21st century

College Was Supposed to Close the Wealth Gap for Black Americans. The Opposite Happened. [Ensign & Shifflett]

On 08/25/2021, in 21st century, colleges, economics, higher education, leadership, society, sociology, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

College Was Supposed to Close the Wealth Gap for Black Americans. The Opposite Happened. — from wsj.com by Rachel Louise Ensign and Shane Shifflett
Black college graduates in their 30s have lost ground over three decades, the result of student debt and sluggish income growth

Excerpt:

The drop is driven by skyrocketing student debt and sluggish income growth, which combine to make it difficult to build savings or buy a home. Now, the generation that hoped to close the racial wealth gap is finding it is only growing wider.

More than 84% of college-educated Black households in their 30s have student debt, up from 35% three decades ago, when many baby boomers were at the same age. The younger generation owes a median of $44,000, up from less than $6,000. By comparison, 53% of white college-educated households in their 30s have debt, up from 27% three decades earlier. The median amount rose to $35,000 from $8,000. All figures are adjusted for inflation.

Also see:

American Talent Initiative 2021 | Third Annual Progress Report — from sr.ithaka.org by Martin Kurzweil, Tania LaViolet, Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta, Adam Rabinowitz, Emily Schwartz, Joshua Wyner; with thanks to Goldie Blumenstyk at The Chronicle of Higher Education for this resource

Excerpt:

The progress report includes new enrollment data from the 2019-20 academic year as well as Fall 2020. The pre-COVID and COVID era data reveal four key findings:

Before the pandemic, between 2015-16 and 2019-20, ATI members (130 during this data collection period) collectively increased Pell enrollment by 10,417
In the years leading up to the pandemic, 2018-19 and 2019-20, ATI’s progress leveled off and began to reverse, with an enrollment decline of 3,873 Pell students, attributable to two main factors: (1) substantial declines at a set of ATI member institutions that enroll very high shares of Pell students, and (2) insufficient progress at a set of institutions with lower Pell
Fall 2020 enrollment data for 115 ATI members show a single-year drop of 7,166 Pell students (compared to Fall 2019). Driven in large part by declines in first-time and transfer Pell student enrollment at public institutions, and decreased Pell student retention rates at private
COVID-era declines have nearly returned Pell enrollment levels among ATI members to 2015-16

From DSC:
Speaking of learning-related platforms…

#learning #platforms #learningfromthelivingclassroom #onlinelearning #reinvent #education #lifelonglearning #vision #heutagogy #learningexperiencedesign

Art in the Age of the Metaverse [Future Institute Today]

On 08/22/2021, in 21st century, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, design, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, global / globalization, society, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Art in the Age of the Metaversehttps://t.co/4GZc2rcust #art #creativity #creators #metaverse #future #emergingtechnologies #AI #DigitalArtist

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 22, 2021

Many Americans aren’t aware they’re being tracked with facial recognition while shopping — from techradar.com by Anthony Spadafora
You’re not just on camera, you’re also being tracked

Excerpt:

Despite consumer opposition to facial recognition, the technology is currently being used in retail stores throughout the US according to new research from Piplsay.

While San Francisco banned the police from using facial recognition back in 2019 and the EU called for a five year ban on the technology last year, several major retailers in the US including Lowe’s, Albertsons and Macy’s have been using it for both fraud and theft detection.

From DSC:
I’m not sure how prevalent this practice is…and that’s precisely the point. We don’t know what all of those cameras are actually doing in our stores, gas stations, supermarkets, etc. I put this in the categories of policy, law schools, legal, government, and others as the legislative and legal realm need to scramble to catch up to this Wild Wild West.

Along these lines, I was watching a portion of 60 minutes last night where they were doing a piece on autonomous trucks (reportedly to hit the roads without a person sometime later this year). When asked about oversight, there was some…but not much.

Readers of this blog will know that I have often wondered…”How does society weigh in on these things?”

Along these same lines, also see:

The NYPD Had a Secret Fund for Surveillance Tools — from wired.com by Sidney Fussell
Documents reveal that police bought facial-recognition software, vans equipped with x-ray machines, and “stingray” cell site simulators—with no public oversight.

DC: This article has a much wider audience than you might think!

On 08/13/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), emerging technologies, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, marketing/social marketing, publishing, by Daniel Christian

We Wondered If NFTs Could Change Education, So We Decided to Sell This Article on the Blockchain — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpts:

These digital tokens can essentially contain digital contracts outlining the rights on how the buyer and creator can use the work in the future.

Here’s where the smart contract part of NFTs comes in: If the person who buys one of Aguirre’s NFTs decides to sell it in the future, Aguirre gets a cut of that secondary sale—a 10 percent royalty that’s automatically paid back to her virtual wallet. In fact, she will get a royalty every time one of her NFTs are resold, even if that happens years later.
…
For an artist, that’s a revolutionary shift in how much control and compensation can be gained from a piece of creative work.

From DSC:
At a bare minimum…this is a highly relevant and interesting article for those involved with the legal realm as well as those involved with the worlds of education and publishing. For example, in terms of law schools, those professors who are involved with teaching property and/or contracts may want to pay extra close attention to the topic of this article.

And for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) of all shapes and sizes, listen to this item from Mark Cuban:

“The next best application is textbooks,” he responded to my email query. “They allow digital textbooks to be easily resold but more importantly they allow publishers and authors to collect royalties for every resale. Forever.”

But it doesn’t stop there, as you can tell from this article:

Tom Brady NFT’s Instantly Sells Out on DraftKings Marketplace

For those interested in this topic, also check out:

Could NFTs Play a Role in Education? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Recording of “The Future of Education Collaborative for Higher Education” on 8/12/21

On 08/13/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adult learning, Alternatives, Amazon, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, instructional design, internet, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, student-related, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Recording of “The Future of Education Collaborative for Higher Education” on 8/12/21 — this event was sponsored by Instructure and AWS

From DSC:
One of the most interesting items for me in this was to hear how one university is allowing students to drive the Request For Proposal (RFP) process – giving students much more VOICE. Staff and faculty are consultants but students have the final say! Wow!

Also, I agree with the idea that the market will drive changes within higher education. But for that to occur more significantly:

Employers need to hire more people from a variety of backgrounds and that come into their interviews with a greater variety of credentials.
The accrediting agencies involved with higher ed are going to need to become more innovative and flexible.
And the elephant in the room for me is that faculty members are going to have to come to the realization that those organizations/courses of the future that will thrive and have the most impact will be much more team-based and will be based upon what the market needs (i.e., better alignment is needed between the corporate/business world and the world of higher education). For far too long, the faculty member has been the sole person at the table….the person holding the steering wheel…the person in control of everything that gets presented and how it gets presented….the person who decides what they want to teach (vs. what the market actually needs) and how they want to teach it.

Finally, I bet AWS and Zoom could have said a LOT more than they actually said.

#learningfromthelivingclassroom

Drexel Researchers Will Develop Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Adult Learning and Online Education as Part of $220 Million NSF Initiative — from drexel.edu with thanks to Ray Schroeder for this resource out on LinkedIn

Excerpt:

Researchers in Drexel University’s College of Computing & Informatics, who are studying artificial intelligence as a tool for teaching, have been selected to join a $220 million National Science Foundation initiative to expand the use of AI technology in areas ranging from agriculture and food supply chains to adult and online learning. Drexel’s team will join AI researchers from around the country in an effort to use the technology to make education more accessible for Americans who are adapting to rapidly changing workplaces. The NSF’s Adult Learning & Online Education (ALOE) Institute will be supported by $20 million over five years.

How Next Gen TV Can Help Close The Digital Divide — from by Erik Ofgang
A new prototype utilizes Next Gen TV and QR codes to allow two-way communication between teachers and students via broadcast.

Excerpts:

Efforts to close the digital divide have ramped up during the pandemic, yet despite creative solutions from district, town, and state officials across the country, between 9 and 12 million students still lack adequate internet access.

However, a new application developed by The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) could help close this gap by utilizing cutting-edge broadcast TV technology to allow students to receive and respond to work assigned by their teachers.
…
What Is Next Gen TV and This Application?
Next Gen TV, also known as ATSC 3.0, is a new standard for broadcasting that is currently being launched at broadcast stations throughout the U.S. It is based on internet protocols and allows for targeted broadcasts to be sent as well as more robust datacasting (sending data via broadcasting). Schools can use datacasting to send tests, reading materials, or other assignments that take the form of word documents, excel sheets, and much more. Students can also complete tests and save the work on their own devices.

Also see:

There’s a New Wave of AI Research Coming to Transform Education [Tamez-Robledo]

On 08/08/2021, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, digital learning, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, online learning, personalized/customized learning, reinvent, research, society, staying relevant, story, storytelling, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, United States, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

There’s a New Wave of AI Research Coming to Transform Education — from edsurge.com by Nadia Tamez-Robledo

Preparing for Students’ Second Act
With a focus on adult learners, the AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education, or ALOE, will look to improve online education for the more than 100 million American workers who will need to “reskill” over the next 10 years.

It will also learn from the massive amounts of data generated by online students that isn’t accessible in traditional in-person classes.

It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid [De Smet, Dowling, Mysore, & Reich]

On 08/08/2021, in 21st century, business, business side of he, career development, change, corporate / business world, game-changing environment, generational differences, workplace, by Daniel Christian

It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid — from mckinsey.com by Aaron De Smet, Bonnie Dowling, Mihir Mysore, and Angelika Reich
Employers are ready to get back to significant in-person presence. Employees aren’t. The disconnect is deeper than most employers believe, and a spike in attrition and disengagement may be imminent.

Excerpt:

Once in a generation (if that), we have the opportunity to reimagine how we work. In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution moved many in Europe and the United States from fields to factories. In the 1940s, World War II brought women into the workforce (if not the C-suite) at unprecedented rates. In the 1990s, the explosion of PCs and email drove a rapid increase in productivity and the speed of decision making, ushering in the digital age as we know it today. And in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drove employees out of offices to work from home. Thanks to the development and wide distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, 2021 presents another such opportunity. The return to the workplace is a chance to create a new, more effective operating model that works for companies and people navigating a world of increasing uncertainty. There is, however, one big catch: employers must confront the broadening disconnect between how they and their employees see the future.

Intel expands AI education program to 18 total community colleges — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz

Excerpt:

The technology giant is supplying curriculum and faculty development for participating schools, and is partnering with Dell to provide technical and infrastructure expertise for the program, which can lead to a certificate or associate degree.

The future of AI: Deeper insights, personalization and problem-solving stand to transform how we use AI across devices and industries — from protocol.com by Alex Katouzian

Excerpt:

What comes to mind when you think of AI? In the past, it might have been the Turing test, a sci-fi character or IBM’s Deep Blue-defeating chess champion Garry Kasparov. Today, instead of copying human intelligence, we’re seeing immense progress made in using AI to unobtrusively simplify and enrich our own intelligence and experiences. Natural language processing, modern encrypted security solutions, advanced perception and imaging capabilities, next-generation data management and logistics, and automotive assistance are some of the many ways AI is quietly yet unmistakably driving some of the latest advancements inside our phones, PCs, cars and other crucial 21st century devices. And the combination of 5G and AI is enabling a world with distributed intelligence where AI processing is happening on devices and in the cloud.

Latest Trends in Artificial Intelligence –from newark.com

Excerpt:

Over the past decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has meshed into various industries. The era witnessed a dramatic increase in tools, applications, and platforms based on AI and Machine Learning (ML). These technologies have impacted healthcare, manufacturing, law, finance, retail, real estate, accountancy, digital marketing, and several other areas.

Companies are investing in AI research to find out how they can bring AI closer to humans. By 2025 AI software revenues alone will reach above $100 billion globally (Figure 1). This means that we will continue seeing the advancement of AI and Machine Learning (ML)-related technology in foreseeable future. AI changes notably fast, so you’ll need to go out of your way to keep up with the latest trends if you want to stay as informed as possible. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about the latest AI trends.

What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning? [Christian]

On 08/04/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, blended learning, bots, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, distance education, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, Hyflex learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, platforms, presentations, professional development, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, tools, training / L&D, TVs, UK, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual courts and law firms, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

DC: What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning?https://t.co/beOXFjGZs9 #learningfromthelivingclassroom #education #K12 #highereducation #training #learning #lifelonglearning #globallearning #languages #translation https://t.co/TV5InkWHwn pic.twitter.com/MGblMzQbBL

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 4, 2021

From DSC:
For that matter, what does it open up for #JusticeTech? #Legaltech? #A2J? #Telehealth?

Google CEO Still Insists AI Revolution Bigger Than Invention of Fire — from gizmodo.com by Matt Novak
Pichai suggests the internet and electricity are also small potatoes compared to AI.

Excerpt:

The artificial intelligence revolution is poised to be more “profound” than the invention of electricity, the internet, and even fire, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who made the comments to BBC media editor Amol Rajan in a podcast interview that first went live on Sunday.

“The progress in artificial intelligence, we are still in very early stages, but I viewed it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on, and we have to make sure we do it in a way that we can harness it to society’s benefit,” Pichai said.

“But I expect it to play a foundational role pretty much across every aspect of our lives. You know, be it health care, be it education, be it how we manufacture things and how we consume information.

AI voice actors sound more human than ever —and they’re ready to hire— from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao
A new wave of startups are using deep learning to build synthetic voice actors for digital assistants, video-game characters, and corporate videos.

Excerpt:

The company blog post drips with the enthusiasm of a ’90s US infomercial. WellSaid Labs describes what clients can expect from its “eight new digital voice actors!” Tobin is “energetic and insightful.” Paige is “poised and expressive.” Ava is “polished, self-assured, and professional.”

Each one is based on a real voice actor, whose likeness (with consent) has been preserved using AI. Companies can now license these voices to say whatever they need. They simply feed some text into the voice engine, and out will spool a crisp audio clip of a natural-sounding performance.
…
But the rise of hyperrealistic fake voices isn’t consequence-free. Human voice actors, in particular, have been left to wonder what this means for their livelihoods.

And below are a couple of somewhat related items:

Amazon’s latest voice interoperability move undermines Google — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
With a new toolkit, Amazon is making it easier to build devices that run multiple voice assistants — weakening one of Google’s key arguments against licensing the Google Assistant for such scenarios.

People should be able to pick whatever assistant they prefer for any given task, simply by invoking different words, Rubenson said. “We think it’s critical that customers have choice and flexibility,” he said. “Each will have their own strengths and capabilities.”

Protocol Next Up — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
Defining the future of tech and entertainment with Janko Roettgers.

Voice is becoming a true developer ecosystem. Amazon now has more than 900,000 registered Alexa developers, who collectively have built over 130,000 Alexa skills. And those skills are starting to show up in more and more places: “We now have hundreds of physical products” with Alexa built in, Alexa Voice Service & Alexa Skills VP Aaron Rubenson told me this week.

Learning Ecosystems

College Was Supposed to Close the Wealth Gap for Black Americans. The Opposite Happened. [Ensign & Shifflett]

Speaking of learning-related platforms…

Many Americans aren’t aware they’re being tracked with facial recognition while shopping [Spadafora]

It’s time for leaders to get real about hybrid [De Smet, Dowling, Mysore, & Reich]

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