Time to Cancel Your Ed Conference? Facebook Pulls Out of Its Biggest Event; Microsoft Follows

The Covid-19 coronavirus is prompting major tech conferences around the world to pull out of their events. Yesterday, Facebook announced the cancelation of its biggest event of the year, the F8 conference, over coronavirus-outbreak concerns and "in order to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put the event on," said the company in a statement. The conference, scheduled to be held in San Jose, California, on May 5th to 6th with an attendance of 5,000 people, will be replaced by "a combo of locally hosted events, videos, and live-streamed content," Facebook said without providing further details. The cancellation highlights how the Covid-19 or coronavirus –which has infected so far over 81,000 people and killed more than 2,700, mostly in China– is causing widespread disruption. In the case of Facebook, the company recently pulled out of the March 9 Global Marketing Summit on March 9th, a 5,000-person marketing conference held in San Francisco. In addition, the company said its supply chain for hardware has been disrupted and its employees have been told not to travel to China. Meanwhile, employees who have visited China are being asked to work from home, according to Bloomberg. Facebook's announcement followed other high-profile cancellations, including Microsoft and Unity, which pulled out of the Game Developers Conference scheduled for March 16th to 17th in San Francisco. In addition, Workday on Wednesday announced the cancellation of its March 2 sales conference. Two weeks ago, the Mobile World Congress, the largest trade show for mobile phones, was canceled in Barcelona, as well. San Francisco in State of Emergency The San Francisco Bay Area has some of the highest travel rates to and from China when compared to other regions in the US. On Tuesday, the mayor of San Francisco declared the city to be in a state of emergency, although there are still zero confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the city. The question now is whether other major conferences on tech and education as well will do the same. Google and Apple are also scheduled to have major conferences in the San Francisco Bay Area in May and June, respectively. For now, Google has confirmed that it is currently planning to host its I/O conference on May 12 to 14 in Mountain View. SXSWEdu South by Southwest (SXSWEdu), the largest upcoming edtech conference, that attracts over 30,000 people, said it plans to continue with the event on March 13 to 22, although it recognizes having "a handful of cancellations."

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Analysis: Is Instructure's Transaction Rigged? SEC's Statements Show a Transparent Process

When in mid-November the first activist investor put its eyes on Instructure/Canvas LMS, the edtech startup entered a phase of uncertainty. It happens. When Wall Street smells serious money on a potential buyout, soulless executives emerge, trying to control the narrative. No surprise that quiet workers at Canvas in Salt Lake City are still in shock. Now, they see how their company is publicly portrayed as a rigged machine, riddled with conflicts of interest, and setting a dishonest process to avoid superior offers. On February 13, 2020, at the special meeting of stockholders in Salt Lake City, Utah, shareholders will vote on the proposed transaction with Thoma Bravo. At that moment we will discover what the play of many opposing shareholders is and what's real vs. distracting smoke. In the meantime, an attentive reading of the filings to the SEC can provide us with an immediate clue. Indeed, the December 23, 210-pages proxy statement about the proposed acquisition is a gold mine. It allows anyone to understand what's going on beyond the negative public messages towards Instructure's management team. Investors and analysts who said the process is unfair and obscure will find on pages 26 to 43 plenty of details showing that the Board ran a rigorous and transparent process, evaluating dozens of proposals. The transaction took into account the evolution of the industry and possible alternatives. There were 55 contacted parties; early 20 went under NDA. And Thoma Bravo's $2 billion all-cash bid was superior in value. The speculation that the deal is pierced with conflicts of interests and CEO Dan Goldsmith was hired to primarily sell the company and to benefit Thoma Bravo doesn't seem too accurate. In fact, Goldsmith [in the picture above] wasn't part of the transaction committee and did not have a role there, according to the proxy. The statement also shows that he regularly talked to many bidders over the course of many months, reporting such interests to the Board. Inevitably, the CEO of an NYSE or Nasdaq traded company is always under suspicion when high compensations are on the table. However, in this case, the decision to proceed with the transaction with Thoma Bravo came unanimously from the Board. Dealing with the SEC is no joke and Instructure reflects on their documents (pages 27, 42-46) that to avoid the appearance of impropriety, on multiple occasions Dan Goldsmith left the room, being excused from the Board’s deliberations or debates where conflicts existed. The Company’s secretary kept track of inbound logs to ensure that the process was overseen by the board. In the end, the market dictates the price, while the SEC regulates and protects investors. Soon we will see whether or not Instructure finally goes private, and whether Thoma Bravo decides to grow the company as a whole or break it into multiple pieces, extracting value from the Bridge corporate platform, the leading position of Canvas and especially the hidden wealth of users’ data. The reality detailed by the SEC filings doesn't show any deceptive or misleading tactics played by Instructure Inc. It looks like some high-profile investors are not willing to accept the price of $47.60 in cash per share. They might believe that winning the public perception battle will enhance their position in negotiations to obtain a higher price.

edX Launches Its First Two MicroBachelors Degrees with WGU and NYU

edX.org announced yesterday the launch of the so-called MicroBachelors Program, intended to adult Americans who cannot afford a traditional Bachelor's degree and cannot take the time away from work to pursue one. These fully online programs consist of three to five courses, without admission requirements or application, and are priced between $500 and $1,500 (roughly $166 per credit). Once learners complete the full program and pass, they will earn a MicroBachelors program credential from the university offering the program. This stackable credential can be applied toward a full bachelor's degree. The first two MicroBachelors are IT Career Framework, from Western Governors University (WGU), and Computer Science Fundamentals, from NYU. A third one, Professional Writing, from Arizona State University (ASU) is forthcoming. The Information Technology Career Framework is a 6-month program with three courses, is recognized for credit by WGU and costs $1,347. The NYU's Computer Science Fundamentals is a 6-month program with three courses and costs $500. However, this program is pending recognition for credit by Thomas Edison State University (TESU). In the whole MicroBachelors program, learners will be able to apply credits from one of edX’s university credit partners toward a full Bachelor’s degree. "This is the first credit-backed stackable credential, marking a significant milestone in online learning," Anant Agarwal, co-CEO at edX wrote in a blog post. "These programs are a significant step towards making a key academic milestone — the Bachelor’s degree — accessible and doing so in a way that positively impacts the members of our workforce most at risk to be displaced by automation and other changes in the workplace," he added. In addition to WGU, NYU, ASU, TESU, edX is collaborating in its MicroBachelor program with organizations such as SunTrust Foundation (now Truist Foundation) and Walmart.org. In this regard, the Truist Foundation announced yesterda that it has awarded a $1 million grant to edX to support the initiative. "Our participation in the edX MicroBachelors Program Skills Advisory Council, a group bringing together the key stakeholders in this arena, is a fundamental part of creating these conversations," said Lynette Bell, President of the Truist Foundation. edX plans to continue adding more MicroBachelor programs and new credit pathways that stack into full degree options with other university partners in the future.  

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Esri's Free MOOC Program, with 150,000 Students, Sets a Reference in Corporate Education at Scale

Esri, the Redlands, California-based company that manages the GIS mapping software, has been quietly developing a successful and free MOOC program, setting a reference in the corporate world for digital education at scale. Esri's MOOCs, now part of the Top 100 Free Online Courses list provided by Class Central, has attracted over 150,000 enrollments worldwide, as mentioned in an interview with IBL News. [Watch the interview below]. The most successful open course has been "Cartography", with 80,000 learners. So far, they have developed five MOOCs, ranging between 4-6 weeks long, and include certificates of completion, free of charge. A sixth course, titled Spatial Data Science, is currently in the works. Esri's passionate subject matter experts teach those online classes. The completion rate numbers on these courses are as equally impressive, varying between 25% to 30%. “Our students must be more motivated than others,” Adena Schutzberg, MOOC Program Manager at Esri, explained. Esri's MOOC program was started by David DeBiase, a GIS instructor and manager within the company. His idea was based on expanding teaching while driving marketing opportunities. In addition to MOOCs, Esri offers a hundred short classes intended to keep up with the fast-paced developments in geospatial technology. The corporation uses its own home-made LMS. To promote active learning and engagement in courses, the MOOC instruction team nudged students toward active, independent and social learning. "Our tough-love approach guided students to practice a skill needed for future success and provided the instruction team members with a new perspective on their roles in teaching and learning," stated Adena Schutzberg. She keynoted the last IEEE Learning with MOOCs conference, which took place in October 23-25 in Milwaukee, WI. Her talk titled "Using Tough Love to Promote Active Learning" was exclusively recorded by IBL. [Watch it below]    

Chatbots and Other Artificial Intelligent Cases Are on the Rise, Despite High Expectations

"In education, AI is still a sleeping giant," researcher Dr. Tony Bates wrote in a must-read article. Today, one of the most extended cases of AI in teaching and learning lies in chatbots. These intelligent tutoring systems, that guide conversations or "chat" through text or voice interactions, are on the rise. In a recent interview with IBL News, David Joyner, Associate Director of Senior Experience at the Online Master of Science Computer Science and instructor of the program, commented on the new role of Georgia Tech's AI-agent –formerly known as Jill, and now named ATA– on how it is connecting students to other learners in the same class. "It's a social TA (Teacher Assistant)," he explained. Chatbots have become a common tool for banks and large finance and marketing companies as a way to reduce costs and response times. Now, a growing number of colleges and universities use this technology. Two examples: Australia’s University of Adelaide announced that students received responses 13 times faster, and learners’ approval of the quality of service increased by 60 percent, after deploying a chatbot to deal with admissions questions in 2018. Western Governors University, or WGU, in 2018 received a $750,000 award from the National Science Foundation to use machine learning in order to improve interactions with students and help them with the decision-making process, i.e., to find programs. Among many others, companies like Oracle, AdmitHub, and Ivy.ai, also provide this type of solution. As AI-based adaptive technology advances, systems will deal with several tasks, as Tony Bates reminds. At least, they will: Provide teaching content to students and simultaneously provide support by giving adaptive feedback and hints to solve questions related to the content, as well as to detect students’ difficulties/errors with content or exercises. Curate learning materials based on students’ needs, such as providing specific recommendations regarding types of reading materials and exercises, along with personalized courses of action to aid in the students’ learning experience. Facilitate collaboration between learners by providing automated feedback, generating automatic questions for discussion, and an analysis of the process. It is undeniable that there are inflated expectations for AI –a term that is often incorrectly used to describe any computational activity. Beyond the extreme hype, there are clear areas of application. AI enables adaptive learning by recommending personalized content, predictive analytics, automated feedback and support in many conversations. Artificial Intelligence is not a panacea for education. However, by having access to massive amounts of information and analyzing these data sets through algorithms and computational power, innovative software organizations can develop worthwhile applications.

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Saturday, November 22, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Today in AI & EdTech

Saturday, November 22, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

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