collaboration

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model [Wilcox & Ray]

On 04/08/2015, in collaboration, consortiums, experimentation, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model — from educause.com by Kim Wilcox and Edward Ray

Excerpt:

The implied message is clear: We’d prefer not to talk about what isn’t working at the postsecondary level.

We’re in a competitive sector, and there is misplaced pressure on all higher education institutions to achieve top placement in U.S. News & World Report and other annual rankings, regardless of whether or not those rankings make any sense. We all feel significant pressure to make sure that our constituents—from board members to faculty to parents to legislators—are happy with the direction of the institution. And we also know that those constituents can be impatient in waiting for substantive change to produce positive results. Honest discourse on new initiatives that seem unproductive or in need of modification is likely to lead to unpleasant conversations that few of us would relish.

This is not the way to foster innovation and improvement in higher education. The best innovators in the world typically follow the mantra that failure is acceptable, helpful, and sometimes even necessary to ultimately achieving an objective. Many of the products we rely on today, from Post-it Notes to pacemakers, resulted from mistakes or failures in the search for other innovations. And just about any founder of a successful Silicon Valley start-up has a track record of ventures that failed.

Successful innovation requires experimentation and learning from failure.

…

At the University of California, Riverside, and Oregon State University, we are engaged in one effort to achieve these goals: the University Innovation Alliance. The UIA is a consortium of eleven major public research universities that are working together to identify new solutions to challenges found throughout the higher education community, and then to share information about failures and successful solutions among institutions.

From DSC:
Some images that are along these lines:

RealEstate-HigherEd-DanielSChristian11-1-13

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

Mind the Gap: Connecting K–12 and Higher Education Educators to Improve the Student Experience [educause.edu]

On 04/07/2015, in collaboration, corporate / business world, higher education, K-12 related, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Mind the Gap: Connecting K–12 and Higher Education Educators to Improve the Student Experience — from educause.edu by Matthew W. Stoltzfus, Ben Scragg, and Cory Tressler

Excerpts:

With such vastly different and equally important skill sets in the educational spectrum, it’s unfortunate that high school teachers and college professors do not collaborate more often. Strong collaborations would enhance instruction for both parties, would increase the understanding of what types of teaching and learning are happening in each setting, and would assist students in their transition from high school to college. The increasing popularity of MOOCs, open-education resources such as OpenStax College, and freely available course content on platforms such as iTunes U brings an incredible opportunity for high school teachers and college instructors to collaborate and enhance each other’s instruction.

Ohio State is leading one such project. College Ready Ohio seeks to provide K–12 teachers with college-level content and professional development related to digital pedagogy, the incorporation of mobile technology for teaching and learning, and digital content creation. Through a partnership between Ohio State, the Ohio STEM Learning Network, two regional Education Service Centers, and ten participating school districts across the state, College Ready Ohio aims to expand students’ access to—and increase the affordability of—higher education for Ohio’s students. By piloting dual enrollment, known as College Credit Plus in Ohio, for students in the partner districts, College Ready Ohio will help ease the financial burden of higher education by providing students with an opportunity to earn college credits in high school, while simultaneously preparing students for the rigor of college-level coursework.

From DSC:
I love to see this type of collaboration! It makes a world of sense and I wish that there were more of these kinds of efforts/collaborations — and efforts that help bridge the gaps between higher education and the workplace. Such efforts would make for smoother transitions from K-12 to higher ed — and then from higher ed to the workplace.

Piggybacking on Jay Cross’ thoughts on “Flipping the Meeting”, I wonder if…

On 04/06/2015, in collaboration, corporate / business world, higher education, K-12 related, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

We’ve got to stop meeting like this! – Guest post by Jay Cross — from litmos.com

Excerpt:

You can re-jigger your meetings to make them relevant, challenging, and fun by adopting an approach that is revolutionizing secondary school learning.

It’s called Flipping the Meeting. Flipped meetings focus people’s face-to-face time on working with one another to solve problems. You prepare in advance at your own pace with resources framing the business issue. When people convene, they spend their time collaborating to solve a problem. Conversations cross-fertilize ideas and fuel learning. In the flipped meeting, you focus on making the decision before the bell goes off.

Two teachers pioneered the philosophy of flip starting back in 2007. Students read their homework before class and use the classroom for discussion, not presentation. Grades go up, as does retention. Millions of students have signed up for flipped instruction through The Khan Academy. This is the same philosophy that underlies the Flipped Meeting. Be prepared to be inspired and listen to the founders of the flip…

From DSC:
Piggybacking on what Jay is saying in that piece re: “Flipping the Meeting”, I wonder if tools like VoiceThread could also help obtain peoples’ thoughts and perspectives prior to holding a meeting — and to do so per what works for each individual’s schedule.

VoiceThread is a cloud application, so there is no software to install. The only system requirement is an up-to-date version of Adobe Flash. VoiceThread will work in any modern web browser and on almost any internet connection.

Creating
Upload, share and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos. Over 50 different types of media can be used in a VoiceThread.

Commenting
Comment on VoiceThread slides using one of five powerful commenting options: microphone, webcam, text, phone, and audio-file upload.

Sharing
Keep a VoiceThread private, share it with specific people, or open it up to the entire world. Learn more about sharing VoiceThreads.

Resources, ideas, questions, & more regarding the topic of learning spaces

On 03/17/2015, in active learning, collaboration, communications, higher education, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, participation, pedagogy, smart classrooms, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Below are some resources, ideas, questions, and more regarding the topic of learning spaces:

Per Jeanne Narum (Principal, Learning Spaces Collaboratory and Founding Director, Project Kaleidoscope), we’ve been asking the following key questions for several years now:

What do we want our learners to become?
What experiences make that becoming happen?
What spaces enable those experiences?
How do we know?

The Learning Spaces Collaboratory

NOTE:
Be sure to see The LSC Guide: Planning for Assessing 21st Century Spaces for 21st Century Learners

Derek Bruff’s Learning Spaces gallery

Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics – a meta-analysis of 225 studies

Abstract
To test the hypothesis that lecturing maximizes learning and course performance, we metaanalyzed 225 studies that reported data on examination scores or failure rates when comparing student performance in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses under traditional lecturing versus active learning. The effect sizes indicate that on average, student performance on examinations and concept inventories increased by 0.47 SDs under active learning (n = 158 studies), and that the odds ratio for failing was 1.95 under traditional lecturing (n = 67 studies). These results indicate that average examination scores improved by about 6% in active learning sections, and that students in classes with traditional lecturing were 1.5 times more likely to fail than were students in classes with active learning. Heterogeneity analyses indicated that both results hold across the STEM disciplines, that active learning increases scores on concept inventories more than on course examinations, and that active learning appears effective across all class sizes—although the greatest effects are in small (n ? 50) classes. Trim and fill analyses and fail-safe n calculations suggest that the results are not due to publication bias. The results also appear robust to variation in the methodological rigor of the included studies, based on the quality of controls over student quality and instructor identity. This is the largest and most comprehensive metaanalysis of undergraduate STEM education published to date. The results raise questions about the continued use of traditional lecturing as a control in research studies, and support active learning as the preferred, empirically validated teaching practice in regular classrooms.

Building Community with FLEXspace: The Flexible Learning Environments eXchange — from educause.com by Lisa Stephens

Key Takeaways

FLEXspace is a large-scale community solution to capture detailed information, images, and video of learning environment exemplars.
The ELI Seeking Evidence of Impact principles encouraged further development of FLEXspace.
Discussions are underway on how to leverage and combine the Learning Space Rating System and FLEXspace.

Seven Principles for Classroom Design: The Learning Space Rating System — from educause.com by Malcolm Brown

Key Takeaways

The Learning Space Rating System tool enables scoring a classroom’s design to see how well it supports active learning.
If the design meets the criteria for a specific credit, a point or points are added to a compiled score.
The higher the score, the better the design for active learning.

Steelcase Education

Herman Miller Education

Gordana Latinovic’s Learning Spaces on Pinterest

Kelley Tanner’s Learning Spaces on Pinterest

Greg Swanson’s Learning Spaces on Pinterest

Bill Duncan’s Learning Spaces on Pinterest

The SCALE-UP Project
The primary goal of the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) Project is to establish a highly collaborative, hands-on, computer-rich, interactive learning environment for large-enrollment courses.

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader [Educause & Jisc]

On 03/09/2015, in change, collaboration, communications, future of higher education, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, using teams, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader. Research report. Jisc and EDUCAUSE, March 2015.

Abstract:

Information technology is so much the fabric of the university that its presence is often not fully recognized. The focus in the IT organization has shifted from a tactical to a strategic perspective. With the demand for IT only growing, understanding how IT leaders can best lead in these efforts is essential.

In early 2014, EDUCAUSE and Jisc came together to address a common concern: Understanding the skills required by technology leaders in higher education was an issue often overlooked and one needing immediate attention. The two organizations convened a working group of 10 leading U.S. and U.K. IT leaders to define a set of desired technology leadership characteristics and capabilities, now and in the future. This report identifies 10 key roles played by the IT leaders, describes what each of these roles entails, and outlines the essential skills required to perform them.

The higher education information technology (IT) enterprise has become complex. No longer simply responsible for provisioning IT infrastructure and services, the IT department increasingly helps re-envision business and service models—all in a context of cost and accountability pressures.

From DSC:
It’s good to see the emphasis on strategy and the strategic use of technologies — especially given the increasingly important role that technologies are playing throughout the majority of — if not all — industries in existence today (not to mention the exponential curve we’re on vs. a gradual/linear trajectory). This is true within higher ed as well, as new alternatives/models/methods continue to creep up on traditional institutions of higher ed.

8 characteristics of future schools [Crockett]

On 02/27/2015, in 21st century, assessment, collaboration, creativity, future, ideas, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, love of learning, new media literacies, teachers, by Daniel Christian

8 characteristics of future schools — from globaldigitalcitizen.org by Ross Crockett; with thanks to Tom D’Amico (@TDOttawa) for his scoop on this

Excerpts:

The best piece of classroom technology available still is, and always will be, a teacher with a love of learning. The way forward with technology in our future schools is remembering that it is a tool to augment the powerful human connections that are so much of a part of great teaching and effective learning. Global Digital Citizenship can help us make this happen.

Let’s Dream Brighter
Imagine future schools in which students are totally engaged in a class, totally immersed in working together to solve real world problems. Imagine that they are self-driven and that they are coming up with amazing ideas on the spot. Imagine that they are concerned with each other’s well-being as part of a team and that their concerns reache far beyond the classroom to others all over the globe. Even further, they may interact daily with those people.

While this may describe a vision of the future schools we are envisioning, you might be surprised that some of these things are already happening!

…

1. Will they even be called ‘schools’ in the future?
2. What would problem solving look like in the future?
3. What would information look like in the future?
4. What would creativity look like in the future?
5. What would media look like in the future?
6. What would collaboration look like in the future?
7. What would citizenship look like in the future?
8. What does assessment look like in the future?

A related item back from 2013:

A glimpse into the future of learning: An infographic — from knowledgeworks.org

Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision – some sharp innovations here!

On 02/27/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, Augmented Reality (AR), business, collaboration, communications, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, mobile learning, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, programming, second screen apps, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, tablets, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, trends, TVs, ubiquitous learning, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Example snapshots from
Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision

How Google and Coursera may upend the traditional college degree — from brookings.edu by Stuart Butler

Excerpt:

Recently, the online education firm Coursera announced a new arrangement with Google, Instagram and other tech firms to launch what some are calling “microdegrees” – a set of online courses plus a hands-on capstone project designed in conjunction with top universities and leading high-tech firms. Coursera is one of America’s leading MOOC developers (Massive Open Online Courses).
…
Why does this announcement suggest such a shakeup is likely? Several reasons. Here are just four:

MOOCs are moving from novel sideshow to serious competition.
The partnership between online education and employers is likely a game-changer.
Accreditation as a restriction on competition is eroding.
Microdegrees are likely the pathway to customized degree programs.

Also see:

Top companies work with university partners to help create capstone projects with real world applications — from blog.coursera.org

Excerpt:

Experts at top companies like Google and Instagram have joined Coursera to help develop the final projects — called “Capstones” — for Coursera Specializations.

Combining a curated series of courses with a final Capstone Project, Specializations help you master new skills with the best of university teaching and the real-time market perspective of top industry partners. Hundreds of thousands of learners have enrolled in Specializations since their launch in January 2014.

But partnerships like Coursera’s include employers actually certifying groups of courses as meeting industry’s standards for skills and knowledge – essentially an end-run around traditional accreditation as a measure of quality.

Also see:

Udacity’s nanodegree program”
Credentials built and recognized by industry leaders to advance your career

From DSC:

First of all, that piece about the end-around traditional accreditation should make those of us working within higher ed veeeeerrrrry nervous — and much more responsive — as accreditation has been what’s kept traditional institutions of higher ed in the game. If that goes, well…hmmm…things could get very interesting.

Secondly, those who talk of the demise of MOOCs are waaayyy too premature in their assessment/conclusion. Technologies and vendors such as IBM (Watson), Apple (Siri), Google (Deepmind), and Microsoft (Cortana and Azure Machine Learning) could bake their products into MOOCs. Also, what happens if vendors involved with developing personalized learning platforms and/or those vendors specializing with big data start approaching MOOC providers? (See Will micro-credentialing be an example of the use of big data in education and training?) The resulting offerings could have an enormous impact on how people learn and make a living in the future. Again, if those types of technologies get baked into MOOCs, I’m pretty sure that people won’t be discounting MOOCs any longer.

Also, it’s because of items like those mentioned above that sometimes make me wonder if online education and digitally-related delivery mechanisms are what will save the liberal arts. People could pick up courses in the liberal arts throughout their lifetimes — obtaining degrees…or not. (As a brief aside, I wonder to what extent faculty members will develop their own brands.) Anyway, it’s getting to the point that many people can’t afford the campus experience. But could they afford something online…? It could be…depending upon the pricing and associated business models involved. My guess is that those institutions who practice a team-based approach will survive and thrive — if they keep a steady eye on their pricing.

3 items re: necessary skills for the modern workplace

On 02/26/2015, in career development, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, education reform, entrepreneurship, innovation, new media literacies, play, professional development, social learning / networks, training / L&D, trends, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

digital workforce skills — from jarche.com by Harold Jarche

Excerpt:

Behaviour change comes through small, but consistent, changes in practice. So how do we move from responsibility, to creativity, and potentially to innovation? Play, explore, and converse. But first we need to build a space to practice. This is where management plays a key role: providing the space to ‘Do it Yourself’.

Our employer-employee marriages need counseling — from forbes.com by Dov Seidman

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Our Big Asks of employees have become so pervasive that they’re transforming into competencies. A report by Palo Alto-based non-profit research firm Institute for the Future identifies 10 increasingly important work skills. These include talents like: The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication; cross-cultural competency; proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rules-based; and the ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning.

Andrew McAfee: The Second Machine Age is approaching. Here’s how we can prepare. — from huffingtonpost.com by Dawn Nakagawa , EVP, Berggruen Institute

Excerpt:

Nakagawa: Inequality is already a problem. How much worse will inequality get in this new future?

McAfee: The stratospheric wealth of the 1 percent presents some challenges. But I think it’s largely a distraction from the more important challenge, which is not about the people at the top pulling away. It is about the 50th-percentile worker or the 25th-percentile worker. It is about the stagnation in the prospects and earnings of the middle class. We need to focus on how to improve the prospects for the middle and the bottom, people who are finding themselves stagnating or sliding backwards. It could well be that higher marginal tax rates on top levels of income and wealth are part of the solution, but we need to broaden the conversation to look for comprehensive solutions to a complex problem.

…

Nakagawa: How do we need to change the education system, not to address the labor force skills gap we see today but to prepare our younger generation for the economy that is coming?

McAfee: Our education system is in need of an overhaul. It is frustrating that our primary education system is doing a pretty good job at turning out the kinds of workers we needed 50 years ago. Basic skills, the ability to follow instructions, execute defined tasks with some level of consistency and reliability. Machines can do all those things better than we can. What they can’t do, at least not yet, are things like negotiate, provide loving and compassionate care, motivate a team of people, design a great experience, realize what people want or need, figure out the next problem to work on and how to solve it and so on. And not all the items on that list require advanced degrees. We’re going to need people with all kinds of skills and training for some time to come, so let’s rethink our education system so that it provides the required variety.

Why you now need a team to create and deliver learning [Christian & Grush]

On 02/26/2015, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, analytics, animation, attention, blended learning, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, copyright/ownership/NFTs, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, e-books, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, graphics, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, online media, programming, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, trends, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, web design and production, writing, by Daniel Christian

My thanks to Mary Grush at Campus Technology for her continued work in bringing relevant topics and discussions to light — so that our institutions of higher education will continue delivering on their missions well into the future. By doing so, learners will be able to continue to partake of the benefits of attending such institutions. But in order to do so, we must adapt, be responsive, and be willing to experiment. Towards that end, this Q&A with Mary relays some of my thoughts on the need to move more towards a team-based approach.

When you think about it, we need teams whether we’re talking about online learning, hybrid learning or face-to-face learning. In fact, I just came back from an excellent Next Generation Learning Space Conference and it was never so evident to me that you need a team of specialists to design the Next Generation Learning Space and to design/implement pedagogies that take advantage of the new affordances being offered by active learning environments.

Combine these concepts into a multitouch, interactive “video wall” or Smart TV-related apps: Some incredible opportunities for collaborative learning!

On 02/16/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, business, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, multi-touch, multimedia, online learning, online media, participation, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, project-based learning, second screen apps, smart classrooms, streams of content, teaching online, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, TVs, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Check out some of the functionality in these solutions. Then imagine if these solutions were in the size of an entire wall in a classroom or in a corporate L&D facility. Whew!

Some serious opportunities for collaboration would arise for remote learners –as well as those located in the face-to-face setting
What new affordances would be present for those teaching in K-12, higher ed, or trainers working within the training/learning and development fields? Conversations/discussions would be recorded — to be picked up at the next session. In the meantime, learners could review the discussions at their own pace.
What if all of this were possible in your future Smart/Connected TV?
I’m also talking here about a vendor that could offer solutions that K-12 systems and institutions of higher ed could afford; some of the solutions below have much of what I’m envisioning here, but are out of the price range. Or the product is multitouch and fairly large, but it doesn’t offer the collaborative features of some of the other products here.

Ideum’s touch walls come close to what I’m talking about in this posting. If they could add some functionality for seeing/bringing in/collaborating with remote learners — as found in Mezzanine — then that would be great!

Also see:

Also see bluescape — but these excellent, innovative solutions are out of the price range for most K-12 and higher ed institutions:

5 items on listening — an underrated skill

On 02/09/2015, in career development, collaboration, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, metacognition / metacognitive skills, professional development, psychology, relationships, smart classrooms, student-related, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Many K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities have been implementing more collaborative learning spaces. Amongst other things, such spaces encourage communication and collaboration — which involve listening. So here are some resources re: listening — a skill that’s not only underrated, but one that we don’t often try to consciously develop and think about in school. Perhaps in our quest for designing more meta-cognitive approaches to learning, we should consider how each of us and our students are actually listening…or not.

Mackay: The power of listening — from startribune.com by Harvey Mackay

Excerpts:

We are born with two ears, but only one mouth. Some people say that’s because we should spend twice as much time listening. Others claim it’s because listening is twice as difficult as talking.

Whatever the reason, developing good listening skills is critical to success. There is a difference between hearing and listening.
…
These statistics, gathered from sources including the International Listening Association* website, really drive the point home. They also demonstrate how difficult listening can be:

85 percent of our learning is derived from listening.
Listeners are distracted, forgetful and preoccupied 75 percent of the time.
Most listeners recall only 50 percent of what they have heard immediately after hearing someone say it.
People spend 45 percent of their waking time listening.
Most people remember only about 20 percent of what they hear over time.
People listen up to 450 words per minute, but think at about 1,000 to 3,000 words per minute.
There have been at least 35 business studies indicating listening as a top skill needed for success.

From the International Listening Association*
LISTENING AND EDUCATION

Even though most of us spend the majority of our day listening, it is the communication activity that receives the least instruction in school (Coakley & Wolvin, 1997). Listening training is not required at most universities (Wacker & Hawkins, 1995). Students who are required to take a basic communication course spend less than 7% of class and text time on listening (Janusik, 2002; Janusik & Wolvin, 2002). If students aren’t trained in listening, how do we expect them to improve their listening?
Listening is critical to academic success. An entire freshman class of over 400 students was given a listening test at the beginning of their first semester. After their first year of studies, 49% of students scoring low on the listening test were on academic probation, while only 4.42% of those scoring high on the listening test were on academic probation. Conversely, 68.5% of those scoring high on the listening test were considered Honors Students after the first year, while only 4.17% of those scoring low attained the same success (Conaway, 1982).
Students do not have a clear concept of listening as an active process that they can control. Students find it easier to criticize the speaker as opposed to the speaker’s message (Imhof, 1998).
Effective listening is associated with school success, but not with any major personality dimensions (Bommelje, Houston, & Smither, 2003).
Students report greater listening comprehension when they use the metacognitive strategies of asking pre-questions, interest management, and elaboration strategies (Imhof, 2001).
Students self-report less listening competencies after listening training than before. This could be because students realize how much more there is to listening after training (Ford, Wolvin, & Chung, 2000).
Listening and nonverbal communication training significantly influences multicultural sensitivity (Timm & Schroeder, 2000).

* The International Listening Association promotes the study, development,
and teaching of listening and the practice of effective listening skills and
techniques. ILA promotes effective listening by establishing a network of
professionals exchanging information including teaching methods, training
experiences and materials, and pursuing research as listening affects
humanity in business, education, and intercultural/international relations.

10 important skills for active listening — from educatorstechnology.com

Excerpt:

Effective Listening — with Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes — from lynda.com

Course description:
Listening is a critical competency, whether you are interviewing for your first job or leading a Fortune 500 company. Surprisingly, relatively few of us have ever had any formal training in how to listen effectively. In this course, communications experts Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes show how to assess your current listening skills, understand the challenges to effective listening (such as distractions!), and develop behaviors that will allow you to become a better listener—and a better colleague, mentor, and friend.

Topics include:

Recalling details
Empathizing
Avoiding distractions and the feeling of being overwhelmed
Clarifying your role
Using attentive nonverbal cues
Paraphrasing what was said
Matching emotions and mirroring

How to stop talking and start listening to your employees — from inc.com by Will Yakowicz
As a leader, you’re bound to be talking a lot, but you can’t forget to give others a chance to speak their mind.

—————————

Addendum on 2/13/15:

Wake-up call: How to really listen — from irishtimes.com by Sarah Green
Insights from the Harvard Business Review into the world of work
Excerpt:

“It can be stated, with practically no qualification,” Ralph Nichols and Leonard Stevens wrote in a 1957 article in Harvard Business Review, “that people in general do not know how to listen. They have ears that hear very well, but seldom have they acquired the necessary aural skills which would allow those ears to be used effectively for what is called listening. ”

In a study of thousands of students and hundreds of business people, they found that most retained only half of what they heard – and this immediately after they had heard it. Six months later, most people only retained 25 per cent.
…

It all starts with actually caring what other people have to say, argues Christine Riordan, provost and professor of management at the University of Kentucky.

Listening with empathy consists of three specific sets of behaviours.

Rhizomatic, digital habitat – A study of connected learning & technology application [Kjærgaard, Korsgaard Sorensen]

On 02/05/2015, in collaboration, communities of practice, education technology, Europe, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, new media literacies, social learning / networks, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Rhizomatic, digital habitat – A study of connected learning and technology application — from researchgate.net by Thomas Kjærgaard & Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen, Institute of Philosophy and Learning, Aalborg University, Denmark

Keywords:
Rhizomatic learning, connectivism, digital habitat, inclusion, cooperative learning, community of practice.

1.0 Introduction
It is fair to claim that today’s college classrooms are technology rich; in our case almost every student brings his/her own laptop, smartphone and maybe tablet-computer to class every day. It is our experience that the technology richness doesn’t always contribute to the learning process, especially in presentation-oriented, teacher-centered teaching. The majority of the activities carried out on the computers are substituting paper based alternatives. In our case the technologies only rarely redefine the pedagogic design or the students’ behavior. The students in this study almost never use blogs (0%), social bookmarking (6%), twitter (0%) or multimodal note taking on smartphones. So they generally copy analogue behavior to the digital world. We believe that with the web-technology at hand today the possibilities for redefining the pedagogic design and the students learning processes are many. Because of that this study was designed as a synthesis of partially an attempt to redefine the utilization of digital tools according to their affordances, and partially to study a networking community of practice in a college classroom (Sorensen & Dalsgaard 2008). By combining digital tools that aspire to have great potential in teaching and learning activities that utilize the network structures that the students know already form their private lives we hope to make a strong connection that will generate a powerful pedagogic design. Furthermore the technology will show its general equity as more than just a note taking tool.

…

6.0 In conclusion
In the six classes that participated in this small study it seemed that many benefitted from the new technology-based way of collaborating. But it is still only a few groups that really worked as communities of practice in digital habitats, it seems that only very few possessed ‘network literacy’. Our survey showed that the students were not used to thinking of the internet as a place for not only searching information but also for processing information. The survey says that in the childhood homes of the students computers were used for entertainment (64%) and games (84%) and only 12% used computers for forums and blogs etc. Maybe we can’t use their childhood experiences with computer usage to explain their adult usage of computers in general but there is a connection between those students who come from families where internet forums and blogs were used to process information and those students current network literacy. The problem is that only three students came for such families, hence the foundation for stating anything general is way too insecure.

It would be interesting to investigate why some groups worked as communities of practice and why others didn’t. Unfortunately that was not within the scope of this study but it might be in future studies. It could seem like the groups that became communities of practice were the ones where the group members already knew how to learn in networks and which knowledge that was appropriate to ‘store’ in their group peers.

This notion, if it is meaningful on a larger scale, is similar to what Rheingold calls network literacy (Rheingold 2012).

Is the term ‘homo conexus’ describing the evolution of the homo sapiens into at more networking more knowledge sharing, more co-creating being? It seems to be what the literature on the field predict (Bay 2009, Rheingold 2012, Castells 2005, Siemens 2005). However in our small study it didn’t seem to be the case. We saw a glimpse of ‘homo conexus’ in some groups but the conclusion is that there is still quite a long way from the connected, networking homo conexus of the literature to an average student in our classes. The study shows that working in a technology rich, rhizomatic classroom demanded a lot form both teachers and students.

First and foremost both students and teachers have to acknowledge the principals of the rhizomatic approach. The pedagogic design must present a map of possibilities and not a fixed route. This is in itself a challenge for some students.
Then students and teachers have to be literate in the technologies.
Then students and teachers have to acknowledge that mastering learning is an important part of learning.
Then students and teachers have to understand and accept their new position in the learning process and in the didactic design

If those circumstances are present then the rhizomatic, digital habitat seems to be an interesting pedagogic design that could be investigated further. If we look at isolated instances (the Tabby Lou story, Gee 2012) it is evident that almost anything can be learned if you master learning in at network and that potential should be utilized in teaching.

Google enters the collaborative economy in a big way [Owyang]

On 02/04/2015, in business, collaboration, corporate / business world, economics, Google, new business models, by Daniel Christian

Google enters the collaborative economy in a big way — from web-strategist.com by Jeremiah Owyang

Excerpt:

[On 2/3/15], Google has entered the Collaborative Economy with a series of announcements that leave a casual reader scratching their [heads]. But placing the announcements line by line, you can see an organized attempt to enter this space traditionally dominated by early stage startups.

Google is a major investor in Uber and Lending Club.
Google plans to roll out self-driving cars, competing with car manufactures.
Google now resells P2P loans, competing with banks.
Google partners with Airbnb and Lyft, challenging hotels and taxis.
Google is reportedly building a ride hailing app to compete with Uber.

Learning Ecosystems

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model [Wilcox & Ray]

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader [Educause & Jisc]

Reflections on “How Google and Coursera may upend the traditional college degree” [Butler]

Google enters the collaborative economy in a big way [Owyang]

Categories

Tags