communities of practice

DC: Some potential ideas for sharing your students' artwork:

Consider setting up a free blog at https://t.co/vDKpVl1iWv

Canvas gives out free accounts/classes; see https://t.co/BJEiuC2KCn

Google Classroomhttps://t.co/JSQqqxhUhd https://t.co/DTXmkDPs6k

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) March 18, 2020

For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in this new video regarding what’s called “cognitive load” [Christian]

On 03/10/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, attention, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, elearning, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, multimedia, online learning, pedagogy, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in a new video that I put together regarding cognitive load. It addresses at least two main questions:

What is cognitive load?
and
Why should I care about it?

Transcript here.

How do I put it into practice?

Simplify the explanations of what you’re presenting as much as possible and break down complex tasks into smaller parts
Don’t place a large amount of text on a slide and then talk about it at the same time — doing so requires much more processing than most people can deal with.
Consider creating two versions of your PowerPoint files:
- A text-light version that can be used for presenting that content to students
- A text-heavy version — which can be posted to your LMS for the learners to go through at their own pace — and without trying to process so much information (voice and text, for example) at one time.
Design-wise:
- Don’t use decorative graphics — everything on a slide should be there for a reason
- Don’t use too many fonts or colors — this can be distracting
- Don’t use background music when you are trying to explain something

How higher education can adapt to the future of work [Jahanian]

On 03/06/2020, in analytics, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, biology, business, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, curriculum, data related items, design, digital learning, economics, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

How higher education can adapt to the future of work — from weforum.org by Farnam Jahanian, President, Carnegie Mellon University; with thanks to Evan Kirstel for sharing this here

Excerpts:

Embrace the T-shaped approach to knowledge
The broad set of skills needed by tomorrow’s workforce also affects our approach to educational structure. At Carnegie Mellon University—like many other institutions—we have been making disciplinary boundaries much more porous and have launched programmes at the edges and intersections of traditional fields, such as behavioral economics, computational biology, and the nexus of design, arts, and technology. We believe this approach prepares our students for a future where thinking and working across boundaries will be vital. The value of combining both breadth and depth in higher education has also led to many universities embracing “T-shaped” teaching and learning philosophies, in which vertical (deep disciplinary) expertise is combined with horizontal (cross-cutting) knowledge.
…
Invest in personalised, technology-enhanced learning
The demand for more highly skilled workers continues to grow. Recent analysis of U.S. data by The Wall Street Journal found that more than 40% of manufacturing workers now have a college degree. By 2022, manufacturers are projected to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less. Technology-enhanced learning can help us keep up with demand and offer pathways for the existing workforce to gain new skills. AI-based learning tools developed in the past decade have incredible potential to personalise education, enhance college readiness and access, and improve educational outcomes. And perhaps most importantly, technology-enhanced learning has the compelling potential to narrow socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps among students.

The rapid pace of today’s advances requires a more comprehensive workforce and education strategy across a spectrum of measures, including policy, access, programmes and outreach. The private sector, government, educators and policy-makers must work together to deliver multiple pathways to opportunity for young people looking for their first foothold in the job market, as well as to re-skill and up-skill workers striving to maintain their place in the workforce.

Also see:

EU Proposes Strict Regulations for AI — from futuretech360.com by John K. Waters

Excerpt:

The European Union this week unveiled its first proposed regulations for artificial intelligence (AI) technology, along with a strategy for handling personal digital data. The new regs provide guidance around such AI use cases as autonomous vehicles and biometric IDs.

Published online by the European Commission, the proposed regulations would apply to “high-risk” uses of AI in areas such as health care, transportation and criminal justice. The criteria to determine risk would include such considerations as whether a person might get hurt, say, by a self-driving car or a medical device, and how much influence a human has on an AI’s decision in areas like job recruiting and law enforcement.

From DSC:
Here are two other example of AI’s further integration into the legal realm:

Casetext is Automating Litigation — from businesswire.com
Casetext’s new litigation automation technology, Compose, automates substantive legal work — and a substantial number of billable hours

Excerpt:

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Casetext, the legal technology company known for its groundbreaking A.I. legal research platform, today announces a new product that will define litigation automation: Compose. Compose, which automates the first draft of a legal brief, is poised to disrupt the $437 billion¹ legal services industry and fundamentally change our understanding of what types of professional work are uniquely human.

UC Irvine School of Law To Integrate Blue J Legal’s AI-Enabled Tax Platform into Curriculum — from businesswire.com
First of its kind initiative aims to prepare graduate students for careers in tax law where AI will be integral to the decision-making process

The joint effort aims to demonstrate why advanced technological integration in higher education is important and how to leverage it, specifically in tax law.

DC: Given today’s pace of change, pulse-checking &putting things on our radars are key.I appreciate the power of “streams of content” 2enhance our personal learning ecosystems. Along these lines, I also like Feedly & subscribing to a variety of RSS feeds.https://t.co/SzvTBMXfQE pic.twitter.com/2FE4dX1skB

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) February 26, 2020

For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies

On 02/22/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, attention, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, face-to-face, faculty, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, platforms, smart classrooms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC — and with a shout out to Brad Sousa for this resource:
For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies:

How Has Technology Impacted Higher Education?
In part one of this three-part series, AVI Systems CTO Brad Sousa talks with Jeff Day, Founder of North of 10 Advisors, to discuss the key ways education and, specifically, pedagogy differs from 10, 5, even 3 years ago.

Discussion Topics

The impact of active learning and the introduction of the internet of things (IoT) in the classroom
Recommendations for deploying modern learning environments with technology partners
Classroom systems design, then and now

Some timestamps (roughly speaking)

5:15 — changes in pedagogy
7:15 or so — active learning
15:30 design needs around active learning
17:15 DE rooms and active learning — software-controlled platform
21:30 — advice; look to outcomes & expectations that want to achieve/meet; uses cases

Media controller w/ intuitive interface to mimic the way someone teaches / way a classroom goes:

“Class start” — chaotic; mics on everywhere
“Lecture” — gates /mics closed and focus shifts to the professor
“Class interaction” — presents roster of who’s there (20:00 mark roughly)

Also see this introductory posting re: the implications of active learning in the higher ed market.

Optimal Video Length for Student Engagement — from blog.edx.org by Candace Hazlett and Philip Guo

Excerpt:

In this first post, I’ll share some preliminary results about video usage, obtained from initial analyses of a few edX math and science courses. Unsurprisingly, students engaged more with shorter videos. Traditional in-person lectures usually last an hour, but students have much shorter attention spans when watching educational videos online. The graph below shows median engagement times versus video length, aggregated over several million video watching sessions:

From DSC:
If you have access to a tool like Canvas Studio, then you can probably extend the length of your videos if you are interspersing your videos with a healthy dose of interactivity — i.e., inserting quiz questions every few minutes.

The ins & outs of internal launch: Taking an online offering to market independently [Oster]

On 02/04/2020, in business side of he, communities of practice, law schools, learning ecosystem, online learning, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The ins and outs of internal launch: Taking an online offering to market independently — from evolllution.com by Leslie Oster, Program Director in the Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University
New online programs can be created without an OPM but need to be approached with caution and expertise.

Excerpt:

When designing a new program, some institutions turn to Online Program Management (OPM) companies for help. These companies launch programs from scratch and manage many of the administrative aspects required to make the offering a success. But using an OPM can come with a significant price tag. For some colleges and universities, it’s still worth finding ways to launch unique online programs on their own. With the right research and expertise, online programs can be created without the help of an OPM. In this interview, Leslie Oster discusses how Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law launched a new online offering without an OPM and reflects on how the school plans to expand its online presence.

Law isn’t a subject commonly taught in an online format, but pretty early on, we came to believe it was possible to create a high-quality online law program that included the essential aspects of the residential program.

Wow! Check these stats out for Wikipedia!

On 01/20/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Asia, Australia, Canada, collaboration, communities of practice, digital learning, education technology, Europe, global / globalization, India, productivity / tips and tricks, social learning / networks, society, tools, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

“Wikipedia’s promise of a collaborative encyclopedia has, today, resulted in a resource consisting of more than 40 million articles in 300 different languages, catering to an audience of 500 million monthly users.” https://t.co/pXEBSGGhsM

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) January 20, 2020

DC: Precursor to a next gen learning platform…? Another piece is falling into place.

On 01/11/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, marketplaces, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, simulations, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, youth, by Daniel Christian

DC: Precursor to a next gen learning platform…? I think it's one of the pieces of the puzzle that's coming together.

Google just revealed that 500M people around the world are using Google Assistant.https://t.co/6uHXUUIYVb #AI #global #NLP #InstructionalDesign #learning pic.twitter.com/hSp0sa79k3

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) January 11, 2020

Coming down the pike: A next generation, global learning platform [Christian]

On 12/19/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, attention, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, distance education, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, languages and translation, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, library / librarians, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, simulations, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Though we aren’t quite there yet, the pieces continue to come together to build a next generation learning platform that will help people reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, constantly, and cost-effectively.

The 10 vital skills you will need for the future of work [Marr]

On 12/17/2019, in 21st century, active learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, curriculum, emerging technologies, engineering, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, organizational change, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, trends, universities, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

The 10 vital skills you will need for the future of work — from Bernard Marr

Excerpt:

Active learning with a growth mindset
Anyone in the future of work needs to actively learn and grow. A person with a growth mindset understands that their abilities and intelligence can be developed and they know their effort to build skills will result in higher achievement. They will, therefore, take on challenges, learn from mistakes and actively seek new knowledge.

Start by adopting a commitment to lifelong learning so you can acquire the skills you will need to succeed in the future workplace.

An interview about the “60-Year Curriculum (60YC)” [Lambert]

On 12/17/2019, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, new business models, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Redefining Norms Critical to Sustained Relevance in the Changing Postsecondary Environment — from evolllution.com by Hunt Lambert
Sticking to the status quo will end in disaster for most postsecondary institutions. To stay relevant, institutions have to rethink all aspects of the higher education product, from programming to student support to organizational models.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Higher education has existed for over a millennium in an effectively unchanged state, but the impetus to transform has arrived. Fast-changing labor demands, evolving learner expectations and transformed market realities are forcing college and university leaders to rethink the traditional postsecondary model and find ways to serve the growing numbers of lifelong learners. This idea has been broadly articulated as the 60-Year Curriculum (60YC), and executing on this vision demands a fundamental change in how higher education institutions must operate to serve students. In this interview, Hunt Lambert expands on the 60YC vision and shares his insights into how the organizational models of postsecondary institutions need to evolve to adapt to this approach.

The 60YC proposes that higher education providers, who happen to be best in the world at knowledge creation and dissemination through well-designed curriculum, expand that curricula concept from the current two-year AA, four-year BA, two-year master’s and seven-year PhD learning models into a 60-year model inclusive of 15- to 75-year-old learners and, most likely, beyond.

Make School is working to level the playing field for underrepresented groups in tech.

On 12/16/2019, in 21st century, career development, changing business models, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, new business models, programming, society, STEAM-related, student-related, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

The following information is from Rebecca West, Founder and CEO, Helium Communications

In the San Francisco Bay Area, scarcity of technology talent is an acute point of pain for many organizations. The SF Bay Area has experienced a remarkable 90% growth in tech employment and a 36.5% expansion in STEM jobs in the past decade. California’s tech workforce grew by more than 51,500 jobs in 2018, with well over half of them in the Bay Area. In the current business climate, the biggest barrier to growth for many organizations is their inability to find qualified job candidates, particularly in technical fields such as coding and computer science.

Ironically, many students graduating from US colleges and universities are still having trouble finding work because they don’t possess the skills required in the actual workplace. According to the most recent Global Information Workforce Study, the skills gap is only going to become more pronounced in coming years, with as many as 1.8 million IT jobs that could be left unfilled by 2022, a 20 percent bump from what the same study revealed two years earlier.

Make School is a college in San Francisco that’s working to level the playing field for underrepresented groups in tech. Make School is changing the higher education landscape with a unique model of deferred tuition that makes it possible for computer science students to gain the skills they need in order to find employment in the technology market without saddling themselves with huge amounts of debt.

Make School serves high school students entering college and transfer students (either from community colleges or from other four-year institutions). Accessibility to diverse populations is a key component of their offering. Make School offers a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Computer Science, teaching students to design, program, and launch software products while providing a foundation of liberal arts to ensure a lasting career. Students who graduate from Make School do not pay tuition until they have secured employment and are earning an annual salary of at least $60K.

With four years of positive student outcomes comparable to schools like Stanford and MIT, Make School has demonstrated the success of its model. Alumni currently work at companies including Facebook, Google, Apple, Zendesk, Y Combinator startups, and other leading technology innovators.

Fall and Spring semester tuition is $15,000. Summer semester tuition is $10,000. Total tuition for the bachelor’s program is $70,000.

From DSC:
I’d like to see the tuition come down for this school — especially as they are marketing themselves as a school that aims to help underrepresented groups in tech. Perhaps they’ll need to develop some satellite branches/campuses outside the San Francisco area in order to make that tuition reduction happen. As it stands, this is not much of a discount. That said, I do appreciate that they are trying to address the gorillas of debt on our graduates’ backs. Plus they are pursuing new business models, alternatives to the status quo, and are making efforts to address some of the numerous gaps in our society.

OPINION: The odds are still stacked against low-income college students; here are some ways to expand the possibilities [Eubanks-Davis]

On 12/04/2019, in career development, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, economics, education, higher education, ideas, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, society, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

OPINION: The odds are still stacked against low-income college students; here are some ways to expand the possibilities — from hechingerreport-org by Aimee Eubanks-Davis; with thanks to Joseline Hardrick at the WMU-Cooley Law School for posting this on LinkedIn

Excerpts:

Unfortunately, the odds for low-income students are still stacked against them. In fact, only one in four will graduate with a strong first job or enter graduate school. There is no safety net for these students. In fact, for their families, they are the safety net. They’ll start college expecting to leave with good-paying jobs with benefits that allow them to pay back loans, help their parents or other family members financially, and lead a self-sustaining life. Instead, the jobs that college graduates from low-income backgrounds do eventually land set them on an incongruent path to earn 66 cents on the dollar compared to their more affluent peers.

When we help provide low-income and first-generation college students the tools to overcome gaps in skills, assist them in getting a foot in the door at a top internship and connect them with professionals in the field, they will blow us away every time. I, for one, am excited to see a world in which extraordinary diverse leaders can emerge truly from anywhere and everywhere.

6 critical IT skills for the next decade: Bay Area CIO of the Year winners share — from enterprisersproject.com by Ginny Hamilton
What skills will IT talent need most? Six award-winning CIOs discuss the top skills on their radar screens – from AI to emotional intelligence

I’d highly recommend all technology professionals build their external network and contribute to the external professional community as early in your career as possible. The wisdom of the tech community is incredibly important, and because you have to curate this over an extended period of time, there is no accelerated option you can tap at a later date. Technology professionals need to constantly be re-inventing themselves to stay relevant. As technology evolves, so too do the people and roles around it. Constant change is the steady state today and as I tell my team, “The pain of change is mandatory, it is the suffering that is optional. And if you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.”

From DSC:
This is an especially good read for students who are considering going into a tech-focused career. If you decide to go that route, you had better be ready for constant change….constant, lifelong learning. And as you get older, you will face age discrimination. Enjoy the jobs that you get from ages 18-30 (perhaps even up to age 35). After that, it gets much tougher. Hopefully, that situation will change as more organizations get sued for allowing this discrimination to continue (perhaps implementing is the more appropriate word…vs. allowing it to occur). Here are some examples of those kinds of issues/suits. But for now, that’s the state of things…at least here in the United States.

Learning Ecosystems

The ins & outs of internal launch: Taking an online offering to market independently [Oster]

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