collaboration

Bringing the Wonder of the Web to Video (emphasis DSC)
Our mission is to usher in a new age of expression.

Anyone can easily create professional-quality videos combined with all the interactivity you expect to find inside a browser. We call these TouchCasts, a new medium that looks like video, but feels like the web.

— Per TouchCast.com

TouchCast in Education

Also see:

Engaging with the YouTube Generation — by Ayelet Segal
.
The Future of Personal Broadcasting: Consider this your invitation — from touchcast.com by Charley Miller

Excerpt:

The very idea of who a “broadcaster” is (the “we”) is about to change. It’s about to become you.

What Twitter can do for you and how you might use it in the classroom

On 03/01/2014, in collaboration, communications, communities of practice, education technology, ideas, social learning / networks, social media, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Where would I be without Twitter? — from dontwasteyourtime.co.uk by David Hopkins

Excerpt:

For me [David] Twitter has …

been somewhere I could share my thoughts and reflections, from this blog, to a wider audience.
resulted in invitations to present at UK and European conferences.
opened my eyes to critical thinking and reflection through examples and the work that other people share through Twitter.
enabled real time help and support when tech failed me (or I could help someone else who had had their tech fail them).
made some real and valuable friends that started off as 140 character online conversations and has matured and grown through face-to-face contact at events and conferences.
helped me focus and concentrate on what is professionally important – here I’m thinking about implication and application of an ‘appropriate’ technological implementation, making sure it’s something that will add value or increase efficiency rather than the “ooh, it’s shiny and new” approach.

Also see David’s:

Tweetchat for Org-learning — from sundertrg.tumblr.com

Excerpt:

Tweet-chats are fairly popular in the twitter world and if you’re an active Twitter user, you may have heard of or participated in a tweet chat event. These are live discussions that take place on Twitter about a pre-determined theme. The idea is to get perspectives from a cross section of audience.

22 Effective Ways To Use Twitter In The Classroom — from edudemic.com by Jeff Dunn

Classroom tech: UD faculty use Twitter to enhance classroom experience — from udel.edu

Excerpts:

“It’s a good way to source material for classroom discussions”
…search for, follow, or post messages about a specific topic or interest.
…creating news feeds with links to news articles.
…create a laundry list of articles for them.”
Pictures can also be tweeted when encountering relevant marketing situations while shopping.
The articles and topics raised in Twitter then become part of their in-class discussions.

Addendum on 3/4/14:

5 Great Twitter Chats for Educators — from powerupwhatworks.org by Alise Brann
Excerpt:
Check out the links below to read blog posts on how to use Twitter:

Addendums on 3/5/14:

Social Learning – An explanation using Twitter — an updated presentation from Jane Hart
.
10 Social Media Tips for Reaching World Language Learners — from edutopia.org
Bring world languages to life with tools to help students create, connect, and collaborate.
.
The Big List of Social-Media Resources — from edutopia.org
Discover how to create social-media guidelines, deepen student engagement, and expand your professional learning network (PLN) in this curated list.

Reflections on “TVs are becoming the next app battleground” [Adler]

On 03/01/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, Bring your own device (BYOD), changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, global / globalization, India, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, media/film, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, second screen apps, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, television, TVs, by Daniel Christian

TVs are becoming the next app battleground — from by Emily Adler

Excerpt:

The app store phenomenon, centered on smartphones and tablets, has been the biggest story in software for the past five years.

Its next logical destination: the living room, via smart TVs and set-top boxes connected to the Internet.

…

The smart TV app revolution is inevitable: People spend four hours in front of their TVs in the U.S., and 63% of all global ad spending goes to TVs. The old guard, represented by cable and entertainment conglomerates, will not be able to fend off improvements like those that apps are bringing to mobile phones.
.
The smart TV revolution will not just be led by new TVs with built-in Internet connections, it will also result from consumer adoption of less expensive game consoles or set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV, which transform traditional TVs into smart TVs with access to app stores. At least 20% of U.S. consumers already have their TVs connected in one of these ways.

From DSC:

Keep an eye on the convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer.
.
Start thinking of ways that you could provide learning/educationally-based experiences with second screen apps. What would that experience look and act like?
.
If such “channels” come to fruition — and happen to coincide with MOOCs and advances in cognitive computing (such as IBM’s Watson) — the word disruption comes to mind.
.
The trick, then, will be to offer streams of content that are relevant, and up-to-date.
.
Such a platform could be used in learning hubs throughout the world, as well as in hybrid/blended classrooms — while also addressing lifelong learners from their living rooms.
.
Such a platform could take Communities of Practice to an entirely new level.

Addendum/also see:

Technology and jobs: Coming to an office near you
The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense—and no country is ready for it — from economist.com by

Excerpts:

INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.

…

No time to be timid
If this analysis is halfway correct, the social effects will be huge. Many of the jobs most at risk are lower down the ladder (logistics, haulage), whereas the skills that are least vulnerable to automation (creativity, managerial expertise) tend to be higher up, so median wages are likely to remain stagnant for some time and income gaps are likely to widen.

Anger about rising inequality is bound to grow, but politicians will find it hard to address the problem. Shunning progress would be as futile now as the Luddites’ protests against mechanised looms were in the 1810s, because any country that tried to stop would be left behind by competitors eager to embrace new technology. The freedom to raise taxes on the rich to punitive levels will be similarly constrained by the mobility of capital and highly skilled labour.

The main way in which governments can help their people through this dislocation is through education systems. One of the reasons for the improvement in workers’ fortunes in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution was because schools were built to educate them—a dramatic change at the time. Now those schools themselves need to be changed, to foster the creativity that humans will need to set them apart from computers. There should be less rote-learning and more critical thinking. Technology itself will help, whether through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or even video games that simulate the skills needed for work.

Description:
Smart machines do what we thought only people could do. They include conversational assistants like GoogleNow that know how you work, understand written content and make recommendations based on what you’re doing; advisors like IBM’s Watson that can help clinicians keep up with medical literature and suggest courses of action; software that writes sports stories from box scores; and cars that drive themselves.

Key Issues
1. What are smart machines?
2. How will smart machines impact business, technology, economies and society?
3. What should you do about it?

IBM teams up with AT&T to rule the Internet of Things [Wheatley]

On 02/20/2014, in analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, data related items, experimentation, global / globalization, innovation, internet, technology (general), telecommunications, vendors, by Daniel Christian

IBM teams up with AT&T to rule the Internet of Things — from by Mike Wheatley

Excerpt:

In their joint statement, the two companies said they plan to combine their analytics platforms, cloud and security technologies to build smarter cities for us to live in. Specifically, the partnership will see AT&T manage sensor communications and tracking through its global cellular network, whilst IBM will keep a handle on the analytics side of things. The target of their operations, initially, will be the kinds of devices that spew out masses upon masses of Big Data, such as mass transit vehicles, video cameras and utility meters. The goal of this undertaking meanwhile, is to analyze the data collected to identify trends and patterns that”ll help urban planners to regulate the flow of traffic, and to help utility firms to save energy and reduce costs through better management of their equipment.

AT&T and IBM join forces to deliver new innovations for the Internet of Things — from ibm.com
Cities, Utilities and Other Industries to Benefit from Interconnected, Intelligent Devices

Also see:

Reflections on “Online courses trim billions in personnel training” [Lee]

On 02/17/2014, in business, collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Online courses trim billions in personnel training — from cnbc.com by Ellen Lee

Excerpt:

Massive online open courses (MOOCs) are supposed to change the face of higher education. Early success, though, has been easier to find among corporations.

A University of Pennsylvania survey released late last year found that few students made it past the first online lecture. That’s been a constant criticism of MOOCs from educators: There’s a lack of proof that they work as well as traditional classroom methods. San Jose State University suspended a program it had initiated with MOOC provider Udacity after poor early results.

These stumbles in the education sector haven’t stopped corporations from finding a compelling reason to embrace MOOCs: Online courses trim a bill that runs to $130 billion annually for job training and certification, according to a report by Bersin, a unit of Deloitte Consulting.

From DSC:
With the half lives of content shrinking, those organizations who are nimble, responsive to market demands, and can build/integrate new streams of content into their product offerings should prove to be successful. For example, if knowledge of 3D printing or big data is required, those organizations who can respond quickly to provide this information should do pretty well. If organizations like Coursera or Udacity can provide such content quicker, they could be the go-to players in the future — especially for lifelong learners.

Lastly, this article is a great example of why higher education & the corporate world should pay closer attention to what’s happening in each others’ worlds.

Check out this desk! “Superdesk” seats all 125 employees at a single table! [mymodernmet.com]

On 02/15/2014, in architecture, art, collaboration, creativity, learning spaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

“Superdesk” seats all 125 employees at a single table — from and The Barbarian Group

Excerpt:

Creating better alignment between the corporate world & the world of higher education [Christian]

On 02/08/2014, in 21st century, business, collaboration, communities of practice, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, teaching & learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Whereas:

We often hear from the corporate world that our students aren’t graduating with the sort of skills that the corporate world needs
We are now on exponential curves vs linear curves in a number of areas (technological changes being one of them)
The half-lives of information are shrinking from 30 years down to 5 years (see John Seeley Brown)
The pace of disruptive innovations seems to have picked up and businesses can be obsoleted within a short amount of time (i.e. Blockbuster, Kodak, Smith Corona, DEC, others)
Automation, artificial intelligence, and algorithms are influencing what’s available — or not — out in the job market for humans (see the work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee)
The corporate world is forced to adapt or die, and to be more nimble

I can’t help but wonder, especially in my role as an Instructional Designer:

Should the corporate world be setting or significantly guiding what is covered on the assessments within higher education? Then the faculty members and Instructional Designers can work backwards from there to design the necessary scaffolding, modules, and streams of content.

Such a setup would:

Create stronger alignments between the skills needed in the workplace and the skills of our graduates
Help faculty members know where to invest their time, resources, and their own learning
Address the accountability concerns/skepticism being placed upon higher education

Two other thoughts/ideas here:

We need better communities of practice whereby some members come from the corporate world and some members come from the world of higher education (faculty members, staff, and students)
I wonder if corporations could post real-world needs, ideas, and situations to higher ed faculty members and students — in order to create some solid, cross-disciplinary, project-based learning experiences…?

…

I can hear some of you asking, “What about the liberal arts!? All of this sounds very vocational and job-oriented. There’s more to higher education than that.”

And I would agree with you. I graduated with a liberal arts degree and I work for a Christian college that is focused on the liberal arts. So I think that there is still very much a place for liberal arts. However, I fear that those disciplines will only thrive again when the prices of obtaining such degrees are significantly reduced. It’s one thing to get a $5,000-$10,000 degree in a liberal arts-related discipline (as it was years ago). It’s entirely another thing when it costs $100,000+ and then you struggle to find a job or you are told that a Master’s is the new undergrad degree (as is sometimes the case today).

So, I am back to wondering how we can re-architect our learning ecosystems to insure better alignments. The above thoughts are some of my ideas in this area.

A somewhat related posting:

Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready — from edweek.org by Tony Wagner
Excerpt:
What matters today, however, is not how much our students know, but what they can do with what they know.

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room

On 02/07/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, second screen apps, social learning / networks, streams of content, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room — from businessinsider.com.au by Mark Hoelzel

In the connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel.

Some key points:

In total, there will be more than 759 million televisions connected to the Internet worldwide by 2018, more than doubling from 307.4 million at year-end 2013.
Globally, shipments of smart TVs will reach a tipping point in 2015, when they will overtake shipments of traditional TVs.
Two tendencies dominate the connected TV ecosystem: closed and open approaches.
Despite platform fragmentation, HTML5 offers at least a faint hope for increased unification between connected TVs, just as it does on mobile.
How will developers and operating system operators monetise smart TV apps? Media downloads, subscriptions and — to a much lesser degree — advertisements will drive the dollars. Smart TV platform operators have begun experimenting with ads.

From DSC:
If in a connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel…then I say let’s bring on the educationally-related, interactive, multimedia-based apps!

A new pedagogy is emerging… and online learning is a key contributing factor — from contactnorth.ca

Excerpt:

THREE EMERGING PEDAGOGICAL TRENDS
Underlying these developments are some common factors or trends:

1. A move to opening up learning, making it more accessible and flexible. The classroom is no longer the unique centre of learning, based on information delivery through a lecture.

2. An increased sharing of power between the professor and the learner. This is manifest as a changing professorial role, towards more support and negotiation over content and methods, and a focus on developing and supporting learner autonomy. On the student side, this can mean an emphasis on learners supporting each other through new social media, peer assessment, discussion groups, even online study groups but with guidance, support and feedback from content experts.

3. An increased use of technology not only to deliver teaching, but also to support and assist students and to provide new forms of student assessment.

It is important to emphasize that these are emerging pedagogical trends. More experimentation, evaluation, and research are needed to identify those that will have lasting value and a permanent effect on the system.

…

Impact on Student Learning
Student learning is the other key component of an emerging pedagogy, with their success as the goal of all our efforts.

What new demands are student making in terms of how they want to be taught and assessed and what are your responses?
What new roles are students taking in their online or hybrid learning and how has this changed your teaching practice?
What new strategies for and areas of student support are being built into course structures to facilitate effective online learning?

Thanks Elliott for your continued efforts to bridge higher education & the corporate world. It makes sense.

On 01/23/2014, in collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, workplace, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs & Corporate Learning: Symposium and LAB
learningmoocs.com

ElliottMasie-MOOCsLabSymposium-April-2014

From DSC:
The corporate world and the world of higher education have much to offer each other. We have an impact on each other and I, for one, welcome this sort of collaboration. I sometimes wonder if the corporate world should write the learning objectives that would guide what content and learning activities are in the undergraduate/graduate students’ courses.

The PresenterTouch Wall — from Ideum

Also see:

Clarity Matrix MultiTouch
Interactive LCD Video WallThe Clarity™ Matrix MultiTouch LCD Video Wall is an ultra-slim profile touch screen video wall ideal for public spaces or collaboration environments. Utilizing the latest touch technology, Clarity Matrix MultiTouch enables up to 32 touch points and allows multiple users to simultaneously interact with video wall without affecting other users.

Planar announces next generation Clarity Matrix LCD video wall system — from avinteractive.com

Planar announces next generation Clarity Matrix LCD video wall system

From DSC:
In addition to video walls and large multitouch surfaces…we need to start thinking about how we might integrate the Internet of Things (IoT) into the classroom. For example, what might occur if technologies like Apple’s iBeacon were in the blended/hybrid classroom? Tony goes to corner A, and up pops a video re: XYZ for him to check out on the large multitouch display. Tony then moves across the room, to another corner of the room, and up pops a quiz or an assignment related to what Tony saw in the first corner of the room. Available on one of the windows on the video wall is of a remote specialist on the subject. Tony clicks on the “Connect with specialist” button and finds himself in a videoconference with this remote specialist/tutor on a portion of the video wall.

As learning hubs* grow, these technologies might be very useful.

* where some of the content is electronically
delivered and where some of the content
is discussed in a face-to-face manner

HarperCollins, Google’s Niantic Labs, 20th Century Fox collaborate w/ bestselling author on next gen cross-media project, Endgame — from corporate.harpercollins.com, w/ thanks to @myweb2learn for the resource

Excerpt of Press Release (emphasis DSC):

ENDGAME is a fully integrated, multimedia experience that will combine a trilogy of young adult novels, fifteen original e-book novellas, YouTube videos, search and image results, mapping coordinates, social media, and interactive gaming in one revolutionary creative project. Each book in the ENDGAME trilogy will feature an interactive puzzle comprised of clues and riddles throughout the text.

…

“We are excited to work with James Frey and Full Fathom Five on this groundbreaking series,” said Brian Murray, President and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers. “This is a spectacular story that embodies the future of publishing—great content, interactivity and a multimedia experience.”

…

Google’s Niantic Labs is developing a location-based augmented reality game that will bring ENDGAME to life in the real world. The game builds on the success of “Ingress,” which defined a new category of entertainment that marries video games with the physical world. The mobile experience will allow players around the world to join in the battle to unlock the mysteries and secrets of ENDGAME. Google Niantic will also be publishing six ENDGAME novellas exclusively at the Google Play store. The game is expected to launch on Android and iOS devices in late 2014.

“James has a great vision for telling stories in an integrated way across books, film, social media, and mobile games,” John Hanke, VP of Product, Niantic Labs at Google, said. “We are delighted to bring our technology and expertise to bear on a project that is helping to define the future of entertainment.”

From DSC:
If successful, I’d love to see some applications of this sort of experiment applied towards education/learning — i.e. towards K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training/L&D departments. The experiment emphasizes where I think successful learning is also going — towards the use of TEAM-based content creation and delivery.

George Siemens Gets Connected — from chronicle.com by Steve Kolowich

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

He earned the most of his college credits at the University of Manitoba but also took courses from Briercrest College and Seminary, a Christian institution in Saskatchewan.

Through Briercrest, Mr. Siemens had his first experience with distance education: He took a Greek-language course that involved studying pronunciation from cassette tapes that came in the mail.
…
When he was 28, he went on a religious retreat. “If you’re always moving away from something, you’ll be lost,” Mr. Siemens remembers a priest telling him. “Always be moving toward something.”
…
The idea behind the first MOOC was not to make credentialing more efficient, says Mr. Siemens. It was to make online instruction dovetail with the way people actually learn and solve problems in the modern world. He and his colleagues wanted “to give learners the competence to interact with messy, ambiguous contexts,” he wrote, “and to collaboratively make sense of that space.”
…
Education, then, is “a connection-forming process,” in which “we augment our capacity to know more” by adding nodes to our personal networks and learning how to use them properly.

From DSC:
This last sentence speaks to a significant piece of why I titled the name of this blog Learning Ecosystems. Such nodes can be people — such as parents, pastors, teachers, professors, coaches, mentors, authors, and others — as well as tools, technologies, schools, experiences, courses, etc. These ecosystems are fluid and different for each of us.

I’m also very glad to see George continuing to lead, to innovate, to experiment and for others to realize the value in supporting/encouraging those efforts. He is out to create the future.

Speaking of being out to create the future, I got involved with one of the experiments he led a while back called future learn: exploring innovation in education and learning. Though that experiment was later abandoned, it helped me crystallize a vision:

That vision has turned into:

So thanks George, for your willingness to encourage experimentation within higher education. Your efforts impacted me.

Finally, I’m glad to see the LORD continuing to bless you George and to work through you…to change the world.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Online courses trim billions in personnel training” [Lee]

Check out this desk! “Superdesk” seats all 125 employees at a single table! [mymodernmet.com]

Creating better alignment between the corporate world & the world of higher education [Christian]

Thanks Elliott for your continued efforts to bridge higher education & the corporate world. It makes sense.

The future of publishing? Applications for learning?

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