corporate universities / corporate training

From the Inter-American Dialogue and the Inter-American Development Bank: A new foresight resource freely available to the public entitled, A Database of Reports on Global Trends and Future Scenarios.

This database includes nearly 800 foresight publications and reports from around the world, and it provides governments, banks, corporations, universities, think tanks, and other institutions continuous access to information and analyses on trends and future scenarios.

From DSC:
Given that the pace of change has changed & given that disruption seems to be upending one industry after another, futurism should be taught throughout K-12 & throughout higher education. (There are some programs out there within higher education, but not many.)

If more of us were trained in looking up to see what’s happening around us — or what’s about to happen around us — the chances of us being broadsided or surprised by something are greatly diminished. Also, we can better plan for — and create — our futures.

Question for the day:

What if each college and university created their own version of Lynda.com?

Lifelong learning.

Career development.

Developing and offering low cost, relevant, up-to-date streams of content.

Tracking of which modules a learner has taken and how they performed — the data from which are then fed into his or her web-based learner profile.

Courses that create new revenue streams for our institutions of higher education.

Hmmm…just throwing this idea out there…thinking out loud again…

linkedin_lynda

What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025? [Christian]

On 07/31/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adult learning, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, business side of he, career development, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, liberal arts, lifelong learning, marketplaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, social learning / networks, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

This posting can also be seen out at evoLLLution.com (where LLL stands for lifelong learning):

From DSC:
What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025?

In the future, learning “channels” will offer more choice, more control. They will be far more sophisticated than what we have today.

That said, what the most important aspects of online course design end up being 10 years from now depends upon what types of “channels” I think there will be and what might be offered via those channels. By channels, I mean forms, methods, and avenues of learning that a person could pursue and use. In 2015, some example channels might be:

Attending a community college, a college or a university to obtain a degree
Obtaining informal learning during an internship
Using social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn
Reading blogs, books, periodicals, etc.

In 2025, there will likely be new and powerful channels for learning that will be enabled by innovative forms of communications along with new software, hardware, technologies, and other advancements. For examples, one could easily imagine:

That the trajectory of deep learning and artificial intelligence will continue, opening up new methods of how we might learn in the future
That augmented and virtual reality will allow for mobile learning to the Nth degree
That the trend of Competency Based Education (CBE) and microcredentials may be catapulted into the mainstream via the use of big data-related affordances

Due to time and space limitations, I’ll focus here on the more formal learning channels that will likely be available online in 2025. In that environment, I think we’ll continue to see different needs and demands – thus we’ll still need a menu of options. However, the learning menu of 2025 will be more personalized, powerful, responsive, sophisticated, flexible, granular, modularized, and mobile.

Highly responsive, career-focused track

One part of the menu of options will focus on addressing the demand for more career-focused information and learning that is available online (24×7). Even in 2015, with the U.S. government saying that 40% of today’s workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs and others saying that percentage will continue climbing to 50% or more, people will be forced to learn quickly in order to stay marketable. Also, the 1/2 lives of information may not last very long, especially if we continue on our current trajectory of exponential change (vs. linear change).

However, keeping up with that pace of change is currently proving to be out of reach for most institutions of higher education, especially given the current state of accreditation and governance structures throughout higher education as well as how our current teaching and learning environment is set up (i.e., the use of credit hours, 4 year degrees, etc.). By 2025, accreditation will have been forced to change to allow for alternative forms of learning and for methods of obtaining credentials. Organizations that offer channels with a more vocational bent to them will need to be extremely responsive, as they attempt to offer up-to-date, highly-relevant information that will immediately help people be more employable and marketable. Being nimble will be the name of the game in this arena. Streams of content will be especially important here. There may not be enough time to merit creating formal, sophisticated courses on many career-focused topics.

With streams of content, the key value provided by institutions will be to curate the most relevant, effective, reliable, up-to-date content…so one doesn’t have to drink from the Internet’s firehose of information. Such streams of content will also offer constant potential, game-changing scenarios and will provide a pulse check on a variety of trends that could affect an industry. Social-based learning will be key here, as learners contribute to each other’s learning. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will need to be knowledgeable facilitators of learning; but given the pace of change, true experts will be rare indeed.

Microcredentials, nanodegrees, competency-based education, and learning from one’s living room will be standard channels in 2025. Each person may have a web-based learner profile by then and the use of big data will keep that profile up-to-date regarding what any given individual has been learning about and what skills they have mastered.

For example, even currently in 2015, a company called StackUp creates their StackUp Report to add to one’s resume or grades, asserting that their services can give “employers and schools new metrics to evaluate your passion, interests, and intellectual curiosity.” Stackup captures, categorizes, and scores everything you read and study online. So they can track your engagement on a given website, for example, and then score the time spent doing so. This type of information can then provide insights into the time you spend learning.

Project teams and employers could create digital playlists that prospective employees or contractors will have to advance through; and such teams and employers will be watching to see how the learners perform in proving their competencies.

However, not all learning will be in the fast lane and many people won’t want all of their learning to be constantly in the high gears. In fact, the same learner could be pursuing avenues in multiple tracks, traveling through their learning-related journeys at multiple speeds.

The more traditional liberal arts track

To address these varied learning preferences, another part of the menu will focus on channels that don’t need to change as frequently. The focus here won’t be on quickly-moving streams of content, but the course designers in this track can take a bit more time to offer far more sophisticated options and activities that people will enjoy going through.

Along these lines, some areas of the liberal arts* will fit in nicely here.

*Speaking of the liberal arts, a brief but important tangent needs to be addressed, for strategic purposes. While the following statement will likely be highly controversial, I’m going to say it anyway. Online learning could be the very thing that saves the liberal arts.

Why do I say this? Because as the price of higher education continues to increase, the dynamics and expectations of learners continue to change. As the prices continue to increase, so do peoples’ expectations and perspectives. So it may turn out that people are willing to pay a dollar range that ends up being a fraction of today’s prices. But such greatly reduced prices won’t likely be available in face-to-face environments, as offering these types of learning environment is expensive. However, such discounted prices can and could be offered via online-based environments. So, much to the chagrin of many in academia, online learning could be the very thing that provides the type of learning, growth, and some of the experiences that liberal arts programs have been about for centuries. Online learning can offer a lifelong supply of the liberal arts.

But I digress…
By 2025, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be able to offer excellent, engaging courses chocked full of the use of:

Engaging story/narrative
Powerful collaboration and communication tools
Sophisticated tracking and reporting
Personalized learning, tech-enabled scaffolding, and digital learning playlists
Game elements or even, in some cases, multiplayer games
Highly interactive digital videos with built-in learning activities
Transmedia-based outlets and channels
Mobile-based learning using AR, VR, real-world assignments, objects, and events
…and more.

However, such courses won’t be able to be created by one person. Their sophistication will require a team of specialists – and likely a list of vendors, algorithms, and/or open source-based tools – to design and deliver this type of learning track.

Final reflections

The marketplaces involving education-related content and technologies will likely look different. There could be marketplaces for algorithms as well as for very granular learning modules. In fact, it could be that modularization will be huge by 2025, allowing digital learning playlists to be built by an SME, a Provost, and/or a Dean (in addition to the aforementioned employer or project team). Any assistance that may be required by a learner will be provided either via technology (likely via an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled resource) and/or via a SME.

We will likely either have moved away from using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or those LMSs will allow for access to far larger, integrated learning ecosystems.

Functionality wise, collaboration tools will still be important, but they might be mind-blowing to us living in 2015. For example, holographic-based communications could easily be commonplace by 2025. Where tools like IBM’s Watson, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Deepmind, and Apple’s Siri end up in our future learning ecosystems is hard to tell, but will likely be there. New forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will likely be mainstream by 2025.

While the exact menu of learning options is unclear, what is clear is that change is here today and will likely be here tomorrow. Those willing to experiment, to adapt, and to change have a far greater likelihood of surviving and thriving in our future learning ecosystems.

ScopeAR beams an expert to you through augmented reality [Greg Kumparak]

On 07/30/2015, in assistive technologies, Augmented Reality (AR), business, corporate universities / corporate training, telecommunications, telepresence, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

ScopeAR beams an expert to you through augmented reality — from techcrunch.com by Greg Kumparak

Excerpt:

Everyone needs an expert sometimes; a helping hand to point you in the right direction so you can get the job done.

Maybe you’re a mechanic working on an exotic car. You know everything there is to know about cars in general — but only a handful of people really know this car. Alas, they’re all on the other side of the planet.

Maybe you’re working on an oil rig, and one of the panels is throwing out errors. “REPLACE VALVE 6B”, reads the screen. You know how to replace a valve! You… just don’t know where said valve is. Your company has experts for this — but they’ve all been called off to other rigs.

Maybe you’re just at home trying to figure out which of the zillion poorly labeled ports on that shiny new A/V receiver is the one that can support a 4k resolution. All you need is someone to point out the right one, and you’re set.

ScopeAR, a company from YC’s Summer 2015 class, wants to help experts be anywhere they need to be via the magic of augmented reality.

“Choose your reality: Virtual, Augmented or Mixed” [A basic primer in 3 future-looking technologies by Eric Johnson]

On 07/27/2015, in attention, Augmented Reality (AR), corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, digital storytelling, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, K-12 related, Mixed Reality (MR), user experience (UX), user interface design, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Choose Your Reality: Virtual, Augmented or Mixed — from recode.net by Eric Johnson; with thanks to Woontack Woo for his posting on this

Excerpts:

[For VR] The key buzzword here is presence, shorthand for technology and content that can trick the brain into believing it is somewhere it’s not.

The key term for AR is utility…AR takes your view of the real world and adds digital information and/or data on top of it.

The key term for mixed reality, or MR, is flexibility…It tries to combine the best aspects of both VR and AR…In theory, mixed reality lets the user see the real world (like AR) while also seeing believable, virtual objects (like VR). And then it anchors those virtual objects to a point in real space, making it possible to treat them as “real,” at least from the perspective of the person who can see the MR experience.

So, to borrow an example from Microsoft’s presentation at the gaming trade show E3, you might be looking at an ordinary table, but see an interactive virtual world from the video game Minecraft sitting on top of it. As you walk around, the virtual landscape holds its position, and when you lean in close, it gets closer in the way a real object would.

See this example.

From DSC:
Swivl allows faculty members, teachers, trainers, and other Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to make recordings where the recording device swivels to follow the SME (who is holding/wearing a remote). Recordings can be automatically sent to the cloud for further processing/distribution.

My request to you is:
Can you extend the Swivl app to not only provide recordings, but to provide rough draft transcripts of those recordings as well?

This could be very helpful for accessibility reasons, but also to provide students/learners with a type of media that they prefer (video, audio, and/or text).

What Learners Really Want — from clomedia.com by Todd Tauber
Listen to your learners: They want speed, diversity and adaptability in internal development programs.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Everyone knows most learning happens beyond the classroom walls and outside learning management systems. But new research shows just how much — and the data are startling.

In the past year, learning technology company Degreed conducted two separate surveys that show workers spend four to five times more time on self-directed learning than on internal or external learning offerings. They invest more than 14 hours a month, on average, learning on their own but just two to three hours on employer-provided learning.

Those numbers should inform how and why development needs to evolve — urgently.
…
Learners want easier and faster access to answers. Degreed found almost 70 percent of workers say the first thing they do when they need to learn something for their jobs is Google it, then read or watch what they find. About 42 percent look for a live or online course, but they do it on their own. Fewer than 12 percent turn to their learning organization first.

Learning and development people do pretty much the same thing. They are “Googling it” too, and not just because it’s expedient. By a 3.5 to 1 margin, people believe self-directed learning is more effective in helping them succeed at work than taking part in company sponsored learning. These are mature adults. They have a good idea what they need.
…
Learners want to leverage the whole learning ecosystem. Informal learning initiatives should be valued because workers believe as much as 60 percent of the knowledge and skills they use on the job comes from informal learning.

From DSC:
I agree with Todd that this is where learning ecosystems come in. Employees are trying to use a variety of tools and methods to tap into streams of up-do-date content.

To me, the charter of those involved with corporate training/development should be to help employees learn about the current set of tools available to them and how to use such tools. Then do the necessary research to give employees a place to begin using those tools — such as whom should a particular group of employees should follow on Twitter or Scoop.It, which websites/blogs are especially well done and applicable to their particular positions and area of expertise, etc.

The pace of change has changed and at times, it’s moving too fast to create formal learning materials. We need to tap into streams of content. Perhaps those in corporate U’s could even be helping to curate and create the most beneficial streams of content for their employees in key strategic areas — and doing so using small, bite-sized chunks. They could recommend — and to some degree even provide — the platforms employees could use for self-directed learning. This self-directed learning wouldn’t be all alone though — each employee would be building and interacting with folks within their own Personal Learning Network (PLN); each person’s learning ecosystem would likely look different from others’ learning ecosystems.

Also relevant/see:

Heutagogy Community of Practice

Every learner is different but not because of their learning styles — from clive-shepherd.blogspot.com by Clive Sheperd

Excerpt:

I’ve been reading Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown and Henry Roediger (Harvard University Press, 2014). What a great book! It provides a whole load of useful tips for learners, teachers and trainers based on solid research.
…
Finishing this book coincides with The Debunker Club’s Debunk Learning Styles Month. And learning styles really do need debunking, not because we, as learners, don’t have preferences, but because there is no model out there which has been proven to be genuinely helpful in predicting learner performance based on their preferences.

Learning Styles are NOT an Effective Guide for Learning Design — from debunker.club

Excerpt:

Strength of Evidence Against
The strength of evidence against the use of learning styles is very strong. To put it simply, using learning styles to design or deploy learning is not likely to lead to improved learning effectiveness. While it may be true that learners have different learning preferences, those preference are not likely to be a good guide for learning. The bottom line is that when we design learning, there are far better heuristics to use than learning styles.
…
The weight of evidence at this time suggests that learning professionals should avoid using learning styles as a way to design their learning events. Still, research has not put the last nail in the coffin of learning styles. Future research may reveal specific instances where learning-style methods work. Similarly, learning preferences may be found to have long-term motivational effects.

…

Debunking Resources — Text-Based Web Pages

Learning Styles Or Learning Preference? — from learndash.com by Justin Ferriman

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

There are fewer buzzwords in the elearning industry that result in a greater division than “learning style”. I know from experience. There have been posts on this site related to the topic which resulted in a few passionate comments (such as this one).
…
As such, my intent isn’t to discuss learning styles. Everyone has their mind made up already. It’s time to move the discussion along.

Learner Preference & Motivation
If we bring the conversation “up” a level, we all ultimately agree that every learner has preferences and motivation. No need to cite studies for this concept, just think about yourself for a moment.

You enjoy certain things because you prefer them over others.

You do certain things because you are motivated to do so.

In the same respect, people prefer to learn information in a particular way. They also find some methods of learning more motivating than others. Whether you attribute this to learning styles or not is completely up to you.

How to respond to learning-style believers – from Cathy Moore

Excerpt:

First, the research
These resources link to or summarize research that debunks learning styles:

My post Learning styles: Worth our time? summarizes some studies and has extensive discussion in the comments.
My post How to be a learning mythbuster has links to easy, approachable debunking articles to pass to clients or teammates.
The Debunking Club has compiled several other resources. This TED talk in particular could be useful for your colleagues and clients.
Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown et al. is a readable summary of research.
Urban Myths about Learning and Education by Pedro De Bruyckere et al. debunks several myths.

Are Learning Styles Going out of Style? — from mindtools.com by Bruce Murray

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Their first conclusion was that learners do indeed differ from one another. For example, some learners may have more ability, more interest, or more background than their classmates. Second, students do express preferences for how they like information to be presented to them… Third, after a careful analysis of the literature, the researchers found no evidence showing that people do in fact learn better when an instructor tailors their teaching style to mesh with their preferred learning style.

The idea of matching lessons to learning styles may be a fashionable trend that will go out of style itself. In the meantime, what are teachers and trainers to do? My advice is to leave the arguments to the academics. Here are some common-sense guidelines in planning a session of learning.

Follow your instincts. If you’re teaching music or speech, for example, wouldn’t auditory-based lessons make the most sense? You wouldn’t teach geography with lengthy descriptions of a coastline’s contours when simply showing a map would capture the essence in a heartbeat, right?

Since people clearly express learning style preferences, why not train them in their preferred style? If you give them what they want, they’ll be much more likely to stay engaged and expand their learning.

Do Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learners Need Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Instruction? — from aft.org by Daniel T. Willingham

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Question: What does cognitive science tell us about the existence of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and the best way to teach them?

The idea that people may differ in their ability to learn new material depending on its modality—that is, whether the child hears it, sees it, or touches it—has been tested for over 100 years. And the idea that these differences might prove useful in the classroom has been around for at least 40 years.

What cognitive science has taught us is that children do differ in their abilities with different modalities, but teaching the child in his best modality doesn‘t affect his educational achievement. What does matter is whether the child is taught in the content‘s best modality. All students learn more when content drives the choice of modality. In this column, I will describe some of the research on matching modality strength to the modality of instruction. I will also address why the idea of tailoring instruction to a student‘s best modality is so enduring—despite substantial evidence that it is wrong.

From DSC:
Given the controversies over the phrase “learning styles,” I like to use the phrase “learning preferences” instead. Along these lines, I think our goal as teachers, trainers, professors, SME’s should be to make learning enjoyable — give people more choice and more control. Present content in as many different formats as possible. Give them multiple pathways to meet the learning goals and objectives. If we do that, learning can be more enjoyable and the engagement/motivation levels should rise — resulting in enormous returns on investment over learners’ lifetimes.

Addendum on 6/17/15:

Top 10 Reasons to Write a Blog Post Debunking the Learning Styles Myth — from willatworklearning.com by Will Thalheimer

Addendum on 7/14/15:

New Scientific Review of Learning Styles — from willatworklearning.com
Excerpt:
Just last month at the Debunker Club, we debunked the learning-styles approach to learning design based on our previous compilation of learning-styles debunking resources.
.
Now, there’s a new research review by Daniel Willingham, debunker extraordinaire, and colleagues.
.
Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The scientific status of learning styles theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42(3), 266-271. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0098628315589505

MOOCs emerge as disruptors to corporate learning [Meister]

On 06/16/2015, in 21st century, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, disruption, experimentation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, social learning / networks, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs emerge as disruptors to corporate learning — from forbes.com by Jeanne Meister

Excerpts:

Our company, Future Workplace, wanted to uncover how pervasive this revolution was in corporate learning. Our survey entitled Leveraging MOOCs and Open Learning Assets In The Workplace was fielded to 222 heads of Human Resources, Corporate Learning and Talent Management. We also conducted a number of interviews with senior HR leaders to understand the drivers behind creating a company MOOC, the benefits and barriers, and the long term impact of MOOCs on corporate learning.

Four findings emerged as a wake-up call for Chief Human Resource Officers, Chief Learning Officers as well as senior business leaders.

Finding #1: MOOCs offer companies an innovative online learning design for employees plus the ability to externally offer MOOCs to attract potential new hires and new customers.

Finding #2: Companies want to go beyond creating MOOCs to also curate a wide range of open learning assets.

Finding #3: The top three barriers to experimenting with MOOCs inside companies include a lack of budget, technical and security issues and a lack of skills among corporate learning professionals to design MOOCs.

Finding #4: Top resistors to experimenting with the MOOC model were employees in the Corporate Learning Department.

Shocker: 40% of workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs, says U.S. Government — from forbes.com by Elaine Pofeldt

Excerpt:

Tucked away in the pages of a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office is a startling statistic: 40.4% of the U.S. workforce is now made up of contingent workers—that is, people who don’t have what we traditionally consider secure jobs.

There is currently a lot of debate about how contingent workers should be defined. To arrive at the 40.4 %, which the workforce reached in 2010, the report counts the following types of workers as having the alternative work arrangements considered contingent. (The government did some rounding to arrive at its final number, so the numbers below add up to 40.2%).

Agency temps: (1.3%)
On-call workers (people called to work when needed): (3.5%)
Contract company workers (3.0%)
Independent contractors who provide a product or service and find their own customers (12.9%)
Self-employed workers such as shop and restaurant owners, etc. (3.3%)
Standard part-time workers (16.2%).

In contrast, in 2005, 30.6% of workers were contingent. The biggest growth has been among people with part time jobs. They made up just 11.9% of the labor force in 2005. That means there was a 36% increase in just five years.

In the future, employees won’t exist — from techcrunch.com by Tad Milbourn

Excerpt:

Contract work is becoming the new normal. Consider Uber: The ride-sharing startup has 160,000 contractors, but just 2,000 employees. That’s an astonishing ratio of 80 to 1. And when it comes to a focus on contract labor, Uber isn’t alone. Handy, Eaze and Luxe are just a few of the latest entrants into the “1099 Economy.”

Though they get the most attention, it’s not just on-demand companies that employ significant contract workforces. Microsoft has nearly two-thirds as many contractors as full-time employees. Even the simplest business structures, sole proprietorships, have increased their use of contract workers nearly two-fold since 2003.

The unsung heroes of the on-demand economy — from medium.com by Alex Chriss
We need to rethink the notion of entrepreneurship in the on-demand economy and build the tools and infrastructure to support the growing self-employed workforce.

Excerpt:

Enabled by the ubiquitous connectivity and power of smartphones, entrepreneurs are opening shops on Etsy, working as virtual assistants through oDesk, tackling neighborhood jobs on TaskRabbit, or driving on demand with Uber.

This new economy isn’t limited to low-paying gigs either. There are highly skilled professionals with advanced degrees from top 10 schools opting to work for themselves instead of a big firm. Consider the MBAs earning $100-$150 an hour through online consulting firm HourlyNerd or the lawyers making more than that on UpCounsel.

The Handy housecleaner and the UpCounsel attorney share a common characteristic: They’re a business of one.
…
This new wave of entrepreneurs — the self-employed workforce — is accelerating a broad trend we’ve been watching closely for nearly 10 years and started documenting in the year 2007 B.U. –before Uber.

They are part of the massive growth in the number of independent professionals. Full-time jobs with their corporate grab bag of benefits are becoming scarcer by the day. In the near future, working full time for a single company that offers little flexibility or work-life balance will become as outdated as the notion of staying with one company for your entire working life.

New survey: 40% of unemployed have “given up” — from prweb.com
Express Employment Professionals released the results [on May 20th, 2015] of its second annual in-depth poll, “The State of the Unemployed,” revealing that 40 percent of unemployed Americans agree to some extent that they have completely given up looking for work.

Excerpt:

Express Employment Professionals released the results [on May 20th, 2015] of its second annual in-depth poll, “The State of the Unemployed,” revealing that 40 percent of unemployed Americans agree to some extent that they have completely given up looking for work.

That figure, though high, represents a slight improvement from 2014, when 47 percent said they had given up.

The survey of 1,553 jobless Americans age 18 and older was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between April 7 and 29, 2015, and offers a rare look at the background and attitudes of the unemployed, their approach to the job hunt, who they blame for their current situation, and how they are holding up through tough times.

New self-learning systems will reduce reliance on humans during ramp-up — from wtvox.com by Aidan Russell

Excerpt:

Robots are cracking eggs and making ice cream sundaes. These aren’t just party tricks. The way robots learn to do complex tasks is changing and that has profound implications for the future of manufacturing.

The egg-cracking robot comes courtesy of researchers at the University of Maryland and NICTA, an information and computer technology research centre in Australia. Their robotic system learns processes by watching YouTube videos.
…
It’s not difficult to see how systems like this might be utilised to improve automated manufacturing or bring new automation systems to areas of production that haven’t seen much automation yet. An investment in a single robotic system capable of learning a variety of tasks without specialised programming would be attractive to small manufacturers that do short production runs, for example.

A bot that can learn from watching other people could also fine tune its own actions through trial and error, essentially learning from its mistakes. That’s what researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) in Finland had in mind when they developed a self-adjusting welding system.

Will humans go the way of horses? — from foreignaffairs.com by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Labor in the Second Machine Age

Our mental advantages might be even greater than our physical ones. While we’re clearly now inferior to computers at arithmetic and are getting outpaced in some types of pattern recognition—as evidenced by the triumph of Watson, an artificial-intelligence system created by IBM, over human Jeopardy! champions in 2011—we still have vastly better common sense. We’re also able to formulate goals and then work out how to achieve them. And although there are impressive examples of digital creativity and innovation, including machine-generated music and scientific hypotheses, humans are still better at coming up with useful new ideas in most domains.

It is extraordinarily difficult to get a clear picture of how broadly and quickly technology will encroach on human territory (and a review of past predictions should deter anyone from trying), but it seems unlikely that hardware, software, robots, and artificial intelligence will be able to take over from human labor within the next decade. It is even less likely that people will stop having economic wants that are explicitly interpersonal or social; these will remain, and they will continue to provide demand for human workers.

From DSC:
Stop right there! Hold on! Those of us working in education or training need to be asking ourselves:

What do these MASSIVE trends mean for the way that we are educating, training, and preparing our learners and employees!?!?

This is not our grandfathers’/grandmothers’ economy and way of life! From here on out, people must be able to adapt, to pivot, to change — and they must be able to learn…continually and quickly. They need to be able to know where to go to find information and be able to sort through the content to find out what’s true and relevant. They need to know under what circumstances they learn best.

Finally, becoming familiar with futurism — looking down the pike to see what’s developing, building scenarios, etc. — is now wise counsel for a growing number of people.

An increasingly popular job perk: Online education [McIntire]

On 06/03/2015, in business, change, changing business models, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, experimentation, higher education, innovation, lifelong learning, new business models, online learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

An increasingly popular job perk: Online education — from chronicle.com by Mary Ellen McIntire

Excerpt:

Southern New Hampshire University has become the latest institution to team up with a major employer to make online courses a benefit of employment.

A partnership between Southern New Hampshire and Anthem Inc., a health-insurance company, will allow some 55,000 Anthem employees to earn associate or bachelor’s degrees through the university’s College for America, a competency-based assessment program.

The announcement is one of several recent deals between a college and a corporation that will expand higher-education opportunities for employees at no or reduced cost, following a high-profile deal, announced last year, between Starbucks and Arizona State University. On Monday, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced a similar arrangement with Strayer University.

Alternatives to traditional higher education continue to develop:

Google partners with Udacity to launch Android development nanodegree — from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

At its I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Google announced [on 5/28/15] that it has partnered with Udacity to launch a six-course Android development nanodegree.

The idea here is to help developers learn how to write apps for Google’s mobile operating system “the right way” up to the point where they could potentially be hired by Google itself.

Udemy alternatives for selling video courses online — from robcubbon.com

Excerpt:

Udemy is currently the leading online learning platform. Their top 10 instructors all made over $500,000 last year and the top earner makes over $8 million. I make $4000+ each month by selling courses on Udemy.

16 startups poised to disrupt the education market — from inc.com by Ilan Mochari
Colleges and universities are facing new competition for customers–students and their parents–from startups delivering similar goods (knowledge, credentials, prestige) more affordably and efficiently. Here’s a rundown of some of those startups.

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PayWhatYouWantBootcamp-Jan2015

New MOOC Platform Provides Free IT Certification Courses — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Ideo U

Yieldr Academy

Lessons Go Where

ClassDo

Udemy

C-Suite TV.com

Simon & Schuster to sell online courses taught by popular authors — from nytimes.com by Alexandra Alter; with thanks to Sidneyeve Matrix for her Tweet on this

Excerpt:

Simon & Schuster is making a push into paid online video, with a new website offering online courses from popular health, finance and self-help authors.

The cost of the first batch of online courses ranges from $25 to $85, and includes workbooks and access to live question-and-answer sessions with three authors: Dr. David B. Agus, the best-selling author of “The End of Illness”; Zhena Muzyka, who wrote the self-help book “Life by the Cup”; and Tosha Silver, the author of the spiritual advice book “Outrageous Openness.” The courses will be available on the authors’ individual websites and on the company’s new site, SimonSays.

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The real revolution in online education isn’t MOOCs — from hbr.org by Michelle Weise

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Something is clearly wrong when only 11% of business leaders — compared to 96% of chief academic officers — believe that graduates have the requisite skills for the workforce. It’s therefore unlikely that business leaders are following closely what’s going on in higher education. Even the latest hoopla around massive open online courses (MOOCs) amounts to more of the same: academics designing courses that correspond with their own interests rather than the needs of the workforce, but now doing it online.

But there is a new wave of online competency-based learning providers that has absolutely nothing to do with offering free, massive, or open courses. In fact, they’re not even building courses per se, but creating a whole new architecture of learning that has serious implications for businesses and organizations around the world.

It’s called online competency-based education, and it’s going to revolutionize the workforce.
…
The key distinction is the modularization of learning.
…
Here’s why business leaders should care: the resulting stackable credential reveals identifiable skillsets and dispositions that mean something to an employer. As opposed to the black box of the diploma, competencies lead to a more transparent system that highlights student-learning outcomes.

Should your institution consider a nanodegree program? — from by Rebecca Lundberg
Students seeking to build technical skills and credentials are enrolling in nanodegree programs.

Anyone Can Be a Teacher at Skillshare, an Online School — from nytimes.com by Jonah Bromwich
Excerpt:
Skillshare is an online video platform that allows anyone to sign up and teach a class. The company has proved adept at recruiting experts to teach on its website. Aside from Ms. Orlean’s class on creative nonfiction, the website has a class on visual storytelling from the design maven Debbie Millman and a marketing course taught by the entrepreneur Seth Godin. At one point, it even offered screenwriting instruction from James Franco.

Canvas.net

worldacademy.tv

Addendum on 6/3/15:

Disrupting Higher Education — from Campus Technology
Can colleges and universities break out of traditional models and compete with the disruptive forces changing the nature of higher ed?

Excerpts:

Also, traditional colleges and universities have turned away from the growing population of “nonconsumers” who need workforce skills. Only one in five freshmen actually have that residential college experience that we tend to glorify, she said. Close to 71 percent of students are what we now call non-traditional students, but which are fast becoming the norm.

These kinds of students are “overserved” by those bundled services of traditional brick-and-mortar institutions, she said. Many feel underprepared for the workforce, and they’re looking for something different.

“Higher education institutions are now competing with organizations they have never even heard of,” Weise said. “These are organizations that are really getting at the inadequacies of the system…. things like coding boot camps, where you can pay $10,000 to $20,000, spend six to 12 weeks learning to code, and get recruited by places like Google or Facebook and start earning about six figures…. Your shot at getting a job is better than if you went to law school.

“This is just to emphasize that it’s not who you think you’re competing with,” she said.

Per Michelle Weise p. 8 pf 45

IBM-Affiliated Brooklyn School Graduates Its First Students Ahead of Schedule With Both High School & College STEM Degrees — from finance.yahoo.com and the PR Newswire
Young trailblazers pave way for national education model for tens of thousands of students

Excerpt:

BROOKLYN, N.Y., June 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Six students from Brooklyn are graduating from P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) two years early with both their high school diplomas and college degrees in computer systems technology, fast tracking through the nation’s first school that blends public high school, community college, and work experience into one.

Addendums on 7/1/15:

Boot camp classes may offer a peek at the future of higher ed — from cnbc.com by Bob Sullivan
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Udacity has abandoned the idea of giving classes away to huge numbers of people in favor of “nanodegrees”—boot-camp style, short-term programs with a laser-like focus on preparing students for a career. Nanodegree subjects include Web developer, Android developer, iOS developer … you get the picture.

What you don’t get is a huge student loan debt. Udacity classes start at $1,200 for a six-month program. The fees have actually helped with online classes’ biggest problem: High dropout rates. Turns out, more people stick with classes if they have to pay for them.

Are small, private online courses the future of higher education in America? — from theweek.com by James Poulos
Excerpt:
Rather than trying to get universities to shape up, we should recognize that the SPOC (Small and Private Online Courses) model will flourish best outside the confines of today’s campus environment. In small, private forums, pioneers who want to pursue wisdom can find a radically alternate education — strikingly contemporary, yet deeply rooted in the ancient practice of conversational exegesis.

Addendum on 7/24/15:

HowZone Collaborative Learning Communities™
Connecting you with people from around the world who are passionate about the same topics as you.

What We Do:
HowZone connects people around topics of shared interest and gives them tools to help each other learn. Beginners get the foundational knowledge they need and experts get special ways to take their expertise as far as they want to go.

Addendums on 7/24/15 — with thanks to Thomas Frey for his posting mentioning these resources

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Addendum 8/7/15:

Addendums on 8/26/15:

Addendum on 10/15/15:

33 websites that will make you a genius — from medium.com

From DSC:
In watching the video below, note how this presenter is able to initiate cameras/feeds/effects with a touch of a button (so to speak). What if recording studios could be setup for professors, teachers, and trainers to use like this? It could be sharp — especially given the movement towards flipping the classroom and implementing active learning based environments.

What’s next? GM predicts jobs of the future — from media.gm.com; with thanks to Norma Owen for the resource
Top 10 jobs of the future that will drive exciting technologies

Excerpt:

Electrical engineers
Analytics expert
Interaction designers
Web programmer
Autonomous driving engineer
Customer care experts
Sustainability integration expert
Industrial engineer
3D Printing engineer
Alternative propulsion engineer

What work will look like in 2025 — from fastcompany.com by Gwen Moran
The experts weigh in on the future of work a decade from now.

Excerpt (emphasis):

Seismic Shift In Jobs
The jobs picture either delivers on technology’s promise or plunges us into a dystopian future. The same interconnected technology that will change how goods and services are delivered will “hollow out” a number of skilled jobs, Brynjolfsson says. Clerical work, bookkeeping, basic paralegal work, and even some types of reporting will be increasingly automated, contracting the number of jobs available and causing a drop in wages. And while more technology might create new and different types of jobs, so far we’ve seen more job loss than creation in these areas, he says.

…

Who wins? Specialists, the creative class, and people who have jobs that require emotional intelligence like salespeople, coaches, customer-service specialists, and people who create everything from writing and art to new products, platforms and services, Brynjolfsson says. Jobs in health care, personal services, and other areas that are tough to automate will also remain in demand, as will trade skills and science, technology and mathematics (STEM) skills, says Mark J. Schmit, PhD, executive director of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia.

However, this winner/loser scenario predicts a widening wealth gap, Schmit says. Workers will need to engage in lifelong education to remain on top of how job and career trends are shifting to remain viable in an ever-changing workplace, he says.

From DSC:
Tell me this…do today’s standardized tests produce these “specialists, the creative class, and people who have jobs that require emotional intelligence like salespeople, coaches, customer-service specialists, and people who create everything from writing and art to new products, platforms and services?”

Nope…I don’t think so either.

Given that…what changes do we need to make in order to better prepare our kids for the future they will inherit? For the skills and mindsets that they will need?

———-

Addendum on 5/22/15:

Here is what my work day will look like in 2025 — from blog.hrtecheurope.com by Saida Ayupova

Learning Ecosystems

Global Trends & Future Scenarios Database; ~800 foresight publications/reports from around the world

ScopeAR beams an expert to you through augmented reality [Greg Kumparak]

An increasingly popular job perk: Online education [McIntire]

Alternatives to traditional higher ed continue to develop

What if this presenter was a professor, teacher, or a trainer? What if the output here was meant for learning?

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