bots

Plan now to attend the 2018 Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference — tour USC’s campus!

On 11/09/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, learning theories, liberal arts, lifelong learning, maker movement, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, online learning, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, staying relevant, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I am honored to be currently serving on the 2018 Advisory Council for the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference with a great group of people. Missing — at least from my perspective — from the image below is Kristen Tadrous, Senior Program Director with the Corporate Learning Network. Kristen has done a great job these last few years planning and running this conference.

NOTE:
The above graphic reflects a recent change for me. I am still an Adjunct Faculty Member
at Calvin College, but I am no longer a Senior Instructional Designer there.
My brand is centered around being an Instructional Technologist.

This national conference will be held in Los Angeles, CA on February 26-28, 2018. It is designed to help institutions of higher education develop highly-innovative cultures — something that’s needed in many institutions of traditional higher education right now.

I have attended the first 3 conferences and I moderated a panel at the most recent conference out in San Diego back in February/March of this year. I just want to say that this is a great conference and I encourage you to bring a group of people to it from your organization! I say a group of people because a group of 5 of us (from a variety of departments) went one year and the result of attending the NGLS Conference was a brand new Sandbox Classroom — an active-learning based, highly-collaborative learning space where faculty members can experiment with new pedagogies as well as with new technologies. The conference helped us discuss things as a diverse group, think out load, come up with some innovative ideas, and then build the momentum to move forward with some of those key ideas.

If you haven’t already attended this conference, I highly recommend that you check it out. You can obtain the agenda/brochure for the conference by providing some basic contact information here.

Per Kristen Tadrous, here’s why you want to check out USC:

A true leader in innovation: USC made it to the Top 20 of Reuter’s 100 Most Innovative Universities in 2017!
Detailed guided tour of leading spaces led by the Information Technology Services Learning Environments team
Benchmark your own learning environments by getting a ‘behind the scenes’ look at their state-of-the-art spaces
There are only 30 spots available for the site tour

Building Spaces to Inspire a Culture of Innovation — a core theme at the 4^th Next Generation Learning Spaces summit, taking place this February 26-28 in Los Angeles. An invaluable opportunity to meet and hear from like-minded peers in higher education, and continue your path toward lifelong learning. #ngls2018 http://bit.ly/2yNkMLL

2018 Tech Trends for Journalism & Media Report + the 2017 Tech Trends Annual Report that I missed from the Future Today Institute

On 11/08/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, digital audio, digital learning, digital textbooks, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engineering, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, journalism, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, media/film, microlearning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new media literacies, online learning, organizational change, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, political science, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

2018 Tech Trends For Journalism Report — from the Future Today Institute

Key Takeaways

2018 marks the beginning of the end of smartphones in the world’s largest economies. What’s coming next are conversational interfaces with zero-UIs. This will radically change the media landscape, and now is the best time to start thinking through future scenarios.
In 2018, a critical mass of emerging technologies will converge finding advanced uses beyond initial testing and applied research. That’s a signal worth paying attention to. News organizations should devote attention to emerging trends in voice interfaces, the decentralization of content, mixed reality, new types of search, and hardware (such as CubeSats and smart cameras).
Journalists need to understand what artificial intelligence is, what it is not, and what it means for the future of news. AI research has advanced enough that it is now a core component of our work at FTI. You will see the AI ecosystem represented in many of the trends in this report, and it is vitally important that all decision-makers within news organizations familiarize themselves with the current and emerging AI landscapes. We have included an AI Primer For Journalists in our Trend Report this year to aid in that effort.
Decentralization emerged as a key theme for 2018. Among the companies and organizations FTI covers, we discovered a new emphasis on restricted peer-to-peer networks to detect harassment, share resources and connect with sources. There is also a push by some democratic governments around the world to divide internet access and to restrict certain content, effectively creating dozens of “splinternets.”
Consolidation is also a key theme for 2018. News brands, broadcast spectrum, and artificial intelligence startups will continue to be merged with and acquired by relatively few corporations. Pending legislation and policy in the U.S., E.U. and in parts of Asia could further concentrate the power among a small cadre of information and technology organizations in the year ahead.
To understand the future of news, you must pay attention to the future of many industries and research areas in the coming year. When journalists think about the future, they should broaden the usual scope to consider developments from myriad other fields also participating in the knowledge economy. Technology begets technology. We are witnessing an explosion in slow motion.

Those in the news ecosystem should factor the trends in this report into their strategic thinking for the coming year, and adjust their planning, operations and business models accordingly.

2017 Tech Trends Annual Report — from the Future Today Institute; this is the first I’ve seen this solid report

Excerpts:

This year’s report has 159 trends.
This is mostly due to the fact that 2016 was the year that many areas of science and technology finally started to converge. As a result we’re seeing a sort of slow-motion explosion––we will undoubtedly look back on the last part of this decade as a pivotal moment in our history on this planet.
…
Our 2017 Trend Report reveals strategic opportunities and challenges for your organization in the coming year. The Future Today Institute’s annual Trend Report prepares leaders and organizations for the year ahead, so that you are better positioned to see emerging technology and adjust your strategy accordingly. Use our report to identify near-future business disruption and competitive threats while simultaneously finding new collaborators and partners. Most importantly, use our report as a jumping off point for deeper strategic planning.

Also see:

Emerging eLearning Tools and Platforms Improve Results — from learningsolutionsmag.com

Augmented and virtual reality offer ways to immerse learners in experiences that can aid training in processes and procedures, provide realistic simulations to deepen empathy and build communication skills, or provide in-the-workflow support for skilled technicians performing complex procedures.
Badges and other digital credentials provide new ways to assess and validate employees’ skills and mark their eLearning achievements, even if their learning takes place informally or outside of the corporate framework.
Chatbots are proving an excellent tool for spaced learning, review of course materials, guiding new hires through onboarding, and supporting new managers with coaching and tips.
Content curation enables L&D professionals to provide information and educational materials from trusted sources that can deepen learners’ knowledge and help them build skills.
eBooks, a relative newcomer to the eLearning arena, offer rich features for portable on-demand content that learners can explore, review, and revisit as needed.
Interactive videos provide branching scenarios, quiz learners on newly introduced concepts and terms, offer prompts for small-group discussions, and do much more to engage learners.
Podcasts can turn drive time into productive time, allowing learners to enjoy a story built around eLearning content.
Smartphone apps, available wherever learners take their phones or tablets, can be designed to offer product support, info for sales personnel, up-to-date information for repair technicians, and games and drills for teaching and reviewing content; the possibilities are limited only by designers’ imagination.
Social platforms like Slack, Yammer, or Instagram facilitate collaboration, sharing of ideas, networking, and social learning. Adopting social learning platforms encourages learners to develop their skills and contribute to their communities of practice, whether inside their companies or more broadly.
xAPI turns any experience into a learning experience. Adding xAPI capability to any suitable tool or platform means you can record learner activity and progress in a learning record store (LRS) and track it.

DevLearn Attendees Learn How to ‘Think Like a Futurist’ — from learningsolutionsmag.com

Excerpt:

How does all of this relate to eLearning? Again, Webb anticipated the question. Her response gave hope to some—and terrified others. She presented three possible future scenarios:

Everyone in the learning arena learns to recognize weak signals; they work with technologists to refine artificial intelligence to instill values. Future machines learn not only to identify correct and incorrect answers; they also learn right and wrong. Webb said that she gives this optimistic scenario a 25 percent chance of occurring.
Everyone present is inspired by her talk but they, and the rest of the learning world, do nothing. Artificial intelligence continues to develop as it has in the past, learning to identify correct answers but lacking values. Webb’s prediction is that this pragmatic optimistic scenario has a 50 percent chance of occurring.
Learning and artificial intelligence continue to develop on separate tracks. Future artificial intelligence and machine learning projects incorporate real biases that affect what and how people learn and how knowledge is transferred. Webb said that she gives this catastrophic scenario a 25 percent chance of occurring.

In an attempt to end on a strong positive note, Webb said that “the future hasn’t happened yet—we think” and encouraged attendees to take action. “To build the future of learning that you want, listen to weak signals now.”

“How to improve memory retention in online training” plus tips for managing projects as well as for budgeting — from Christopher Pappas

On 11/03/2017, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, memory, online learning, online media, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, tools, training / L&D, user experience (UX), using teams, workplace, by Daniel Christian

How to improve memory retention in online training — from growthengineering.co.uk by Christopher Pappas

Excerpt:

4. Incorporate A “Moment Of Need” Online Training Repository
That brings us to the next tip, which is to incorporate a “just in time” online training library. This features microlearning online training resources that are easy to digest and remember. Employees can access support tools based on their needs, goals, and skill gaps. Best of all, they can expand their knowledge whenever it’s most convenient, whether that’s on the sales floor, before a client meeting, or during the morning commute. “Moment of need” online training repositories aid in memory retention by breaking the online training content into consumable pieces, instead of barraging your employees with large quantities of information.

From DSC:
This idea of an online training repository is tied in with a more recent development of “chatbots.” As artificial intelligence continues to pick up steam, these chatbots could offer internal employees as well as external customers automated responses to questions. People could ask the questions either by typing in their questions and/or by using their voices to ask their questions. So keep your eyes on chatbots — as they will likely bring a whole new method of obtaining information and professional development to us in the near future!

Also from Christopher Pappas (@cpappas) see:

6 Tips To Create A Realistic eLearning Budget For Your eLearning Project – from by Christopher Pappas
Creating an eLearning project plan means establishing a realistic eLearning budget to match your expectations. Here are 7 things to consider to develop a realistic eLearning budget.

Top Project Management Online Platforms For Distributed eLearning Teams

From DSC:
Some of the largest waves of change that are hitting the beaches of numerous societies throughout the globe are coming from technological changes such as:

Artificial intelligence (which includes things like machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, personal assistants, bots, algorithms, and the like)
Big data and analytics
Robotics
The digital transformation of businesses
New forms of human computer interaction such as virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality
Mobile computing
Cloud computing
The Internet of Things
Wearables
…and more

But in all of these developments, what is common amongst them is that the pace of change has changed. It’s much faster now. In fact, we are no longer on a linear path of slow, steady, incremental changes. We are now on an exponential trajectory – or pace – of change.

This new pace of change is starting to have profound implications for societies, individuals, institutions of higher education, and workforces throughout the globe. Some of these ramifications include:

Profound modifications to the existing workforce; in some cases, staff reductions
New fields, new positions
New skillsets that require highly-educated individuals as well as a massive amount of additional training for existing employees
New methods of learning and the requirement for lifelong, constant learning from here on out
The need to become more responsive and nimble
The need to pulse-check a variety of landscapes to ascertain the best potential strategies to pursue (in light of the potential upcoming scenarios)

Yet the changes aren’t just arising from technological changes. For institutions of higher education, there have been other areas of change that bring with them significant impact, such as:

Decreases in state funding
The increasing costs of healthcare and benefits for faculty, staff, and administrators
Headwinds from demographic-related declines (depending upon one’s geographic location)
Aging facilities and infrastructures
…and more.

Navigating these rough waters is not easy. But the key questions now are:

Is your institution poised to ride the waves of change or is it about to get crushed by these same waves?

Is someone at your organization looking out for these oncoming waves?
That is, is someone pulse-checking a variety of landscapes to ascertain the trends that are developing, trends that could significantly impact your institution and/or your students?

What are some of the ways that your organization could respond to these waves of change to positively impact the following parties?
- Your organization
  What new programs could be offered at your institution? How is the level of responsiveness at your institution to these changes?
- Your students
  Many jobs that your students will have in their futures haven’t even been invented yet. How can you best develop them to be ready for the new, exponential pace of change? How are you helping your graduates who (increasingly) need to come back to your institution and reinvent themselves – quickly, conveniently, and cost-effectively?
- Your employees
  Given all of this change, the professional growth of your own faculty members, staff, and members of your administration is extremely important. How are you looking after their growth?

Would you use the word “innovative” to describe the culture of your organization? That is, is your institution willing to experiment and take some calculated risks? To take no action or risks in the current environment is likely the biggest risk of all.

For institutions of higher education: Some of the ways to respond to the new, exponential pace of change [Christian]

On 10/18/2017, in 21st century, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, business, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education reform, elearning, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, interaction design, interface design, internet, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, Michigan, Mixed Reality (MR), online learning, organizational change, pace of change, parents/guardians, personalized/customized learning, platforms, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technology (general), traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In Part I, I looked at the new, exponential pace of change that colleges, community colleges and universities now need to deal with – observing the enormous changes that are starting to occur throughout numerous societies around the globe. If we were to plot out the rate of change, we would see that we are no longer on a slow, steady, incremental type of linear pathway; but, instead, we would observe that we are now on an exponential trajectory (as the below graphic from sparks & honey very nicely illustrates).

How should colleges and universities deal with this new, exponential pace of change?

1) I suggest that you ensure that someone in your institution is lifting their gaze and peering out into the horizons, to see what’s coming down the pike. That person – or more ideally, persons – should also be looking around them, noticing what’s going on within the current landscapes of higher education. Regardless of how your institution tackles this task, given that we are currently moving at an incredibly fast pace, this trend analysis is very important. The results from this analysis should immediately be integrated into your strategic plan. Don’t wait 3-5 years to integrate these new findings into your plan. The new, exponential pace of change is going to reward those organizations who are nimble and responsive.

2) I recommend that you look at what programs you are offering and consider if you should be developing additional programs such as those that deal with:

Artificial Intelligence (Natural Language Processing, deep learning, machine learning, bots)
New forms of Human Computer Interaction such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality
User Experience Design, User Interface Design, and/or Interaction Design
Big data, data science, working with data
The Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications, sensors, beacons, etc.
Blockchain-based technologies/systems
The digital transformation of business
Freelancing / owning your own business / entrepreneurship (see this article for the massive changes happening now!)
…and more

3) If you are not already doing so, I recommend that you immediately move to offer a robust lineup of online-based programs. Why do I say this? Because:

Without them, your institution may pay a heavy price due to its diminishing credibility. Your enrollments could decline if learners (and their families) don’t think they will get solid jobs coming out of your institution. If the public perceives you as a dinosaur/out of touch with what the workplace requires, your enrollment/admissions groups may find meeting their quotas will get a lot harder as the years go on. You need to be sending some cars down the online/digital/virtual learning tracks. (Don’t get me wrong. We still need the liberal arts. However, even those institutions who offer liberal arts lineups will still need to have a healthy offering of online-based programs.)
Online-based learning methods can expand the reach of your faculty members while offering chances for individuals throughout the globe to learn from you, and you from them
Online-based learning programs can increase your enrollments, create new revenue streams, and develop/reach new markets
Online-based learning programs have been proven to offer the same learning gains – and sometimes better learning results than – what’s being achieved in face-to-face based classrooms
The majority of pedagogically-related innovations are occurring within the online/digital/virtual realm, and you will want to have built the prior experience, expertise, and foundations in order to leverage and benefit from them
Faculty take their learning/experiences from offering online-based courses back into their face-to-face courses
Due to the increasing price of obtaining a degree, students often need to work to help get them (at least part of the way) through school; thus, flexibility is becoming increasingly important and necessary for students
An increasing number of individuals within the K-12 world as well as the corporate world are learning via online-based means. This is true within higher education as well, as, according to a recent report from Digital Learning Compass states that “the number of higher education students taking at least one distance education course in 2015 now tops six million, about 30% of all enrollments.”
Families are looking very closely at their return on investments being made within the world of higher education. They want to see that their learners are being prepared for the ever-changing future that they will encounter. If people in the workforce often learn online, then current students should be getting practice in that area of their learning ecosystems as well.
As the (mostly) online-based Amazon.com is thriving and retail institutions such as Sears continue to close, people are in the process of forming more generalized expectations that could easily cross over into the realm of higher education. By the way, here’s how our local Sears building is looking these days…or what’s left of it.

4) I recommend that you move towards offering more opportunities for lifelong learning, as learners need to constantly add to their skillsets and knowledge base in order to remain marketable in today’s workforce. This is where adults greatly appreciate – and need – the greater flexibility offered by online-based means of learning. I’m not just talking about graduate programs or continuing studies types of programs here. Rather, I’m hoping that we can move towards providing streams of up-to-date content that learners can subscribe to at any time (and can drop their subscription to at any time). As a relevant side note here, keep your eyes on blockchain-based technologies here.

5) Consider the role of consortia and pooling resources. How might that fit into your strategic plan?

6) Consider why bootcamps continue to come onto the landscape. What are traditional institutions of higher education missing here?

7) And lastly, if one doesn’t already exist, form a small, nimble, innovative group within your organization — what I call a TrimTab Group — to help identify what will and won’t work for your institution.

For those seeking to be better communicators/leaders/servants, you need to check out “Communicate Like a True Leader”

On 10/17/2017, in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, bots, business, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, leadership, liberal arts, marketing/social marketing, Michigan, Microsoft, morals/values, organizational change, pace of change, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, relationships, robotics, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, universities, writing, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I know Quentin Schultze from our years working together at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA). I have come to greatly appreciate Quin as a person of faith, as an innovative/entrepreneurial professor, as a mentor to his former students, and as an excellent communicator.

Quin has written a very concise, wisdom-packed book that I would like to recommend to those people who are seeking to be better communicators, leaders, and servants. But I would especially like to recommend this book to the leadership at Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Nvidia, the major companies developing robots, and other high-tech companies. Why do I list these organizations? Because given the exponential pace of technological change, these organizations — and their leaders — have an enormous responsibility to make sure that the technologies that they are developing result in positive changes for societies throughout the globe. They need wisdom, especially as they are working on emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), personal assistants and bots, algorithms, robotics, the Internet of Things, big data, blockchain and more. These technologies continue to exert an increasingly powerful influence on numerous societies throughout the globe today. And we haven’t seen anything yet! Just because we can develop and implement something, doesn’t mean that we should. Again, we need wisdom here.

But as Quin states, it’s not just about knowledge, the mind and our thoughts. It’s about our hearts as well. That is, we need leaders who care about others, who can listen well to others, who can serve others well while avoiding gimmicks, embracing diversity, building trust, fostering compromise and developing/exhibiting many of the other qualities that Quin writes about in his book. Our societies desperately need leaders who care about others and who seek to serve others well.

I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Quin’s book. There are few people who can communicate as much in as few words as Quin can. In fact, I wish that more writing on the web and more articles/research coming out of academia would be as concisely and powerfully written as Quin’s book, Communicate Like a True Leader: 30 Days of Life-Changing Wisdom.

To lead is to accept responsibility and act responsibly.
— Quentin Schultze

Amazon and Microsoft announce Gluon, making deep learning accessible to all developers

On 10/13/2017, in Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), Microsoft, platforms, programming, by Daniel Christian

AWS and Microsoft announce Gluon, making deep learning accessible to all developers — from news.microsoft.com
New open source deep learning interface allows developers to more easily and quickly build machine learning models without compromising training performance. Jointly developed reference specification makes it possible for Gluon to work with any deep learning engine; support for Apache MXNet available today and support for Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit coming soon.

Excerpt:

SEATTLE and REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 12, 2017 — On Thursday, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced a new deep learning library, called Gluon, that allows developers of all skill levels to prototype, build, train and deploy sophisticated machine learning models for the cloud, devices at the edge and mobile apps. The Gluon interface currently works with Apache MXNet and will support Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK) in an upcoming release. With the Gluon interface, developers can build machine learning models using a simple Python API and a range of prebuilt, optimized neural network components. This makes it easier for developers of all skill levels to build neural networks using simple, concise code, without sacrificing performance. AWS and Microsoft published Gluon’s reference specification so other deep learning engines can be integrated with the interface. To get started with the Gluon interface, visit https://github.com/gluon-api/gluon-api/.

Microsoft and Amazon struck a brilliant partnership to take on Google in the next big thing for cloud computing — from finance.yahoo.com Business Insider by Julie Bort

Excerpt:

Microsoft and Amazon announced a surprise partnership on Thursday in which they were jointly releasing for free a new software tool for developers called Gluon.
Gluon makes it easier for developers to build AI/machine learning systems, aka apps that can learn.
But there’s another, more important reason this partnership is interesting: it challenges Google in its one big area of dominance.

Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018 — from Gartner Research

Summary

The intelligent digital mesh is a foundation for future digital business and its ecosystems. To create competitive advantage, enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders must evaluate these top trends to identify opportunities that their organizations can exploit.

Key Findings

Artificial intelligence (AI) delivers value to every industry, enabling new business models. It does so by supporting key initiatives such as customer engagement, digital production, smart cities, self-driving cars, risk management, computer vision and speech recognition.
As people, places, processes and “things” become increasingly digitalized, they will be represented by digital twins. This will provide fertile ground for new event-driven business processes and digitally enabled business models and ecosystems.
The way we interact with technology will undergo a radical transformation over the next five to 10 years. Conversational platforms, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will provide more natural and immersive interactions with the digital world.
A digital business is event-centric, which means it must be continuously sensing and adapting. The same applies to the security and risk infrastructure that supports it, which must focus on deceiving potential intruders and predicting security events.

Table of Contents

Analysis

Trend No. 1: AI Foundation
Today’s AI Is Narrow AI

Trend No. 2: Intelligent Apps and Analytics
Augmented Analytics Will Enable Users to Spend More Time Acting on Insights

Trend No. 3: Intelligent Things
Swarms of Intelligent Things Will Work Together

Trend No. 4: Digital Twins
Digital Twins Will Be Linked to Other Digital Entities

Trend No. 5: Cloud to the Edge
Edge Computing Brings Distributed Computing Into the Cloud Style

Trend No. 6: Conversational Platforms
Integration With Third-Party Services Will Further Increase Usefulness

Trend No. 7: Immersive Experience
VR and AR Can Help Increase Productivity

Trend No. 8: Blockchain
Blockchain Offers Significant Potential Long-Term Benefits Despite Its Challenges

Trend No. 9: Event-Driven Model
Events Will Become More Important in the Intelligent Digital Mesh

Trend No. 10: Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust
Barriers Must Come Down Between Security and Application Teams

Gartner Recommended Reading

Also see:

AI, Merging of Digital and Physical Worlds Among Top 10 Tech Trends for 2018 — from campustechnology.com by Joshua Bolkan
Excerpt:
Gartner has released its list of top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 with a focus for the coming year on technologies related to artificial intelligence and machine learning and those that blend the physical and digital worlds.

Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017 [Center for Learning & Performance Technologies; Jane Hart]

On 10/06/2017, in 21st century, Adobe, adult learning, Asia, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, business, Canada, CMS/LMS, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, India, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, Microsoft, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, online learning, online media, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, wearables, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

The Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017 (11th Annual Survey) has been compiled by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies from the votes of 2,174 learning professionals worldwide, together with 3 sub-lists

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning (PPL)
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL)
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU)

Excerpt from the Analysis page (emphasis DSC):

Here is a brief analysis of what’s on the list and what it tells us about the current state of personal learning, workplace learning and education.

Some facts

The top 2 tools are the same as in 2016: YouTube and Google Search
PowerPoint moves up to #3, Word moves up to #6, Excel up 29 to #17
Twitter moves down to #5
66 tools moved up the list. Top 3 risers are Unsplash (up 71 places), Grammarly (up 70 places) and Snapchat (up 64 places
Messaging apps and team tools are particularly on the rise: Slack is now up 8 places to #12, Trello is up 21 places to #22, Microsoft Teams is another new tool in at #79
4 tools are BACK on the list: Google Alerts, IFTTT, Backpack and Hootsuite
52 NEW tools appear on the list this year – the highest entry is Typeform in at #55.
2 interesting new tools for augmented and virtual reality join the list – Aurasma, ENTiTi – as well as a chatbot system – Ultra Hal Assistant.

Some observations on what the Top Tools list tells us personal and professional learning
As in previous years, individuals continue to using a wide variety of:

networks, services and platforms for professional networking, communication and collaboration
web resources and courses for self-improvement and self-development
tools for personal productivity

All of which shows that many individuals have become highly independent, continuous modern professional learners – making their own decisions about what they need to learn and how to do it.

100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 — from Gartner

From DSC:
I just wanted to include some excerpts (see below) from Gartner’s 100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 report. I do so to illustrate how technology’s impact continues to expand/grow in influence throughout many societies around the globe, as well as to say that if you want a sure thing job in the next 1-15 years, I would go into studying data science and/or artificial intelligence!

Excerpts:

As evidenced by its pervasiveness within our vast array of recently published Predicts 2017 research, it is clear that data and analytics are increasingly critical elements across most industries, business functions and IT disciplines. Most significantly, data and analytics are key to a successful digital business. This collection of more than 100 data-and-analytics-related Strategic Planning Assumptions (SPAs) or predictions through 2021, heralds several transformations and challenges ahead that CIOs and data and analytics leaders should embrace and include in their planning for successful strategies. Common themes across the discipline in general, and within particular business functions and industries, include:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a core business and analytic competency. Beyond yesteryear’s hard-coded algorithms and manual data science activities, machine learning (ML) promises to transform business processes, reconfigure workforces, optimize infrastructure behavior and blend industries through rapidly improved decision making and process optimization.
Natural language is beginning to play a dual role in many organizations and applications as a source of input for analytic and other applications, and a variety of output, in addition to traditional analytic visualizations.
Information itself is being recognized as a corporate asset (albeit not yet a balance sheet asset), prompting organizations to become more disciplined about monetizing, managing and measuring it as they do with other assets. This includes “spending” it like cash, selling/licensing it to others, participating in emerging data marketplaces, applying asset management principles to improve its quality and availability, and quantifying its value and risks in a variety of ways.
Smart devices that both produce and consume Internet of Things (IoT) data will also move intelligent computing to the edge of business functions, enabling devices in almost every industry to operate and interact with humans and each other without a centralized command and control. The resulting opportunities for innovation are unbounded.
Trust becomes the watchword for businesses, devices and information, leading to the creation of digital ethics frameworks, accreditation and assessments. Most attempts at leveraging blockchain as a trust mechanism fail until technical limitations, particularly performance, are solved.

…

Education
Significant changes to the global education landscape have taken shape in 2016, and spotlight new and interesting trends for 2017 and beyond. “Predicts 2017: Education Gets Personal” is focused on several SPAs, each uniquely contributing to the foundation needed to create the digitalized education environments of the future. Organizations and institutions will require new strategies to leverage existing and new technologies to maximize benefits to the organization in fresh and
innovative ways.

By 2021, more than 30% of institutions will be forced to execute on a personalization strategy to maintain student enrollment.
By 2021, the top 100 higher education institutions will have to adopt AI technologies to stay competitive in research.

…

Artificial Intelligence
Business and IT leaders are stepping up to a broad range of opportunities enabled by AI, including autonomous vehicles, smart vision systems, virtual customer assistants, smart (personal) agents and natural-language processing. Gartner believes that this new general-purpose technology is just beginning a 75-year technology cycle that will have far-reaching implications for every industry. In “Predicts 2017: Artificial Intelligence,” we reflect on the near-term opportunities, and the potential burdens and risks that organizations face in exploiting AI. AI is changing the way in which organizations innovate and communicate their processes, products and services.

Practical strategies for employing AI and choosing the right vendors are available to data and analytics leaders right now.

By 2019, more than 10% of IT hires in customer service will mostly write scripts for bot interactions.
Through 2020, organizations using cognitive ergonomics and system design in new AI projects will achieve long-term success four times more often than others.
By 2020, 20% of companies will dedicate workers to monitor and guide neural networks.
By 2019, startups will overtake Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft in driving the AI economy with disruptive business solutions.
By 2019, AI platform services will cannibalize revenues for 30% of market-leading companies. “Predicts 2017: Drones”
By 2020, the top seven commercial drone manufacturers will all offer analytical software packages.
“Predicts 2017: The Reinvention of Buying Behavior in Vertical-Industry Markets”
By 2021, 30% of net new revenue growth from industry-specific solutions will include AI technology.

…

Advanced Analytics and Data Science
Advanced analytics and data science are fast becoming mainstream solutions and competencies in most organizations, even supplanting traditional BI and analytics resources and budgets. They allow more types of knowledge and insights to be extracted from data. To become and remain competitive, enterprises must seek to adopt advanced analytics, and adapt their business models, establish specialist data science teams and rethink their overall strategies to keep pace with the competition. “Predicts 2017: Analytics Strategy and Technology” offers advice on overall strategy, approach and operational transformation to algorithmic business that leadership needs to build to reap the benefits.

By 2018, deep learning (deep neural networks [DNNs]) will be a standard component in 80% of data scientists’ tool boxes.
By 2020, more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.
By 2019, natural-language generation will be a standard feature of 90% of modern BI and analytics platforms.
By 2019, 50% of analytics queries will be generated using search, natural-language query or voice, or will be autogenerated.
By 2019, citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis
produced.

By 2020, 95% of video/image content will never be viewed by humans; instead, it will be vetted by machines that provide some degree of automated analysis.

Through 2020, lack of data science professionals will inhibit 75% of organizations from achieving the full potential of IoT.

From DSC: Some reflections from the “2017 Workplace Learning Report ” from LinkedIn Learning

On 10/02/2017, in 21st century, bots, business, career development, change, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, elearning, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Microsoft, online learning, online media, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, RSS, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tools, training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Getting employees to make time for L&D needs to be based upon “what’s in it for them” — i.e., the main role of the L&D Team/Department should be to create the platforms and means by which employees can learn whatever they need to learn in order to do their jobs well (as well as to learn the skills necessary to move into those new areas that they’ve been wanting to move into). They’re going to find ways to do this anyway, why not give them the tools/knowledge of the tools and the platforms in order to better facilitate that learning to happen at a quicker pace?

An L&D Team could provide content curation services themselves and/or they could connect the employees with knowledgeable people. For example, give employees the key people to connect with who are doing their jobs really well.

For example, the L&D Team could maintain and provide a list of the top 10*:

Internal Sales employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Sales people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Customer Service employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Customer Service people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Marketing employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Marketing people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Etc.

* Or top 5, or top 50, or top whatever # that the L&D Team
thinks would be most beneficial to the organization

I think each employee in the workforce needs to know about the power of RSS feeds and feed aggregators such as Feedly. In fact, I advocate that same approach for most every student in middle school, high school, and college as well. We need to be able to connect with others and tap into streams of content being produced — as well as contribute to those streams of content as well. Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, CMSs/LMSs, etc. can provide beneficial streams of content.

“And learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.”

Also, based upon the above image, I find it interesting that the corporate L&D teams are struggling with what higher education has been struggling with as well — i.e., predicting which skills will be needed and responding as quickly as possible in order to develop the necessary learning modules/RSS feeds/content/etc. to remain up-to-date. Actually, I suspect that it’s not that the learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them, rather its the required skills and needs of the positions that are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.

Our institutions and our L&D Departments are simply not used to this pace of change. No one is.

We need better mechanisms of dealing with this new pace of change.

One last random thought here…perhaps a portion of the L&D department will morph into creating bots for internal employees, helping answer questions at the point of need.

These Are the Skills of the Future, According to 39 Industry Experts — from linkedin.com by Paul Petrone

Excerpts:

There’s a misconception out there that the future of work will be robots and artificial intelligence automating all the jobs, leaving nothing for majority of the world’s citizens to do.

History says that’s not the case. Over the past 120 years, there have been incredible technological advancements – cars, personal computers, the internet, smartphones, etc. – that have automated or eliminated aspects of nearly every job. But jobs haven’t gone away; instead, they’ve generally become more complex or changed scope, requiring new skills to complete them.

Hence, over the next five years, with AI and other technologies changing the market, jobs won’t go away. But the skills needed to do most jobs will change (and, in many cases, change drastically).

This sounds scary, but it really isn’t. Preparing for the future merely requires a commitment to learning – one of the most empowering activities a person can engage in. And, with all this change comes great opportunity. So, if you commit to learning and stay ahead of your industry, you’ll put yourself in position to reach your goals – regardless of where you stand now.

…

And while those answers were all specific to their individual fields, there were three skills we saw again and again that apply to all professionals moving forward. They are:

* A growth mindset
* Strategy
* Employee empowerment

…

Amazon and Codecademy team up for free Alexa skills training [Khari Johnson]; 20,000+ “skills” now exist in Alexa Skills Store

On 09/26/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, computer science, game-changing environment, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, programming, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Amazon and Codecademy team up for free Alexa skills training — from venturebeat.com by Khari Johnson

Excerpt:

Amazon and tech training app Codecademy have collaborated to create a series of free courses. Available today, the courses are meant to train developers as well as beginners how to create skills, the voice apps that interact with Alexa.

Since opening Alexa to third-party developers in 2015, more than 20,000 skills have been made available in the Alexa Skills Store.

DeepMind, Vodafone, Google & Facebook – Deep Learning & AI Highlights [UK; Johnson]

On 09/26/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, Google, Natural Language Processing (NLP), UK, user experience (UX), vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

DeepMind, Vodafone, Google & Facebook – Deep Learning & AI Highlights — from re-work.co by Nikita Johnson

Excerpt:

This week, the The Deep Learning Summit and AI Assistant Summit saw over 450 DL and AI experts and enthusiasts come together to learn from each other and explore the most recent research and progressions in the space. Over the past two days we’ve heard from the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Vodafone, as well as Universities such as Cambridge, Warwick, UCL, Imperial, and exciting new startups like Jukedeck and Echobox. Topics have been incredibly diverse covering NLP, space exploration, ML for music composition, and many more.

We’ve collected some of our favourite takeaways from both tracks over the last two days, as well as hearing what our attendees thought.

What did we hear at the AI Assistant Summit?
I’m driving in France and google translate is automatically translating all the french road signs for me and directing me to my location, telling me my time of arrival – this is the future. There is no interface there is no screen.
Adi Chhabra, Evolution of AI & Machine Learning in Customer Experience – Beyond Interfaces, Vodafone
…
We are at the beginning of the era of assistance. In the future every employee will have an assistant to help him with decision making.
Christophe Bourguignat, Deep Learning for Conversational Intelligence on Analytics Data, Zelros

Reflections on “Six reasons why disruption is coming to learning departments” [feathercap.net]

On 09/25/2017, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, CMS/LMS, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, disruption, emerging technologies, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, reinvent, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, staying relevant, surviving, tools, training / L&D, vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Six reasons why disruption is coming to learning departments — from feathercap.net, with thanks to Mr. Tim Seager for this resource

Excerpts:

Training materials and interactions will not just be pre-built courses but any structured or unstructured content available to the organization.
Curation of all learning, employee or any useful organizational content will become a whole lot easier.
The learning department won’t have to build it all themselves.
Learning bots and voice enabled learning.
Current workplace learning systems and LMSs will go through a big transition or they will lose relevancy.
Learning departments will go beyond onboarding, compliance training and leadership training and move to training everyone in the company on all job skills.

A successful example of this is Amazon.com. As a shopper on their site we have access to millions of book and product SKUs. Amazon uses a combination of all three techniques to position the right book or product based on our behavior, peer experiences as well as having a semantic understanding of the product page we’re viewing. There’s no reason we can’t have the same experience on workplace learning systems where all viable learning content/ company content could be organized and disseminated to each learner for the right time and circumstance.

From DSC:
Several items of what Feathercap is saying in their solid posting remind me of a vision of a next generation learning platform:

Contributing to — and tapping into — streams of content
Lifelong learning and reinventing oneself
Artificial intelligence, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) and the use of voice to drive systems/functionality
Learning agents/bots
24×7 access
Structured and unstructured learning
Socially-based means of learning
…and more

Learning Ecosystems

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