Regarding the new Mirror product from Estimote — i.e., the world’s 1st video-enabled beacon — what might the applications look like for active learning classrooms (ALCs)?
That is, could students pre-load their content, then come into an active learning classroom and, upon request, launch an app which would then present their content to the nearest display?
Today we want to move contextual computing to a completely new level. We are happy to announce our newest product: Estimote Mirror. It’s the world’s first video-enabled beacon. Estimote Mirror can not only communicate with nearby phones and their corresponding apps, but also take content from these apps and display it on any digital screen around you.
From DSC: Interactive video — a potentially very powerful medium to use, especially for blended and online-based courses or training-related materials! This interactive piece from Heineken is very well done, even remembering how you answered and coming up with their evaluation of you from their 12-question “interview.”
But notice again, a TEAM of specialists are needed to create such a piece. Neither a faculty member, a trainer, nor an instructional designer can do something like this all on their own. Some of the positions I could imagine here are:
Script writer(s)
Editor(s)
Actors and actresses
Those skilled in stage lighting and sound / audio recording
Digital video editors
Programmers
Graphic designers
Web designers
Producers
Product marketers
…and perhaps others
This is the kind of work that I wish we saw more of in the world of online and blended courses! Also, I appreciated their use of humor. Overall, a very engaging, fun, and informative piece!
Every year, National Geographic opens its nature photography contest to photography lovers all around the world, with four categories: Landscape, Environmental Issues, Action and Animal Portraits. A perfect occasion for people who are passionate about nature to enjoy unusual or majestic scenes. The winner of the Grand Prize will win a 10-days trip for two in the Galápagos as well as two online portfolios with National Geographic.
A new study backs up the notion that classroom design has a significant impact on the academic performance of primary school children.
Researchers at the University of Salford in the U.K., and architects, Nightingale Associates, found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress by as much as 25% in a year. The year-long study took place in seven Blackpool, England primary schools in 34 classrooms. The rooms had differing learning environments and several age groups were represented.
New research reveals that classroom design has significant impact on the academic performance of primary school children. In a pilot study by the University of Salford and architects, Nightingale Associates, it was found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress over a year by as much as 25%.
The year-long pilot study was carried out in seven Blackpool LEA primary schools. 34 classrooms with differing learning environments and age groups took part.
Given the sheer pace and acceleration of technological advances in recent years, business leaders can be forgiven for feeling dazed and perhaps a little frustrated. When we talked to CEOs as part of our annual Global CEO Survey, 61% of them told us they were concerned about the speed of technological change in their industries. Sure, more and more C-suite executives are genuinely tech-savvy – increasingly effective champions for their companies’ IT vision – and more and more of them know that digital disruption can be friend as well as enemy. But it’s fair to say that most struggle to find the time and energy necessary to keep up with the technologies driving transformation across every industry and in every part of the world.
Not one catalyst, but several
History is littered with companies that have waited out the Next New Thing in the belief that it’s a technology trend that won’t amount to much, or that won’t affect their industries for decades. Yet disruption happens. It’s safe to say that the history of humankind is a history of disruption – a stream of innovations that have tipped the balance in favour of the innovators. In that sense, technological breakthroughs are the original megatrend. What’s unique in the 21st century, though, is the ubiquity of technology, together with its accessibility, reach, depth, and impact.
Business leaders worldwide acknowledge these changes, and have a clear sense of their significance. CEOs don’t single out any particular catalyst that leads them to that conclusion. But we maintain that technological advancements are appearing, rapidly and simultaneously, in fields as disparate as healthcare and industrial manufacturing, because of the following concurrent factors…
From DSC: For those of us working in K-20 as well as in the corporate training/L&D space, how are we doing in getting people trained and ready to deal these developments?
Prediction 1: Mixed reality rooms will begin to replace home theater. As Eric Johnson summed up last year in Recode, “to borrow an example from Microsoft’s presentation at the gaming trade show E3, you might be looking at an ordinary table, but see an interactive virtual world from the video game Minecraft sitting on top of it. As you walk around, the virtual landscape holds its position, and when you lean in close, it gets closer in the way a real object would.” Can a “holographic” cinema experience really be that far off? With 3D sound? And Smell-O-Vision?
Prediction 13. Full-wall video with multiscreens will appear in the home. Here’s something interesting: The first three predictions in this set of 10 all have an origin in commercial applications. This one — think of it more as digital signage than sports bar — will allow the user to have access to a wall that includes a weather app, a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, the latest episode of Chopped, a Cubs game, and literally anything else a member — or members — of the family are interested in. The unintended consequences: some 13-year-old will one day actually utter the phrase, “MOM! Can you minimize your Snapchat already!?!”
Prediction 22: Intelligent glass will be used as a control interface, entertainment platform, comfort control, and communication screen. Gordon van Zuiden says, “We live in a world of touch, glass-based icons. Obviously the phone is the preeminent example — what if all the glass that’s around you in the house could have some level of projection so that shower doors, windows, and mirrors could be practical interfaces?” Extend that smart concept to surfaces that don’t just respond to touch, but to gesture and voice — and now extend that to surfaces outside the home.
Prediction 28: User-programmable platforms based on interoperable systems will be the new control and integration paradigm. YOU: “Alexa, please find Casablanca on Apple TV and send it to my Android phone. And order up a pizza.”
Prediction 34. Consumer sensors will increase in sensitivity and function. The Internet of Things will become a lot like Santa: “IoT sees you when you’re sleeping/IoT knows when you’re awake/IoT knows if you’ve been bad or good…”
Prediction 47. Policy and technology will drive the security concerns over internet and voice connected devices. “When you add the complexity of ‘always on, always listening’ connected devices … keeping the consumer’s best interests in mind might not always be top of mind for corporations [producing these devices],” notes Maniscalco. “[A corporation’s] interest is usually in profits.” Maniscalco believes that a consumer push for legislation on the dissemination of the information a company can collect will be the “spark that ignites true security and privacy for the consumer.”
Prediction 53. The flexible use of the light socket: Lighting becomes more than lighting. Think about the amount of coverage — powered coverage — that the footprint of a home’s network of light sockets provides. Mike Maniscalco of Ihiji has: “You can use that coverage and power to do really interesting things, like integrate sensors into the lighting. Track humidity, people’s movements, change patterns based on what’s happening in that room.”
Prediction 64. Voice and face recognition and authentication services become more ubiquitous. Yes, your front door will recognize your face — other people’s, too. “Joe Smith comes to your door, you get a text message without having to capture video, so that’s a convenience,” notes Jacobson.
From DSC: The pace of technological development is moving extremely fast; the ethical, legal, and moral questions are trailing behind it (as is normally the case). But this exponential pace continues to bring some questions, concerns, and thoughts to my mind. For example:
What kind of future do we want?
Just because we can, should we?
Who is going to be able to weigh in on the future direction of some of these developments?
If we follow the trajectories of some of these pathways, where will these trajectories take us? For example, if many people are out of work, how are they going to purchase the products and services that the robots are building?
These and other questions arise when you look at the articles below.
This is the 8th part of a series of postings regarding this matter.
The other postings are in the Ethics section.
What would your ideal robot be like? One that can change nappies and tell bedtime stories to your child? Perhaps you’d prefer a butler that can polish silver and mix the perfect cocktail? Or maybe you’d prefer a companion that just happened to be a robot? Certainly, some see robots as a hypothetical future replacement for human carers. But a question roboticists are asking is: how human should these future robot companions be?
A companion robot is one that is capable of providing useful assistance in a socially acceptable manner. This means that a robot companion’s first goal is to assist humans. Robot companions are mainly developed to help people with special needs such as older people, autistic children or the disabled. They usually aim to help in a specific environment: a house, a care home or a hospital.
The next president will have a range of issues on their plate, from how to deal with growing tensions with China and Russia, to an ongoing war against ISIS. But perhaps the most important decision they will make for overall human history is what to do about autonomous weapons systems (AWS), aka “killer robots.” The new president will literally have no choice. It is not just that the technology is rapidly advancing, but because of a ticking time bomb buried in US policy on the issue.
It sounds like a line from a science fiction novel, but many of us are already managed by algorithms, at least for part of our days. In the future, most of us will be managed by algorithms and the vast majority of us will collaborate daily with intelligent technologies including robots, autonomous machines and algorithms.
Algorithms for task management
Many workers at UPS are already managed by algorithms. It is an algorithm that tells the humans the optimal way to pack the back of the delivery truck with packages. The algorithm essentially plays a game of “temporal Tetris” with the parcels and packs them to optimize for space and for the planned delivery route–packages that are delivered first are towards the front, packages for the end of the route are placed at the back.
The Enterprisers Project (TEP): Machines are genderless, have no race, and are in and of themselves free of bias. How does bias creep in?
Sharp: To understand how bias creeps in you first need to understand the difference between programming in the traditional sense and machine learning. With programming in the traditional sense, a programmer analyses a problem and comes up with an algorithm to solve it (basically an explicit sequence of rules and steps). The algorithm is then coded up, and the computer executes the programmer’s defined rules accordingly.
With machine learning, it’s a bit different. Programmers don’t solve a problem directly by analyzing it and coming up with their rules. Instead, they just give the computer access to an extensive real-world dataset related to the problem they want to solve. The computer then figures out how best to solve the problem by itself.
In his latest book ‘Technology vs. Humanity’, futurist Gerd Leonhard once again breaks new ground by bringing together mankind’s urge to upgrade and automate everything (including human biology itself) with our timeless quest for freedom and happiness.
Before it’s too late, we must stop and ask the big questions:How do we embrace technology without becoming it? When it happens—gradually, then suddenly—the machine era will create the greatest watershed in human life on Earth.
Digital transformation has migrated from the mainframe to the desktop to the laptop to the smartphone, wearables and brain-computer interfaces. Before it moves to the implant and the ingestible insert, Gerd Leonhard makes a last-minute clarion call for an honest debate and a more philosophical exchange.
Technological innovation in fields from genetic engineering to cyberwarfare is accelerating at a breakneck pace, but ethical deliberation over its implications has lagged behind. Thus argues Sheila Jasanoff — who works at the nexus of science, law and policy — in The Ethics of Invention, her fresh investigation. Not only are our deliberative institutions inadequate to the task of oversight, she contends, but we fail to recognize the full ethical dimensions of technology policy. She prescribes a fundamental reboot.
Ethics in innovation has been given short shrift, Jasanoff says, owing in part to technological determinism, a semi-conscious belief that innovation is intrinsically good and that the frontiers of technology should be pushed as far as possible. This view has been bolstered by the fact that many technological advances have yielded financial profit in the short term, even if, like the ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons once used as refrigerants, they have proved problematic or ruinous in the longer term.
Machine learning Of prediction and policy — from economist.com Governments have much to gain from applying algorithms to public policy, but controversies loom
Excerpt:
FOR frazzled teachers struggling to decide what to watch on an evening off (DC insert: a rare event indeed), help is at hand. An online streaming service’s software predicts what they might enjoy, based on the past choices of similar people. When those same teachers try to work out which children are most at risk of dropping out of school, they get no such aid. But, as Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University notes, these types of problem are alike. They require predictions based, implicitly or explicitly, on lots of data. Many areas of policy, he suggests, could do with a dose of machine learning.
Machine-learning systems excel at prediction. A common approach is to train a system by showing it a vast quantity of data on, say, students and their achievements. The software chews through the examples and learns which characteristics are most helpful in predicting whether a student will drop out. Once trained, it can study a different group and accurately pick those at risk. By helping to allocate scarce public funds more accurately, machine learning could save governments significant sums. According to Stephen Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard and a former mayor of Indianapolis, it could also transform almost every sector of public policy.
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But the case for code is not always clear-cut. Many American judges are given “risk assessments”, generated by software, which predict the likelihood of a person committing another crime. These are used in bail, parole and (most controversially) sentencing decisions. But this year ProPublica, an investigative-journalism group, concluded that in Broward County, Florida, an algorithm wrongly labelled black people as future criminals nearly twice as often as whites. (Northpointe, the algorithm provider, disputes the finding.)
Who will own the robots?— from technologyreview.com by David Rotman We’re in the midst of a jobs crisis, and rapid advances in AI and other technologies may be one culprit. How can we get better at sharing the wealth that technology creates
The Training Game: High-tech Training Tools— from aviationweek.com by Jen Deglmann Software and technology companies are working with aviation schools and maintenance facilities to create customized training virtual reality and digital programs. See the technical specs for the systems and thoughts from some of the industry’s instructors and maintenance facility trainers. This is a more in-depth look at September’s MRO Links feature on all high-tech training technology tools.
Over the years, we’ve heard a lot of predictions about what the future of work holds for all of us, not just our kids. It’s interesting now to see some of those predictions actually playing out.
Case in point is this post in the Harvard Business Review that summarizes the Herculean change initiative now underway at AT&T. It’s a fascinating read on it’s own, but it’s even more interesting when you start to align some of the findings to the work of schools. Or maybe more daunting.
The biggest takeaway for me? Professional learning is now the responsibility of the learner.I’ve harped on that for a while now, but AT&T pushes that idea in spades.
All of this works within a “culture of perpetual learning.” AT&T employees know that their roles will change, on average, every four years. In other words, if you’re not constantly learning, you’re toast.
From DSC: Several graphics come to mind (see below).
Rapidly Shifting Technical Demands
For the past three years, AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, has been making large strategic bets on a diverse range of wireless technologies—most recently the $63 billion acquisition of satellite television company DirecTV. Asked about the decision to venture into new businesses, John Stankey, the head of AT&T’s Entertainment Group, says, “We have no choice.” Customers are demanding constant connectivity; from 2007 to 2015, for example, data traffic on AT&T’s wireless network grew by more than 150,000%. The company forecasts that by 2020, 75% of its network will be controlled by software-defined architecture. That percentage was virtually zero in 2000. This means, says Stankey, that most of AT&T’s global employees “signed up for a deal that is entirely different from the environment in which their business operates today.”
Today, OSTP is releasing public comments on AI, sharing insights from events across the country, and announcing a new White House event on AI this fall.
iPhone 7 Plus doesn’t have just one entirely new camera system — it has two. The same 12MP wide-angle camera that’s on iPhone 7 works with a 12MP telephoto camera that can get even closer. That means you can get higher-quality zoom from farther away. And with an all-new depth-of-field effect (coming soon), portrait shots will look better than ever. Say hello to the world’s best photo op.
… Depth-of-field effect.
Depth of field allows you to keep faces sharp while creating a blurred effect in the background. When you take a shot with iPhone 7 Plus, the dual-camera system uses both cameras and advanced machine learning to make your subject sharp while creating the same out-of-focus blur in the background — known as the bokeh effect — previously reserved for DSLR cameras. So no matter what’s behind your subject, it’s easy to create a great portrait.
Smartphones boasting “dual cameras” are becoming more common, and news that they will feature on the just-announced iPhone 7 Plus indicates the arrival into the mainstream. But while dual cameras may stem from efforts to improve picture quality, it has the potential to lead us down much more interesting paths: the real story may be that Apple is using dual cameras to position itself for the augmented reality world ushered in by the Pokemon Go phenomenon.
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The iPhone uses machine learning algorithms to scan objects within a scene, building up a real-time 3D depth map of the terrain and objects. Currently, the iPhone uses this to separate the background from the foreground in order to selectively focus on foreground objects. This effect of blurring out background details, known as bokeh, is a feature of DLSRs and not readily available on smaller cameras such as those in smartphones. The depth map allows the iPhone to simulate a variable aperture which provides the ability to display areas of the image out of focus. While an enviable addition for smartphone camera users, this is a gimmick compared to what the depth map can really do.
What Apple has is the first step toward a device like Microsoft’s HoloLens, an augmented reality head-mounted display currently in development.
Software that provides similar analysis of people’s poses and location within a scene for dual camera smartphones would provide a virtual window onto the real world. Using hand gesture recognition, users could naturally interact with a mixed reality world, with the phone’s accelerometer and GPS data detecting and driving changes to how that world is presented and updated.
Apple has not arrived here by accident. In addition to acquiring Linx, Apple alsopurchased augmented reality pioneer Metaioin 2015, suggesting a game plan to develop a mixed reality platform.
The ‘soft skills’ employers are looking for — from blogs.wsj.com by Kate Davidson Communication, teamwork, punctuality and critical thinking are in high demand, an analysis of 2.3 million LinkedIn profiles shows
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Want to craft a standout resume? Try adding skills like communication, organization and punctuality.
Nearly 58% of employees who touted stellar communication skills were hired over the course of a year, according to an analysis of 2.3 million LinkedIn profiles for The Wall Street Journal.
Employers are increasingly looking for workers with strong soft skills—those traits that don’t show up in a job posting but are essential for succeeding in the workplace, like working well with others and taking initiative. But many employers say it has gotten harder to find those applicants as the labor market tightens.
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Communication, at the top of the list, was followed by organization, teamwork, punctuality, critical thinking, social skills, creativity, interpersonal communication, adaptability and having a friendly personality.
From DSC: Looking at the list of top skills desired by employers, there seems to be a major breakdown in the entire spectrum/continuum.
Hmmm….standardized testing doesn’t really bring out the collaborative side of us, does it? In fact, you would likely get shown the door if you tried to collaborate (or show social skills) on a test, right? Teamwork. Hmmm….again, not on the exam. Punctuality? Nope…not that either. Organization…perhaps…maybe a little bit on the exam, but not much.
Which set of goals are we pursuing? Standardized testing and all of what that means…or are we trying to produce students who have the soft skills mentioned aboveand who can reinvent themselves over and over again (to which I’d add entrepreneurship/innovation/ability to freelance, the ability to look up and out into the future, and the ability to keep the relevant landscapes on their radars).
The answer seems to be that we’re trying to do both. That said, the corporate world seems to be saying that the standardized testing is winning out in this clash of goals.
This is why I try to pulse check the worlds of K-12, higher ed, and the corporate space all at the same time. We are not islands. What happens in earlier phases of people’s lives matters. What’s currently happening in the earlier portions of the continuum matters.
There remains a fundamental mismatch between market demand and supply of skills. The longstanding concerns around a drought of STEM and digital talent have been well publicised, but the issue extends beyond that. Students are graduating with degrees offering neither technical nor vocational knowledge, yet these are what employers are often looking for first.
Recent research in the US found that while 87% of recent graduates feel well prepared to hit the ground running in their new job, only half of hiring managers agreed. The shortfall across hard and soft skills is plain to see – one in four roles go unfilled due to the technical skills gap and hiring managers report worrying gaps in graduates’ critical thinking, communication and leadership skills. Around the world, many graduates simply aren’t employable in the roles being created today, yet will have spent at least 3 years racking up debt to study a course that will not help them find a relevant role.
If steps are not taken to address this, then I genuinely fear for our graduates, employers and the global economy. We are already seeing the skills gap widening into a skills chasm.
