corporate / business world

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI [Leonhard]

On 10/12/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, algorithms, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Asia, Australia, bots, business, Canada, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, cognitive computing, computer science, corporate / business world, data mining, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, Law Schools, machine-to-machine communications, morals/values, platforms, robotics, society, Technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of technology, tools, trends, UK, United States, vendors, vision, workplace, by Daniel Christian

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI — from wired.com by Gerd Leonhard
In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000, what will happen to the values and ethics that underpin privacy and free will?

Excerpt:

This open letter is my modest contribution to the unfolding of this new partnership. Data is the new oil – which now makes your companies the most powerful entities on the globe, way beyond oil companies and banks. The rise of ‘AI everywhere’ is certain to only accelerate this trend. Yet unlike the giants of the fossil-fuel era, there is little oversight on what exactly you can and will do with this new data-oil, and what rules you’ll need to follow once you have built that AI-in-the-sky. There appears to be very little public stewardship, while accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inventions is rather slow in surfacing.

In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000 and the Internet of Things may encompass 500 billion devices, what will happen with those important social contracts, values and ethics that underpin crucial issues such as privacy, anonymity and free will?

My book identifies what I call the “Megashifts”. They are changing society at warp speed, and your organisations are in the eye of the storm: digitization, mobilisation and screenification, automation, intelligisation, disintermediation, virtualisation and robotisation, to name the most prominent. Megashifts are not simply trends or paradigm shifts, they are complete game changers transforming multiple domains simultaneously.

If the question is no longer about if technology can do something, but why…who decides this?

Gerd Leonhard

From DSC:
Though this letter was written 2 years ago back in October of 2016, the messages, reflections, and questions that Gerd puts on the table are very much still relevant today. The leaders of these powerful companies have enormous power — power to do good, or to do evil. Power to help or power to hurt. Power to be a positive force for societies throughout the globe and to help create dreams, or power to create dystopian societies while developing a future filled with nightmares. The state of the human heart is extremely key here — though many will hate me saying that. But it’s true. At the end of the day, we need to very much care about — and be extremely aware of — the characters and values of the leaders of these powerful companies.

Also relevant/see:

Spray-on antennas will revolutionize the Internet of Things — from networkworld.com by Patrick Nelson
Researchers at Drexel University have developed a method to spray on antennas that outperform traditional metal antennas, opening the door to faster and easier IoT deployments.

From DSC:
Again, it’s not too hard to imagine in this arena that technologies can be used for good or for ill.

What does the Top Tools for Learning 2018 list tell us about the future direction of L&D? — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

But for me 3 key things jump out:

More and more people are learning for themselves – in whatever way that suits them best – whether it is finding resources or online courses on the Web or interacting with their professional network. And they do all this for a variety of reasons: to solve problems, self-improve and prepare themselves for the future, etc.
Learning at work is becoming more personal and continuous in that it is a key part of many professional’s working day. And what’s more people are not only organising their own learning activities, they are also indeed managing their own development too – either with (informal) digital notebooks, or with (formal) personal learning platforms.
But it is in team collaboration where most of their daily learning takes place, and many now recognise and value the social collaboration platforms that underpin their daily interactions with colleagues as part of their daily work.

In other words, many people now see workplace learning as not just something that happens irregularly in corporate training, but as a continuous and on demand activity.

From DSC:
Reminds me of tapping into — and contributing towards — streams of content. All the time. Continuous, lifelong learning.

From DSC: Can we please see a Saturday Night Live skit on this?

On 10/02/2018, in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, career development, change, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, staying relevant, student-related, UK, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Can we please see a Saturday Night Live skit on this? It would be really interesting to see what happens to the AI based on certain facial expressions! 🙂

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Graduates are spending thousands of pounds on training to beat tough emotion-scanning robot interviewers for top City jobs.

Firms such as Goldman Sachs and Unilever are using artificial intelligence (AI) software to weed out candidates, as single advertised positions attract thousands of graduates.

Via a webcam, the software remotely asks preliminary-round candidates 20 minutes of questions and brain-teasers, and records eye movements, breathing patterns and any nervous tics.

From DSC:
But on a more serious note, getting by the Applicant Tracking Systems and AI’s of the world — in order to actually talk to a human being — is getting harder and harder to do.

NEW: The Top Tools for Learning 2018 [Jane Hart]

On 09/29/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, Graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Lifelong learning, Media/film, Microlearning, Microsoft, Mobile learning, Mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, platforms, PLNs, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, Technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, twitter, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual reality / worlds / learning, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.

I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.

3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.

5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.

From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?

Will #AI — in real-time — be able to present helpful resources in the smart classroom of the future? [Christian]

On 09/26/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, algorithms, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, assistive technologies, bots, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, face-to-face, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learning, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning hubs, learning spaces, Lifelong learning, Microsoft, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, smart classrooms, tools, training / L&D, universities, user experience (UX), voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Microsoft’s conference room of the future “listens” to the conversations of the team and provides a transcript of the meeting. It also is using “artificial intelligence tools to then act on what meeting participants say. If someone says ‘I’ll follow up with you next week,’ then they’ll get a notification in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft’s Slack competitor, to actually act on that promise.”

This made me wonder about our learning spaces in the future. Will an #AI-based device/cloud-based software app — in real-time — be able to “listen” to the discussion in a classroom and present helpful resources in the smart classroom of the future (i.e., websites, online-based databases, journal articles, and more)?

Will this be a feature of a next generation learning platform as well (i.e., addressing the online-based learning realm)? Will this be a piece of an intelligent tutor or an intelligent system?

Hmmm…time will tell.

Also see this article out at Forbes.com entitled, “There’s Nothing Artificial About How AI Is Changing The Workplace.”

Here is an excerpt:

The New Meeting Scribe: Artificial Intelligence

As I write this, AI has already begun to make video meetings even better. You no longer have to spend time entering codes or clicking buttons to launch a meeting. Instead, with voice-based AI, video conference users can start, join or end a meeting by simply speaking a command (think about how you interact with Alexa).

Voice-to-text transcription, another artificial intelligence feature offered by Otter Voice Meeting Notes (from AISense, a Zoom partner), Voicefox and others, can take notes during video meetings, leaving you and your team free to concentrate on what’s being said or shown. AI-based voice-to-text transcription can identify each speaker in the meeting and save you time by letting you skim the transcript, search and analyze it for certain meeting segments or words, then jump to those mentions in the script. Over 65% of respondents from the Zoom survey said they think AI will save them at least one hour a week of busy work, with many claiming it will save them one to five hours a week.

To higher ed: When the race track is going 180mph, you can’t walk or jog onto the track. [Christian]

On 09/25/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adult learning, algorithms, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, augmented reality, Blockchain, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, freelancing, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, learning, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, Lifelong learning, Mixed reality, more choice more control, network based learning, online learning, organizational change, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, PLNs, professional development, robotics, science, Smart/Connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, Technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, universities, vendors, virtual reality / worlds / learning, vision, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
When the race track is going 180mph, you can’t walk or jog onto the track. What do I mean by that?

Consider this quote from an article that Jeanne Meister wrote out at Forbes entitled, “The Future of Work: Three New HR Roles in the Age of Artificial Intelligence:”*

This emphasis on learning new skills in the age of AI is reinforced by the most recent report on the future of work from McKinsey which suggests that as many as 375 million workers around the world may need to switch occupational categories and learn new skills because approximately 60% of jobs will have least one-third of their work activities able to be automated.

Go scan the job openings and you will likely see many that have to do with technology, and increasingly, with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, big data, cloud-based services, robotics, automation, bots, algorithm development, blockchain, and more.

From Robert Half’s 2019 Technology Salary Guide

How many of us have those kinds of skills? Did we get that training in the community colleges, colleges, and universities that we went to? Highly unlikely — even if you graduated from one of those institutions only 5-10 years ago. And many of those institutions are often moving at the pace of a nice leisurely walk, with some moving at a jog, even fewer are sprinting. But all of them are now being asked to enter a race track that’s moving at 180mph. Higher ed — and society at large — are not used to moving at this pace.

This is why I think that higher education and its regional accrediting organizations are going to either need to up their game hugely — and go through a paradigm shift in the required thinking/programming/curricula/level of responsiveness — or watch while alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education increasingly attract their learners away from them.

This is also, why I think we’ll see an online-based, next generation learning platform take place. It will be much more nimble — able to offer up-to-the minute, in-demand skills and competencies.

The below graphic is from:
Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages

* Three New HR Roles To Create Compelling Employee Experiences
These new HR roles include:

IBM: Vice President, Data, AI & Offering Strategy, HR
Kraft Heinz Senior Vice President Global HR, Performance and IT
SunTrust Senior Vice President Employee Wellbeing & Benefits

What do these three roles have in common? All have been created in the last three years and acknowledge the growing importance of a company’s commitment to create a compelling employee experience by using data, research, and predictive analytics to better serve the needs of employees. In each case, the employee assuming the new role also brought a new set of skills and capabilities into HR. And importantly, the new roles created in HR address a common vision: create a compelling employee experience that mirrors a company’s customer experience.

An excerpt from McKinsey Global Institute | Notes from the Frontier | Modeling the Impact of AI on the World Economy

Workers.
A widening gap may also unfold at the level of individual workers. Demand for jobs could shift away from repetitive tasks toward those that are socially and cognitively driven and others that involve activities that are hard to automate and require more digital skills.12 Job profiles characterized by repetitive tasks and activities that require low digital skills may experience the largest decline as a share of total employment, from some 40 percent to near 30 percent by 2030. The largest gain in share may be in nonrepetitive activities and those that require high digital skills, rising from some 40 percent to more than 50 percent. These shifts in employment would have an impact on wages. We simulate that around 13 percent of the total wage bill could shift to categories requiring nonrepetitive and high digital skills, where incomes could rise, while workers in the repetitive and low digital skills categories may potentially experience stagnation or even a cut in their wages. The share of the total wage bill of the latter group could decline from 33 to 20 percent.13 Direct consequences of this widening gap in employment and wages would be an intensifying war for people, particularly those skilled in developing and utilizing AI tools, and structural excess supply for a still relatively high portion of people lacking the digital and cognitive skills necessary to work with machines.

“…because Alexa is gonna be everywhere.” Recent announcements from Amazon.

On 09/22/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, algorithms, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, bots, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, digital audio, emerging technologies, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, internet, Microsoft, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, programming, Technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, trends, United States, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Skype chats are coming to Alexa devices — from engadget.com by Richard Lawlor
Voice controlled internet calls to or from any device with Amazon’s system in it.

Excerpt:

Aside from all of the Alexa-connected hardware, there’s one more big development coming for Amazon’s technology: integration with Skype. Microsoft and Amazon said that voice and video calls via the service will come to Alexa devices (including Microsoft’s Xbox One) with calls that you can start and control just by voice.

Amazon Hardware Event 2018
From techcrunch.com

Echo HomePod? Amazon wants you to build your own — by Brian Heater
One of the bigger surprises at today’s big Amazon event was something the company didn’t announce. After a couple of years of speculation that the company was working on its own version of the Home…

The long list of new Alexa devices Amazon announced at its hardware event — by Lucas Matney
Everyone’s favorite trillion-dollar retailer hosted a private event today where they continued to…

Amazon introduces APL, a new design language for building Alexa skills for devices with screens— by Sarah Perez
Along with the launch of the all-new Echo Show, the Alexa-powered device with a screen, Amazon also introduced a new design language for developers who want to build voice skills that include multimedia…

Excerpt:

Called Alexa Presentation Language, or APL, developers will be able to build voice-based apps that also include things like images, graphics, slideshows and video, and easily customize them for different device types – including not only the Echo Show, but other Alexa-enabled devices like Fire TV, Fire Tablet, and the small screen of the Alexa alarm clock, the Echo Spot.

From DSC:
This is a great move by Amazon — as NLP and our voices become increasingly important in how we “drive” and utilize our computing devices.

Amazon launches an Echo Wall Clock, because Alexa is gonna be everywhere — by Sarah Perez

Amazon’s new Echo lineup targets Google, Apple and Sonos — from engadget.com by Nicole Lee
Alexa, dominate the industry.

The business plan from here is clear: Companies pay a premium to be activated when users pose questions related to their products and services. “How do you cook an egg?” could pull up a Food Network tutorial; “How far is Morocco?” could enable the Expedia app.

Source

Also see how Alexa might be a key piece of smart classrooms in the future:

A new metal 3-D printing competitor has entered the arena [MIT Tech Review and HP]

On 09/15/2018, in 3D, business, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, ideas, innovation, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A new metal 3-D printing competitor has entered the arena — from MIT Tech Review’s 9/11/18 newsletter

HP just announced its first metal 3-D printer, along with a several high-profile customers.

Some background: Metal 3-D printing has been slow to take off except for niche applications. But over the past few years it’s begun overcoming its cost and speed barriers (prompting us to make it one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2018).
The news: HP’s new printer, HP Metal Jet (which will run you about $400,000), launched yesterday. Off the bat its machines will be used by GKN Powder Metallurgy, which makes more than 13 million parts a day, as well as Volkswagen and metal manufacturer Parmatech. “The world runs on metals—hundreds of billions of metal parts are produced each year,” says Tim Weber, global head of 3D printing materials and advanced applications at HP.
The tech: The machine will use a process called binder-jet printing, which uses layers of metal powder and a binding agent (which acts like glue) to build up a part. These fragile products are then heated until they melt into the finished design.
The advantage: The company will be up against longer standing metal 3-D printing rivals, including Desktop Metal, GE, and Markforged. HP’s feels its real leg up is its ability to use many of the same elements used in its other 2-D and 3-D plastic printers in its metal machines.
How it’ll change work: Metal 3-D printing has the potential to further automate the manufacturing floor. The printers require less human involvement to keep them running than many other pieces of equipment. The technology could also allow large factories that mass-produce a limited range of parts to be replaced by smaller ones that make a wider variety, changing where and how people work. Such competition can help push prices down and drive innovation.

HP Launches World’s Most Advanced Metals 3D Printing Technology for Mass Production to Accelerate 4th Industrial Revolution — from press.ext.hp.com

Coursera’s CEO on the Evolving Meaning of ‘MOOC’ [Schaffhauser]

On 09/12/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, business, business side of he, career development, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, Content aggregration, content development, content repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, faculty, freelancing, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, learning, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning hubs, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Coursera’s CEO on the Evolving Meaning of ‘MOOC’ — from by Dian Schaffhauser
When you can bring huge numbers of students together with lots of well-branded universities and global enterprises seeking a highly skilled workforce, could those linkages be strong enough to forge a new future for massive open online courses?

Excerpts:

Campus Technology: Coursera used to be a MOOC operator, but now it’s a tech company, an LMS company, a virtual bootcamp and more. So how are you describing Coursera these days?

Maggioncalda: As a learning platform. We like to say to our universities, “Coursera is a platform for your global campus.”

You have [traditional universities] teaching with some of the world’s best professors, with some of the most cutting-edge research, to a population of people who have sat right here in front of you, on a small parcel of land, and who pay a lot of money to do that. It’s been very high quality that’s been available to the very few.

What we’re interested in doing is taking that quality of education and making it available to a vast group of people. When you think about our business model, I like to think about it as an ecosystem of learners, educators and employers. What we do is we link them together. We have 34 million learners from around the world. Our biggest country represented is the United States, followed by India, followed by China, followed by Mexico, followed by Brazil. A lot of the emerging markets and the learners there are coming to Coursera to learn and prosper.

…

[Editor’s note: Coursera currently hosts 10 online degree programs. And most recently, in July 2018, the University of Pennsylvania announced that it was launching its first fully online master’s degree, delivered through Coursera and priced at about a third of the cost of its on-campus equivalent.]…

…

CT: Let’s talk about the University of Pennsylvania deal. Do you think that’s going to put some competitive pressure on the other Tier 1 schools to jump into the fray?

Maggioncalda: This is a very well-regarded program. The University of Pennsylvania is a very well-regarded university. I think it’s causing a lot of people to re-evaluate what they were imagining their future might look like: Maybe learners really do want to have access that’s more convenient and lower cost and they don’t have to quit their jobs to take. And maybe there is literally a world of learners who can’t come to campus, in India and Europe and Latin America and Russia and Asia Pacific and China.

As a learning platform. We like to say to our universities, “Coursera is a platform for your global campus.”

Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO

In two years we’ve had over 1,400 companies hire Coursera to deliver university courses at work to their employees.

Now we’re starting to link the 34 million learners out there to the employers who are looking for people who have certain skills, saying, “Look, if you’re on Coursera learning about this thing, there might be companies who want to hire people that know the thing that you just learned.”

Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A global, powerful, next generation learning platform — meant to help people
reinvent themselves quickly, cost-effectively, conveniently, & consistently

A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:
- “I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.
A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determine that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner as to whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)
(Potentially) Integration with one-on-one tutoring services

New information worker roles; 10 ways VR will change life in the near future; 1st collab VR molecular modeling app; + other items re: XR

On 09/01/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Asia, augmented reality, biology, career development, chemistry, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Europe, future, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, Languages and translation, Microsoft, Mixed reality, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, science, simulations, society, STEAM-related, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual reality / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

San Diego’s Nanome Inc. releases collaborative VR-STEM software for free — from vrscout.com by Becca Loux

Excerpt:

The first collaborative VR molecular modeling application was released August 29 to encourage hands-on chemistry experimentation.

The open-source tool is free for download now on Oculus and Steam.

Nanome Inc., the San Diego-based start-up that built the intuitive application, comprises UCSD professors and researchers, web developers and top-level pharmaceutical executives.

“With our tool, anyone can reach out and experience science at the nanoscale as if it is right in front of them. At Nanome, we are bringing the craftsmanship and natural intuition from interacting with these nanoscale structures at room scale to everyone,” McCloskey said.

10 ways VR will change life in the near future — from forbes.com

Excerpts:

Virtual shops
Real estate
Dangerous jobs
Health care industry
Training to create VR content
Education
Emergency response
Distraction simulation
New hire training
Exercise

From DSC:
While VR will have its place — especially for timeswhen you need to completely immerse yourself into another environment — I think AR and MR will be much larger and have a greater variety of applications. For example, I could see where instructions on how to put something together in the future could use AR and/or MR to assist with that process. The system could highlight the next part that I’m looking for and then highlight the corresponding parts where it goes — and, if requested, can show me a clip on how it fits into what I’m trying to put together.

How MR turns firstline workers into change agents — from virtualrealitypop.com by Charlie Finkand
Mixed Reality, a new dimension of work — from Microsoft and Harvard Business Review

Excerpts:

Workers with mixed-reality solutions that enable remote assistance, spatial planning, environmentally contextual data, and much more,” Bardeen told me. With the HoloLens Firstline Workers workers conduct their usual, day-to-day activities with the added benefit of a heads-up, hands-free, display that gives them immediate access to valuable, contextual information. Microsoft says speech services like Cortana will be critical to control along with gesture, according to the unique needs of each situation.

Expect new worker roles. What constitutes an “information worker” could change because mixed reality will allow everyone to be involved in the collection and use of information. Many more types of information will become available to any worker in a compelling, easy-to-understand way.

Let’s Speak: VR language meetups — from account.altvr.com

Learning Ecosystems

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI [Leonhard]

Will #AI — in real-time — be able to present helpful resources in the smart classroom of the future? [Christian]

“…because Alexa is gonna be everywhere.” Recent announcements from Amazon.

A new metal 3-D printing competitor has entered the arena [MIT Tech Review and HP]

Coursera’s CEO on the Evolving Meaning of ‘MOOC’ [Schaffhauser]

Categories

Tags

Looking for something?

Visit our friends!

Archives