2020 January

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow [Wan]

On 01/24/2020, in adjunct faculty, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, education technology, faculty, higher education, instructional design, intelligent systems, law schools, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow — from edsurge.com by Tony Wan

Excerpt:

Smart Sparrow, which provides course-authoring tools for faculty and instructional designers to build adaptive courseware, has found a new home in a much bigger nest.

Last week, Pearson announced it paid $25 million to acquire Smart Sparrow’s technology, in a move that the publisher says will bolster the digital infrastructure that will soon support all its future higher-education offerings.

In recent years, Ben-Naim says his team has been building the next iteration of its adaptive course-creation tool. Called Aero, the platform has been in the works since 2017. And though Aero has not been publicly released or announced, that was the technology that attracted Pearson, he adds.

Why you should care about what’s happening with law schools and the legal realm in general!

On 01/23/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, career development, change, collaboration, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, ethics, faith, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, online learning, pace of change, platforms, policy, political science, professional development, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, Uncategorized, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As some of you may know, I’m now working for the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School. My faith gets involved here, but I believe that the LORD wanted me to get involved with:

Using technology to increase access to justice (#A2J)
Contributing to leveraging the science of learning for the long-term benefit of our students, faculty, and staff
Raising awareness regarding the potential pros and cons of today’s emerging technologies
Increase the understanding that the legal realm has a looooong way to go to try to get (even somewhat) caught up with the impacts that such emerging technologies can/might have on us.
Contributing and collaborating with others to help develop a positive future, not a negative one.

Along these lines…in regards to what’s been happening with law schools over the last few years, I wanted to share a couple of things:

1) An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Benjamin Barton:

2) A response from our President and Dean, James McGrath:

From DSC:
I also wanted to personally say that I arrived at WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018, and have been learning a lot there (which I love about my job!). Cooley employees are very warm, welcoming, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. Everyone there is mission-driven. My boss, Chris Church, is multi-talented and excellent. Cooley has a great administrative/management team as well.

There have been many exciting, new things happening there. But that said, it will take time before we see the results of these changes. Perseverance and innovation will be key ingredients to crafting a modern legal education — especially in an industry that is just now beginning to offer online-based courses at the Juris Doctor (J.D.) level (i.e., 20 years behind when this began occurring within undergraduate higher education).

My point in posting this is to say that we should ALL care about what’s happening within the legal realm! We are all impacted by it, whether we realize it or not. We are all in this together and no one is an island — not as individuals, and not as organizations.

We need:

Far more diversity within the legal field
More technical expertise within the legal realm — not only with lawyers, but with legislators, senators, representatives, judges, others
Greater use of teams of specialists within the legal field
To offer more courses regarding emerging technologies — and not only for the legal practices themselves but also for society at large.
To be far more vigilant in crafting a positive world to be handed down to our kids and grandkids — a dream, not a nightmare. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

Still not convinced that you should care? Here are some things on the CURRENT landscapes:

You go to drop something off at your neighbor’s house. They have a camera that gets activated. What facial recognition database are you now on? Did you give your consent to that? No, you didn’t.
Because you posted your photo on Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and/or on millions of other websites, your face could be in ClearView AI’s database. Did you give your consent to that occurring? No, you didn’t.
You’re at the airport and facial recognition is used instead of a passport. Whose database was that from and what gets shared? Did you give your consent to that occurring? Probably not, and it’s not easy to opt-out either.
Numerous types of drones, delivery bots, and more are already coming onto the scene. What will the sidewalks, streets, and skies look like — and sound like — in your neighborhood in the near future? Is that how you want it? Did you give your consent to that happening? No, you didn’t.
…and on and on it goes.

Addendum — speaking of islands!

Palantir CEO: Silicon Valley can’t be on ‘Palo Alto island’ — Big Tech must play by the rules — from cnbc.com by Jessica Bursztynsky

Excerpt:

Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Thursday the core problem in Silicon Valley is the attitude among tech executives that they want to be separate from United States regulation.

“You cannot create an island called Palo Alto Island,” said Karp, who suggested tech leaders would rather govern themselves. “What Silicon Valley really wants is the canton of Palo Alto. We have the United States of America, not the ‘United States of Canton,’ one of which is Palo Alto. That must change.”

“Consumer tech companies, not Apple, but the other ones, have basically decided we’re living on an island and the island is so far removed from what’s called the United States in every way, culturally, linguistically and in normative ways,” Karp added.

Juris announces launch of AI powered software to help people solve their own legal problems

On 01/23/2020, in Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, Cost of legal services - including access, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, society, by Daniel Christian

Juris announces launch of AI powered software to help people solve their own legal problems — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt:

Legal technology company Juris has announced the launch of their service, DepositLetter, an online tool built to recover illegally withheld security deposits on behalf of renters. Customers complete a five-minute online interview and Juris does the rest automatically to show their former landlord that they know their rights under the law, to demand their money back, and even threaten to sue. DepositLetter is the first service built on the Juris Virtual Legal Assistant platform, a law-powered A.I. expert system made to help people solve their own legal problems.

Also see:

Millennial lawyers demand mobility. Are law firms ready to provide it? from law.com by Alex Babin
Like it or not, remote work is coming to the legal world. Even among law firms, the development of policies to accommodate work performed away from the office appears to be a notable trend.

Excerpt:

Like it or not, remote work is coming to the legal world. Even among law firms, where I am repeatedly reminded that the adoption of technology tends to lag behind other workplaces and industries, the development of policies to accommodate work performed away from the office appears to be a notable trend. In part, this is being driven by increasing numbers of millennials in the legal workforce. According to a 2019 Deloitte survey, nearly 75% of millennials think a “work-from-home” or “work remotely” policy is important. But the changing perspective is also very likely a function of a broader transition in the legal industry toward technology-enabled efficiency.

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human [Kelly]

On 01/21/2020, in emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, ideas, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, journalism, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, platforms, policy, political science, society, strategy, technology (general), vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpts:

Gartner’s top 10 strategic predictions for technology are:

“By 2023, the number of people with disabilities employed will triple due to AI and emerging technologies, reducing barriers to access.”
“By 2024, AI identification of emotions will influence more than half of the online advertisements you see.”
“Through 2023, 30 percent of IT organizations will extend BYOD policies with ‘bring your own enhancement’ (BYOE) to address augmented humans in the workforce.”
“By 2025, 50 percent of people with a smartphone but without a bank account will use a mobile-accessible cryptocurrency account.”
“By 2023, a self-regulating association for oversight of AI and machine learning designers will be established in at least four of the G7 countries.”
“By 2023, 40 percent of professional workers will orchestrate their business application experiences and capabilities like they do their music streaming experience.”
“By 2023, up to 30 percent of world news and video content will be authenticated as real by blockchain countering deep fake technology.”
“Through 2021, digital transformation initiatives will take large traditional enterprises on average twice as long and cost twice as much as anticipated.”
“By 2023, individual activities will be tracked digitally by an ‘Internet of Behavior’ to influence benefit and service eligibility for 40 percent of people worldwide.”
“By 2024, the World Health Organization will identify online shopping as an addictive disorder, as millions abuse digital commerce and encounter financial stress.”

Facial recognition, location tracking and big data will allow organizations to monitor individual behavior and link that behavior to other digital actions, Gartner said, noting that “The Internet of Things (IoT) – where physical things are directed to do a certain thing based on a set of observed operating parameters relative to a desired set of operating parameters — is now being extended to people, known as the Internet of Behavior (IoB).”

From DSC:
That last quote about the “Internet of Behavior (IoB)” should disturb us. I don’t want that kind of world for the next generation.

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business [Kahn]

On 01/21/2020, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, business, career development, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, Natural Language Processing (NLP), tools, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business — from fortune.com by Jeremy Kahn

Excerpt:

Over the past 18 months, though, computer scientists have made huge strides in creating algorithms with unprecedented abilities at a variety of language tasks. What’s more, these new algorithms are making the leap from the lab and into real products at a breakneck pace—already changing the way tech’s biggest players, and many other businesses, operate. The Natural Language Processing (NLP) revolution promises better search engines and smarter chatbots and digital assistants. It could lead to systems that automatically analyze—and maybe even compose— legal documents and medical records. But some believe the NLP revolution will do far more.

20 digital transformation leaders to follow on Twitter in 2020 — from enterprisersproject.com by David. F. Carr
Committed to digital transformation this year? Follow these people for perspective and emerging lessons

Excerpt:

One of our New Year’s resolutions was to refresh and expand our Twitter feed for digital transformation leaders, reviewing them not just for the use of the right hashtags but for the content they share.

There are a few repeats from a similar list we shared last year, but for the most part, we tried to give you new Twitter handles to follow. This year’s list includes CIOs, authors, consultants, and cloud computing leaders. Some only post on technology topics, while others share thoughts on family, culture, politics, and favorite movies.

The common denominator we looked for was a thoughtfully curated feed that’s not entirely self-promotional but adds to the conversation we’re all having about how to understand the potential of digital transformation and put it to work for our organizations.

From DSC:
While these types of lists invariably leave off a ton of extremely talented individuals and organizations who are worth following as well, such lists are a good starting point for:

Someone to use to begin tapping into streams of content in a given area
Observing the topics, issues, ideas being discussed
Building one’s network
Seeing who these folks follow and who they respect
…and more.

Searching for the top __ people of Twitter in subject XYZ is a solid way to enhance our [lifelong] learning ecosystems.

Reflections on “Technology Trends: The evolution of #ML and #AI in 2020”

On 01/20/2020, in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, change, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), India, trends, by Daniel Christian

Technology Trends: The evolution of machine learning and artificial intelligence in 2020 — from dqindia.com
Technology trends in the upcoming year will focus on how new age technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence will advance

Excerpt:

While technology trends in the past year revolved around making machine learning and artificial intelligence accessible for everyone, this year will be about how these technologies will evolve to benefit businesses. With the beginning of 2020, Ramesh SivaSubramanian, Head of Ramco Innovation Lab, Singapore has made technology predictions. The following is a gist on each key technology trend.

From DSC:
Looking at these trends, is this the future we want? While some of these are positive trends, some of these ring of distrust to me…and could easily be steering toward a dystopian future, such as this one (emphasis mine):

Improving attendance and workplace access using Facial Recognition
2020 will see significant workplace adoption of facial recognition, especially for customer-centric and cybersecurity functions. Enterprises which adopt this capability, especially those with sizeable workforces, will reduce if not eliminate the tedium of keeping track of employees. It will also solve many issues related to password and access cards, saving even more time and costs.

Wow! Check these stats out for Wikipedia!

On 01/20/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Asia, Australia, Canada, collaboration, communities of practice, digital learning, education technology, Europe, global / globalization, India, productivity / tips and tricks, social learning / networks, society, tools, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

“Wikipedia’s promise of a collaborative encyclopedia has, today, resulted in a resource consisting of more than 40 million articles in 300 different languages, catering to an audience of 500 million monthly users.” https://t.co/pXEBSGGhsM

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) January 20, 2020

DC: Hmmm…will this type of thing be integrated w/ something like Clearview AI? Unsettling to me.

On 01/20/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Augmented Reality (AR), dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, ethics, morals/values, platforms, privacy, society, the downsides of how people use tech, wearables, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

DC: Hmmmm…I’m wondering if this type of thing will be integrated with something like Clearview #AI …unsettling to me.https://t.co/VZgbH5z29s https://t.co/ihNRknmt6r

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) January 20, 2020

These are the most in-demand job skills in 2020, according to LinkedIn — from cnbc.com by Vicky McKeever
Blockchain is the most in-demand job skill in 2020, says LinkedIn

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Another unintended consequence appears on the landscapes. [Christian]

On 01/18/2020, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty, future, Google, higher education, ideas, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, political science, programming, research, social learning / networks, social media, society, student-related, teachers, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, United States, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I’ll say it again, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

From the article below…we can see another unintended consequence is developing on society’s landscapes. I really wish the 20 and 30 somethings that are being hired by the big tech companies — especially at Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft — who are developing these things would ask themselves:

“Just because we can develop this system/software/application/etc., SHOULD we be developing it?”
What might the negative consequences be?
Do the positive contributions outweigh the negative impacts…or not?

To colleges professors and teachers:
Please pass these thoughts onto your students now, so that this internal questioning/conversations begin to take place in K-16.

Report: Colleges Must Teach ‘Algorithm Literacy’ to Help Students Navigate Internet — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If the Ancient Mariner were sailing on the internet’s open seas, he might conclude there’s information everywhere, but nary a drop to drink.

That’s how many college students feel, anyway. A new report published this week about undergraduates’ impressions of internet algorithms reveals students are skeptical of and unnerved by tools that track their digital travels and serve them personalized content like advertisements and social media posts.

And some students feel like they’ve largely been left to navigate the internet’s murky waters alone, without adequate guidance from teachers and professors.

Researchers set out to learn “how aware students are about their information being manipulated, gathered and interacted with,” said Alison Head, founder and director of Project Information Literacy, in an interview with EdSurge. “Where does that awareness drop off?”
…
They found that many students not only have personal concerns about how algorithms compromise their own data privacy but also recognize the broader, possibly negative implications of tools that segment and customize search results and news feeds.

From DSC:
Very disturbing that citizens had no say in this. Legislators, senators, representatives, lawyers, law schools, politicians, engineers, programmers, professors, teachers, and more…please reflect upon our current situation here. How can we help create the kind of future that we can hand down to our kids and rest well at night…knowing we did all that we could to provide a dream — and not a nightmare — for them?

The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It — from nytimes.com by Kashmir Hill
A little-known start-up helps law enforcement match photos of unknown people to their online images — and “might lead to a dystopian future or something,” a backer says.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

Excerpts:

“But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year…”

Clearview’s app carries extra risks because law enforcement agencies are uploading sensitive photos to the servers of a company whose ability to protect its data is untested.

The Future of Lawyers: Legal Tech, AI, Big Data And Online Courts — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpts:

In his brand new book Online Courts and the Future of Justice, Richard argues that technology is going to bring about a fascinating decade of change in the legal sector and transform our court system. Although automating our old ways of working plays a part in this, even more, critical is that artificial intelligence and technology will help give more individuals access to justice.
…
The first generation is the idea that people who use the court system submit evidence and arguments to the judge online or through some form of electronic communication.
…
The second generation of using technology to transform the legal system would be what Richard calls “outcome thinking” to use technology to help solve disputes without requiring lawyers or the traditional court system.
…
Some of the biggest obstacles to an online court system are the political will to bring about such a transformation, the support of judges and lawyers, funding, as well as the method we’d apply. For example, decisions will need to be made whether the online system would be used for only certain cases or situations.

Ultimately, we have a grave access-to-justice problem. Technology can help improve our outcomes and give people a way to resolve public disputes in ways that previously weren’t possible. While this transformation might not solve all the struggles with the legal system or the access-to-justice issue, it can offer a dramatic improvement.

Reflections on “What Is the Price of College? Total, Net, and Out-of-Pocket Prices in 2015–16” [Published in Dec 2019]

On 01/17/2020, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, higher education, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This report reminds me of a graphic that Yohan Na and I did 10+ years ago…and the student debt now sits at around $1.5 trillion.

Using Cisco Webex’ Meeting Room, any classroom can become an active learning classroom [Grant & Miller]

On 01/16/2020, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, attention, Bring your own device (BYOD), collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, liberal arts, mirroring and/or multiple devices, multimedia, participation, platforms, second screen apps, smart classrooms, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex in your school, consider implementing the idea below. I’d like to thank Mr. Steve Grant and Mr. Nelson Miller from the WMU-Cooley Law School for their work in implementing/recommending this approach.

If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex, you can use it to share content to displays, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. If the professor starts a Cisco Webex Meeting Center session using their own personal room, the students can then join that meeting via their devices. (To eliminate noise and confusion — as well as to reduce bandwidth — the students should mute their microphones and choose not to send the video from their webcams.)

If you were doing a think-pair-share, for example, and you really liked what a certain pair of students had going on, one of the students could share their work with the rest of the class. By doing so, whatever was going on on that student’s device could be displayed by any projectors in the room, as well as on any other devices that were connected to the Cisco Webex Meeting Room.

“So you could project any student’s work as students proceed with in-class exercises. Projecting student work adds another level of accountability, excitement, and concentration to in-class exercises.”

*********

Also, using the Cisco Webex Meeting Center in your face-to-face classroom not only opens up that sort of collaboration channel, but, via the chat feature, it can also open up a running backchannel to draw out your more introverted students, or those students who have questions but don’t want to have the spotlight thrown on them.

*********

Learning Ecosystems

Pearson Bets on Adaptive Learning (Again) With $25M Acquisition of Smart Sparrow [Wan]

Why you should care about what’s happening with law schools and the legal realm in general!

Juris announces launch of AI powered software to help people solve their own legal problems

Gartner: 10 ways technology will change what it means to be human [Kelly]

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business [Kahn]

Reflections on “Technology Trends: The evolution of #ML and #AI in 2020”

DC: Hmmm…will this type of thing be integrated w/ something like Clearview AI? Unsettling to me.

The Future of Lawyers: Legal Tech, AI, Big Data And Online Courts [Marr]

Reflections on “What Is the Price of College? Total, Net, and Out-of-Pocket Prices in 2015–16” [Published in Dec 2019]

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