2015 November

Augmented reality: A great story triggers the mind [van Berkum]

On 11/16/2015, in 21st century, accessibility / UDL, Augmented Reality (AR), digital storytelling, engagement / engaging students, Europe, story, storytelling, by Daniel Christian

Augmented reality: A great story triggers the mind — from arjenvanberkum.nl by Arjen van Berkum

Excerpts:

Augmented reality brings learning to life. Augmented reality enriches a live view of a real-life environment – the so called reality – with computer-generated input, that can consist out of sound, graphics, text, video, and GPS information. In other words, AR provides us with an enhanced view of the real world.
…
As Gaia Dempsey, Managing Director of DAQRI International, explains, “80% of the information that the brain takes is visual. So by providing information in a visual medium that also has the spatial nature of augmented reality, you’re giving the brain a very intuitive way of accessing knowledge.”

The World’s Largest iBeacon Network Emerges [prnewswire.com]

On 11/13/2015, in Asia, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), by Daniel Christian

The World’s Largest iBeacon Network Emerges — from prnewswire.com

Excerpt:

BEIJING, Nov. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The world’s largest network of iBeacon devices has emerged in China, consisting of 110,000 units run and managed by Sensoro. The network spans 25 movie theatres, sixteen airports, 39 high-end retail stores, 40 major tourist destinations, 200 universities, 260 high speed trains, 1,500 Pizza Hut restaurants, and 2,100 Chow Tai Fook (CTF) jewelry retail stores among other locations.
…
During the 2015 Chinese New Year, Chow Tai Fook’s use of iBeacon brought in 11 million dollars in revenue with a conversion rate up to 63%, far surpassing expectations (Source: CTF 2015 annual earnings).

Also see:

Sensoro Announces 110K Beacon Network

Microsoft Simulator Brings Quantum Computing One Step Closer to the Masses [Darrow]

On 11/13/2015, in computer science, Microsoft, programming, simulations, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft Simulator Brings Quantum Computing One Step Closer to the Masses — from fortune.com by Barb Darrow

Excerpt:

Microsoft will share its LIQUi|> (no, that’s not a typo) simulator software with the public, so academics can test quantum computing operations on laptops or in the cloud.

On Friday, Microsoft is releasing simulation software that it says will let academics, scientists, or even do-it-yourself eggheads simulate quantum computing on their laptops.

The promise of quantum computing, which breaks the nuts-and-bolts of computing down to the sub-atomic level, is that it can solve problems that go far beyond the capabilities of even today’s most powerful computers.

8 characteristics of good online video — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Instructor-led video is a must in online learning, but not all videos are successes. Here are eight tips to help educators create effective online videos for their courses.

Excerpt:

According to a report published in the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, instructor-generated video can have a positive influence on student satisfaction with, and engagement in, online courses. But not all videos are created equal.

Research conducted by the American Academy of Neurology also reveals that “watching videos helps boost brain plasticity,” or the ability of the brain to undergo physical changes at any age. Learners who were trained to perform a particular task through videos performed better than those who learned through images and text, the researchers found—and they concluded that video has a “higher impact on the brain.”

However, researchers emphasize that the format of the video, its platform, and the subject are all variables in the video’s effectiveness.

“Creating interesting, professional videos does take some planning and technical skill,” says eLearn Magazine. “There’s also a fear of perceived high cost. But none of these barriers are insurmountable. By employing … tips to know when to use it, how to maximize its effectiveness, and how to keep costs reasonable, you can make video a key part of your next online course.”

Here are eight tips to help educators create videos for their online courses…

From DSC:
A quick reflection here. Frame rates, compression, having the right equipment and recording facilities, how best to frame a shot, knowing about proper lighting and placement of microphones, and more…hmmm…and we expect the faculty member to know/do all this as well as keep up with their knowledgeabase of their particular discipline? Not likely in many cases. Time’s too limited — even if all of the required gifts and/or interest levels were there (which is asking a lot).

This is why I’m big on using TEAMS of specialists. Depending upon the quality of your products/services that your organization is willing to accept, flipping the classroom or using video in online-based learning requires a team of specialists.

The Current State of Machine Intelligence — from Shivon Zilis; with thanks to Ronald van Loon for posting this on Twitter

Excerpt:

I spent the last three months learning about every artificial intelligence, machine learning, or data related startup I could find — my current list has 2,529 of them to be exact.
…
The most exciting part for me was seeing how much is happening the the application space. These companies separated nicely into those that reinvent the enterprise, industries, and ourselves.

Also see:

K-5 principal uses iBeacons in order to track his visits to classrooms, to insure equality

On 11/12/2015, in education technology, K-12 related, leadership, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), by Daniel Christian

Tech solutions to principals’ overloaded schedules — from edweek.org by Tim Lauer

Excerpt:

Recently, I placed an iBeacon in my office. Using an iOS app called Proximity Log, I started having Proximity Log track my time spent in my office based on proximity to the beacon. Whenever I enter my office, Proximity Log connects with the beacon, and notes the time I am near that beacon, and thus in my office. Proximity Log keeps track of the number of visits and the duration of each of those visits. The data are exportable and can be used in programs such as Excel or Google Sheets.

While this one beacon gave me a good understanding of the amount of time I was spending in my office, it did not tell me where I was when I wasn’t in my office. So, after my experimentation with the iBeacon in my office, I decided to place others in classrooms. Subsequently, I have placed iBeacons in all of my classrooms and set up the Proximity Log app to interact with these specific classroom beacons. Now, as I move in and out of classrooms, Proximity Log notes when I enter the room, and how long I stay. I have been able to analyze this ambient logging to make sure I am visiting all classrooms on a regular basis.

One of my chief professional goals is to spend extended periods of time in classrooms, providing feedback and support. With the use of iBeacons to track my movements in the school building, I am able to do a better job keeping track of these visits and make sure I am not shortchanging any classroom.

Addendum on 11/13/15:

The Connected School: How IoT Could Impact Education — from huffingtonpost.com by Jeanette Cajide
Excerpt:
But how soon before our children or we attend a smart school? How will the Internet of Things eventually impact education in the USA?
…
This means in all likelihood, for the education system in the USA to make the leap to a connected school, school districts and state education agencies will need to drive the digital strategy and appropriately budget and allocate funding to create these products and related “smart schools.”
Smart technology will impact education in the following two ways:
- Students will learn faster.
- Teachers will be able to do their job more efficiently.

Amazon launches new program to fund university research [Greene]

On 11/12/2015, in Amazon, colleges, community colleges, funding / grants, higher education, ideas, innovation, research, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Amazon launches new program to fund university research — from seattletimes.com by Jay Greene; via the College Planning & Management Weekly Update

Excerpt:

Amazon.com is getting into the university grant-making business, launching a new program Thursday to fund research into big, world-changing ideas at universities.

The program, Amazon Catalyst, will debut at the University of Washington.

Amazon hopes to fund research into ideas in complex and vexing areas such as climate change and immigration. And the company is keen to put money toward “early-stage ideas” that might not otherwise get grant money.

In announcing the program, Amazon isn’t putting a limit on the amount it will dole out. But Adam Siegel, Amazon Catalyst’s managing director, said the “ballpark” range would run from “tens of thousands of dollars” to $100,000 per grant. He said Amazon hasn’t set a limit on the number of projects it will fund or the duration of Catalyst.

IBM and Apple are now very much involved in healthcare

On 11/11/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Apple, data related items, health, IBM, platforms, tools, vendors, wearables, by Daniel Christian

IBM Watson, Boston Children’s team on rare pediatric diseases — from medcitynews.com by Neil Versel

Excerpt:

Here’s another practical application of IBM Watson technology in healthcare: Boston Children’s Hospital is going to tap the supercomputing platform to improve diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases.

Researchers at the Harvard-affiliated hospital’s Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research will train Watson in nephrology by reading medical literature and scanning data on mutations for a kidney disease known as steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome. They will then give Watson retrospective genomic data from patients in an effort to teach the computer to assist physicians in interpreting genome sequences as they look for abnormalities.

Wearables will see mass adoption via educated patients and digital health stores — from medcitynews.com by Shahid Shah

Excerpt:

In a fees-for-services (volume-driven) world, selling healthcare products and services to individual institutions is certainly time-consuming but reasonably straightforward. In an outcomes-driven (fees for value) world driven by shared risks and shared rewards, selling healthcare solutions across multiple disciplines, multiple stakeholders, and multiple institutions is much harder and even more time-consuming. That’s because there’s no easy buyer to identify. Population health is all the rage but our current $3 trillion + healthcare industry was never devised nor incentivized to work together as a team for long-term patient or population benefits (it’s reimbursed mainly for episodic care).

Our country’s healthcare industry is more about sick care and episodic transactions rather than longitudinal care. But, since we are moving to population and outcomes driven care where the patient is more responsible for their own care management and payment, it would seem patient education and digital health tools are more important than ever. So, perhaps we need to get together and innovate around how we’re going to present next-generation solutions from across multiple innovators and showcase them to patients and their caregivers.

Watch users claim Apple wearable improves health — from fiercemobilehealthcare.com by Judy Mottl

Excerpt:

Nearly two-thirds of Apple Watch users are exercising more often and for longer periods of time, and 72 percent claim the wearable is improving their health and fitness levels, according to a new report.

IBM forms new health data analytics unit, extends Apple partnership— from zdnet.com by Charlie Osborne
With the help of Apple, acquisitions and new partnerships, Big Blue plans to tap into the vast amount of data offered by health-tracking devices.

After medical school, IBM’s Watson gets ready for Apple health apps — from zdnet.com by David Shamah
The Watson Health Cloud – set to become an important component of Apple’s health platform – is targeting medical care, IBM says.

Excerpt:

“Watson went to medical school, and now it’s set to graduate,” said Dr Aya Soffer, director of big data and cognitive analytics at the Israel facility. “We’ve had it study the medical literature, and now it’s ready to apply its natural language processing skills to real-life applications.”

Just in time, too. Last week, IBM announced the launch of Watson Health Cloud to “provide a secure and open platform for physicians, researchers, insurers, and companies focused on health and wellness solutions”.

The platform will be used by health companies Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic, as well as by Apple. The Mac maker has its own platform and hopes to become a top health company itself. It has established a new business unit, called Watson Health Cloud, to administer the big data apps that will use Watson’s intelligent analysis and understanding of medical data.

Addendum on 11/13/15:

NYU Medical Students Learning How to Analyze Big Data — from imedicalapps.com by Brian Wu
Excerpt:
Big data is changing the way information is shared in the medical field. Current technologies such as IBM’s Watson are working to merge data from multiple sources to make it easier to access as well as share. Even ten years ago most doctors would not have known anything about big data, and it was definitely not taught in medical school. Today big data is becoming a crucial part of the healthcare field including the diagnosis and treatment of patients. It is important that doctors not only understand the importance of data but know how to properly access and interpret the data. The NYU School of Medicine requires that its first and second-year students complete a health care by the numbers project. Students are given access to a giant database with more than 5 million anonymous records, which includes information on every hospital patient in the state for the preceding two years.

WordPress now powers 25% of the Web [Protalinski]

On 11/11/2015, in blogs / blogging / vlogging, communications, internet, open courseware and systems, platforms, tools, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

WordPress now powers 25% of the Web — from by Emil Protalinski

Excerpt:

One in four websites is now powered by WordPress.

Today is a big day for the free and open-source content management system (CMS). To be perfectly clear, the milestone figure doesn’t represent a fraction of all websites that have a CMS: WordPress now powers 25 percent of the Web.

What Google’s new open-source software means for artificial-intelligence research [Wexler]

On 11/11/2015, in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, computer science, Google, open courseware and systems, programming, research, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

What Google’s new open-source software means for artificial-intelligence research — from chronicle.com by Ellen Wexler

Excerpt:

Google wants the artificial-intelligence software that drives the company’s Internet searches to become the standard platform for computer-science scholars in their own experiments.

On Monday, Google announced it would turn its machine-learning software, called TensorFlow, into open-source code, so anyone can use it.

“We hope this will let the machine-learning community — everyone from academic researchers, to engineers, to hobbyists — exchange ideas much more quickly, through working code rather than just research papers,” Google announced on its website.

Until now, researchers have had access to similar open-source software: Torch, built by researchers at New York University, as well as Caffe and Theano, are also open to everyone. TensorFlow is meant to combine the best of the three, Jeff Dean, a top engineer at Google, told Wired.

Also see:

Cognitive technologies: The real opportunities for business
Instructor: David Schatsky
A free course from Deloitte University Press | October 19, 2015 – December 8, 2015

Excerpt of description:

Artificial intelligence (AI) may sound like science fiction, but it is real, and becoming increasingly important to companies in every sector. The field of artificial intelligence has produced a wide variety of “cognitive technologies” that simulate human reasoning and perceptual skills, giving businesses entirely new capabilities and enabling organizations to break prevailing tradeoffs between speed, cost, and quality.

Aimed at a general business audience, this course demystifies artificial intelligence, provides an overview of a wide range of cognitive technologies, and offers a framework to help you understand their business implications. Some experts have called artificial intelligence “more important than anything since the industrial revolution.” That makes this course essential for professionals working in business, operations, strategy, IT, and other disciplines. Throughout the course, participants will build a knowledge base on cognitive technologies to equip them to engage in discussions with colleagues, customers, and suppliers and help them shape cognitive technology strategy in their organization.

Discover Explain3D [Atwater]

On 11/09/2015, in 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, animation, attention, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, engineering, interactivity, science, simulations, tablets, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

Discover Explain3D — from interestingengineering.com by Eben Atwater

Excerpt:

Long ago, someone coined the adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Illustrators and teachers have grasped that simple truism throughout thousands of years of human history – It’s a fact that many, if not most of us, are visual learners. That’s especially true when it comes to things mechanical. That said, it’s 2015, and certainly time for a twenty first century iteration of this venerable learning principle to manifest. And in fact, it has – Consider Explain 3D – An interactive encyclopedia of 3D simulations and visualizations that helps kids, teachers or parents to explain and understand how things work. Explain 3D is a great tool to help youngsters develop the skills of logical thinking and imagination, while poking around in some very cool modern technologies and technical stuff.

RIP Jay Cross — and thank you for all of your contributions.

On 11/09/2015, in adult learning, career development, collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, formal learning, informal learning, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, training / L&D, using teams, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The world of learning lost a great contributor last Friday when Jay Cross passed away.

To me, Jay modeled lifelong learning — not only helping others to learn and to grow, but also seeking to do those very things himself. For example, he was constantly trying out new tools, experimenting with them, learning about them, and then taking what works and discarding the rest. He’d pick up a new web-based collaboration tool, make a recording, and then move onto something else.

He was a founding member of a great, collaborative team in the Internet Time Alliance, where members included Jay, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and Paul Simbeck-Hampson.

One area of all of our learning ecosystems involves informal learning, something that Jay stressed and had a tremendous influence on. More recently, he tackled the The Real Learning Project which “aims to help millions of people learn to learn, increase their intelligence, and realize their life goals.”

There are many postings out there re: Jay, so I’ll point to Jane Hart’s compilation/tributes to Jay to steer you towards some of them.

Two days before passing, Jay posted an item entitled Real Learning: Micro and Macro on his Internet Time Blog:

Quoting from that posting, Jay says:

Setting goals, reflecting daily, taking risks, and doing experiments
prime the brain for spotting opportunities and working smarter.

So you can see that up to his dying day, Jay was about helping people learn and grow.

Thanks Jay for your work and your very important contributions.

RIP Jay.

Daniel

Learning Ecosystems

Augmented reality: A great story triggers the mind [van Berkum]

The World’s Largest iBeacon Network Emerges [prnewswire.com]

Microsoft Simulator Brings Quantum Computing One Step Closer to the Masses [Darrow]

Reflections on “8 characteristics of good online video” [Stansbury]

The Current State of Machine Intelligence [Zilis]

Amazon launches new program to fund university research [Greene]

WordPress now powers 25% of the Web [Protalinski]

What Google’s new open-source software means for artificial-intelligence research [Wexler]

Discover Explain3D [Atwater]

RIP Jay Cross — and thank you for all of your contributions.

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