Learning Ecosystems

How blockbuster MOOCs could shape the future of teaching [Young]

On 06/22/2018, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, computer science, content development, content repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, experimentation, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning, learning ecosystem, Lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, online media, platforms, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, universities, Using teams, vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

How blockbuster MOOCs could shape the future of teaching — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young

Excerpt:

There isn’t a New York Times bestseller list for online courses, but perhaps there should be. After all, so-called MOOCs, or massive open online courses, were meant to open education to as many learners as possible, and in many ways they are more like books (digital ones, packed with videos and interactive quizzes) than courses.

The colleges and companies offering MOOCs can be pretty guarded these days about releasing specific numbers on how many people enroll or pay for a “verified certificate” or microcredential showing they took the course. But both Coursera and EdX, two of the largest providers, do release lists of their most popular courses. And those lists offer a telling snapshot of how MOOCs are evolving and what their impact is on the instructors and institutions offering them.

Here are the top 10 most popular courses for each provider:

Coursera Top 10 Most Popular Courses (over past 12 months)

edX Top 10 Most Popular Courses (all time)

So what are these blockbuster MOOCs, then? Experiential textbooks? Gateways to more rigorous college courses? A new kind of entertainment program?

Maybe the answer is: all of the above.

These amazing pictures of spectacular waves remind me of Psalm 93

On 06/21/2018, in art, Christian education, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital photography, faith, photography, by Daniel Christian

Psalm 93 New International Version (NIV)

¹The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
    the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
    indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
²Your throne was established long ago;
    you are from all eternity.

³The seas have lifted up, Lord,
    the seas have lifted up their voice;
    the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.
⁴Mightier than the thunder of the great waters,
    mightier than the breakers of the sea—
    the Lord on high is mighty.

⁵Your statutes, Lord, stand firm;
holiness adorns your house
for endless days.

Spectacular waves shot by Rachael Talibart — from fubiz.net

Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem

On 06/20/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, business, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning hubs, Lifelong learning, passions, platforms, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, United States, universities, vision, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem — from edu2030.agorize.com
How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?

Excerpts:

The problem
Technology is rapidly transforming the way we live, learn, and work. Entirely new jobs are emerging as others are lost to automation. People are living longer, yet switching jobs more often. These dramatic shifts call for a reimagining of the way we prepare for work and life—specifically, how we learn new skills and adapt to a changing economic landscape.

The changes ahead are likely to hurt most those who can least afford to manage them: low-income and first generation learners already ill-served by our existing postsecondary education system. Our current system stifles economic mobility and widens income and achievement gaps; we must act now to ensure that we have an educational ecosystem flexible and fair enough to help all people live purposeful and economically stable lives. And if we are to design solutions proportionate to this problem, new technologies must be called on to scale approaches that reach the millions of vulnerable people across the country.

The challenge
How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?

The Challenge—Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem—seeks bold ideas for how our postsecondary education system could be reimagined to foster equity and encourage learner agency and resilience. We seek specific pilots to move us toward a future in which all learners can achieve economic stability and lead purposeful lives. This Challenge invites participants to articulate a vision and then design pilot projects for a future ecosystem that has the following characteristics:

Expands access: The educational system must ensure that all people—including low-income learners who are disproportionately underserved by the current higher education system—can leverage education to live meaningful and economically stable lives.

Draws on a broad postsecondary ecosystem: While college and universities play a vital role in educating students, there is a much larger ecosystem in which students learn. This ecosystem includes non-traditional “classes” or alternative learning providers, such as MOOCs, bootcamps, and online courses as well as on-the-job training and informal learning. Our future learning system must value the learning that happens in many different environments and enable seamless transitions between learning, work, and life.

From DSC:
This is where I could see a vision similar to Learning from the Living [Class] Room come into play. It would provide a highly affordable, accessible platform, that would offer more choice, and more control to learners of all ages. It would be available 24×7 and would be a platform that supports lifelong learning. It would combine a variety of AI-enabled functionalities with human expertise, teaching, training, motivation, and creativity.

It could be that what comes out of this challenge will lay the groundwork for a future, massive new learning platform.

Also see:

Office of Edtech Wants Help Making Sense of All Those Higher Ed Providers — from edsurge.com by Sydney Johnson

What teaching that lifts all students could look like [Rizga]

On 06/20/2018, in accessibility, collaboration, communities of practice, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, learning, motivation, participation, society, sociology, special needs, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

What teaching that lifts all students could look like — from kqed.org by Kristina Rizga

An initial comment from DSC:
I recently ran across this article. Although it’s from 12/24/15, it has some really solid points and strategies in it. Definitely worth a read if you are a teacher or even a parent with school age kids.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

…his comments in class about the substance of her ideas, his feedback on her writing, the enthusiasm in his voice when he discussed her thinking. Over the course of a year, that proof solidified into a confidence that couldn’t be easily shaken anymore. It was that pride in her intellect that gave her the fortitude and resilience to cut through many racial stereotypes and negative myths as she made her way through high school and then Boston University.
…
For McKamey, the most important value driving her teaching and coaching is her conviction that being a good teacher means hearing, seeing, and succeeding with all students—regardless of how far a student is from the teacher’s preconceived notions of what it means to be ready to learn. When teachers are driven by a belief that all of their students can learn, they are able to respond to the complexity of their students’ needs and to adjust if something is not working for a particular individual or group of students.

The best way to improve teaching and reduce the achievement gaps, McKamey argues, is to allow teachers to act as school-based researchers and leaders, justifying classroom reforms based on the broad range of performance markers of their students: daily grades, the quality of student work and the rate of its production, engagement, effort, attendance, and student comments. That means planning units together and then spending a lot of time analyzing the iterative work the students produce. This process teaches educators to recognize that there are no standard individuals, and there are as many learning trajectories as there are people.

No-quiz retrieval practice techniques [Severs]

On 06/20/2018, in education, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning theories, pedagogy, practice, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

No-quiz retrieval practice techniques — from thatboycanteach.co.uk by Aidan Severs

Excerpt:

So, although quizzing is one popular (and easy) way of ensuring that facts are remembered and recalled, here are some other ways to prompt retrieval of information from the long-term memory. All of these activities could be done by individuals, in pairs or in groups:

Free Recall
Retrieve Taking
Think Pair Share
Two Things
Last Lesson, Last Week, Last Month (or Can You Still?)
Sorting
Linking
Stories, Songs, Rhymes and Mnemonics

My notes on “Teaching Law Students How to Become Metacognitive Thinkers: Helping Students Develop Their Mental Apps”

On 06/20/2018, in adjunct faculty, faculty, ideas, instructional design, Law Schools, metacognition / metacognitive skills, pedagogy, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
With thanks going out to Nelson Miller, Associate Dean at WMU-Cooley Law School, a Professor of Law, and an author of many of his own books…below are some of my notes and reflections on the following article:

Teaching Law Students How to Become Metacognitive Thinkers: Helping Students Develop Their Mental Apps
The Appalachian Journal of Law, Forthcoming
Edwin S. Fruehwald
October 6, 2017

B. Teaching Metacognition in the Classroom

Because preparation and planning are vital to learning, law professors should set clear learning goals at the beginning of the semester and at the beginning of each unit and hand them out to the students, so that the students know what they are expected to learn in the class and to help them set their own goals for the class. (p. 14 of 61)

There are three criteria for creating goals (Insert from DC: i.e., learning objectives):

“the terminal behavior, or what the learner must be able to do by the end of instruction,”
“the conditions of demonstration, or the circumstances under which the learner must be able to perform the terminal behavior,” and
“the standards or criteria, or how well the learner must be able to perform the objective for the instructor to conclude that the learner has met it.”

Goals for a doctrinal class should include substantive, skills (process), and professionalism goals

Teachers need to teach metacognitive skills explicitly. As one author has stated, “[i]f the knowledge is never shared through discussion, modeling, or explicit instruction, it is difficult for students to learn.” Moreover, being explicit about the learning process is a key to creating a learning self-identity. Knowledge of metacognitive strategies, such as those for memorization, studying, and reading, makes students more likely to use them, especially if they are told that such strategies will improve their performance and grades. (p. 15)

Professors should say out loud their thinking process when working sample problems “Modeling of strategies”–talking out loud about the steps the teacher uses when solving a particular problem–helps students develop metacognitive process skills (mental apps) by providing models. When students are given a problem to solve they generally focus on task completion, rather than the problem-solving process. Consequently, they will usually adopt a trial and error approach, rather than the process the teacher wants them to employ. Modeling of strategies helps solve this problem. Similarly, telling the students why the professor is employing a particular strategy helps conditional metacognition. After giving the demonstration, the professor should also ask questions that determine whether the students understood the processes for coming up with the answers (the problem-solving strategies). Teachers should also help students create strategies for solving ill-defined problems. In sum, the teacher should demonstrate a sample problem’s thinking process in detail, explain why the teacher used that process, have students do similar problems, then give student’s feedback on their problem-solving skills. (p. 18)

An example of scaffolding is partially filling out a diagram, then letting the students finish it (the partial outline approach). Another one is giving students leading questions before they read a case. (p. 19)

Professors should teach their students how to listen in class. Active listening aids learning, while passive listening often results in little retention. Students should think about what they are hearing in class. How does the material relate to my prior knowledge? What is important and what is less important? How can I use this material later? Where would I put this material in an outline? Students should also critically evaluate what the professor is saying. Do I agree? Is there an alternative argument? What are the implications of this argument? Similarly, professors should teach students effective note taking. (p. 20)

Law professors should also help students with study strategies. Deciding what items to study, how to allocate study time, and what study strategies to use are types of metacognitive control. (p. 22)

…

Professors should help students use study strategies that reinforce long-term memory and create connections between concepts, processes, declarative knowledge, etc. One way of doing this is through repetition,

…

Experts advise at least four repetitions of material each at least once within a day for retention.

Professors should help their students develop reading strategies. Engaged teachers help their students extract meaning and comprehension from cases, rather than just producing empty briefs. (p. 23)

E. Using Formative Assessment to Develop Metacognition

Well-designed formative assessments–assessments within the learning (during the semester)–that are related to course goals also aid in learning metacognition. This is because formative assessments force students to think about their thinking. As one scholar has asserted, “[a]ssessment methods and requirements probably have a greater influence on how and what students learn than any other single factor.” As one legal educator has noted, “[f]ormative assessment . . . is designed to provide feedback and guide students to improve and learn further, based on feedback that enhances their capacity to build on what they know and address areas of misunderstanding.” As a group of researchers have pointed out, “[i]f the assessments reflect the contexts in which the knowledge is to be used, this is nothing more than practice.”

Under the “testing effect,” “learning and memory for material is improved when time is spent taking a test on the material, versus spending the same amount of time restudying the material” because testing engages students in the subject matter. Also, testing uses retrieval, which as stated above, helps long-term retention. In addition, students retain more if they get feedback on their assessment because without feedback students don’t why they’ve made mistakes. Similarly, students who receive feedback are generally more engaged, more positive about law school, and spend more time studying than those who do not receive feedback. In addition, feedback about process is generally more useful than feedback about product. (p. 32)

There are many different kinds of formative assessments, including writing assignments, problem-solving exercises, multiple choice tests, observations, and [daily/weekly quizzes]. For instance, a professor could give the students a problem-solving exercise at the end of a unit to do at home, then go over that exercise in class. Likewise, the professor could give the students a take-home multiple choice test that could be graded by a teaching assistant. Similarly, the professor could give the students a complaint, a corporate document, or a lease and have the students find errors. Finally, the students could draft a contract clause after the unit concerning that clause. (p. 33)

The general criteria for designing effective formative assessments are:

formulate learning objectives and performance standards; publicize them to the students
design the assessment tool
design instruction and activities to enable the students to learn what they need to fulfill the assessment task
provide feedback/discussion — the teacher and student must discuss and use the results of the assessment measure to further promote learning and teaching

As one scholar has noted, “students learn more effectively when their teachers provide them with the criteria by which they are evaluated.” One way of doing this is through rubrics–“sets of detailed written criteria used to assess student performance.” (p.34)

“[R]ubrics are an attempt to break the grade down into a series of scores that pertain to various aspects of the assignment.” Rubrics identify how a student performed on a particular task, skill, or area. They include both characteristics and levels of quality. They can be a scoring rubric, an instructional rubric, or both. Rubrics should be related to the teacher’s goals for the class. They can employ grades, numbers, or categories.

“Successful students take charge of their own learning.”

From DSC:
My concern with this great article is that it’s a lot of valuable information to take in all at once — let alone try to act upon that information! I’ve only touched upon a subset of the items within that article. As such, it’s too much information for faculty members and instructional designers to remember and to act upon – as a whole.

This is why I’m such a fan of blogging and chunking valuable information up into much smaller pieces — then sending out such information piece by piece, where it’s much easier to digest and act upon.

AR & VR — Education’s marvelous revolution — from verizoninternet.com

Excerpt:

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), often used in video games and mobile apps, are transforming the world—and with that, the way we learn. These technologies have the capability to change students’ outlook on the world and the way they engage with it. After all, why would you learn about outer space from a classroom when you could learn about it from the International Space Station?

As AR and VR technology become more widely available and user-friendly, interest and market value have spiked across the world. In 2017, interest in VR hardware such as PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Gear VR spiked around the globe.2 In China in particular, AR and VR are booming.

…

With AR and VR, geographical distances are no longer an obstacle. Interactive experiences, tutorial videos, and learning apps work just as well, whether the teacher and student are in the same room, or across the world from each other.

…

From their site, here are some additional resources:

Webinar: Bringing interactivity to schools and classrooms:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxf6VxvWXAo&feature=youtu.be
Google Cardboard Expedition Kits:https://edu.google.com/expeditions/#header
Nearpod VR for Schools: https://nearpod.com/nearpod-vr
zSpace for learning experiences in professional development as well as schools: www.zSpace.com
25 of the best resources for schools wanting to invest in VR and AR:https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=883&category=In-the-
An overview of virtual reality options for K-12 schools:http://www.emergingedtech.com/2017/06/real-uses-of-virtual-reality-in-education-how-schools-are-using-vr/
https://technical.ly/baltimore/2015/05/29/alchemy-learning-virtual-reality-classroom-oculus/
View a video on how schools such as St Wilfred’s Academy in the UK are using VR to engage students: http://www.classvr.com/
How reality technology is used in education:http://www.realitytechnologies.com/education
Read about schools that have succeeded in teaching multiple subjects using AR and VR: http://fortune.com/2016/02/25/school-districts-teaching-through-virtual-reality/
See how school students learn about the human heart in 3D:https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/chandler/2017/03/16/chandler-students-using-augmented-reality-work-human-heart/97966092/

Study shows VR increases learning — from Donald Clark

Excerpt:

I have argued that several conditions for good learning are likely to be enhanced by VR. First there’s increased attention, where the learner is literally held fast within the created environment and cannot be distracted by external stimuli. Second is experiential learning, where one has to ‘do’ something where that active component leads to higher retention. Third is emotion, the affective component in learning, which is better achieved where the power to induce empathy, excitement, calm and so on is easier. Fourth is context, where providing an albeit simulated context aids retention and recall. Fifth is transfer, where all of these conditions lead to greater transfer of knowledge and skills to the real world.

Example Use Cases of How to Use Virtual Reality (VR) for Training — from instavr.co

Some of the topics covered include:

Employee Onboarding (and Cross-Training)
Preparing for Rare or Unexpected Events
Employee Testing
Customer/Client Interaction Practice

8 of the Wildest Augmented Reality Glasses You Haven’t Seen Yet — from next.reality.news by Adario Strange

“Computers that never forget a face” + 9 other items re: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

On 06/19/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, algorithms, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, intelligent systems, Law Schools, Lifelong learning, Microsoft, Natural Language Processing (NLP), society, tools, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Computers that never forget a face — from Future Today Institute

Excerpts:

In August, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will roll out new technology that will scan the faces of drivers as they enter and leave the United States. For years, accomplishing that kind of surveillance through a car windshield has been difficult. But technology is quickly advancing. This system, activated by ambient light sensors, range finders and remote speedometers, uses smart cameras and AI-powered facial recognition technology to compare images in government files with people behind the wheel.

Biometric borders are just the beginning. Faceprints are quickly becoming our new fingerprints, and this technology is marching forward with haste. Faceprints are now so advanced that machine learning algorithms can recognize your unique musculatures and bone structures, capillary systems, and expressions using thousands of data points. All the features that make up a unique face are being scanned, captured and analyzed to accurately verify identities. New hairstyle? Plastic surgery? They don’t interfere with the technology’s accuracy.

Why you should care. Faceprints are already being used across China for secure payments. Soon, they will be used to customize and personalize your digital experiences. Our Future Today Institute modeling shows myriad near-future applications, including the ability to unlock your smart TV with your face. Retailers will use your face to personalize your in-store shopping experience. Auto manufacturers will start using faceprints to detect if drivers are under the influence of drugs or alcohol and prevent them from driving. It’s plausible that cars will soon detect if a driver is distracted and take the wheel using an auto-pilot feature. On a diet but live with others? Stash junk food in a drawer and program the lock to restrict your access. Faceprints will soon create opportunities for a wide range of sectors, including military, law enforcement, retail, manufacturing and security. But as with all technology, faceprints could lead to the loss of privacy and widespread surveillance.

It’s possible for both risk and opportunity to coexist. The point here is not alarmist hand-wringing, or pointless calls for cease-and-desist demands on the development and use of faceprint technology. Instead, it’s to acknowledge an important emerging trend––faceprints––and to think about the associated risks and opportunities for you and your organization well in advance. Approach biometric borders and faceprints with your (biometrically unique) eyes wide open.

Near-Futures Scenarios (2018 – 2028):

Optimistic: Faceprints make us safer, and they bring us back to physical offices and stores.

Pragmatic: As faceprint adoption grows, legal challenges mount.
In April, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Facebook must confront a class-action lawsuit that alleges its faceprint technology violates Illinois state privacy laws. Last year, a U.S. federal judge allowed a class-action suit to go forth against Shutterfly, claiming the company violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which ensures companies receive written releases before collecting biometric data, including faces. Companies and device manufacturers, who are early developers but late to analyzing legal outcomes, are challenged to balance consumer privacy with new security benefits.

Catastrophic: Faceprints are used for widespread surveillance and authoritative control.

How AI is helping sports teams scout star play — from nbcnews.com by Edd Gent
Professional baseball, basketball and hockey are among the sports now using AI to supplement traditional coaching and scouting.

Preparing students for workplace of the future — from educationdive.com by Shalina Chatlani

Excerpt:

The workplace of the future will be marked by unprecedentedly advanced technologies, as well as a focus on incorporating artificial intelligence to drive higher levels of production with fewer resources. Employers and education stakeholders, noting the reality of this trend, are turning a reflective eye toward current students and questioning whether they will be workforce ready in the years to come.

This has become a significant concern for higher education executives, who find their business models could be disrupted as they fail to meet workforce demands. A 2018 Gallup-Northeastern University survey shows that of 3,297 U.S. citizens interviewed, only 22% with a bachelor’s degree said their education left them “well” or “very well prepared” to use AI in their jobs.
…
In his book “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun argued that for higher education to adapt advanced technologies, it has to focus on life-long learning, which he said says prepares students for the future by fostering purposeful integration of technical literacies, such as coding and data literacy, with human literacies, such as creativity, ethics, cultural agility and entrepreneurship.

“When students combine these literacies with experiential components, they integrate their knowledge with real life settings, leading to deep learning,” Aoun told Forbes.

Amazon’s A.I. camera could help people with memory loss recognize old friends and family — from cnbc.com by Christina Farr

Amazon’s DeepLens is a smart camera that can recognize objects in front of it.
One software engineer, Sachin Solkhan, is trying to figure out how to use it to help people with memory loss.
Users would carry the camera to help them recognize people they know.

Microsoft acquired an AI startup that helps it take on Google Duplex — from qz.com by Dave Gershgorn

Excerpt:

We’re going to talk to our technology, and everyone else’s too. Google proved that earlier this month with a demonstration of artificial intelligence that can hop on the phone to book a restaurant reservation or appointment at the hair salon.

Now it’s just a matter of who can build that technology fastest. To reach that goal, Microsoft has acquired conversational AI startup Semantic Machines for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2014, the startup’s goal was to build AI that can converse with humans through speech or text, with the ability to be trained to converse on any language or subject.

Researchers developed an AI to detect DeepFakes — from thenextweb.com by Tristan Greene

Excerpt:

A team of researchers from the State University of New York (SUNY) recently developed a method for detecting whether the people in a video are AI-generated. It looks like DeepFakes could meet its match.

What it means: Fear over whether computers will soon be able to generate videos that are indistinguishable from real footage may be much ado about nothing, at least with the currently available methods.

The SUNY team observed that the training method for creating AI that makes fake videos involves feeding it images – not video. This means that certain human physiological quirks – like breathing and blinking – don’t show up in computer-generated videos. So they decided to build an AI that uses computer vision to detect blinking in fake videos.

Bringing It Down To Earth: Four Ways Pragmatic AI Is Being Used Today — from forbes.com by Carlos Melendez

Excerpt:

Without even knowing it, we are interacting with pragmatic AI day in and day out. It is used in the automated chatbots that answer our calls and questions and the customer service rep that texts with us on a retail site, providing a better and faster customer experience.

Below are four key categories of pragmatic AI and ways they are being applied today.

1. Speech Recognition And Natural Language Processing (NLP)
2. Predictive Analytics
3. Image Recognition And Computer Vision
4. Self-Driving Cars And Robots

Billable Hour ‘Makes No Sense’ in an AI World — from biglawbusiness.com by Helen Gunnarsson

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the practice of law, and “data is the new oil” of the legal industry, panelist Dennis Garcia said at a recent American Bar Association conference.Garcia is an assistant general counsel for Microsoft in Chicago. Robert Ambrogi, a Massachusetts lawyer and blogger who focuses on media, technology, and employment law, moderated the program.“The next generation of lawyers is going to have to understand how AI works” as part of the duty of competence, panelist Anthony E. Davis told the audience. Davis is a partner with Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP in New York.
…
Davis said AI will result in dramatic changes in law firms’ hiring and billing, among other things. The hourly billing model, he said, “makes no sense in a universe where what clients want is judgment.” Law firms should begin to concern themselves not with the degrees or law schools attended by candidates for employment but with whether they are “capable of developing judgment, have good emotional intelligence, and have a technology background so they can be useful” for long enough to make hiring them worthwhile, he said.

Deep Learning Tool Tops Dermatologists in Melanoma Detection — from healthitanalytics.com
A deep learning tool achieved greater accuracy than dermatologists when detecting melanoma in dermoscopic images.

Apple’s plans to bring AI to your phone — from wired.com by Tom Simonite

Excerpt:

HomeCourt is built on tools announced by Federighi last summer, when he launched Apple’s bid to become a preferred playground for AI-curious developers. Known as Core ML, those tools help developers who’ve trained machine learning algorithms deploy them on Apple’s mobile devices and PCs.

At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday, Federighi revealed the next phase of his plan to enliven the app store with AI. It’s a tool called Create ML that’s something like a set of training wheels for building machine learning models in the first place. In a demo, training an image-recognition algorithm to distinguish different flavors of ice cream was as easy as dragging and dropping a folder containing a few dozen images and waiting a few seconds. In a session for developers, Apple engineers suggested Create ML could teach software to detect whether online comments are happy or angry, or predict the quality of wine from characteristics such as acidity and sugar content. Developers can use Create ML now but can’t ship apps using the technology until Apple’s latest operating systems arrive later this year.

7 characteristics of successful flipped learning experiences [Honeycutt]

On 06/09/2018, in active learning, adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, faculty, flipping -- inverted learning, higher education, learning, learning ecosystem, pedagogy, student-related, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

7 characteristics of successful flipped learning experiences — from linkedin.com by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D.

Excerpt:

If your flipped classroom isn’t working the way you thought it would, step back and take a closer look. One of these seven characteristics is probably missing.

Many faculty members report frustration with students coming to class unprepared or unmotivated which makes it difficult to implement flipped or active learning strategies. After all, if students don’t do the pre-class work, how can they effectively participate in activities that require them to engage in higher level learning experiences?

While this is one of the most common challenges about the flipped classroom, there are other variables that can affect the success of the model.

Here are seven characteristics of successful flipped learning experiences based on my book The FLIP It Success Guide: the 7 Characteristics of Successful Flipped Classrooms and Active Learning Experiences (2018). Let’s take a brief look at each one…

Evolve to Solve: 6 Ways to Navigate the Changing Landscape of an Instructional Designer [Davis & Fourie]

On 06/09/2018, in adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, faculty, higher education, instructional design, pedagogy, universities, by Daniel Christian

Evolve to Solve: 6 Ways to Navigate the Changing Landscape of an Instructional Designer — from er.educause.edu by Sara Davis and Linley Fourie

Excerpt:

These six strategies can help instructional designers keep up with the ongoing transformations in higher education.

Network, Network, Network
Identify Your Faculty Champions
Gather Faculty and Student Testimonials and Evidence of Success
Find Your Niche
Managing Your Task List = More Time for the Really Good Stuff
Embrace Empathetic Design

However, a singular focus on technology-based solutions can result in faculty’s thinking of instructional designers as tech or learning management system (LMS) support. We aren’t saying that we do not occasionally fill these roles, but rather that our function extends beyond the realm of specific technological interventions.