blackbyrd.wordpress.com.)
wasawarded to the university from the
National Science Foundation to help
recruit talented students interested in
science, technology, engineering and
math. The five-year grant will allow
SBU to provide more need-based aid to
students who might not otherwise be
able to attend St. Bonaventure. Titled
"Discovery Within Community," the
program's primary objective is to re-
cruit for the fall 2015 freshman class a
cohort of 25 academically talented stu-
dents with financial need to the biol-
ogy, chemistry, computer science,
math, and physics programs. But its
secondary objective is to enhance
STEM support services to improve aca-
demic performance and increase stu-
dent retention rates. Key components
of the plan include housing the stu-
dents together to form a learning com-
munity; taking several core-area
courses together; and taking a special
STEM course that explores the multi-
disciplinary character of 21st century
scientific discovery.
$594,287
Work by two students may soon
be paying off for their chemistry
and biology classmates. In the spring,
Dr. Steve Andrianoff and computer sci-
ence students Kyle Braham and Kat-
rina Schlum teamed up with Dr. Dave
Hilmey to develop a new chemistry-
based app for the Android platform.
This educational app is being de-
signed to help organic chemistry stu-
dents understand and master
spectroscopy, a major focus of the or-
ganic chemistry curriculum. Organic
chemistry is a highly challenging sub-
ject for chemistry and biology majors
and is often an intimidating course for
pre-med students. Braham was the
driving force in the app development
and code writing. Schlum, a bioinfor-
matics major, has experience in both
fields, and her input helped with app
design to make it a user-friendly expe-
rience. Continued research this year
should lead to a fully functional app
ready for testing in the classroom.
St. Bonaventure alumnus Jim Sheehan, '83,
chief financial officer at edX, knows personally
the impact of the funny acronym that is prom-
ising to turn higher education on its head.
The MOOC -- Massive Open Online Course
-- was introduced to the world by Stanford
University in 2003 and, since then, hundreds of
colleges and universities and multiple hosts, in-
cluding edX, have raced to the Internet to offer
their courses -- some of which typically cost
thousands of dollars per credit -- for free, to
the world, and with no admission require-
ments.
Crazy, right? That's what some educators said
at the beginning, but today -- not so much.
"MOOCs have ushered in an extremely excit-
ing time in education focused around research
and innovation," said Sheehan.
"With MOOCs, online learning is truly revolu-
tionizing education and learning. No longer are
classrooms limited to four walls. Literally hun-
dreds of thousands of people from varying
backgrounds and a wide range of ages can
take a MOOC at one time and form a commu-
nity of learners that reaches around the
globe," he said.
Within the past year alone, countries includ-
ing France, Japan, China, Mexico and Jordan
have adopted MOOCs as a way of educating
their populations, but Sheehan says that we
still have a lot to learn about what works and
what doesn't.
"As the demand for online education in-
creases, edX is expanding its reach with world-
renowned universities and institutions,
including Notre Dame, Sorbonne, the Univer-
sity of Adelaide in Australia and BITS Pilani, a
leading institute in India, among others. We
look forward to working with our new mem-
bers and continuing to offer our learners excit-
ing, relevant and informative courses."
Sheehan said edX has also signed and imple-
mented country-level deals, including a recently
launched online portal called Edraak, which is
funded and supported by the Jordanian gov-
ernment and the Queen Rania Foundation. This
is the first nonprofit MOOC platform for the
Arab world. In the long term, edX plans to ed-
ucate and impact the lives of 1 billion people
from around the globe.
S
U
M
M
E
R

2
0
1
4
B O N A V E N T U R E
The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC):
Bringing Courses to the World -- For Free
>> >>
MOOCs have ushered in an
extremely exciting time in education
focused around research
and innovation.
" ''
JIM SHEEHAN, '83
CFO at edX