10 in-demand soft skills to supercharge your career — from fastcompany.com by Melissa Rosenthal
Your résumé and experience may get you through the door, but these soft skills could help you clinch the job.

Excerpt:

A LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report shows that 92% of talent professionals reported that soft skills are equally or more important to hire for than hard skills. The same study reveals that 89% surveyed said that when a new hire doesn’t work out, it’s because they lack much-needed soft skills.

The hard truth about hard skills is that they can have a short half-life. Constant innovation, technology updates, and new feature releases render many of these skills obsolete quickly. Meanwhile, soft skills never expire—they are relevant, transferable, and keep a person highly employable.

 

Mindful Leadership for Change — from gettingsmart.com by Rebecca Midles

Key Points

  • This blog builds upon Framing and Designing the How.
  • It digs into strategies for determining the ideal pace for implementation of innovation.

Also from gettingsmart.com, see:

States Partner on Micro-Credentials to Personalize Teacher Learning — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Key Points

  • In 2020, more than 2000 educators earned more than 4000 micro-credentials.
  • Schools and systems adopted this new approach to give teachers more voice and choice in their learning.
 

Brands Are Already Making Millions in the Metaverse. Here’s What Business Owners Need To Know. — from inc.com by Ben Sherry
Entrepreneurs who follow Gen-Z into the metaverse could gain a competitive advantage.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

If you’re still skeptical about the metaverse, you certainly aren’t alone. According to a recent survey, 55 percent of adults with yearly incomes over $100,000 said they were not interested or excited about the concept, while 37 percent said they were primarily worried about it. Only 6 percent of respondents claimed to be excited about the metaverse.

Those numbers might not seem encouraging, but it’s important to remember that one of the most popular metaverse platforms currently available, Roblox, averages more than 54 million daily users, the vast majority of whom are Gen-Z or younger. Those users have cumulatively spent more than $1 billion on digital items such as outfits or accessories designed to be worn by player avatars in addition to in-experience upgrades and various other paid features.

From DSC:
The article stated that over 30 million virtual worlds had been created from scratch using Roblox Studio, the platform’s creation engine. So youth are creating, sharing, and participating in virtual worlds all the time…while experimenting, playing, and practicing their creativity. This all is done outside of school. Hmm…

 

 

How will the Metaverse Influence Business and Legal Processes? — from jdsupra.com

Excerpt:

While some will be hesitant to use the metaverse and adoption is difficult to predict, it is not going away and will undoubtedly affect internal processes, business dealings, case strategy, and more. Organizations should start thinking about the possibilities now to be better prepared for future challenges. Below are some predictions on how the metaverse will influence operations, strategy, and investments across different areas of the enterprise.

Lawyers & the Metaverse — from joetechnologist.com by Elizabeth Beattie and Joseph Raczynski

Excerpt:

In a new Q&A interview, Thomson Reuters’ technologist and futurist Joseph Raczynski offers his insight about the Metaverse and how it will impact the legal industry.

I have likely spoken to thousands of lawyers over the last several years. They are extraordinarily bright, but with one limiting factor — their dedication to their craft. This means that they do not have the time to lift their heads to see what is coming. All these emerging technologies will impact their practices in some way, as well as the business of law. At a minimum, lawyers need the opportunity to focus on the big four: AI, blockchain, workflow, and the grab bag of general emerging technology. There are a multitude of places to learn about these things, but I would include some of the classics such as Google Alerts, Twitter threads on these topics, and magazines like Wired, which should be a staple for everyone.

These legal issues should be on college business officers’ radars — from highereddive.com by Rick Seltzer
A panel at the National Association of College and University Business Officers’ annual meeting covered legal questions spanning many offices on campus.

Let’s not presume that virtual hearings are the best solution in family law — from canadianlawyermag.com by John Silvester

Excerpts:

Proponents argue that virtual hearings are less expensive for clients, leading to enhanced access to justice for those who cannot afford to pay for their lawyers to travel to a courthouse and then sit and wait for hearings to commence. Sounds reasonable, right?

Not so fast.

Virtual hearings are advantageous in some scenarios, but there are at least three reasons why moving to an almost entirely virtual legal world may prove problematic.

LawNext Podcast: CALI Executive Director John Mayer on Using Tech to Advance Legal Education and Access to Justice — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi and John Mayer

Excerpt:

In this episode of LawNext, Mayer joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss the history and mission of CALI and to share his thoughts on the use of technology to enhance legal education. They also talk about how and why A2J Author was developed and how it is used by courts and legal services organizations to help those who are without legal representation. Mayer also shares his thoughts on the future of innovation in law and on the future of CALI.

Louisiana Approves Virtual Custody Services and Proposes Virtual Currency Business Licensing Rules — from natlawreview.com by Moorari Shah and A.J. S. Dhaliwal

Excerpt:

Recently, the Louisiana lawmakers and regulators have taken steps to legalize operations in the state involving virtual currencies. On June 15, the Louisiana governor signed a bill that, effective August 1, 2022, will allow financial institutions and trust companies to provide virtual currency custody services to their customers as long as they satisfy certain requirements on risk-management and compliance. On June 20, the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (OFI) published proposed rules on licensing and regulation of virtual currency businesses in the state pursuant to the Louisiana Virtual Currency Business Act, which went into effect on August 1, 2020.

 

Matthew Ball on the metaverse: We’ve never seen a shift this enormous — protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
The leading metaverse theorist shares his thoughts on the sudden rise of the concept, its utility for the enterprise and what we still get wrong about the metaverse.

Excerpts:

What are the biggest misconceptions about the metaverse?
First, the idea that the metaverse is immersive virtual reality, such as an Oculus or Meta Quest. That’s an access device. It would be akin to saying the mobile internet is a smartphone.

We should think of the metaverse as perhaps changing the devices we use, the experiences, business models, protocols and behaviors that we enjoy online. But we’ll keep using smartphones, keyboards. We don’t need to do all video conferences or all calls in 3D. It’s supplements and complements, doesn’t replace everything.

Also relevant/see:

A former Amazon exec thinks Disney will win the metaverse — from protocol.com by

Excerpt:

This month, Ball is publishing his book, “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.” The work explains in detail what the metaverse is all about and which shifts in tech, business and culture need to fall into place for it to come into existence.

How will the metaverse change Hollywood? In his book, Ball argues that people tend to underestimate the changes new technologies will have on media and entertainment.

  • Instead of just seeing a movie play out in 360 degrees around us, we’ll want to be part of the movie and play a more active role.
  • One way to achieve that is through games, which have long blurred the lines between storytelling and interactivity. But Ball also predicts there will be a wide range of adjacent content experiences, from virtual Tinder dates in the “Star Wars” universe to Peloton rides through your favorite movie sets.

Addendum on 7/24/22:

Neurodiversity, Inclusion And The Metaverse — from workdesign.com by Derek McCallum

Excerpt:

Innovation in virtual and augmented reality platforms and the vast opportunities connected to the metaverse are driving innovation in nearly every industry. In the workplace, future-focused companies are increasingly exploring ways to use this nascent technology to offer workers more choices and better support for neurodiverse employees.

It would be nearly impossible to list all the challenges and opportunities associated with this technology in a single article, so I’ll keep things focused on an area that is top-of-mind right now as many of us start to make our way back into the office—the workplace. The truth is, while we can use our expertise and experience to anticipate outcomes, no one truly knows what the metaverse will become and what the wide-ranging effects will be. At the moment, the possibilities are exciting and bring to mind more questions than answers. As a principal and hands-on designer in a large, diverse practice, my hope is that we will be able to collectively harness the inherent opportunities of the metaverse to support richer, more accessible human experiences across all aspects of the built environment, and that includes the workplace.


 
 

Quiet People in Meetings Are Incredible — from medium.com by Tim Denning
Knowing when not to talk is an art.

Excerpts:

But it’s not all bad. Meetings have taught me one valuable lesson: watch the quiet people.

Job titles make people do stupid things. One of those misdemeanors is talking too much. You can have a title today and have it gone tomorrow.

What ruins business is people that don’t listen. They think they know the market but actually they don’t know anything at all.

The brightest spark in the room says nothing at all. They are there taking notes and paying attention to what is going on. They watch the duel of egos and see no room to interrupt.

 

From DSC:
The following two items make me wonder how Extended Reality (XR)-related techs will impact theatre, gaming, opera, & other forms of entertainment.


AR Opera Glasses Could Change Broadway Forever — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick

Excerpt:

Immersive technology brings the stage to life like never before.

Students from the South Korean Hongik University have developed a pair of reimagined 19th-century opera glasses that utilize AR technology to immerse spectators in Broadway shows in a variety of unique and imaginative ways. The device is compatible with popular shows such as Wicked, Aladdin, Cats, Mamma Mia, and Frozen.

Reddot_Rene from ???/??????? on Vimeo.


What ‘Shakespeare Karaoke’ Teaches About the Virtual Reality Future — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig
Does technology work better as a solo encounter or a group experience?

Excerpt:

To immerse, or not to immerse?

For professors designing virtual reality versions of Shakespeare’s plays, that is the question. The answer(s) may have implications for designing new edtech tools—and VR technology intended to be used beyond the classroom, too.

The Bard’s masterpieces, plays written in the late 1500s and early 1600s, have received all kinds of digital makeovers in the 21st century. Two current efforts designed by academics for use in teaching draw on extended reality tools that invite users to actively participate in scenes from works like “Romeo and Juliet.”

Play the Knave is a video game that helps users design actor-avatars they can direct with their bodies around virtual theater spaces. Shakespeare-VR is a project-in-development that will enable users to don a VR headset, step on to a virtual Elizabethan stage and perform alongside avatars voiced by professional actors.

Play the Knave* is a mixed reality video game that enables virtual design and performance of dramatic scenes from Shakespeare--or any text you choose

 

Best Sites and Apps for Digital Storytelling — from techlearning.com by Diana Restifo
Digital storytelling can help boost communication and presentation skills

Excerpt:

…storytelling is a great way for kids to learn to love reading and writing. But almost any school subject can be considered through a dramatic frame, from history to geography to science. Even math can be taught through narrative (word problems, anyone?). Most importantly, storytelling gives kids the opportunity to be inventive with language, graphics, and design, and to share their creations with others.

The following sites and apps for storytelling range from basic to advanced. Many are designed for educators or include guides for use in education. And while most are paid products, the prices are generally reasonable and nearly every platform offers a free trial or free basic account.

6 best classroom noise meters for teachers — from educatorstechnology.com by Med Kharbach

Excerpt:

One of the effective ways to monitor and reduce noise levels in classrooms is by making noise visible. Enabling students to visualize their noise raises awareness to their sound levels and makes them noise conscious. There are several noise meter tools and apps to use in your classroom to bring down students noise and therefore help in creating optimal learning experiences. Below is a collection of some of the best noise meters for classroom use.  They are simple, easy to use, and cost-effective.

Digital age classroom projects — from thetechedvocate.org by Matthew Lynch

Excerpt:

Classroom learning today has left the era of flipping through textbooks trying to be on the same page with the teacher, though not for every class lesson. Educators today are seizing the opportunities of digital devices and media to expand learning opportunities beyond pencil and paper homework. Also, assessment is not just a multiple-choice test.

Consider trying one of these projects:

The Education of Incarcerated Youth with Disabilities Ep.14 — from edcircuit.com

Excerpt:

The School Justice Project (SJP) champions an extremely vulnerable population: incarcerated youth with disabilities. The SJP’s mission is to ensure every learner, in or out of prison facilities, receives the education they were promised and deserve. Their current class action lawsuit against the DC prison system underscores the impact of their efforts. Featured guest, Claire Blumenson, pulls no punches as she forces us to look, and not to look away, in this pivotal moment.

We are educators, parents, siblings, and friends who aren’t satisfied with the quality of the content our students are exposed to. We know they deserve better, and are committed to bringing authentic, engaging, diverse and accessible content to all learners.

Business Leaders Say Computer Science Needs to Be A Core Subject — from edsurge.com by Daniel Mollenkamp

Excerpt:

[On July 12], a collection of more than 500 prominent business, education and nonprofit leaders called on states to update their K-12 curriculum to make computer science a core subject.

In a letter sent to governors from all fifty states, they write, “computer science provides an essential foundation—not only for careers in technology, but for every career in today’s world,” and call upon state leaders to update curriculum to ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn computer science in school.

What is Microsoft Sway and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks — from techlearning.com by Luke Edwards
Microsoft Sway is a presentation tool that works really well for teaching

Excerpt:

Microsoft Sway is the company’s alternative to PowerPoint as a presentation tool that embraces collaborative working. As such, this is a powerful system for teachers and students to use in the classroom and beyond.

The idea behind Sway is to offer a super simple setup that allows anybody to create presentation slideshows. This makes it good for both younger students and teachers for in-class or online-based presenting.


For a somewhat related item, see:

Exploring some different instructional strategies and discovering how to incorporate them into the classroom process can rekindle a love affair with teaching. Finding the right instructional strategy to fit your classroom can make a world of difference to your students by allowing them to make meaningful connections with what they are learning. Take a look at a few different strategies, and see which one might suit your students this academic year.


 

From DSC:
Below are several observations re: our learning ecosystems — and some ideas on how we can continue to improve them.


It takes years to build up the knowledge and skills in order to be a solid teacher, faculty member, instructional designer, and/or trainer. It takes a lot of studying to effectively research how the brain works and how we learn. Then we retire…and the knowledge is often lost or not passed along. And the wheel gets reinvented all over again. And again. And again.

Along these lines — and though we’re making progress in this area — too often we separate the research from the practical application of that research. So we have folks working primarily in learning science, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and related fields. But their research doesn’t always get practically applied within our learning spaces. We have researchers…and then we have practitioners. So I greatly appreciate the likes of Pooja Agarwal and Patrice Bain out at RetrievalPractice.org, Daniel Willingham, Eva Keiffenheim, The Learning Scientists, James Lang, and several others who bridge this gap.

We need to take more of the research from learning science and apply it in our learning spaces.

Perhaps more researchers, faculty members, teachers, trainers, instructional designers, principals, provosts, etc. could blog or be active out on social media.

***

Along these lines, we need to spend more time helping people know how best to study and to learn.
If that type of thing is ever to be learned, it seems like it’s often learned or discussed in the mid- to later years of one’s life…often after one’s primary and secondary days are long gone.

Instead, we should consider putting these easy-to-understand posters from the Learning Scientists in every K-12 school, college, and university in the nation — or something like them.

***

To provide the most effective engaging learning experiences, we should consider using more team-based approaches. As appropriate, that could include the students themselves.

***

We put way too much emphasis on grades — which produces gameplayers who seek only to do the minimum amount of work necessary to get the A’s.  Doing so creates systems whereby learning is not the goal — getting a 4.0+ is.

***
As we are now required to be lifelong learners, our quality of life as a whole goes waaaay up if we actually enjoy learning.  Many people discover later in life that they like to learn…they just didn’t like school. Perhaps we could place greater emphasis within K-16 on whether students enjoyed their learning experiences or not. And if not, what might have made that topic more enjoyable to them? Or what other topics would they like to dive into (that weren’t’ on the original learning menu)?

This could also apply in the corporate training/L&D space as well. Such efforts could go a long way in helping establish stronger learning cultures.

***

We don’t provide enough choice to our students. We need to do a better job of turning over more control to them in their learning journey. We turn students off to learning because we try to cram information that they don’t care about down their throats. So then we have to use the currency of grades to force them into doing the work that they could care less about doing. Their experience with learning/school can easily get soured.

Learners need: More voice. More choice. More control. -- this image was created by Daniel Christian

We need to be more responsive with our curricula. And we need to explain how the information we’re trying to relay is relevant in the real world and will be relevant in their futures.

***

So those are some ideas that I wanted to relay. Thanks for your time and for your shared interests here!

 

The Metaverse in 2040 — from pewresearch.org by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie
Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms

 

The metaverse will, at its core, be a collection of new and extended technologies. It is easy to imagine that both the best and the worst aspects of our online lives will be extended by being able to tap into a more-complete immersive experience, by being inside a digital space instead of looking at one from the outside.

Laurence Lannom, vice president at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives

“Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are the gateway to phenomenal applications in medicine, education, manufacturing, retail, workforce training and more, and it is the gateway to deeply social and immersive interactions – the metaverse.

Elizabeth Hyman, CEO for the XR Association

 


 

The table of contents for the Metaverse in 2040 set of articles out at Pew Research dot org -- June 30, 2022

 


 

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world — from mckinsey.com with Eric Hazan and Lareina Yee

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Welcome to the metaverse. Now, where exactly are we? Imagine for a moment the next iteration of the internet, seamlessly combining our physical and digital lives. It’s many things: a gaming platform, a virtual retail spot, a training tool, an advertising channel, a digital classroom, a gateway to entirely new virtual experiences. While the metaverse continues to be defined, its potential to unleash the next wave of digital disruption is clear. In the first five months of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in building out metaverse technology and infrastructure. That’s more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021.

How would you define the metaverse?
Lareina: What’s exciting is that the metaverse, like the internet, is the next platform on which we can work, live, connect, and collaborate. It’s going to be an immersive virtual environment that connects different worlds and communities. There are going to be creators and alternative currencies that you can buy and sell things with. It will have a lot of the components of Web3 and gaming and AR, but it will be much larger.

Also relevant/see:


Also relevant/see:


 

Coursera’s Global Skills Report

Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

Here are some of our top findings:

  • Digital skills are the shared language of the modern economy.
  • Women’s participation continued to rise.
  • The developing world had the highest rate of learner growth.
  • Lower levels of internet access mean lower levels of skills proficiency.
  • Courses in human skills had more learners from developed countries, while those in digital skills had more from developing ones.
  • The U.S. held steady in its overall skills proficiency ranking—yet it lost meaningful ground in core technology and data science skills.
  • Europe leads the world in skills proficiency.
  • Proficiency in technology and data science skills varies widely across the Asia-Pacific region.
  • Learners used Coursera to understand the pandemic.
 

Slido Lesson Plan — from techlearning.com by Stephanie Smith Budhai, Ph.D.
This Slido Lesson Plan is designed to help educators implement the digital tool into their instruction

Excerpt:

Slido is an exciting online engagement edtech tool that can be used to connect all students with academic content while getting them involved in the lesson.

While Slido is often used to incorporate polling into virtual workshops and presentations, there are a wide range of student engagement features within the Slido platform that can be used by teachers during lessons.

Also see:

Slido -- your go-to interaction app for hybrid meetings

 

Will Learning Move into the Metaverse? — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Pamela Hogle

Excerpt:

In its 2022 Tech Trends report, the Future Today Institute predicts that, “The future of work will become more digitally immersive as companies deploy virtual meeting platforms, digital experiences, and mixed reality worlds.”

Learning leaders are likely to spearhead the integration of their organizations’ workers into a metaverse, whether by providing training in using the tools that make a metaverse possible or through developing training and performance support resources that learners will use in an immersive environment.

Advantages of moving some workplace collaboration and learning into a metaverse include ease of scaling and globalization. The Tech Trends report mentions personalization at scale and easy multilingual translation as advantages of “synthetic media”—algorithmically generated digital content, which could proliferate in metaverses.

Also see:

Future Institute Today -- Tech Trends 2022


Also from learningsolutionsmag.com, see:

Manage Diverse Learning Ecosystems with Federated Governance

Excerpt:

So, over time, the L&D departments eventually go back to calling their own shots.

What does this mean for the learning ecosystem? If each L&D team chooses its own learning platforms, maintenance and support will be a nightmare. Each L&D department may be happy with the autonomy but learners have no patience for navigating multiple LMSs or going to several systems to get their training records.

Creating common infrastructure among dispersed groups
Here you have the problem: How can groups that have no accountability to each other share a common infrastructure?

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian