Where’s the upskilling and reskilling market headed? — from edtechreview.in by Priyanka Gupta
Upskilling and Reskilling are the new buzzwords in the edtech industry and corporate learning. With times changing at light speed, unlearning and relearning have become the norm.

Excerpt:

To understand more about the reskilling and Upskilling market, read further about:

  • The Need of Upskilling and Reskilling
  • Workforce Shift and The Upcoming Trends
  • The Key Element in the Future of Upskilling
  • The Challenges Ahead

Life of Technical Skills
Technical skills change rapidly. The industry standards for technologies and processes shift more quickly than any education system can turn out leaders. A survey by Prudential reveals that only 46% of working professionals think their skills will make them competitive in the coming ten years. Unless the skill providers speed up their initiatives or programs’ design, development and deployment, organisations and professionals will struggle to find relevancy in jobs and employees relating to skill levels with the dynamic nature of technology and related jobs. 

 

With Few Details But Big Ideas, Sec. Cardona Pushes Total Reimagining of Education — from edsurge.com by Emily Tate

Excerpt:

In the last two years, while schools experienced more disruption and strain than in almost any other time in recent memory, education leaders have been broadcasting one message, loud and clear and often: Education cannot go back to normal. This moment presents a chance to move forward, not go back. The upheaval of the pandemic can be an opportunity for positive change, if we let it.

As the weather warms and COVID cases plummet and classrooms return to full capacity, the moment of truth is near. And during a keynote panel at the SXSW EDU conference in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona made sure to drill home the message to the hundreds of educators seated before him.

 

Best from the brightest: Key ideas & insights for L&P Professionals — from tier1performance.com by Will Thalheimer; with thanks to Christy Tucker for this resource
Gather your learning and performance team together, share conversations with your friends in the field—this trove of gold from 2021 is the bedrock for our evolving and improving work in 2022.

To help fight our FOMO (fear of missing out), I’ve asked 48 thought leaders in the L&P field to share their favorite content from 2021—stuff they created or were involved in, ideas they think are critically important to folks like you and me as L&P professionals. They shared articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, videos, and eLearnings. They also shared their recommendations for other thought leaders and other content—and the most important trends impacting our work for 2022.

I looked at every one of their recommendations and I am blown away by the insights you’ll find in the content shared below. This is a formidable treasure trove from some of the best minds in our field.

Will Thalheimer

 

Majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite low pay, no opportunities for advancement, feeling disrespected — from pewresearch.org by Kim Parker and Juliana Menasce Horowitz

Excerpt:

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that low pay, a lack of opportunities for advancement and feeling disrespected at work are the top reasons why Americans quit their jobs last year. The survey also finds that those who quit and are now employed elsewhere are more likely than not to say their current job has better pay, more opportunities for advancement and more work-life balance and flexibility.

Also relevant/see:

EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: The Workforce Shakeup — from by Mark McCormack
A sizable wave of staff departures is headed toward higher education. Staff cite either institutional or personal reasons for staying or leaving, suggesting a range of institutional strategies for attracting and retaining talent.

Excerpt:

Middle-managers and middle-tenure staff, in particular, may be at risk of leaving, suggesting a number of solutions institutions might deploy to help attract and retain needed talent.

Addendum on 3/13/22:

 

The Metaverse Will Radically Change Content Creation Forever — from forbes.com by Falon Fatemi

Excerpt:

Although the metaverse promises to touch nearly every person in our society, there’s one demographic that will almost certainly see disproportionately strong disruption: creators. The metaverse has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the content creation process.

The metaverse is slated to help creators make more interactive and immersive content, thanks in large part to advances in VR and AR. The stakes will be raised as creators will be expected to build more immersive and interactive content than ever before.

Also related/see:

The Amazing Possibilities Of Healthcare In The Metaverse — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpts:

What’s generally agreed on, however, is that it’s effectively the next version of the internet – one that will take advantage of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and ever-increasing connectivity (for example, 5G networks) to create online environments that are more immersive, experiential and interactive than what we have today.

Metaverse involves the convergence of three major technological trends, which all have the potential to impact healthcare individually. Together, though, they could create entirely new channels for delivering care that have the potential to lower costs and vastly improve patient outcomes. These are telepresence (allowing people to be together virtually, even while we’re apart physically), digital twinning, and blockchain (and its ability to let us create a distributed internet).

From DSC:
That last paragraph could likely apply to our future learning ecosystems as well. Lower costs. A greater sense of presence. Getting paid for one’s teaching…then going to learn something new and paying someone else for that new training/education.

 

I’d like to thank Mr. Ryan Craig for the following resources (via his weekly e-newsletter): 

Reducing Barriers: Indeed Removes Degree Requirements From Eligible Roles — from inside.indeed.jobs

In keeping with this commitment, we have removed university degree requirements from all eligible job profiles. This change has impacted 700+ job profiles across all of our business units and we will continue to use our degree evaluation process when creating new job profiles. Removing this barrier will allow us to engage, attract, and hire a wider pool of qualified applicants applying for jobs across Indeed. 

Why America Has So Few Doctors — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson
As a matter of basic economics, fewer doctors means less care and more expensive services.

Trying to give students in low-wage majors some extra skills they can cash in on — from hechingerreport.org by Olivia Sanchez
A pilot program offers microcredentials that can help students find success after graduation

 

Right Now, Your Best Employees Are Eyeing the Exits– from chronicle.com by Marci K. Walton
To stay, they need better pay, reasonable hours, and an end to mission-based gaslighting.

Excerpt:

Right now, your best midlevel manager is updating her résumé. Your hardest-working director is controlling his excitement after learning the salary range for a private-sector opening. Your most trustworthy entry-level professional is writing a resignation letter because her new corporate position doubles her pay and doesn’t require nights or weekends.

Two years of pandemic life have left campus staff members beyond burned out. They are done. And they are leaving or thinking about it in droves. I know because I was one of them. After nearly 13 years working in residence life — a field to which I was deeply committed — I left higher education last March for the private sector. The move increased my salary by 50 percent and cut my workload in half.

This tweet was mentioned/linked to in the above article:

 

Look inward, not outward — from mckinsey.com
More companies are building talent internally rather than externally. Over 50 percent of executives believe that developing the skills of their existing workforce is the most useful approach to address capability gaps—rather than hiring new workers, redeploying talent, and contracting in skilled workers.



 

Why the World’s First Virtual Reality High School Changes Everything — from steve-grubbs.medium.com by Steve Grubs

Excerpts:

The recipe required key ingredients to happen. In addition to an accredited school to manage students, admissions and the for-credit learning, it also needed a platform. That’s where EngageVR comes in. There are other platforms that will ultimately host schools, perhaps AltSpace, Horizon or others, but the first is on Engage.

The bottom line is this: creators, coders, educators, entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, parents and students all played a role in finally bringing the first global virtual reality high school to life. It won’t be the last school to open in the metaverse, but to all those involved in this inaugural launch — the Neil Armstrongs of your age — a special tip of the hat today for having the vision and the willingness to launch a better and more equitable era of education.

Also see:

This is a snapshot from the Geo Guesser VR game

 

Living in a world of unicorns — from pwc.com by Vicki Huff Eckert
Venture-backed giants are scaling up and transforming markets as varied fintech, electric vehicles, and healthcare.

Excerpt:

During the pandemic, edtech unicorns raised (on an annualized basis) eight times the annual amount raised from 2016 through 2019. Tutoring platforms Byju (based in India) and Yuanfudao and Zuoyebang (based in China) received massive investment (each attracted $3 billion to $4 billion in funding between 2016 and 2021). The Business Standard reported that Byju had 100 million registered students and 6.5 million paid subscribers as of September 2021.

This trend is just getting started—the convergence of the metaverse, crypto, and 5G has the potential to create a web 3.0 economy that we can’t yet fully envision, and that will evolve over the course of the decade.

 

Rebalancing: Children first — from brookings.edu by Natasha Cabrera, David Deming, Veronique de Rugy, Lisa A. Gennetian, Ron Haskins, Dayna Bowen Matthew, Richard V. Reeves, Isabel V. Sawhill, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Kosali Simon, Katharine B. Stevens, Michael R. Strain, Ryan Streeter, James Sullivan, W. Bradford Wilcox, and Lauren Bauer

A report of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Childhood in the United States

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

The future of America rests in part on how the country prepares the next generation to live and to lead. Childhood is a consequential and cost-effective time to make investments that last a lifetime. Yet, many children in the United States do not have the resources or relationships they need to build a strong foundation for their future.

Yet, one area of resounding agreement among this diverse group is the need to rebalance national investments toward children. What follows is a consensus report on our conclusions, laying out actionable policies across a range of policy areas to improve the life of every child in the United States.

Along these lines, also see:

 

The innovation imperative: Lessons from high-growth companies — from deloitte.com by Khalid Kark, Tim Smith, Lou DiLorenzo Jr, and Mike Bechtel
Successful innovation functions display unique characteristics, one of them being technology’s prominent role in driving these initiatives. How can CIOs and technology leaders seize this opportunity and ensure they play a pivotal role in their company’s growth?

Excerpt:

Many enterprises now have an innovation function, whether it be a team that is dedicated to seeking out new opportunities or an executive tasked with finding new ways of working. But according to the latest Deloitte survey, only half of innovation efforts are achieving their desired value, and companies with successful innovation functions have unique characteristics. The study revealed that most leading companies view innovation as something both new—which can include new applications of existing tools—and improved—which may mean simply a measurable advance over legacy alternatives. This covers everything from incremental gains to moonshots.

Five key differentiators of successful innovation programs

Also see Deloitte’s Ten Types of Innovations.

 

9 emerging tech trends IT leaders need to watch — from enterprisersproject.com by Stephanie Overby
As CIOs focus on enabling their businesses for the future, these key technologies will be front and center in 2022 and beyond

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Keeping on top of the newest new thing is fast becoming a tall order. At the same time, it’s never been more important to IT and enterprise success. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of IT leaders told IEEE that determining what technologies are needed for their company in the post-pandemic future will be challenging.

Looking at 2022 and beyond, CIOs charged with outfitting hybrid workplaces, enabling more resilient and flexible supply chains, and continuing the digital transformation march will be eyeing multiple new capabilities in concert. “Rather than single technologies, CIOs will have to focus on confluence of these to drive transformation,” says Yugal Joshi, who leads Everest Group’s digital, cloud, and application services research practices.

Also from enterprisersproject.com, see:

What does it mean to have a team when no two members are working in the same room? In one of Gartner’s more eye-popping predictions for 2022, they stated that “by 2024, 30% of corporate teams will be without a boss due to the self-directed and hybrid nature of work.”

 

The Vendor Landscape is Making Big Changes: eLearning Brothers — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Bill Brandon

Excerpt:

The eLearning vendor landscape is changing. Try to keep up if you can! Learn about the acquisitions and changes being made by major eLearning vendors.

Many vendors continue to be specialists, concentrating on one or two proprietary products or approaches to design and development. A small number of others are expanding their offerings to cover the common needs of eLearning development teams and to add newer approaches to design.

Learning Solutions will continue to look at the specialists and proprietary products. In 2022, however, we will publish occasional articles that cover vendors who provide broader coverage and a diversity of approaches to design and delivery. This article is the first of this latter type.

 

 

What Workplace Design Can Learn From Higher Education Facilities — from workdesign.com by Sandi Rudy and James Foster

Excerpt:

Our built environments are always changing and evolving, but now more than ever, workplace design is experiencing a major identity crisis. While the concept of “going to the office” is no longer standard practice for many, for some, it will always be the preferred, and for most, having the option is a giant plus. But in the interest of ensuring the evolving nature of knowledge work and knowledge workplaces keeps pace with employee needs, workplace design can find inspiration in education facilities with now proven solutions for improved wellness and increased overall performance. And with this new way of thinking, perhaps workplace design will once again take the grade.

A picture of Treasure Valley Community College with a woman walking past collaborative learning spaces

The adoption of and success with flexible furniture and spaces such as that in many higher ed environments, which accommodates a range of uses and learning or working styles is now influencing today’s office designs. Credit: Bob Pluckebaum

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian