change - Learning Ecosystems

Will a “Google PhD” become as good as a university-granted PhD? [Dawson]

On 07/05/2022, in 21st century, Alternatives, career development, change, entrepreneurship, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, heutagogy, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, skills, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Will a “Google PhD” become as good as a university-granted PhD? — from rossdawson.com by Ross Dawson

Excerpt:

A fundamental issue now is the degree to which employers care about the piece of paper as against the knowledge and capability. That is rapidly shifting as companies realize they will often miss out on exceptionally talented people if they insist on formal qualifications.

Entrepreneurs of course only care whether they have the knowledge to do what they’re undertaking.

It is a shifting landscape. Traditional advanced degrees have their place and will not disappear.

But “Google PhDs” will in some cases be as good, if they result in an equivalent level of expertise.

Blurring the lines between education and workforce — from hechingerreport.org by Javeria Salman
A proposition to ‘blur’ the boundaries between K-12, higher ed, and the workforce industry

Excerpts:

One idea that’s been gaining steam since last year is to break down barriers between high school, college and career to create a system that bridges all three.

The concept is called the “Big Blur.”

“What would it look like to change the typical, or what we think of as the conventional high school experience and instead design something that was built for the modern economy?” said Vargas.

Vargas said that JFF is arguing for new programs or institutions that serve students in grades 11 through 14 (grades 13 and 14 being the first two years of college, under our current configuration). The institutions would be co-designed with regional employers so that all students get work-based learning experiences and graduate — without tuition costs — with a post-secondary credential that has labor market value.

The state of teaching and learning in K12 — from Instructure

What began as an unplanned shift to remote learning two years ago has grown into a movement—a transformation, really—that has given way to a more measured approach to intentionally designed digital learning. The adoption of new educational technologies and instructional strategies has evolved teaching and learning as we know it at an unprecedented pace.

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world [Hazan & Yee]

On 06/29/2022, in business, career development, change, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, instructional design, Metaverse, online learning, participation, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), platforms, society, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, training / L&D, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual courts, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, vocational / trades, webinars, youth, by Daniel Christian

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world — from mckinsey.com with Eric Hazan and Lareina Yee

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Welcome to the metaverse. Now, where exactly are we? Imagine for a moment the next iteration of the internet, seamlessly combining our physical and digital lives. It’s many things: a gaming platform, a virtual retail spot, a training tool, an advertising channel, a digital classroom, a gateway to entirely new virtual experiences. While the metaverse continues to be defined, its potential to unleash the next wave of digital disruption is clear. In the first five months of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in building out metaverse technology and infrastructure. That’s more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021.

How would you define the metaverse?
Lareina: What’s exciting is that the metaverse, like the internet, is the next platform on which we can work, live, connect, and collaborate. It’s going to be an immersive virtual environment that connects different worlds and communities. There are going to be creators and alternative currencies that you can buy and sell things with. It will have a lot of the components of Web3 and gaming and AR, but it will be much larger.

Also relevant/see:

Value creation in the metaverse — from mckinsey.com

Also relevant/see:

Omar Wael built his first robot at the age of nine. ?

Now he's 13 and building a metaverse using his mother's old clothes. ?

See more ? pic.twitter.com/WxYMnaOQvt

— Euronews Next (@euronewsnext) June 28, 2022

Changing the narrative on degree requirements [Fain]

On 06/24/2022, in 21st century, Alternatives, business, career development, change, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, society, sociology, United States, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Changing the narrative on degree requirements — from workshift.opencampusmedia.org by Paul Fain; with thanks to Ryan Craig (I believe) for this resource
An ad campaign from Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council will call on employers to drop the “paper ceiling” and hire more skilled workers without four-year degrees.

Excerpt:

A new national advertising campaign will seek to influence employers to look beyond the four-year degree in hiring, with the message that a “paper ceiling” holds back half the U.S. workforce.

The ads from Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council are slated to start running in September. With slick production and some big corporate partners, including Walmart and Google, the campaign is designed to nudge hiring managers across the country to make good on the growing number of pledges from company C-suites, state capitals, and the White House to drop barriers for skilled job seekers who lack bachelor’s degrees.

This group of more than 70M Americans includes community college graduates, experienced workers, veterans of the U.S. military, and completers of job training programs or alternatives to college, according to the nonprofit Opportunity@Work. The ads will celebrate these workers, which the group says are skilled through alternative routes (STARs).

Also relevant, see:

Americans support student loan forgiveness, but would rather rein in college costs — from npr.org by Cory Turner; with thanks to Bryan Alexander for posting this on LinkedIn

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Erasing old debts vs. fixing the system
In one of the poll’s most unexpected findings, respondents were asked to choose which sentence they agreed with more:

1. “The government should prioritize making college more affordable for current and future students”
2. “The government should prioritize forgiving some debt for those with existing student loans”

A whopping 82% said the government’s priority should be making college more affordable for current and future students. Just 16% believed forgiving student debts should take priority.

“What that tells me is that, while student loan forgiveness for some is seen as a good proposal and a short-term fix, where we actually need to go from here is true, systematic change,” Newall says.

The Future of Education | By Futurist Gerd Leonhard | A Video for EduCanada

On 06/23/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, business, Canada, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Design Thinking, economics, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, health, higher education, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, morals/values, Natural Language Processing (NLP), pace of change, reinvent, skills, society, sociology, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, universities, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The Future of Education | By Futurist Gerd Leonhard | A Video for EduCanada — from futuristgerd.com

Per Gerd:

Recently, I was invited by the Embassy of Canada in Switzerland to create this special presentation and promotional video discussing the Future of Education and to explore how Canada might be leading the way. Here are some of the key points I spoke about in the video. Watch the whole thing here: the Future of Education.

…because by 2030, I believe, the traditional way of learning — just in case — you know storing, downloading information will be replaced by learning just in time, on-demand, learning to learn, unlearning, relearning, and the importance of being the right person. Character skills, personality skills, traits, they may very well rival the value of having the right degree.

…

If you learn like a robot…you’ll never have a job to begin with.

Gerd Leonhard

Also relevant/see:

The Next 10 Years: Rethinking Work and Revolutionising Education (Gerd Leonhard’s keynote in Riga) — from futuristgerd.com

We need to go beyond the focus on STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) towards HECI (humanity, ethics, creativity, imagination) [Leonhard]

On 06/23/2022, in 21st century, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, bots, business, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, creativity, emerging technologies, Emotion, engineering, ethics, Europe, future, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, mathematics, new business models, pace of change, research, robotics, science, technology (general), United States, by Daniel Christian

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

We need to go beyond the focus on STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) towards HECI (humanity, ethics, creativity, imagination)

Also see:

Demarginalizing Design: 3 powerful ways to get started — from ditchthattextbook.com by Dee Lanier

Excerpt:

Get proximate to the pain

Gather the people that are most affected by the problem.
Listen for pain. Emotions such as outrage and frustration are insights into the source of the problem.
Design with them, not for them. Your job is to facilitate the discussion that allows them to come up with their own solutions that affect their community.

From DSC:
You will notice some more postings regarding “Design Thinking” on this Learning Ecosystems blog from time to time. I’m continuing to do this because as we move more toward a reality of lifelong learning, we should probably rethink the entire cradle-to-grave design of our learning ecosystems.

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:

We believe that when combined, these pillars enable learners to find success in what’s next in their professional lives, their personal lives and in their communities.

From DSC:
Inflation way up. Real wages way down. Not a good mix for higher education. And faculty members aren’t the only ones impacted here. These developments may cause the rise of additional alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education out there.

One of the resources mentioned in Isha Trivedi’s article out at The Chronicle of Higher Education that’s entitled “Faculty-Pay Survey Records the Largest One-Year Drop Ever” was this one:

The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2021-22 — from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)

Key Findings (emphasis DSC):
Provisional results were released in early April 2022, including summary tables and institution-level datasets. Key findings include:

From 2020–21 to 2021–22, average salaries for full-time faculty members increased 2.0 percent, consistent with the flat wage growth observed since the Great Recession of the late 2000s.
Real wages for full-time faculty fell below Great Recession levels in 2021, with average salary falling to 2.3 percent below the 2008 average salary, after adjusting for inflation.
Real wages for full-time faculty members decreased 5.0 percent after adjusting for inflation, the largest one-year decrease on record since the AAUP began tracking this measure in 1972.
In 2021–22, 97.2 percent of full-time faculty members were covered by retirement plans, a 2.8 percentage point increase from 2020–21.
Institutions reported full-time faculty salaries for women that are 81.9 percent of those for men in 2021–22, on average. The gender pay gap is greatest at the full professor rank.
From 2019–20 to 2021–22, the number of full-time women faculty members increased 1.6 percent, compared with a 2.5 percent decrease for men.
In 2020–21, average pay for adjunct faculty members to teach a course section ranged from $2,979 in public associate’s institutions without ranks to $5,557 in public doctoral institutions.
In fall 2020, about three in five (61.5 percent) faculty members were on contingent appointments.

Also relevant, see:

The Big Quit | Even tenure-line professors are leaving academe. – from chronicle.com by Joshua Doležal
Higher Ed’s Enrollment Crash Has Been Underway for Years — from chronicle.com by Audrey Williams June

“…employing the AI contextualization engine as the librarian.” [Bernhardt]

On 06/14/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, business, change, content aggregration, content development, content repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, skills, tools, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Boost Usability of Libraries & Knowledge Hubs with Automation — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Markus Bernhardt

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Our article series looks at the top three areas where we see automation and AI revolutionizing the way in which successful L&D teams work: Asset libraries and knowledge hubs; hyper-personalized, truly adaptive learning; and capability mapping. This article examines the impact of AI and automation on maintaining asset libraries and knowledge hubs.
…
Thus, the contextualization engine becomes a powerful content management tool. It is also easy to use and requires no particular subject matter knowledge of the user; the librarian who has read everything does that for the user. And this works, of course, with articles, slide decks, audio, video, and even VR/AR content, and basically any file type.

Assets can be mapped to competencies, skills, learning objectives, departments, the requirements of a specific course or workshop, or to the horizontals and verticals of an organization’s internal restructuring model. And this takes place within seconds and minutes, and at scale.

With the ability to map content as well as practice exercises, questions, and assessments automatically into each concept’s complexity tree, it is now possible to use automation and AI to deliver adaptive and truly personalized learning content and learning paths.

Will Learning Move into the Metaverse? [Hogle]

On 06/14/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, communities of practice, content development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, distance education, ethics, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, internet, IT in HE, languages and translation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods, learning preferences, learning spaces, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, Metaverse, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, society, technology (general), telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, Web3, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

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?

Shifting Skills, Moving Targets, and Remaking the Workforce — from bcg.com by Matt Sigelman, Bledi Taska, Layla O’Kane, Julia Nitschke, Rainer Strack, Jens Baier, Frank Breitling, and Ádám Kotsis; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource
Our analysis of more than 15 million job postings reveals the future of work.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Jobs do come and go, but even more significantly, jobs change. Day by day, skill by skill, the basic building blocks of a job are repositioned, until the role looks much different than it did just five years ago. Yet the job title—and the worker in the job—may remain the same.

But even company leaders may not realize how profoundly and rapidly the jobs throughout their business and industry are evolving. A comprehensive look at job listings from 2016 through 2021 reveals significant changes in requested skills, with new skills appearing, some existing skills disappearing, and other existing skills shifting in importance.

The challenge for employers and employees alike is to keep up—or, better yet, to get ahead of the trends.
…
Four Big Trends
We see four big trends in skill change:

- Digital skills, like technical fluency and abilities including data analysis, digital marketing, and networking, aren’t limited to jobs in IT.
- Soft skills, like verbal communication, listening, and relationship building, are needed in digital occupations.
- Visual communication has become increasingly important even outside of traditional data occupations. Experience with tools such as Tableau, MS Power BI, and Adobe Analytics is in high demand.
- Social media skills, such as experience with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Adobe Photoshop, are in demand in the current media climate.

Also from Ryan Craig, see:

How to Really Fix Higher Ed — from theatlantic.com by Ben Sasse
Rather than wiping the slate clean on student debt, Washington should take a hard look at reforming a broken system.

Excerpts:

Most young Americans never earn a college degree, and far too many of those who do are poorly served by sclerotic institutions that offer regularly overpriced degrees producing too little life transformation, too little knowledge transmission, and too little pragmatic, real-world value.
…
Far too often, higher education equates value with exclusivity, and not with outcomes. The paradigmatic schools that dominate higher-ed discussions in the pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post measure themselves by how many high-school seniors they reject, rather than by how many they successfully launch, by how much they bolster the moral and intellectual development of the underprivileged, or even by a crude utilitarian calculus such as the average earnings of their recent graduates.

Each of these changes will depend on breaking up the accreditation cartels. College presidents tell me that the accrediting system, which theoretically aims to ensure quality and to prevent scammers from tapping into federal education dollars, actually stifles programmatic innovation inside extant colleges and universities aiming to serve struggling and underprepared students in new ways.

One last item here:

Learning Should Be Like Cooking — from linkedin.com by Cali Koerner Morrison

Excerpt:

We need systems of record that are learner-owned, verifiable and travel across all types of learning recognition. 1EdTech is making great strides in this direction with the comprehensive learner record and the T3 Innovation Network with the LER. Open Skills Network and Credential Engine are making great strides to level the playing field on defining all elements of skills-based learning and credentialing. We need pathways that help guide learner-earners through their career progression so they are in a constant swirl of learning and earning, leveling up with each new achievement – from a microcredenial to a master’s degree.

DC: Nice example of how our future learning ecosystems will allow us to build our learning record from a variety of sources.https://t.co/SOHNH4yivb pic.twitter.com/iqpM1Y69Z8

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) June 12, 2022

“The rise of the self-service [legal] delivery model” plus four other legal-related items

On 06/12/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, change, communications, computer science, expectations, future, ideas, innovation, law schools, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, mobile technologies, programming, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

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.

GreenLight Means Go: Where Learner and Employment Records Are Headed — from gettingsmart.com by Getting Smart Staff

Excerpt:

New solutions present a unique solution to these challenges by providing a user-controlled technology to store, share, search, and match acquired competency with opportunity. One of the key players in this space is GreenLight Credentials, a frictionless, user-controlled talent search and credential-communicator that addresses these issues. On the outbound side, institutions and their learners can store any type of verified record including transcripts, credentials, badges, or other documentation of learning. These learning experiences are then translated into data – competencies, skills, interests, and accomplishments that are then matched with scholarship, university and employment opportunities. Universities and employers can join the network to discover and connect with prospective students or employees.

The vast majority of students who graduate from high school in the United States typically have their learning diluted to a single one-page transcript that lists courses and grades – and often a GPA.
…
What young people need now are repetitions in design thinking – to repeatedly find, frame, address complex problems and deliver value to a community.

— Getting Smart Staff

Also relevant/see from Getting Smart:

Innovating Together: the Geopolitical and Educational Path Forward — by Tom Vander Ark

Key Points

The new mission of school is cultivating curiosity, purpose and problem solving by inviting learners into real world challenges in diverse teams using smart tools.
The path forward is innovating together.

The VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) is now hyper-connected (VUCAH).

Also relevant/see:

Design Thinking: Understanding the Process — from linkedin.com by Chris Nodder

Learning Ecosystems

Will a “Google PhD” become as good as a university-granted PhD? [Dawson]

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world [Hazan & Yee]

Changing the narrative on degree requirements [Fain]

We need to go beyond the focus on STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) towards HECI (humanity, ethics, creativity, imagination) [Leonhard]

More fuel for the disruption fire in higher education [Christian]

“…employing the AI contextualization engine as the librarian.” [Bernhardt]

Will Learning Move into the Metaverse? [Hogle]

Shifting skills, remaking the workforce, fixing higher ed, & cloud-based learner records/profiles

“The rise of the self-service [legal] delivery model” plus four other legal-related items

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