Mezzanine-from-Oblong-May2013

 

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Mezzanine2-from-Oblong-May2013

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From the Oblong.com website:

Mezzanine™ is a collaborative conference room solution that introduces multi-user, multi-screen, multi-device collaboration. This is next-generation communication: share any content from any device with anyone, anywhere.

Mezzanine transforms creative teamwork, executive meetings, and sales presentations into real-time, collaborative work sessions. Mezzanine expands on existing telepresence technology by providing what we call InfoPresence™—the incorporation of multiple users, multiple devices, and multiple streams of information in the collaboration environment. The future of conference room collaboration is here.

A Mezzanine workspace lets any person on a network bring their own device and share content and applications with any colleague, anywhere in the world, interactively. Mezzanine is a collaborative conference room solution combining presentation design and delivery, application sharing, whiteboard capture, and video conferencing, all within a framework of multi-participant control.

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Also see:

  • Oblong Technovates with LA High School
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  • Oblong at OME
    Oblong Industries recently participated at OME, a summit hosted by UC San Francisco.  The two-day summit focused on charting the future of precision medicine—an emerging field combining big data with clinical research and patient care to deliver insights and advances in treatment that is more targeted and enables improved patient outcomes.

 


From DSC:
It seems that
The Walmart of Education has officially arrived — i.e. a 50%+ discount off normal prices!  A $7000 Masters in Computer Science! 

Are we going to see more partnerships/collaborations like this involving MOOC providers, more “traditional” institutions of Higher Education, as well as the corporate world?

Are we moving more towards the use of teams and consortia and pooling resources?

Are we witnessing the beginning of a more accessible infrastructure to support lifelong learning? 

Is AT&T going to hire the top performers?


Georgia Tech announces Massive Online Master’s Degree in Computer Science — from online.wsj.com
Institute teams with Udacity, AT&T to launch first-of-its-kind advanced degree program

Excerpt:

ATLANTA, May 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing announced today that it will offer the first professional Online Master of Science degree in computer science (OMS CS) that can be earned completely through the “massive online” format. The degree will be provided in collaboration with online education leader Udacity Inc. and AT&T.

All OMS CS course content will be delivered via the massive open online course (MOOC) format, with enhanced support services for students enrolled in the degree program. Those students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master’s programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000. A pilot program, partly supported by a generous gift from AT&T, will begin in the next academic year. Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates. Enrollment is expected to expand gradually over the next three years.

 

Massive (but not open) — from InsideHigherEd.com by Ry Rivard

Excerpt:

The Georgia Institute of Technology plans to offer a $7,000 online master’s degree to 10,000 new students over the next three years without hiring much more than a handful of new instructors.

Georgia Tech will work with AT&T and Udacity, the 15-month-old Silicon Valley-based company, to offer a new online master’s degree in computer science to students across the world at a sixth of the price of its current degree. The deal, announced Tuesday, is portrayed as a revolutionary attempt by a respected university, an education technology startup and a major corporate employer to drive down costs and expand higher education capacity.

 

Georgia Tech, Udacity to offer Master’s Degree — from edsurge.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

WHOA. Georgia Tech and Udacity today said that they would jointly offer an entirely online master’s degree in computer science with support from AT&T for less than $7,000, total.

That’s a game-changer.

Interactive whiteboards are front and center in college classrooms — from edtechmagazine.com
A look at whiteboards at New York’s Touro College.

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From DSC:
We currently have 3 types of Interactive WhiteBoards (IWB’s) on our campus:  Epson BrightLinks, SMART Boards, and/or an Eno Board from PolyVision.

However, the idea of using mobile interactive whiteboards is becoming increasingly popular — i.e. being able to annotate on an iPad, for example, and having everyone in the class see these annotations.  I’ve seen some K-12 folks use Apple TV for this type of thing, but Apple’s multi-cast wireless protocol doesn’t work as well for us in a campus environment.  I’ve also seen/heard of people using one of the following solutions listed below as well. (I wish I had more time to check each of them out, but I’ll simply list them for you here.)

 

 

Kayak office extension by ACTWO Architects — from architectism.com

 

 

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From DSC: re: Adobe’s Project Context:
This is the type of hardware/software combination that I’ve been hoping for and envisioning! Excellent!

It appears to be the type of setup whereby students could quickly and easily collaborate with one another — in a face-to-face setting (and ideally in remote locations as well) — by not just displaying files but also being able to share files with one another.  Files can be sent up to the interactive, multi-touch displays as well as to an interactive table. So it’s not just displaying files, but actually sharing files and being able to collaboratively work on a project.

Eventually, I see this being able to be done in your living room.  What if MOOCs could integrate this type of web-based collaboration into their projects?

But for now, this is a HUGE step forward in this vision. Great work Adobe! This is innovative! Very helpful!

Example screenshots:

 

AdobeProjectContext-May2013

 

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AdobeProjectContext-1

 

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AdobeProjectContext-2

 

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Also see:

  • Adobe’s hardware experiments are more than just hobbies: Hands-on with Project Context – from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois
    Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
    At its MAX conference in Los Angeles [on 5/6/13], Adobe showed  quite a few products that will soon be available to its customers, but it also highlighted a number of hardware experiments, including Project Context, a totally re-imagined way for creating magazine layouts, as well as an advanced stylus and a ruler for touchscreens.

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project_context_screen_1

The folks needed to create the next generation of learning: Computers can’t touch this. [Christian]

From DSC:
What we need is a major hackathon — or an organization with deep pockets — that can bring together folks from a variety of disciplines including:

  • Subject Matter Experts
  • Instructional Designers
  • Cognitive Psychologists
  • Computer Scientists and/or those exerienced with learning analytics/data mining, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Those gifted in film/media/videography/photography
  • Great storytellers/writers (including writing for transmedia-based learning experiences)
  • Folks who can create engaging, educational games
  • Designers
    • Web
    • Graphic
    • Interface
    • User experience
    • User interaction
    • Those gifted in creating multimedia-based content
  • Musicians
  • Human Computer Interaction (HCI) experts
  • Mobile learning experts
  • Those knowledgeable with second screens/M2M communications
  • Animators
  • Illustrators
  • Social media experts
  • Accessibility experts
  • Researchers
  • Those gifted in creating augmented reality-based apps
  • Legal/copyright experts
  • & others

We need for these specialists to collaborate in order to create the next generation of learning.  Anyone who can bring these skillsets together and experiment with creating materials will have significantly contributed something to the current generations and to future generations! 

And, in the words of M.C. Hammer,  computers “can’t touch this!”  Why? Because “learning is messy!”

What fields did I miss?
Please leave your thoughts and
feedback in the comments section.

 

 

 

 
 

STEM cloud pilot could level technology playing field — from by Tanya Roscorla

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Because of differences in lower-income and higher-income schools in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, not every student has access to identical technology — and both government and education leaders are working to change that by partnering with the private sector on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and communication pilot in the cloud.

The county’s IT office and school system worked with the Maryland-based company Lockheed Martin to tackle this unequal access challenge creatively, something that the global security and aerospace company does for a living, said Vennard Wright, director of the Office of Information Technology and CIO for the county. This is the first step in the county’s quest to work with industry on different problems.

 

 

Tagged with:  

5 characteristics of how knowledge workers like to learn at work — from c4lpt.co.uk by Jane Hart
This is a draft page from the  upcoming book The Workplace Learning Revolution.

 

 

From DSC:
Again note the need for each of us to build our own learning ecosystems; and note the use of…
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streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

25PercentCompanyTrainingNoValue-Hart-April2013

 

From DSC:
This data further supports my thoughts on helping people build their own learning ecosystems — something Jane points out as well when she states that “workers find other (self-organised and self-managed) ways of learning at work far more valuable – with team collaboration being the highest rated.”

I recommend helping folks learn how to create their own blogs and learn how to subscribe to others’ blogs, access relevant wikis, use Twitter, employ Google Alerts, etc.  

Provide each employee with some relevant names/blogs/websites/etc. to get employees started (i.e. of some knowledgeable accountants, legal counsel, product designers, engineers, digital marketing experts, cloud computing strategists, programmers for mobile computing apps, etc.).  I realize this presents issues with companies’ sensitive information such as patents and/or intellectual property.   But if Harold Jarche is correct in saying that we live in a post-jobs world, what we know of the modern corporation may be very different in just a few years anyway.  (i.e. You’re on your own. You are your own corporation/business; so build your own brand and expertise. Build your own valuable network of peers/colleagues — who you can contribute to as well as to learn from.)

Admittedly, this changes some of the roles of the training department from creating e-learning modules to becoming excellent researchers, social media experts, quasi-librarians, etc.

(Come to think of it, I wonder if that might happen in higher ed as well — i.e. provide students with the relevant/key experts, important thinkers, streams of content, etc.)

 

streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

 

Citrix Paris headquarters by Areq Sq

Example images:

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My reflections on “MOOCs of Hazard” – a well-thought out, balanced article by Andrew Delbanco


From DSC: Below are my reflections on MOOCs of Hazard — from newrepublic.com by Andrew Delbanco — who asks:  Will online education dampen the college experience? Yes. Will it be worth it? Well…


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While I’m not sure that I agree with the idea that online education will dampen the college experience — and while I could point to some amazing capabilities that online education brings to the table in terms of true global exchanges — I’ll instead focus my comments on the following items:

 

1) Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are recent experiments — ones that will continue to change/morph into something else.
They are half-baked at best, but they should not be taken lightly. Christensen, Horn, Johnson are spot on with their theories of disruption here, especially as they relate to innovations occurring within the virtual/digital realm.  For example, the technologies behind IBM’s Watson could be mixed into the list of ingredients that will be used to develop MOOCs in the future.  It would be a very powerful, effective MOOC indeed if you could get the following parties/functionalities to the table:

  • IBM — to provide Watson like auto-curation/filtering capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, as well as data mining/learning analytics expertise, joined by
  • Several highly-creative firms from the film/media/novel/storytelling industry, who would be further joined by
  • Experts from Human Computer Interaction (HCI)/user interface/user experience design teams, who would be further joined by
  • Programmers and interaction specialists from educational gaming endeavors (and from those who can design simulations), joined by
  • Instructional designers, joined by
  • The appropriate Subject Matter Experts who can be reached by the students as necessary, joined by
  • Those skilled in research and library services, joined by
  • Legal experts to assist with copyright issues, joined by
  • Other specialists in mobile learning,  3D, web development, database administration, animation, graphic design, musicians, etc.

It won’t be long before this type of powerful team gets pulled together — from some organizations(s) with deep pockets — and the content is interacted with and presented to us within our living rooms via connected/Smart TVs and via second screen devices/applications.

2) The benefits of MOOCs
  • For colleges/universities:
    • MOOCs offer some serious marketing horsepower (rather than sound pedagogical tools, at this point in time at least)
    • They are forcing higher ed to become much more innovative
    • They provide great opportunities to build one’s personalized learning networks, as they bring forth those colleagues who are interested in topic A, B, or C
    • They move us closer to team-based content creation and delivery
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  • For students:
    • They offer a much less expensive option to go exploring disciplines for themselves…to see if they enjoy (and/or are gifted in) topic A, B or C
    • They provide great opportunities to build one’s personalized learning networks, as they bring forth those colleagues who are interested in topic A, B, or C
    • They provide a chance to see what it’s like to learn about something in a digital/virtual manner

3)  The drawbacks of MOOCs:
  • MOOCs are not nearly the same thing as what has come to be known as “online learning” — at least in the higher ed industry. MOOCs do not yet offer what more “traditional” (can I say that?) online learning provides: Far more support and pedagogical/instructional design, instructor presence and dialog, student academic support services, advising, more student-to-student and student-to-faculty interaction, etc.
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  • MOOCs are like drinking from a firehose — there are too many blogs/RSS feeds, twitter feeds, websites, and other resources to review.

4) It would be wise for all of us to be involved with such experiments and have at least a subset of one’s college or university become much more nimble/responsive.

 

Also see:

A solution to the college crisis — from internettime.com by Jay Cross

From DSC:
As I have it that we need to strengthen the relationships and collaborations between K-12, higher ed, and the corporate/business world, I appreciate Jay thinking about and writing about this important topic.  What we have throughout much of higher education is not sustainable and isn’t working for many people.  What can traditional higher ed learn from Jay’s thoughts? What can the corporate world learn from Jay’s thoughts?

 

© 2025 | Daniel Christian