We need to go beyond the focus on STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) towards HECI (humanity, ethics, creativity, imagination) — from futuristgerd.com by Gerd Leonhard
…an important realisation that recently dawned on me. What will our schools, colleges and universities do about this?
“It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”
Gerd Leonhard
Also see:
Animated Series: What’s Up with the Metaverse — from joetechnologist.com by Joseph Raczynski with creative by Elise Harmening, Esq.
Video description (emphasis DSC):
What’s Up with the Metaverse, published on June 2, 2022, was written by Joseph Raczynski of Thomas Reuters, a member of the Governing Council for the Center for Innovation, and created by Elise Harmening, Esq., Project Specialist Manager at the Center for Innovation. Innovation and You is a production by The American Bar Association’s Center for Innovation to help lawyers and our members think about innovative legal technology and practices as the legal landscape continues to change. Join the conversation on Twitter @ABAInnovation.
Also see:
Animated Series: What is an API? — from joetechnologist.com by Joseph Raczynski with creative by Elise Harmening, Esq.
The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders: A Tokyo Restaurant Where All the Servers Are People Living with Dementia — from openculture.com
Whole towns have already begun to structure their services around a growing number of citizens with dementia. But dementia itself remains “widely misunderstood,” says Restaurant of Mistaken Orders producer Shiro Oguni in the “concept movie” at the top of the post. “People believe you can’t do anything for yourself, and the condition will often mean isolation from society. We want to change society to become more easy-going so, dementia or no dementia, we can live together in harmony.”
Also see:
How Technology Can Improve Elder Care — from digitalsalutem.com by João Bocas
In this article, I talk about:
The world is changing. The way we live, the way we work, and the way we age are all being transformed by technology. In fact, some experts say that by 2030, more than half of the world’s population will be over 50 years old.
This is a new phenomenon for humanity. With this shift comes a need for new approaches to healthcare that are better suited to an aging population with increasingly complex needs.
New Pathways: Experiencing Success In What’s Next — from Getting Smart
Excerpt:
Some of you were able to attend our official kick-off event yesterday (on 6/21/22), but for those who weren’t able to make it we wanted to let you know that our new campaign, New Pathways, has officially begun!. Over the next few years, and in partnership with ASA, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Stand Together and the Walton Foundation, we will be dedicated to tracking innovations in the following six pillars:
Will Learning Move into the Metaverse? — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Pamela Hogle
Excerpt:
In its 2022 Tech Trends report, the Future Today Institute predicts that, “The future of work will become more digitally immersive as companies deploy virtual meeting platforms, digital experiences, and mixed reality worlds.”
Learning leaders are likely to spearhead the integration of their organizations’ workers into a metaverse, whether by providing training in using the tools that make a metaverse possible or through developing training and performance support resources that learners will use in an immersive environment.
Advantages of moving some workplace collaboration and learning into a metaverse include ease of scaling and globalization. The Tech Trends report mentions personalization at scale and easy multilingual translation as advantages of “synthetic media”—algorithmically generated digital content, which could proliferate in metaverses.
Also see:
Also from learningsolutionsmag.com, see:
Manage Diverse Learning Ecosystems with Federated Governance
Excerpt:
So, over time, the L&D departments eventually go back to calling their own shots.
What does this mean for the learning ecosystem? If each L&D team chooses its own learning platforms, maintenance and support will be a nightmare. Each L&D department may be happy with the autonomy but learners have no patience for navigating multiple LMSs or going to several systems to get their training records.
Creating common infrastructure among dispersed groups
Here you have the problem: How can groups that have no accountability to each other share a common infrastructure?
Conduct Your Own Virtual Orchestra In Maestro VR — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick
Niantic moves beyond games with Lightship AR platform and a social network — from theverge.com by Alex Heath
The maker of Pokémon Go is releasing its AR map for other apps and a location-based social network called Campfire
Excerpt:
Niantic made a name for itself in the mobile gaming industry through the enduring success of Pokémon Go. Now the company is hoping to become something else: a platform for other developers to build location-aware AR apps on top of.
disguise launches Metaverse Solutions division enabling next-level extended reality experiences — from etnow.com
Excerpt:
UK – disguise, the visual storytelling platform and market leader for extended reality (xR) solutions has launched its Metaverse Solutions division to enable the next generation of extraordinary live, virtual production and audiovisual location-based experiences for the metaverse.
The recent rise of real-time 3D graphics rendering capabilities in gaming platforms means that today’s audiences are craving richer, more immersive experiences that are delivered via the metaverse. While the metaverse is already defined as an $8 trillion dollar opportunity by Goldman Sachs, companies are still finding it challenging to navigate the technical elements needed to start building metaverse experiences.
On this item, also see:
disguise launches Metaverse Solutions division — from televisual.com by
Excerpt:
“Our xR technology combines key metaverse building blocks including real-time 3D graphics, spatial technologies and advanced display interfaces – all to deliver a one-of-a-kind gateway to the metaverse,” says disguise CXO and head of Metaverse Solutions Alex Wills.
Every month Essentials publish an Industry Trend Report on AI in general and the following related topics:
The Race to Hide Your Voice — from wired.com by Matt Burgess
Voice recognition—and data collection—have boomed in recent years. Researchers are figuring out how to protect your privacy.
AI: Where are we now? — from educause.edu by EDUCAUSE
Is the use of AI in higher education today invisible? dynamic? perilous? Maybe it’s all three.
What is artificial intelligence and how is it used? — from europart.europa.eu; with thanks to Tom Barrett for this resource
How has your legal service delivery model changed as we look forward to post-pandemic life? — from legal.thomsonreuters.com
Excerpt:
The rise of the self-service delivery model
Self-service for legal clients was already a trend before COVID, a trend that accelerated during the shutdowns. Clients now expect to be able to find answers themselves to many of their basic legal questions. Call it the Google-fication of legal service delivery. Clients also want to be able to see their matter statuses without having to take the time to call their lawyers, possibly incurring a charge.
Below are some other legal-related items:
Law Schools Are Changing Thanks To Legal Tech — from lawyer-monthly.com
New digital skills courses are rapidly being added to undergraduate law degrees in the UK. While the first students are currently studying the digital skills course, it’s expected that further students will take part over the coming months. Here, we explore what digital skills courses in law schools are covering.
Pioneers and Pathfinders: Bob Ambrogi — from seyfarth.com by J. StephenPoor
Description of podcast:
For anyone following the rapidly evolving area of legal technology, today’s guest will be a familiar voice. Bob Ambrogi—lawyer, journalist, media consultant, and blogger—has been working at the intersection of law, media, and technology for 40 years. He is known internationally for his expertise in legal technology, legal practice, and legal ethics. He’s won numerous awards for his blog and his leading role on the cutting edge of change in the industry, including being named to Fastcase 50 and Legal Rebels Trailblazers. Before entering the blogosphere, Bob was an editor at a number of mainstream legal publications.
In today’s conversation, we talk about Bob’s journey as a journalist, his views on the current state of mainstream media, the potential of regulatory reform to further disrupt the industry, and the growing diversity of the legal technology industry.
***
>$425M in investment has poured into #contractmanagement in 2022. Here’s a ? on (i) possible reasons this is happening and (ii) where this market is going /1https://t.co/bYaWxOiY4Y
— Noah Waisberg (@nwaisb) May 17, 2022
Founders Forum invests in fintech-focused virtual law startup Chronos Law — from globallegalpost.com by Ben Edwards
Chronos will be rebranded Founders Law as part of the deal
Bohills said: “Most tech businesses require flexible legal services that don’t fit the traditional law firm model. I designed the firm to scale with the ambitious startups we support. This new investment will enable us to further recruit and satisfy the growing demand from the tech sector and its need for a new way to access legal advice.
Apple Starts Connecting the Dots for Its Next Big Thing — from nytimes.com by Tripp Mickle and Brian X. Chen
The company has enlisted Hollywood directors like Jon Favreau to help its effort to create products that blend the physical and virtual worlds.
Excerpt:
Nearly 15 years after the iPhone set off the smartphone revolution, Apple is assembling the pieces for what it hopes will become its next business-altering device: a headset that blends the digital world with the real one.
The company has enlisted Hollywood directors such as Jon Favreau to develop video content for a headset that it is expected to ship next year, according to three people familiar with that work. Mr. Favreau, an executive producer of “Prehistoric Planet” on Apple TV+, is working to bring that show’s dinosaurs to life on the headset, which looks like a pair of ski goggles and aims to offer virtual- and augmented-reality experiences, these people said.
Speaking of the future, here’s another item regarding what’s coming down the pike:
What Is the Metaverse? A Beginner’s Guide to Tech’s Latest Obsession — from singularityhub.com by Aaron Frank; with thanks to Jack Aldrich for this resource
The metaverse is the internet, but it’s also a spatial (and often 3D), game-engine-driven collection of virtual environments.
Excerpts:
A couple months ago, friends and business contacts started asking me for a crash course on my professional research studying virtual environments. Their interest reflects an explosion—which you’ve probably noticed—of noise and hype surrounding something called the “metaverse.”
This article is an introduction for a complete or almost beginner. There’s plenty of mainstream coverage on the topic, but it often conflates concepts: virtual reality is not the metaverse (though it’s related), and crypto/Web3 by itself is not the metaverse (though also related). Confusing, I know. Whether you’re a businessperson or bystander, this is my best effort to lay everything out.
…
So if the metaverse is just the internet—what about the internet is about to change? To answer that question, I’ve broken this article into four parts:
Also see:
AI: Where are we now? — from educause.edu by EDUCAUSE
Is the use of AI in higher education today invisible? dynamic? perilous? Maybe it’s all three.
Also see:
Also relevant/see:
From DSC:
The following items made me reflect upon the place of COVID-19 in causing the current ills within higher education — but also thinking about the ills that were present long before Covid hit us.
Key point:
We should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.
The Season of Our Professorial Discontent — from chronicle.com by Paul Musgrave
The pandemic irrevocably changed the student-teacher relationship — and not for the better.
Excerpts:
As pandemic slides into endemic, it’s worth asking: Did the pandemic break something fundamental about academe? Was the spring of 2022 the end of pandemic disruptions, or the start of a new normal?
…
This time, as I delivered the lines to an audience of 30 in a course with 200 students enrolled, I was wondering whether I wanted to give a lecture ever again.
From DSC:
Regarding the first quote…several things were broken within academe long before COID-19. Re: the second quote, what should that tell us if only 30 students showed up in a class with 200 students in it?
Faculty autonomy and faculty satisfaction are being whittled away.
From DSC:
From what I can tell, that’s been happening for years within the K-12 learning ecosystem. It seems like this trend is now occurring within the higher ed learning ecosystem. (I could go off on a tangent about why we didn’t help our fellow educators within K-12 — whose “product” directly impacts those working within higher ed — but I better not. This posting is already packed with reflections.)
Below are some relevant quotes from Kevin McClure’s 5/27/22 article out at The Chronicle of Higher Education (emphasis DSC). I agree with much of what Kevin is saying here.
Don’t Blame the Pandemic for Worker Discontent
It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.
Excerpt:
The pandemic alone didn’t cause the low morale and turnover you might be seeing among your faculty and staff members just as the lack of personal protective equipment didn’t solely give rise to the Amazon Labor Union. Yes, today’s workers are re-evaluating their workplaces, seeking reassignment within their institutions, and in some cases resigning from jobs altogether. But they are doing so for many of the same reasons they did 20 years ago — poor working conditions.
…
So burnout isn’t just about people struggling to cope with stress; it’s about people struggling in workplaces where stress never subsides.
…
In my own interviews on morale, higher-education workers have talked about leaders who aren’t listening, low compensation, and understaffing.
…
We see our workplaces differently, and our tolerance of poor working conditions has evaporated.
“It hasn’t just been a tough two years. It’s been a tough two decades.” The same — and likely more — could be said for the student side of the house, especially in regards to the price of education and how relevant/up-to-date the content has been. As the prices of obtaining a degree have skyrocketed over the last several decades, students and parents now HAVE to ask, “What’s the Return On Investment (ROI) here? Am I gaining the skills in college that will get me hired after college?”
Again, the point I’m trying to make here is that we should be careful not to conveniently use COVID-19 as the scapegoat for all that’s wrong within higher education.
Along these lines, the following two quotes seem relevant to me from Beth McMurtrie’s (6/2/22) Teaching e-newsletter (also from The Chronicle):
I asked Walton to tell me more about the setup at his university. He said classes were fully in person but instructors were encouraged to record lectures and be highly flexible with due dates. The result: Most days he had less than 50-percent attendance, and he received a lot of last-minute emails from students who said they woke up that morning with a headache or otherwise not feeling well. A few filed documented absence requests, but not many, suggesting that these were not serious illnesses, like Covid.
…
I’ve never had more incompletes for courses than in the last two years, so signaling to students that their distribution courses are flexible and accommodating has only let them de-emphasize them even more.
There’s likely a variety of causes/possibilities here — and I’m sure that Covid-related reasons are among them. But it makes me really wonder if students don’t think that the content is all that valuable or relevant to begin with these days. Is college even worth it anymore? Why am I here in the first place? Where is the motivation coming from? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic motivation?
Perhaps it’s time to change the curriculum/content as well as the price.
A graphic I created back in 2009, with Yohan Na’s assistance.
