communities of practice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also see:

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

If a pair of 20-something lip-syncing comedians can have ~30 million subscribers, what might that mean for master teachers/professors/trainers in the future?

On 01/06/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, attention, communications, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital storytelling, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, media/film, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, social learning / networks, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

YouTube’s Chief, Hitting a New ‘Play’ Button — from nytimes.com by Jonathan Mahler

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

At one point, the moderator asked Ms. Wojcicki if she thought cable television would still be around in 10 years. She paused for a moment before answering, with a bit of a sly smile, “Maybe.” The crowd laughed, even though just about everyone in the packed auditorium knew she was only half-joking.

If cable TV is gone in a decade, Ms. Wojcicki and the global digital video empire over which she presides will be one of the main causes. YouTube, founded in 2005 as a do-it-yourself platform for video hobbyists — its original motto was “Broadcast Yourself” — now produces more hit programming than any Hollywood studio.

Smosh, a pair of 20-something lip-syncing comedians, have roughly 30 million subscribers to their various YouTube channels. PewDiePie, a 24-year-old Swede who provides humorous commentary while he plays video games, has a following of similar size. The list goes on and on. For the sake of perspective, successful network television shows like “NCIS: New Orleans” or “The Big Bang Theory” average a little more than half that in weekly viewership. The 46-year-old Ms. Wojcicki — who will soon give birth to her fifth child — has quietly become one of the most powerful media executives in the world.

Also see:

Smart TV Alliance serves 58 million TV sets — from broadbandtvnews.com by by Robert Briel
Excerpt:
The Smart TV Alliance development platform is now compatible with one-third of the global smart TV market. App developers who use the Alliance’s common developer portal can reach 58 million smart TVs in a single, integrated process. The brands served include LG Electronics, Panasonic, TP Vision and Toshiba
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Roku-Connected Televisions And The Future Of The Smart TV Wars — from fastcompany.com by Chris Gayomali
At CES, Roku announced new partnerships that will cram its platform inside more televisions. Built-in is the new box.
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Netflix Launches Smart TV Seal of Approval Program — from variety.com by Todd Spangler
Sony, LG, Sharp, Vizo and makers of Roku TVs are expected to be first certified under ‘Netflix Recommended TV’ program
Excerpt:
Netflix — in a smart bid to get its brand affixed onto smart TVs — has announced the “Netflix Recommended TV” certification program under which it will give the thumbs up to Internet-connected television sets that deliver the best possible video-streaming experience for its service.

From DSC:
As you can see, BBBBBIIIIIGGGGG players are getting into this game. And there will be BBBBBIIIIIGGGGG opportunities that open up via what occurs in our living rooms. Such affordances won’t be limited to the future of entertainment only.

Trying to solve for the problem of education in 2015 — by Dave Cormier; with thanks to Maree Conway for her posting this on her University Futures Update

Excerpt:

The story of the rhizome
The rhizome has been the story i have used, frankly without thinking about it, to address this issue. There are lots of other ways to talk about it – a complex problem does not get solved by one solution. In a rhizomatic approach (super short version) each participant is responsible for creating their own map within a particular learning context. The journey never ‘starts’ and hopefully never ends. There is no beginning, no first step. Who you are will prescribe where you start and then you grow and reach out given your needs, happenstance, and the people in your context. That context, in my view, is a collection of people. Those people may be paying participants in a course, they may be people who wrote things, it could be people known to the facilitator. The curriculum of the course is the community of people pulled together by the facilitator and all those others that join, are contacted or interacted with. The interwebs… you know.

…

The point here is that i attempt to replace the ‘certainty of the prepared classroom’ with the ‘uncertainty of knowing’. In doing so I’m hoping to encourage students to engage in the learning process in their own right. I want them to make connections that make sense to them, so that when the course is over, they will simply keep making connections with the communities of knowing they have met during the class. The community is both the place where they learn from other people, but, more importantly, learning how to be in the community is a big part of the curriculum. Customs, mores, common perspectives, taboos… that sort of thing.

Changing role of the CLO — from business-standard.com by Gurprriet Singh

Excerpt:

The ownership for keeping skills and competencies sharpened will move to the employee. With the emergence of MOOCs, social media enabled knowledge and connections, which facilitate you to identify and appoint mentors across dimensions and distance, the role of L&D as the provider of knowledge and provider of resource is soon becoming extinct. Individuals need to own their own development and leverage the resources available in social media. Just recently, IBM cut salaries by 10 per cent, of employees who had not kept their skills updated.

…

As Jack Welch said, “If the rate of change inside your organisation is slower than the rate of change outside, the end is near”. In such a scenario, the thinking and orientation must shift from being able to manage change TO being able to change on a dime which means Dynamism. The role of L&D thus becomes key in influencing the above cultural pillars. And to do so, is to select for the relevant traits, focus on interventions that help hone those traits. Traits and skills are honed by Experience. And that brings me to the 70:20:10.

From DSC:
I think Gurprriet is right when he says that there’s a shift in the ownership of our learning. We as individuals need to own our own development and leverage social media, MOOCs, online and/or F2F-based courses, other informal/on-the-job resources, our personal learning networks, and our Communities of Practice. Given the pace of change, each of us needs to be constantly building/expanding our own learning ecosystems. We need to be self-directed, lifelong learners (for me, this is where learning hubs and learning from our living rooms will also play a role in the future). One approach might be for those in L&D/corporate training-related functions to help employees know what’s out there — introduce them to the streams of content that are constantly flowing by. Encourage them to participate, teach them how to contribute, outline some of the elements of a solid learning ecosystem, create smaller learning hubs within a company.

A college completion idea that’s so simple. Why aren’t we doing it? [Phillips]

On 12/03/2014, in collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, higher education, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, platforms, policy, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

A college completion idea that’s so simple. Why aren’t we doing it? — from huffingtonpost.com by Brad Phillips

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This week’s White House “College Opportunity” summit will focus on an overlooked area with enormous potential for student success: K-12 and higher education working together to improve college completion. It sounds so simple and obvious. In fact many assume it’s already happening. After all both groups of educators share the same students, just at different points in their education careers. Why wouldn’t they share information about students and coordinate efforts to help students be successful?

…

The process of closely analyzing high school to college data is eye opening for both K-12 and college educators. Faculty discover that while they both may be calling a subject Algebra or English, what is taught and assigned can be very different, setting up students for a struggle.

In Southern California, high school teachers and college faculty members participating in English Curriculum Alignment Project (ECAP) shared years of transcript information Examining student performance over time, educators learned that what was taught in High School English did not align with what was expected in college English.

From DSC:
I’ll take that one step further and say that we need stronger continuums between K-12, higher ed, and the corporate/business world. We need more efforts, conversations, mechanisms, tools, communities of practice, and platforms to collaborate with each other. That’s what I try to at least scratch the surface on via this Learning Ecosystems blog — i.e., touching upon areas that involve the worlds of K-12, higher ed, and the corporate/business world. We need more collaborations/conversations along these lines.

Reflections on “C-Suite TV debuts, offers advice for the boardroom” [Dreier]

On 07/21/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, learner profiles, learning, 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, multimedia, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, second screen apps, social learning / networks, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, telecommunications, television, training / L&D, trends, TVs, ubiquitous learning, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

C-Suite TV debuts, offers advice for the boardroom — from streamingmedia.com by Troy Dreier
Business leaders now have an on-demand video network to call their own, thanks to one Bloomberg host’s online venture.

Excerpt:

Bringing some business acumen to the world of online video, C-Suite TV is launching today. Created by Bloomberg TV host and author Jeffrey Hayzlett, the on-demand video network offers interviews with and shows about business execs. It promises inside information on business trends and the discussions taking place in the biggest boardrooms.

The Future of TV is here for the C-Suite — from hayzlett.com by Jeffrey Hayzlett

Excerpt:

Rather than wait for networks or try and gain traction through the thousands of cat videos, we went out and built our own network.

See also:

Mind your own business
From the About page:
C-Suite TV is a web-based digital on-demand business channel featuring interviews and shows with business executives, thought leaders, authors and celebrities providing news and information for business leaders. C-Suite TV is your go-to resource to find out the inside track on trends and discussions taking place in businesses today. This online channel will be home to such shows as C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett, MYOB – Mind Your Own Business and Bestseller TV with more shows to come.

From DSC:
The above items took me back to the concept of Learning from the Living [Class] Room.

Many of the following bullet points are already happening — but what I’m trying to influence/suggest is to bring all of them together in a powerful, global, 24 x 7 x 365, learning ecosystem:

When our “TVs” become more interactive…
When our mobile devices act as second screens and when second screen-based apps are numerous…
When discussion boards, forums, social media, assignments, assessments, and videoconferencing capabilities are embedded into our Smart/Connected TVs and are also available via our mobile devices…
When education is available 24 x 7 x 365…
When even the C-Suite taps into such platforms…
When education and entertainment are co-mingled…
When team-based educational content creation and delivery are mainstream…
When self-selecting Communities of Practice thrive online…
When Learning Hubs combine the best of both worlds (online and face-to-face)…
When Artificial Intelligence, powerful cognitive computing capabilities (i.e., IBM’s Watson), and robust reporting mechanisms are integrated into the backends…
When lifelong learners have their own cloud-based profiles…
When learners can use their “TVs” to tap into interactive, multimedia-based streams of content of their choice…
When recommendation engines are offered not just at Netflix but also at educationally-oriented sites…
When online tutoring and intelligent tutoring really take off…

…then I’d say we’ll have a powerful, engaging, responsive, global education platform.

The collaborative consumption & the sharing economy — what are the implications for teaching & learning?

On 05/22/2014, in business, business side of he, change, changing business models, collaboration, communities of practice, Daniel S. Christian, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
First…a few items that stimulated some reflection:

Weekly Round-up: Collcons Must-Reads 23 May
We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:

Weekly Round Up: COLLCONS Must Reads – 9 MAY — from collaborativeconsumption.com
We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:

The Sharing Economy — from bbc.co.uk
Video duration: 30 minutes | First broadcast: Thursday 08 May 2014

Description:

Home swaps, driving your neighbour’s car, private car parking in your drive, even renting your neighbour’s clothes. They are all part of a new style of collaborative enterprise in which nearly everyone can join and (maybe) make money: the ‘shared economy’.

It’s breaking cover, growing fast and could be important. Perhaps the best known example is Airbnb but many more companies have sprung up allowing people to share their things and even their time. And now companies are trying to make money out of what makes all this sharing possible: trust.

But existing regulations and laws are set up for traditional businesses such as hotels and car hire companies, and that is causing problems. Peter Day investigates the opportunities and snags of the sharing economy and asks if it could become a big democratic movement.

From DSC:
After seeing those items, I began to wonder…

Given the tough economic times many of us find ourselves in, will the sharing economy continue to pick up steam?
If so, what are the implications for teaching and learning? How might such an environment impact what occurs within K-20? For example, will the concept of learning hubs take off (especially at the higher ed level)?
Will such an environment lend itself to encouraging more communities of practice?

Hmmm….

Also see:

Addendum — related…?

Turning a MOOC into a network of schools collaborating — from pbs.org

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Students at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Utah are currently engaged in a collaborative online class, Social Media Journalism, which combines the convenience of a MOOC with the engagement of a medium-sized lecture — and the completion rate is more than 95 percent. The engagement scales, too: students at both schools, 1,300 miles apart, are taking the class together, interacting with each other, viewing the same lesson modules and building a news aggregation service on various social media platforms. The difference is they get a personal instructor and smaller groups of familiar classmates. Our next step is to add more campuses and make this a new kind of MOOC — a network of schools working together with the same material but with individual instructors.

…

“It wasn’t about lectures or tests; it was about actually putting our work out there on social media and letting audience feedback be our guide. It was one of the few classes I’ve taken where I felt like my work was actually applicable toward real-life situations, instead of just being about a grade.”

…

Even if they don’t become social media editors, many have said they gained from having the knowledge of how to run an organization’s social channels.

From the WSJ’s Morning Ledger:

The online MBA comes of age.
You’d think that of all the academic pursuits, business school would remain most immune to online learning. Beyond studies, MBA programs offer up-and-coming C-suiters access to the graduate-level schmoozing that could come in handy later on. Nevertheless, the online MBA program is growing, Delta Sky Magazine’s Kevin Featherly reports. What they lack in post-exam cordials with the professor, they make up for in a more diverse, more experienced student body, say advocates. “In ground-based programs, you’re connected to a more local audience,” the dean of the University of Bridgeport’s Ernest C. Trefz School of Business tells Delta. “In the online program, you’re interacting with business professionals from around the world.” But not everything is so encouraging. A professor at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina tells Mr. Featherly how surprised he was “when a course designer suggested he use a cartoon character to illustrate a hard-core economics principle.”

Also see:

From DSC:
Consider this. Steve Jobs lived by the philosophy of cannibalizing Apple’s own business, as he held that Apple needed to cannibalize itself or someone else would do it for them. And here’s the key thing to consider: Apple is the largest company in the world, based on market cap (505.92B as of this morning) and market value.

The point is, we in higher ed can’t be afraid of change. We must change. It’s time for more Trimtab Groups within higher education.

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:

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!

Transmedia Storytelling: Trends for 2014 [Pratten]

On 01/27/2014, in attention, communities of practice, creativity, digital learning, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), interactivity, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, love of learning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, publishing, second screen apps, social learning / networks, social media, storytelling, transmedia, trends, TVs, by Daniel Christian

Transmedia Storytelling: Trends for 2014 — from Robert Pratten, CEO at Transmedia Storyteller Ltd on Dec 06, 2013

Excerpt:

From DSC:
Something here for education/learning? With the creativity, innovation, interactivity, participation, and opportunities for more choice/more control being offered here, I would say YES!

Also see:

Simon Staffans: What 2014 holds for cross-platform content — from blog.mipworld.com by Simon Staffans
TV meets gaming; ad-funded transmedia; multiplatform finally valued… the biggest names in transmedia’s predictions for the year

Learning Ecosystems

The collaborative consumption & the sharing economy — what are the implications for teaching & learning?

The Online MBA comes of age [WSJ]

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

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