community colleges

“Many—perhaps millions—will need quick, job-focused upskilling and reskilling.” [OpportunityAmerica]

On 06/27/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, change, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, elearning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, trends, United States, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

“Many—perhaps millions—will need quick, job-focused upskilling and reskilling.”

— from The Indispensable Institution | Reimagining Community College
by Opportunity America

From DSC:
This is exactly the need that I’ve been getting at here. Many people don’t have the time — and now, the $$ — to take 4 years to get a college degree. Even 2 years is too long for many people these days. They need to be able to quickly reinvent themselves. As such, we need to tap into — and contribute to — streams of content. All. The. Time.

And do so, efficiently, safely, securely — and inexpensively!

The 2020 Kessler Foundation National Employment & Disability Survey: Recent College Graduates

On 06/25/2020, in accessibility / UDL, assistive technologies, career development, colleges, community colleges, higher education, neurodivergent/special needs, universities, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The 2020 Kessler Foundation National Employment & Disability Survey: Recent College Graduates — from kesslerfoundation.org; with thanks to Nicky Miller for this resource

Per Nicky:

In a nutshell, this first-of-its-kind survey revealed factors that help people with disabilities find employment, including the importance of higher education, advisory services and networking. Also discussed in detail, are myths and barriers that people with disabilities often face. Learn about our survey, visit: www.kesslerfoundation.org/kfsurvey2020

To highlight factors in our survey, we’ve interviewed three young adults with disabilities, who share their college to work experiences. They discuss in detail the ups and downs of their academic and employment careers. Watch here: Webinar Part 2 – The ADA Generation and the Workplace: Recent College Graduates with Disabilities Speak Out

In some cases throughout the years, people with disabilities were told they shouldn’t further their education, and in other instances, they are discouraged from working. This survey dispel these ideas. People with disabilities are conquering barriers and broadening their education.

The “new normal” paradox: What COVID-19 has revealed about higher education [Crow]

On 06/25/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Augmented Reality (AR), business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, IT in HE, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, society, sociology, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

The “new normal” paradox: What COVID-19 has revealed about higher education — from bigthink.com by Dr. Michael Crow, President of ASU

Excerpt:

Third, it is abundantly apparent that universities must leverage technology to increase educational quality and access. The rapid shift to delivering an education that complies with social distancing guidelines speaks volumes about the adaptability of higher education institutions, but this transition has also posed unique difficulties for colleges and universities that had been slow to adopt digital education. The last decade has shown that online education, implemented effectively, can meet or even surpass the quality of in-person instruction.

Digital instruction, broadly defined, leverages online capabilities and integrates adaptive learning methodologies, predictive analytics, and innovations in instructional design to enable increased student engagement, personalized learning experiences, and improved learning outcomes. The ability of these technologies to transcend geographic barriers and to shrink the marginal cost of educating additional students makes them essential for delivering education at scale.

Far too many higher education outcomes are determined by a student’s family income, and in the context of COVID-19 this means that lower-income students, first-generation students and students of color will be disproportionately afflicted. And without new designs, we can expect post-secondary success for these same students to be as elusive in the new normal, as it was in the old normal.
…
This is not just because some universities fail to sufficiently recognize and engage the promise of diversity, this is because few universities have been designed from the outset to effectively serve the unique needs of lower-income students, first-generation students and students of color.

Reflections on “Colleges cut academic programs in the face of budget shortfalls due to Covid-19” [Dickler]

On 06/24/2020, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, chemistry, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, faculty, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, health, higher education, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, reinvent, religion, sociology, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, trends, United States, universities, writing, by Daniel Christian

Colleges cut academic programs in the face of budget shortfalls due to Covid-19 — from cnbc.com by Jessica Dickler

Key points:

As colleges face extreme budget shortfalls, some institutions are cutting academic programs that were once central to a liberal arts education.
The University of Alaska system announced it will cut 39 academic departments in all, including sociology, creative writing, chemistry and environmental science.

Even before the global pandemic caused craters in the economy, some institutions were facing financial hardship after years of declines in state funding for higher education. A number of private schools had already made wrenching budget cuts, from curriculum changes to complete overhauls of their liberal arts programs.

From DSC:
A screenshot from the video (below) shows a new type of liberal arts program at Hiram College.

It could very well be that online-based learning turns out to save the liberal arts!!!!! How ironic is that!?!!

That is, many college presidents, provost, and faculty members — especially from smaller liberal arts types of schools — have disdained online-based learning for decades now. It was always viewed as “less than” in their minds…they didn’t want to go that route, as doing so would dilute their precious (and often overpriced) brands. (To be clear, this is not my view…but it was, and still is in many cases, their view.)

Anyway, it looks like more of these same folks will be losing their jobs in the next few years (if they haven’t already). At that point, we may see some of these same folks encounter a sudden paradigm shift. (A shift many of their colleagues have already gone through in prior years.) These same folks may come to appreciate that people will be willing to pay them for their knowledge — but only willing to do so at a much more affordable price…which will likely mean online.

Fewer people — especially when 47 million people in the U.S. alone have filed for unemployment over the last 14 weeks — can afford the cost of getting a degree. They are looking for inexpensive, convenient, efficient, effective means of reinventing themselves.

Huh…another potential irony here…it appears that colleges and universities are coming to know what many of us have known and experienced for years…and that is, the struggle to:

Reinvent oneself
Stay relevant
Survive

Acts of meaning: How AI-based interviewing will transform career preparation in higher education — from er.educause.edu by Alan Jones, Suzan Harkness and Nathan Mondragon

Excerpt:

Machines parrot and correlate information. They do not comprehend or synthesize information the way humans do. Factors such as accents in pronunciation, word ambiguity (especially if a word has multiple meanings), deeply coded biases, limited association data sets, narrow and limited network layers used in job screening, and static translations will continue to provide valid ground for caution in placing too much weight or attributing too much confidence in AI in its present form. Nonetheless, AI has crept into job candidate screening, the medical field, business analytics, higher education, and social media. What is currently essential is establishing an understanding of how best to harness and shape the use of AI to ensure it is equitable, valid, and reliable and to understand the shifting paradigm that professional career counselors play on campus as AI becomes more ubiquitous.

There appear to be three points worth considering: the AI interview in general, the predominance of word choice, and expressiveness as read by facial coding.

From DSC:
Until there is a lot more diversity within the fields of computer science and data science, I’m not as hopeful that biases can be rooted out. My niece, who worked for Microsoft for many years, finally left the company. She was tired of fighting the culture there. The large tech companies will need to do a lot better if AI is going to make FAIR and JUST inroads.

Plus, consider how many biases there are!

PowerPoint Live is now generally available — from microsoft.com by Derek Jo

Excerpt:

Earlier this year, we announced that Live Presentations was coming soon, and we are excited to share that it is now generally available on PowerPoint for the web.

When we first announced PowerPoint Live, we saw excitement from both enterprise and education customers around how this feature could be utilized during in-person events—conferences, lecture halls, corporate all hands, town halls, and more. Of course, the world has changed a lot since then.

We know that as more physical events and meetings take place, PowerPoint Live will prove to be a very useful tool for connecting with your audience and communicating more effectively, which we are excited to show you. However, we also have tips below on how to use this capability now in remote work and learning scenarios.

Credential blockchains could help student mobility. These 4 efforts explore how. [Koenig]

On 06/19/2020, in Blockchain, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, credentialing, emerging technologies, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, law schools, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, student-related, by Daniel Christian

Credential blockchains could help student mobility. These 4 efforts explore how. — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt:

More than 70 efforts are underway around the world to use blockchain technology in education, and most set their sights on better connecting people with job opportunities, according to a new report published by the American Council on Education.

The report is part of the Education Blockchain Initiative, organized by the American Council on Education and supported by $2 million from the U.S. Department of Education. The initiative aims to study whether and how decentralized digital ledgers can give students and workers more control over their academic and job records and improve the flow of data among schools, colleges and employers, leaders told EdSurge in February.

COVID-19 Intensifies Need to Tackle Digital Accessibility — from campustechnology.com by By Glenda Sims
More learning content than ever before has migrated online, bringing accessibility concerns to the forefront. Here’s how higher ed institutions are making progress toward equitable access.

Excerpt:

Accessibility lawsuits in education are not new. However, with colleges and universities undertaking their own digital transformations (moving more content and services online), lawsuits targeted at equitable access to physical facilities (like bathrooms) have logically expanded to digital offerings for students relying on assistive technologies to access them. The current COVID-19 crisis is likely to exacerbate this, as more learning content than ever before has migrated online in these unprecedented times. Persons with disabilities will demand nothing less than completely equitable access, particularly when it comes to their safety. While many higher ed institutions still have much to do for their accessibility initiatives, there have been many promising developments…

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Matters [O’Brien]

On 06/17/2020, in colleges, community colleges, education reform, higher education, leadership, society, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Matters — from by John O’Brien
Higher education, a sector that leads in so many areas, still has much progress to make in leading the way for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Excerpts:

Until we reach a point at which those who lead and staff our colleges and universities more closely mirror those we serve, we have real work to do, and it begins with taking a look in that mirror and cultivating organizations that are quipped to serve all students, now and in the future.
…
Solutions
Ultimately, the cornerstone of efforts to raise awareness, increase diversity, and advance equity is to engender a prevailing sense of inclusivity across our organizations at the highest levels and the furthest corners of our institutions. With this in mind, ACE’s “Moving the Needle” initiative and EDUCAUSE’s “CIO Commitment Statement” both focus on broad buy-in and personal awareness to make a lasting cultural difference.

Blockchain Can Disrupt Higher Education Today, Global Labor Market Tomorrow [Singer]

On 06/15/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Blockchain, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, emerging technologies, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, tools, training / L&D, UK, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Blockchain Can Disrupt Higher Education Today, Global Labor Market Tomorrow — from cointelegraph.com by Andrew Singer
Blockchain can play its part in the education sector — record-keeping in 2–3 years and then adoption by the labor market?

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In the post-pandemic world, individuals will need to seize ownership and control of their educational credentials — documents like degrees and transcripts — from schools, universities and governments. That notion received key support last week from the American Council on Education in a study funded by the United States Department of Education focusing on the use of blockchain in higher education.

“Blockchain, in particular, holds promise to create more efficient, durable connections between education and work,” wrote Ted Mitchell, the president of ACE, in the foreword to the study published on June 8, adding: “In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, learners will be more mobile, moving in and out of formal education as their job, health, and family situations change.”

A key theme of the report is personal data agency — i.e., how “distributed ledger technologies [DLT] can ‘democratize’ data and empower individuals with agency over their personal information.”

Blockchain has been described as a hammer in search of a nail. If so, academic credentialing appears to be as obvious a nail as one can find. The current international trade in fake academic degrees, after all, is “staggering,” as the BBC reported, and with a global labor market increasingly mobile, the world could badly use a decentralized, borderless, tamper-free ledger of verifiable credentials — both for education and the broader labor market.

Flipped Learning Review — May | June 2020

Except from one of the articles entitled, “Preparing to switch between in-class and online learning — from flr.flglobal.org by Thomas Mennella

“I claim that Flipped Learning is the perfect bridge between face-to-face, on-ground instruction, and an online format. It excels in both worlds and makes transitioning between the two seamless. I am not over-reaching. I am not extrapolating. And I claim to be no expert. I simply showed you the data.”

The Post-Pandemic Outlook for Edtech — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

For the edtech industry, the pandemic poses a paradox. Never before have schools and colleges so urgently needed digital tools and services to facilitate remote learning—and been less able to afford them.
…
Consumer edtech, then, may be where the market is hottest moving forward. And experts say a new key audience has emerged in the sector: parents. Many have been thrust—begrudgingly—into the role of homeschool teacher, and they’re looking for ways to keep kids on track academically that don’t require them to spend hours brushing up on fractions.

“The new audience for edtech companies, whether they sell directly to consumers or not, is the parent. That’s a major and permanent change,” he explains. “Whether it’s needed all the time or not, it needs to be built in.”

— Frank Catalano

Online Tutoring Services
It’s been a hot few years for companies that connect students with tutors who teach online. Between 2016 and 2019, online tutoring services raised more than $1.2 billion in venture capital.

19 Remarkable Higher Education Statistics [Curated in 2020; Dojchinovska]

On 06/11/2020, in 21st century, Asia, Canada, colleges, community colleges, digital learning, education, education technology, Europe, global / globalization, higher education, India, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, multimedia, online learning, platforms, trends, UK, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

19 Remarkable Higher Education Statistics [Curated in 2020] — from markinstyle.co.uk by Anastasija Dojchinovska; with thanks to Karthik Reddy for this resource

Excerpts:

Also see:

15+ Exciting Elearning Statistics [Lessons for 2020] — from markinstyle.co.uk by Anastasija Dojchinovska; with thanks to Karthik Reddy for this resource

Excerpts:

From DSC:
Besides the idea of a learning journal and having students check in on these 3 questions…

…here’s another idea/approach to consider using:

The Start, Stop, Continue Strategy — by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D.

Write down one thing they would like for you or their classmates to START doing to make the course more successful.
Next, ask students to write down one thing they would like you or their classmates to STOP doing.
Then, ask students to write down one thing they’d like for you or their classmates to CONTINUE doing.

From DSC:
The problem with some of this, I realize, is that one person’s learning preferences are just that. They represent that one person’s learning preferences. So someone may say they don’t like using Discussion Boards, while someone else says that DBs work well for them. But if you hear enough of your students say to stop doing XYZ, then that’s solid feedback. Or if enough students ask, “Could we START doing ABC?”…that’s good feedback.

I found the above item from Barbi’s recent posting:

How to Get Students to Read: The Give One/Get One Strategy

Excerpts:

Here are two recommendations and one strategy to encourage students to read:
RECOMMENDATION #1 TO GET STUDENTS TO READ: FIND THE WHY.
RECOMMENDATION #2 TO GET STUDENTS TO READ: CLARIFY THE “DO”

Surviving the Third Wave of COVID and Beyond [Feldstein]

On 06/02/2020, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, education, education technology, future, future of higher education, higher education, IT in HE, liberal arts, society, technology (general), United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Surviving the Third Wave of COVID and Beyond — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

If such an idyll ever existed, its heyday coincided with an age when universities were bastions of race-, gender-, and class-based privilege, with a minute fraction of the population enrolled in higher education. — Gabriel Paquette

Rather, I am suggesting—and I believe Paquette is suggesting—that we take a good hard look at how much our standards may be influenced by hidden assumptions of privilege. Why should a “quality education” for the 21st-Century masses look identical to the “quality education” of the 19th-Century elites? Where do these ideas of quality come from? Whose goals do they serve? And what trade-offs do they entail?

Just as literacy is about more than employing the technology of the printed word, e-literacy is about more than EdTech. It’s about culture. It’s about understanding how we change ourselves—consciously or not—when we choose to depend on certain tools in certain ways. And it’s about making mindful choices. — Michael Feldstein

Learning Ecosystems

The 2020 Kessler Foundation National Employment & Disability Survey: Recent College Graduates

The “new normal” paradox: What COVID-19 has revealed about higher education [Crow]

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Matters [O’Brien]

19 Remarkable Higher Education Statistics [Curated in 2020; Dojchinovska]

Surviving the Third Wave of COVID and Beyond [Feldstein]

Categories

Tags