collaboration

Imagine what learning could look like w/ the same concepts found in Skreens!

On 09/29/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, flipping -- inverted learning, future, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, media/film, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, podcasting, reinvent, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, TVs, ubiquitous learning, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Imagine what learning could look like w/ the same concepts found in the Skreens kickstarter campaign? Where you can use your mobile device to direct what you are seeing and interacting with on the larger screen? Hmmm… very interesting indeed! With applications not only in the home (and on the road), but also in the active classroom, the boardroom, and the training room.

See
Skreens.com
&
Learning from the Living [Class] Room

From DSC:
Some of the phrases and concepts that come to my mind:

tvOS-based apps
Virtual field trips while chatting or videoconferencing with fellow learners about that experience
Virtual tutoring
Global learning for K-12, higher ed, the corporate world
Web-based collaborations and communications
Ubiquitous learning
Transmedia
Analytics / data mining / web-based learner profiles
Communities of practice
Lifelong learning
24×7 access
Reinvent
Staying relevant
More choice. More control.
Participation.
MOOCs — or what they will continue to morph into
Second screens
Mobile learning — and the ability to quickly tie into your learning networks
Ability to contact teachers, professors, trainers, specialists, librarians, tutors and more
Language translation
Informal and formal learning, blended learning, active learning, self-directed learning
The continued convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer
Cloud-based apps for learning
Flipping the classroom
Homeschooling
Streams of content
…and more!

Addendum:

Check out this picture from Meet the winners of #RobotLaunch2015

Packed house at WilmerHale for the Robot Launch 2015 judging – although 2/3rds of the participants were attending and pitching remotely via video and web conferencing.

Microsoft Office 2016 launches Tuesday [Darrow]

On 09/22/2015, in cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, Microsoft, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft Office 2016 launches Tuesday — from fortune.com by Barb Darrow
No surprises here: New Office adds real-time co-authoring for Word documents, Skype for Business, and other perks to mix.

Excerpt:

As expected, Microsoft is pushing out the latest version of its cash-cow Office application suite on Tuesday.

Office 2016, the base components of which are Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, now lets team members work together on Word documents in real time. It will add that capability to the other Office apps over time according to a blog post by Kirk Konigsburger, the corporate vice president for Office Client Applications and Services.
…
Microsoft also added Skype for Business to the mix so users can, from within their Word documents, talk or video chat with colleagues, partners or customers.
…
And Microsoft also made available a private preview of GigJam, a tool that promises to let workgroups collaborate across devices and applications, which Microsoft will add that to the Office 365 mix next year.

The Free Two-Year College Movement — A Special/Mini Feature from evoLLLution.com (where the LLL stands for lifelong learning)

Excerpt:

Given the importance of postsecondary credentials to succeeding in today’s labor market, access to and completion of two- and four-year degrees has become a high priority for higher education leaders, government officials and employers. In 2014, Tennessee launched the Tennessee Promise, which granted Tennesseans tuition-free access to two-year colleges in the state. Oregon, in 2015, passed a similar piece of legislation and President Obama made America’s College Promise—a national roll-out of this style of program—a hallmark of his State of the Union address.

While the program goes to great lengths to create unprecedented levels of access to higher education, the focus must turn to how colleges will manage life in this new reality and how the higher education marketplace will have to shift to adjust to this new level of access. This Feature focuses on those elements of the free two-year college movement.

From DSC:
From the original Kalamazoo Promise (which was generously/graciously put forth by a group of anonymous donors), many such “promise” programs have been developed — affecting programs all the way up to President Obama’s development of America’s College Promise.

Colleges and universities would be wise to keep this potential trend on their radars, while preparing plans for what they would do if this trend picks up steam.

The future of learning spaces is open ended [Vattel]

On 08/27/2015, in active learning, collaboration, creativity, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, innovation, K-12 related, learning spaces, maker movement, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, play, project-based learning, by Daniel Christian

The future of learning spaces is open ended — from eschoolnews.com by Lucien Vattel

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The spaces we inhabit have a profound effect on how we inhabit them. Space induces a particular way of feeling, of being. What are we saying to our children with we line them up in 5×8 rows facing the same direction toward a voice of authority? What do we say about desks that lock us in place, where the majority of movement within our gaze is eyes forward, eyes down? I remember my surprise when I walked into first grade for the very first time. The change from kindergarten to first grade was extreme. I looked at the arrangement of desks and thought, “what game is this?” It was a game I would play for the rest of my developing years. I was disappointed. I knew it could be better than this.

We look inside current learning spaces and look at the world; there is a big disconnect. It’s not reflective. We as a society have agreed by doctrine that our children will come together in a building and learn, and yet we allow our kids to be behind desks for a majority of their developing years. We evolve behind desks. Think of that! Students don’t need places to sit, listen and write. Instead, they need places to connect, explore, discover and relate. They need places of support. We spend over a decade being conditioned to receive and compete, imagine if space invoked us to support each other, everyday and in every way.

We need environments that help realize that within us there are unbounded treasures. We need environments that shine a light on our potential and provide opportunities to express ourselves.

Schools at their heart should be human potentiality incubators.

The Lassonde Studios: A first-of-its-kind hybrid residence hall and startup incubator [Hennick]

On 08/13/2015, in collaboration, communities of practice, entrepreneurship, higher education, ideas, innovation, maker movement, STEAM-related, student-related, United States, universities, videoconferencing, by Daniel Christian

The Lassonde Studios — a first-of-its-kind hybrid residence hall and startup incubator at the University of Utah — was conceived in much the same way that university officials hope students will dream up their own projects once the building opens next year.

— Calvin Hennick

Higher Ed Expands Reach Through Video Conferencing — from edtechmagazine.com by Calvin Hennick
Don’t call them dorms — 21st century residence halls offer flexible spaces where students can connect and collaborate using high-tech tools.

Excerpt:

“I started talking to students about what I could do to help them make their companies more successful,” recalls Troy D’Ambrosio, executive director of the university’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. One student told D’Ambrosio that he had all the engineering help he needed, but lacked ways to connect with students who had design and sales backgrounds. Another student, who was making a product that used boiling water to run lights and charge smartphones, worked primarily at a garage off campus, at the home of his business partner’s mother. He told D’Ambrosio that he simply wanted access to an on-campus working space. Still other students said such a space should be open around the clock, in case entrepreneurial inspiration struck at 3 a.m.

“That’s where the residential component tied in to create a 24-hour, immersive experience,” says D’Ambrosio. “That all gelled together.”

Also relevant/see:

Richard Branson: Three ways higher education can create more entrepreneurs — from virgin.com by Jack Preston

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Here the Virgin Group founder outlines three changes that he would make to the system in order to produce more entrepreneurs.

Encouraging students to start-up
Shorten degrees
Install the importance of networking in students

What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025? [Christian]

On 07/31/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adult learning, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, business side of he, career development, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, liberal arts, lifelong learning, marketplaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, social learning / networks, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

This posting can also be seen out at evoLLLution.com (where LLL stands for lifelong learning):

From DSC:
What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025?

In the future, learning “channels” will offer more choice, more control. They will be far more sophisticated than what we have today.

That said, what the most important aspects of online course design end up being 10 years from now depends upon what types of “channels” I think there will be and what might be offered via those channels. By channels, I mean forms, methods, and avenues of learning that a person could pursue and use. In 2015, some example channels might be:

Attending a community college, a college or a university to obtain a degree
Obtaining informal learning during an internship
Using social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn
Reading blogs, books, periodicals, etc.

In 2025, there will likely be new and powerful channels for learning that will be enabled by innovative forms of communications along with new software, hardware, technologies, and other advancements. For examples, one could easily imagine:

That the trajectory of deep learning and artificial intelligence will continue, opening up new methods of how we might learn in the future
That augmented and virtual reality will allow for mobile learning to the Nth degree
That the trend of Competency Based Education (CBE) and microcredentials may be catapulted into the mainstream via the use of big data-related affordances

Due to time and space limitations, I’ll focus here on the more formal learning channels that will likely be available online in 2025. In that environment, I think we’ll continue to see different needs and demands – thus we’ll still need a menu of options. However, the learning menu of 2025 will be more personalized, powerful, responsive, sophisticated, flexible, granular, modularized, and mobile.

Highly responsive, career-focused track

One part of the menu of options will focus on addressing the demand for more career-focused information and learning that is available online (24×7). Even in 2015, with the U.S. government saying that 40% of today’s workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs and others saying that percentage will continue climbing to 50% or more, people will be forced to learn quickly in order to stay marketable. Also, the 1/2 lives of information may not last very long, especially if we continue on our current trajectory of exponential change (vs. linear change).

However, keeping up with that pace of change is currently proving to be out of reach for most institutions of higher education, especially given the current state of accreditation and governance structures throughout higher education as well as how our current teaching and learning environment is set up (i.e., the use of credit hours, 4 year degrees, etc.). By 2025, accreditation will have been forced to change to allow for alternative forms of learning and for methods of obtaining credentials. Organizations that offer channels with a more vocational bent to them will need to be extremely responsive, as they attempt to offer up-to-date, highly-relevant information that will immediately help people be more employable and marketable. Being nimble will be the name of the game in this arena. Streams of content will be especially important here. There may not be enough time to merit creating formal, sophisticated courses on many career-focused topics.

With streams of content, the key value provided by institutions will be to curate the most relevant, effective, reliable, up-to-date content…so one doesn’t have to drink from the Internet’s firehose of information. Such streams of content will also offer constant potential, game-changing scenarios and will provide a pulse check on a variety of trends that could affect an industry. Social-based learning will be key here, as learners contribute to each other’s learning. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will need to be knowledgeable facilitators of learning; but given the pace of change, true experts will be rare indeed.

Microcredentials, nanodegrees, competency-based education, and learning from one’s living room will be standard channels in 2025. Each person may have a web-based learner profile by then and the use of big data will keep that profile up-to-date regarding what any given individual has been learning about and what skills they have mastered.

For example, even currently in 2015, a company called StackUp creates their StackUp Report to add to one’s resume or grades, asserting that their services can give “employers and schools new metrics to evaluate your passion, interests, and intellectual curiosity.” Stackup captures, categorizes, and scores everything you read and study online. So they can track your engagement on a given website, for example, and then score the time spent doing so. This type of information can then provide insights into the time you spend learning.

Project teams and employers could create digital playlists that prospective employees or contractors will have to advance through; and such teams and employers will be watching to see how the learners perform in proving their competencies.

However, not all learning will be in the fast lane and many people won’t want all of their learning to be constantly in the high gears. In fact, the same learner could be pursuing avenues in multiple tracks, traveling through their learning-related journeys at multiple speeds.

The more traditional liberal arts track

To address these varied learning preferences, another part of the menu will focus on channels that don’t need to change as frequently. The focus here won’t be on quickly-moving streams of content, but the course designers in this track can take a bit more time to offer far more sophisticated options and activities that people will enjoy going through.

Along these lines, some areas of the liberal arts* will fit in nicely here.

*Speaking of the liberal arts, a brief but important tangent needs to be addressed, for strategic purposes. While the following statement will likely be highly controversial, I’m going to say it anyway. Online learning could be the very thing that saves the liberal arts.

Why do I say this? Because as the price of higher education continues to increase, the dynamics and expectations of learners continue to change. As the prices continue to increase, so do peoples’ expectations and perspectives. So it may turn out that people are willing to pay a dollar range that ends up being a fraction of today’s prices. But such greatly reduced prices won’t likely be available in face-to-face environments, as offering these types of learning environment is expensive. However, such discounted prices can and could be offered via online-based environments. So, much to the chagrin of many in academia, online learning could be the very thing that provides the type of learning, growth, and some of the experiences that liberal arts programs have been about for centuries. Online learning can offer a lifelong supply of the liberal arts.

But I digress…
By 2025, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be able to offer excellent, engaging courses chocked full of the use of:

Engaging story/narrative
Powerful collaboration and communication tools
Sophisticated tracking and reporting
Personalized learning, tech-enabled scaffolding, and digital learning playlists
Game elements or even, in some cases, multiplayer games
Highly interactive digital videos with built-in learning activities
Transmedia-based outlets and channels
Mobile-based learning using AR, VR, real-world assignments, objects, and events
…and more.

However, such courses won’t be able to be created by one person. Their sophistication will require a team of specialists – and likely a list of vendors, algorithms, and/or open source-based tools – to design and deliver this type of learning track.

Final reflections

The marketplaces involving education-related content and technologies will likely look different. There could be marketplaces for algorithms as well as for very granular learning modules. In fact, it could be that modularization will be huge by 2025, allowing digital learning playlists to be built by an SME, a Provost, and/or a Dean (in addition to the aforementioned employer or project team). Any assistance that may be required by a learner will be provided either via technology (likely via an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled resource) and/or via a SME.

We will likely either have moved away from using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or those LMSs will allow for access to far larger, integrated learning ecosystems.

Functionality wise, collaboration tools will still be important, but they might be mind-blowing to us living in 2015. For example, holographic-based communications could easily be commonplace by 2025. Where tools like IBM’s Watson, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Deepmind, and Apple’s Siri end up in our future learning ecosystems is hard to tell, but will likely be there. New forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will likely be mainstream by 2025.

While the exact menu of learning options is unclear, what is clear is that change is here today and will likely be here tomorrow. Those willing to experiment, to adapt, and to change have a far greater likelihood of surviving and thriving in our future learning ecosystems.

Maker as learner [Chalich]

On 07/28/2015, in art, collaboration, communications, creativity, learning, learning ecosystem, maker movement, play, project-based learning, real-world assignments, by Daniel Christian

From Zeina Chalich:

PRAISE: a social network for online music learning [ec.europa.eu]

On 07/24/2015, in collaboration, communities of practice, elearning, Europe, multimedia, music, online learning, online tutoring, social learning / networks, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

PRAISE: a social network for online music learning — from ec.europa.eu
Community feedback and advanced analytics, combined with lesson planning and monitoring tools for teachers make this social learning platform, PRAISE, a step forward in collaborative online learning.

Excerpt:

Feedback is essential for learning,’ says Carles Sierra, Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council and coordinator of the PRAISE project. The project aims at filling a gap in online learning by creating a social network for music education with tools for giving and receiving feedback.

Using PRAISE’s Music Circle platform, music students can upload recordings of their playing and receive detailed feedback from other members of the community. Advanced tools let reviewers place their comments as annotations at exactly the right place in the audio signal representation.

‘Students’ peers can say “this crescendo is very nice” or “this passage is very expressive”,’ explains Professor Sierra. ‘This timeline of structured comments and this level of granularity have been lacking in online approaches to giving feedback on music.’

Also see their videos at:

Hackathons as a new pedagogy [Zoras]

On 07/24/2015, in 21st century, collaboration, computer science, design, experimentation, higher education, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, maker movement, pedagogy, programming, project-based learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, user experience (UX), using teams, by Daniel Christian

Hackathons as a new pedagogy — from edutopia.org by Brandon Zoras

Excerpts:

Students are coming out of school expected to solve 21st-century problems and enter into occupations that haven’t even been imagined yet. Schooling is not designed in this manner, so we wanted to give students an opportunity to solve problems in authentic contexts, using 21st-century skills and collaboration techniques. We wanted to break down walls between classrooms and have students use interdisciplinary skills to solve problems with teams of their peers, with mentors, and with industry professionals.

Why a Hackathon?
Hackathons have become a new way of doing business, creating products, advancing healthcare, and innovation. The energy is high, and so are the stakes. Can you turn an idea into a product over the course of a weekend? But let’s move beyond that. Let’s look at the teaching and learning within a hackathon. Hackathons are really the ultimate classroom.
…
It is within hackathons that students are utilizing their skills and knowledge to solve problems. It’s project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and STEM all wrapped up into one activity! It’s about design thinking and truly a 21st-century learning opportunity. Students are working collaboratively within mixed-ability groups to examine problems and come up with solutions.
…
Benefits For Students
A huge learning factor is failure. Often, school protects students from failure, and students always manage to mix A with B to get C. The hackathon, though, enables a support system where, once an obstacle or failure throws a wrench in students’ plans, they work as a team to get around it.

Beyond Active Learning: Transformation of the Learning Space — from educause.edu by Mark S. Valenti

Excerpt:

The past decade has seen exciting developments in learning space design. All across the United States and around the world, across seemingly every discipline, there is interest in creating new, active, project-based learning spaces. Technology-rich and student-centric, the new learning spaces are often flexible in size and arrangement and are a significant departure from the lecture hall of yesterday. These developments are not the result of any one factor but are occurring as the result of changes in student demographics, technology advances, and economic pressures on higher education and as the result of increasing demands from employers. The nature of work today is inherently team-based and collaborative, often virtual, and geographically distant. Companies are seeking creative, collaborative employees who have an exploratory mindset. Employers seek graduates who can be more immediately productive in today’s fast-paced economy. Colleges and universities around the country are responding by creating flexible, multimodal, and authentic learning experiences. It’s a complex ecosystem of education—and it’s evolving right before our eyes. What an amazing time to be in education and to be a part of the transformation of the learning space!

…

The next generation of learning spaces will take all the characteristics of an active learning environment—flexibility, collaboration, team-based, project-based—and add the capability of creating and making. Project teams will be both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary and will likely need access to a broad array of technologies. High-speed networks, video-based collaboration, high-resolution visualization, and 3-D printing are but a few of the digital tools that will find their way into the learning space.

Figure 1. The T-Shaped Professional

Credit: Developed by IBM (Jim Spohrer, IBM Labs) and Michigan State University and
modified on March 16, 2015. Reprinted with permission.

CMU’s active learning classrooms improve STEM students’ learning — from cmich.edu; with thanks to Krista Spahr for this item
Environments support collaborative conversation, development of real-world skills

Excerpt:

The active learning difference
Through state-of-the-art technology, students spend their class time in active learning classrooms collaborating on assignments and solving problems rather than listening to lectures. Faculty become coaches and guides instigating thoughtful discussions and debates. Often, students watch faculty members’ online lectures before each class session begins.

Studies have shown that active learning classrooms and their settings allow students to learn up to three times more and retain greater knowledge, strengthen student-faculty relationships and improve student performance. Active learning also is proven to increase the likelihood that students in STEM disciplines will continue in those programs and removes the gap between the success of male and female students.

…

The flipped classroom can be associated with more collaborative, experiential, constructivist learning. “Faculty become coaches and guides instigating thoughtful discussions and debates. Often, students watch faculty members’ online lectures before each class session begins.”

6 Secrets of Active Learning Classroom Design — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
While the basic elements of active learning classrooms are well known, no one-size-fits-all template exists. Here’s how to achieve the custom fit your school needs.

Excerpt:

4 Questions to Guide Classroom Design
By next year, the University of Oklahoma will have nearly a dozen active learning spaces, up from one in 2012. Every single classroom looks different from the others, and that’s by design. Chris Kobza, manager of IT learning spaces, and Erin Wolfe, director of strategic initiatives, have honed their process down to four simple questions:

What’s the vision?
What’s the focus?
How flexible?
What’s the budget?

The process starts when they sit down with the person or people who want to redo a room to find out what they envision — is it maximum technology or maximum flexibility? “It’s a real casual conversation but you can learn enough about what their expectations for the space are, what the expectations for their faculty are, what they hope the students get out of the space,” said Kobza.

Reasons and Research – Why Schools Need Collaborative Learning Spaces — from emergingedtech.com by Kelly Walsh
There are Many Reasons Why Flexible, Active Learning Classrooms Should be Widely Adopted

Excerpt:

The power of Active Learning: “Many of today’s learners favor active, participatory, experiential learning—the learning style they exhibit in their personal lives. But their behavior may not match their self-expressed learning preferences when sitting in a large lecture hall with chairs bolted to the floor.”

Kelly references the
Learning Spaces compilation out at Educause:

From DSC:
Don’t like the phrase “active learning?” I’m compiling a list of other words/phrases/thoughts that one can use:

Collaborating on assignments and solving problems
Collaborative learning
Actively engaged learning
Peer instruction
Thinking out loud with one another
Constructionist / constructivist learning
Developing real-world skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, negotiating, and teamwork
Students have the opportunity to work in groups, solve complex problems and be creative
Emphasis on small-group activities
Immersed in discussion
Flexible in size and arrangement
Experiences and opportunities to better understand the material
Students are extremely engaged in what they are doing, and their thinking is being refined.
Creating and making; creativity
Effective interactions of small groups of people within communal spaces
Putting the focus on students doing the work of learning
Increased motivation via more hands-on opportunities
Sharing / exchanging ideas
Participatory

‘The shift is changing the way teachers plan, present lessons and share information. Students no longer need to all do the same thing to learn about a topic. This change is enhancing the quality of work teachers are receiving back from students, and is creating an environment where students are involved in the creation (versus consumption) of content that aids their learning. “A major change comes in the direct instruction piece. As teachers, we’re moving from simply giving information and offering a passive learning experience, to serving as a facilitator and guiding student inquiries. This method is allowing them to be active participants in their own education,” said Alder Creek Middle School teacher Vicki Decker. (Source)

Addendum on 7/17/15:

Designing Active Learning Classrooms — from dbctle.erau.edu; with thanks to Tim Holt out at holtthink.tumblr.com for the original posting that led me to this resource
Excerpt:
Active Learning Classrooms (also known as Active Learning Spaces or Learning Studios) are classrooms or other physical spaces designed with active learning in mind. In particular they are student-centered rather than instructor-centered. Students often sit in groups instead of rows to support collaborative learning, and some classrooms even have movable tables or desks. Students also sometimes have their own computers or tablets, and there may be multiple displays around the classroom, since students are not facing in one direction. Researchers have found that active learning classrooms have positive influences on student learning and engagement. Below are videos, examples, research studies, and assessment instruments related to active learning spaces.

A somewhat related addendum:

50 alternatives to lecturing — from teachthought.com

The NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition is now out.

Description:

What is on the five-year horizon for K-12 schools worldwide? Which trends and technologies will drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and how can we strategize effective solutions? These questions and similar inquiries regarding technology adoption and transforming teaching and learning steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 56 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition, in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN). The NMC also gratefully acknowledges ISTE as a dissemination partner. The three key sections of this report — key trends, significant challenges, and important developments in educational technology — constitute a reference and straightforward technology planning guide for educators, school leaders, administrators, policymakers, and technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in K-12 education across the globe. View the wiki where the work was produced.

> Download the NMC Horizon Report > 2015 K-12 Edition (PDF)
> Download the report preview (PDF)
> Download the interim results (PDF)

New Media Consortium (NMC) 2015 Idea Lab Winners

On 06/25/2015, in 3D, Bring your own device (BYOD), collaboration, colleges, community colleges, digital video, education technology, experimentation, history, ideas, innovation, maker movement, multimedia, new media literacies, by Daniel Christian

New Media Consortium (NMC) 2015 Idea Lab Winners

Bring It On – A Formula for Successful BYOD Programming in Museums
Scott Sayre (Corning Museum of Glass)

Dickinson Makes – Connecting Campus Makerspaces
Brenda Landis (Dickinson College) | Andrew Petrus (Dickinson College)

Don’t Just Upload Your Videos, Annotate Them!
Sharon Hu (University of British Columbia) | Thomas Dang (University of British Columbia)

Exploring Visualization: Creating A Cross-Disciplinary Collaborative Course Enhanced By Technology
Dolores Fidishun (Pennsylvania State University) | William Cromar (Penn State Abington)
Jacob Benfield (Pennsylvania State University)

Leveraging 3D Technologies For Learning
Kirsten Butcher (University of Utah) | Madlyn Runburg (University of Utah)

Making Real from Real: Three “Tangible” Experiments from the Special Collection of the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University
Jared Bendis (Case Western Reserve University) | Melissa Hubbard (Case Western Reserve University)

Modding Games: Creating Historical Scenarios in Civilization V
Todd Bryant (Dickinson College)

Lance Weiler’s must-read story about the future of storytelling [Smolen]

On 05/21/2015, in collaboration, communications, design, digital storytelling, experimentation, future, higher education, innovation, interactivity, K-12 related, play, story, storytelling, transmedia, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Lance Weiler’s must-read story about the future of storytelling — from kidscreen.com by Wendy Smolen

Excerpt:

As the founder of the Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab, and its Director of Experiential Learning and Applied Creativity, you’ve convinced some major powers that work and learning begin with a story. What does that mean to those in the industry who make products for kids?

My work at Columbia University explores how story, play and design can be harnessed to create collaborative work and learning environments. A key takeaway from our experiments so far is the value of a diversity of perspectives. We often strive to embrace a designing “with” and “for” methodology. This is a fundamental shift for the entertainment industry but the reality is the audience has evolved into storytellers. They are now their own little media companies able to push-button publish for the world to see.

As creation and consumption blend, story and code continue to collide. At Columbia we are exploring new forms and functions of storytelling. How can stories be used as a discovery method? How can they enable people to connect to the world around them? How can they become a utility that can solve everyday challenges?

Story and Code have different development cycles and require different set of skills. So at Columbia and within my own work I often benefit from assembling a kind of 21st Century Writer’s Room. My core team has expanded to include creative technologists, data researchers and systems designers. What connects the team is a series of stories that we use to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the core vision and goals are communicated.

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The Digital Storytelling Lab, therefore, is a place of speculation, of creativity, and of collaboration between students and faculty from across Columbia University. New stories are told here in new and unexpected ways.

Also see:

From DSC:
Learning is messy. Teaching & learning is messy.

In my experience, teaching is both an art and a science. Ask anyone who has tried it and they will tell you that it’s not easy. In fact, it takes years to hone one’s craft…and there are no silver bullets. Get a large group of Learning Theorists together in the same room and you won’t get 100% agreement on the best practices for how human beings actually learn.

Besides that, I see some issues with how we are going about trying to educate today’s learners…and as the complexity of our offerings is increasing, these issues are becoming more apparent, important, visible, and costly:

Professors, Teachers, & Trainers know some pieces of the puzzle.
Cognitive Scientists, Cognitive Psychologists, and Neuroscientists know some other pieces of the puzzle.
Learning Theorists and Instructional Designers know some other pieces of the puzzle.
Learning Space Designers know some other pieces of the puzzle.
And yet other specialties know about some other pieces of the puzzle.

But, in practice, how often are these specialties siloed? How much information is shared between these silos? Are there people interpreting and distilling the neuroscience and cognitive science into actionable learning activities? Are there collaborative efforts going on here or are the Teachers, Professors, and Trainers pretty much on their own here (again, practically speaking)?

So…how do we bring all of these various pieces together? My conclusion:

We need a team-based approach in order to bring all of the necessary pieces together. We’ll never get there by continuing to work in our silos…working alone.

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But there are other reasons why the use of teams is becoming a requirement these days: Accessibility; moving towards providing more blended/hybrid learning — including flipping the classroom; and moving towards providing more online-based learning.

Accessibility
We’re moving into a world whereby lawsuits re: accessibility are becoming more common:

Ed Tech World on Notice: Miami U disability discrimination lawsuit could have major effect — from mfeldstein.com by Phil Hill
Excerpt:
This week the US Department of Justice, citing Title II of ADA, decided to intervene in a private lawsuit filed against Miami University of Ohio regarding disability discrimination based on ed tech usage. Call this a major escalation and just ask the for-profit industry how big an effect DOJ intervention can be. From the complaint:

Miami University uses technologies in its curricular and co-curricular programs, services, and activities that are inaccessible to qualified individuals with disabilities, including current and former students who have vision, hearing, or learning disabilities. Miami University has failed to make these technologies accessible to such individuals and has otherwise failed to ensure that individuals with disabilities can interact with Miami University’s websites and access course assignments, textbooks, and other curricular and co-curricular materials on an equal basis with non-disabled students. These failures have deprived current and former students and others with disabilities a full and equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from all of Miami University’s educational opportunities.

Knowing about accessibility (especially online and via the web) and being able to provide accessible learning materials is a position in itself. Most faculty members and most Instructional Designers are not specialists in this area. Which again brings up the need for a team-based approach.

Also, when we create hybrid/blended learning-based situations and online-based courses, we’re moving some of the materials and learning experiences online. Once you move something online, you’ve entered a whole new world…requiring new skillsets and sensitivities.

The article below caused me to reflect on this topic. It also made me reflect yet again on how tricky it is to move the needle on how we teach people…and how we set up our learning activities and environments in the most optimal/effective ways. Often we teach in the ways that we were taught. But the problem is, the ways in which learning experiences can be offered these days are moving far beyond the ways us older people were taught.

Why we need Learning Engineers — from chronicle.com by Bror Saxberg

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Recently I wandered around the South by Southwest ed-tech conference, listening to excited chatter about how digital technology would revolutionize learning. I think valuable change is coming, but I was struck by the lack of discussion about what I see as a key problem: Almost no one who is involved in creating learning materials or large-scale educational experiences relies on the evidence from learning science.

We are missing a job category: Where are our talented, creative, user-centric “learning engineers” — professionals who understand the research about learning, test it, and apply it to help more students learn more effectively?
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So where are the learning engineers? The sad truth is, we don’t have an equivalent corps of professionals who are applying learning science at our colleges, schools, and other institutions of learning. There are plenty of hard-working, well-meaning professionals out there, but most of them are essentially using their intuition and personal experience with learning rather than applying existing science and generating data to help more students and professors succeed.

Also see:

Why you now need a team to create and deliver learning — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Daniel Christian
Excerpt:
“Higher education institutions that intentionally move towards using a team-based approach to creating and delivering the majority of their education content and learning experiences will stand out and be successful over the long run.”

Addendum on 5/14/15:

Thinking different(ly) about university presses — from insidehighered.com by Carl Straumsheim

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Lynn University, to further its tablet-centric curriculum, is establishing its own university press to support textbooks created exclusively for Apple products.

Lynn University Digital Press, which operates out of the institution’s library, in some ways formalizes the authoring process between faculty members, instructional designers, librarians and the general counsel that’s been taking place at the private university in Florida for years. With the university press in place, the effort to create electronic textbooks now has an academic editor, style guides and faculty training programs in place to improve the publishing workflow.

Learning Ecosystems

Microsoft Office 2016 launches Tuesday [Darrow]

Maker as learner [Chalich]

New Media Consortium (NMC) 2015 Idea Lab Winners

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