Edtech

English in Britain, a company that has electronically published UK English language course data for the past 25 years, has developed an app allowing students to search a list of course providers and manage a shortlist of their favourites. The app is free to download on Android and iOS.

Geneviève Fioraso, French Minister of Higher Education, has announced €8 million of funding for online courses to allow France to "catch up" with other countries investing in MOOC development. At present, only 3% of French universities offer online courses, compared with 80% in the US. The Ministry wants to promote the courses for job seekers and those already in work as well as for students.

The Institute of International Education (IIE) has announced the winners of the 2014 Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education. The awards showcase the most groundbreaking models for internationalising universities, study abroad, and international partnership programmes.

The University of Cumbria has become the world's first public university to accept Bitcoin payments. In what has been described as a "trial move", students will be able to use the digital currency to pay for two courses starting in July. “We believe in learning by doing," said a professor.

Academics at Athabasca University, Canada and Qatar University are developing a mobile learning application to help employees in Qatar's oil and gas industry to learn technical English language terms used in the sector. The m-learning project has been awarded a three-year grant by the Qatar National Research Fund.

Education ministers from more than 80 countries, stakeholders and education experts have gathered in London to discuss education at policy level. Discussions centred around training skilled workforces and understanding that technology has changed the way that students expect to learn.

The Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science has committed €1 million a year to stimulate the development of open education resources in higher education institutions in the Netherlands saying they are the "business cards" of Dutch universities.

A free language exchange platform connecting teenagers around the world was launched three months ago and has attracted over 1,000 users so far. The Spanish developers aim to have 100,000 young people using the service by the end of next year.

The first Massive Open Online English Course – MOOEC– has been launched in Australia with more than 50 lessons developed by 15 Queensland colleges and universities. The roll out is the first effort to take the "showcasing" success of Massive Open Online Courses to the English language learning sector.

Student support and guidance company Gateway Education reports a significant increase in click through rates using innovative technology to send attachments via text message compared to its previous email communication.

Former international students in the UK have developed a new free proofreading software offering non-native English speakers a package deal including a dictionary, translation and vocabulary enrichment. They will begin to explore potential collaborations with overseas language schools or companies working in the education sector this month.

The US State Department has partnered with online education provider Coursera to create learning hubs at select embassies around the world. The hubs will provide a blended learning environment around courses available on the MOOC platform with the aim to promote the US as a study destination.

The University of London has published comprehensive data on its Massive Open Online Courses. Almost 9,000 students completed one of the four courses launched over the summer and the university has confirmed that so far 45 students have signed up for fee-paying degrees as a result.

EF – one of the world's largest private language training providers – has announced its online language school is now available as an Android App allowing students instant mobile access to its cloud-based online school, Efekta 13. Students will have access to teacher-led private and group classes 24 hours a day.

Vancouver-based Canadian College of English (CCEL) has recently signed contracts with governments in the Ukraine and across Latin America to train instructors in its digital English teaching curriculum, SMRT, marking its focus to expand offshore implementation over the last year.