OPM + MOOC = OPX. 244 University Partnerships in the first half of 2021 — from HolonIQ
OPX has well and truly arrived. 2U’s acquisition of EdX. Coursera’s IPO. SEEK’s 50% stake in FutureLearn and their ownership of OES. UpGrad’s rumored $4B valuation. Shorelight Live. Minerva’s OPM pivot. The list goes on, and meanwhile 244 University Partnerships were forged in the first half 2021.
Companies are key to solving the digital skills gap — from zdnet.com by Vala Afshar
The digital skills gap is becoming a digital skills crisis. An innovation expert discusses the root cause of what is driving the digital skills shortage and how can companies contribute to closing the gap.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Vala Afshar: When we talk about the digital skills gap, what do we really mean?
Simon Mulcahy: Fundamentally, it’s an issue of supply and demand: a mismatch between the need for a digitally savvy workforce and the availability of workers trained in those skills. Every organization — whether a bank, healthcare company or retailer — is becoming a digital organization. Core digital skills aren’t the purview of a single department but increasingly hard-wired into nearly every job on the planet.
On the flip side, there’s a massive shortage in the skills needed to operate and lead in a digital-first environment. More importantly, there’s no mechanism in place to fix it.
…
VA: What can be done to address this growing gap, and what role should companies play?
SM: We need to revamp the way we deliver education. Of course, we need to build a foundation early on, but there are much better ways to equip people than through exams that don’t evolve to match society’s needs or degrees that force young people into onerous debt.
Instead, we should think of ourselves as lifelong learners. In support of that, we need just-in-time training that’s integrated into our working experience and relevant to wherever we are on our career journey. We need education that’s widely available, simple to access and affordable. It has to be easy to upskill or gain the knowledge we need to divert onto a different path. We also need education to be a lot more personal, matching what an individual needs in the moment.
LawNext: Defining the ‘Future Ready’ Lawyer, with Wolters Kluwer VPs Martin O’Malley and Dean Sonderegger — from legaltechmonitor.com by Bob Ambrogi
Excerpt:
As the legal profession continues to transform and evolve, how can a law firm or legal department be “future ready”? What are the characteristics that define future-ready organizations and foretell their continued success?
Also relevant/see:
2U, Inc. and edX to Join Together in Industry-Redefining Combination — from transformingdigitaleducation.com
Other items related to this:
Potential unfulfilled: COVID-19, the rapid adoption of online learning, and what could be unlocked this year — from christenseninstitute.org by Thomas Arnett
Excerpt:
The foundational tenets of conventional instruction hinge on uniformity and compliance. Schools and classrooms, by and large, need students to conform to a common set of requirements in order for cohort-based learning to work. Unfortunately, nearly all students struggle to one degree or another to fit conventional instruction’s norms.
For example, conventional instruction requires students to show up to school ready to learn at times dictated by the school schedule, but for some students, life gets in the way. Conventional instruction moves all students through content at a uniform pace, but not all students master content in the time allotted. And conventional instruction often obliges students to sit and work or sit and listen for large portions of the day, yet some students struggle to sit quietly for extended periods of time. Fortunately, online learning offers the ability to replace many of these systemic rigidities with greater adaptability to students’ needs.
From DSC:
The above excerpt brings the image (below) back to my mind. The image represents our educational systems’ ways of never stopping or slowing down for anyone. They leave the station at such and such a time and then they move at a very face pace for everyone. There’s no stopping them — regardless of whether a student has mastered the content or not.
The rise of “third workplaces” — from axios.com by Erica Pandey
Excerpt:
The big picture: As the world begins to move past the pandemic but holds onto remote work, we’re seeing the rise of “third workplaces” — teleworking spots in cafes, hotels or co-working spaces.
A LIFETIME OF LEARNING — from continuum.uw.edu
Excerpts:
The 60-year curriculum is the modern approach to a lifetime of learning. Getting a degree, getting a job and never setting foot in a classroom again are not today’s reality.
A discussion paper from the McKinsey Global Institute predicts that in the next 10 to 15 years, the need for new tech skills will accelerate. We will also need people who will develop, innovate and adapt those technologies. The paper asserts that, right now, 80% of the workforce doesn’t have the skills for most of the jobs that will be available in the next five to 10 years.
From DSC:
It would be good to integrate more vocational types of pathways/items in here as well.
For College Finances, There’s No ‘Return to Normal’ — from chronicle.com by Mark S. LeClair
The critical problems facing higher education won’t end with the pandemic.
Excerpt:
Higher ed is in trouble. It faces a demographic crunch in 2026, when smaller high-school graduating classes will mean greater competition for students. That will lead to tuition discounting and underenrolled classes for many colleges. And yet that demographic crisis is only one of many significant challenges the sector faces. As noted by Forbes in its annual review of college and university financials, approximately 20 percent of all institutions now warrant a “D” ranking (its lowest). Many are under serious financial strain and may not survive.
The Forbes financial analyses have been warning of a worsening situation for years. The added stresses from the Covid-19 pandemic will further aggravate the untenable circumstances facing hundreds of institutions. There is now a very short window within which we must carry out significant reforms.
The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready? — from Microsoft
“Over the past year, no area has undergone more rapid transformation than the way we work. Employee expectations are changing, and we will need to define productivity much more broadly — inclusive of collaboration, learning, and wellbeing to drive career advancement for every worker, including frontline and knowledge workers, as well as for new graduates and those who are in the workforce today. All this needs to be done with flexibility in when, where, and how people work.”
Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft
Also see:
The Short-term Credentials Landscape — from newamerica.org by Monique O. Ositelu, PhD, Clare McCann, and Amy Laitinen
What We See and What Remains Unseen
Abstract
Given the rapid growth in short-term programs, and policymakers’ fast-growing interest to invest federal higher education dollars into very-short-term credentials, we explore what the research does—and does not— show us about such credentials’ utility in the labor market. With concerns about equity, our review of the literature guides us towards caution, as a strong push for short-term certificates may run the risk of reifying socioeconomic stratification.
From DSC:
I wonder…will accreditation move towards the use of crowd-sourced methods? Similar to rating one’s driver or one’s experience with a product, will microcredentials get into more reviews and recommendations from the users of various learning/training-related sites and services?
Will users of a service comment on whether the credential helped them (with a salary increase, with practical knowledge, with an expanded scope of projects at work, etc.)?
Nalukai Academy: Harvesting Hawai’i’s Next Generation of Leaders — from gettingsmart.com by Ashley Ranan
Excerpt:
Nalukai’s program curriculum includes 5 areas of interest:
Also see:
21 jobs of the future: A guide to getting — and staying — employed over the next 10 years — from cognizant.com and the Center for The Future of Work
Excerpt:
WHAT THE NEXT 10 YEARS WILL BRING: NEW JOBS
In this report, we propose 21 new jobs that will emerge over the next 10 years and will become cornerstones of the future of work. In producing this report, we imagined hundreds of jobs that could emerge within the major macroeconomic, political, demographic, societal, cultural, business and technology trends observable today, e.g., growing populations, aging populations, populism, environmentalism, migration, automation, arbitrage, quantum physics, AI, biotechnology, space exploration, cybersecurity, virtual reality.
Among the jobs we considered, some seemed further out on the horizon and are not covered here: carbon farmers, 3-D printing engineers, avatar designers, cryptocurrency arbitrageurs, drone jockeys, human organ developers, teachers of English as a foreign language for robots, robot spa owners, algae farmers, autonomous fleet valets, Snapchat addiction therapists, urban vertical farmers and Hyperloop construction managers. These are jobs that younger generations may do in the further off future.
Also see:
Here are the top 10 jobs of the future — from bigthink.com by Robert Brown
Say hello to your new colleague, the Workplace Environment Architect.
Excerpt:
6. Algorithm Bias Auditor – “All online, all the time” lifestyles for work and leisure accelerated the competitive advantage derived from algorithms by digital firms everywhere. But from Brussels to Washington, given the increasing statutory scrutiny on data, it’s a near certainty that when it comes to how they’re built, verification through audits will help ensure the future workforce is also the fair workforce.
President Speaks: 5 higher education trends the pandemic is accelerating — from highereddive.com by Adam Weinberg
Technology, student choice and career prep will factor more heavily into colleges’ decision-making going forward, one president explains.
Excerpt:
Over the last several weeks, it has become clearer what the post-COVID-19 higher education landscape will look like. The trends that will shape the sector’s future are not new. But the pandemic has accelerated them.
Trends are like water. As they run faster, they cut deeper and in unexpected ways. Here are five that COVID-19 has given momentum to.
