Public Viewpoint: COVID-19 Work and Education Research — from cci.stradaeducation.org

Excerpt:

In the recovering economy, employers will play a central role as Americans look to reskill, upskill, and compete in the workforce. But what do people want and expect from employers’ hiring, advancement, and training practices? In this research we explore the public’s perceptions on skills-based hiring, preferences for employer-provided education and training benefits, and beliefs about who should fund education and training.

This week’s data are based on the Strada Student Viewpoint and Strada-Gallup Education Consumer surveys. The research is intended to provide insights to the education and training providers, policymakers, employers, and individual Americans who are navigating the COVID-19 crisis.

 

 

 

4 Projects Using Blockchain to Help Learners Document and Share Educational Records — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Four blockchain projects have received funding with the ultimate goal of helping learners take control of their educational records. Each of the projects will receive $150,000 from a competition overseen by the American Council on Education (ACE). The Blockchain Innovation Challenge supports collaborations involving K-12, higher education, technology providers and public agencies, to facilitate more secure, streamlined sharing of learning records and create stronger links between education and work.

Also see:

BLOCKCHAIN INNOVATION CHALLENGE

Excerpt from About the Challenge (emphasis DSC):

The challenge sought technology-enabled solutions that reorient the education and employment ecosystem around the individuals that they aim to serve. It invited teams to articulate a vision and design pilots that address the following themes:

  • Empower all learners: How can learners exercise agency over their digital identities, including all records of learning, so they can share them in a secure, validated, and machine-readable way?
  • Unlock lifelong learning: How can learning be better documented, validated, and shared no matter where it occurs? How can control or ownership of learning records improve the way underserved learners connect and unlock disparate learning opportunities?
  • Improve economic mobility: How can blockchain help learners to find in-demand education in employment-relevant skills to advance economic mobility and to fulfill the promise of higher education?

 

 

How Much Has Covid Cost Colleges? $183 Billion — from chronicle.com by Paul N. Friga

Excerpt:

How bad is it? To answer that, my colleagues and I sought to go beyond surveys. We conducted an extensive review of publicly announced revenue and budget news from the top 400 universities in U.S. News & World Report, as well as its top 100 liberal-arts colleges, drawing from news released from March through December. We were able to obtain data from 107 of those institutions (21 percent). The results are dire. Our research suggests that we are experiencing the biggest financial losses our sector has ever faced. The institutions we tracked averaged an estimated 14-percent aggregate decline in revenues across fiscal years 2020 and 2021, and further losses loom as drops in enrollment, tuition freezes, and Covid-related expenses continue.

What do these cuts and losses add up to? We estimate the impact as follows: $85 billion in lost revenues, $24 billion for Covid-related expenses, and $74 billion in anticipated future decreases in state funding. That adds up to a whopping $183 billion.

Also see:

 

What 2021 Means for Learning — from GettingSmart.com

What 2021 Means for Learning from Getting Smart on Vimeo.

Last week we hosted a live conversation to talk about what 2021 has in store for learning, a new set of shared priorities including mutuality and agency and emerging trends and topics that we are excited to explore this year.

 

8 Higher Education IT Trends to Watch in 2021 [Stone]

8 Higher Education IT Trends to Watch in 2021 — from edtechmagazine.com by Adam Stone
Keep your eye on these trends as higher education prepares for a post-pandemic future.

Excerpt:

1. Get Used to More Advanced Learning Management Systems
At Virginia Tech, the Canvas learning management system (LMS) was critical for coordinating synchronous and asynchronous learning. Such systems will only become more sophisticated moving forward, says Randy Marchany, the university’s IT security officer. “With COVID, instructors have become more video savvy,” he says. “We’re all getting smarter about how we use these tools.”

2. A Rise in Sophisticated Videoconferencing Platforms
Even after the pandemic, educators might continue lecturing over Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms. However, they’ll be doing it in more sophisticated ways. “People will be making these experiences more collaborative, more authentic — with much richer interactions and conversations,” Grajek says. “We are all becoming more experienced consumers, and we will see a lot of innovation in this area.”

From DSC:
Yet another step closer…

Yet another step closer to the Learning from the Living Class Room vision

 

HolonIQ North America EdTech 100 — from holoniq.com
HolonIQ’s annual list of the most innovative EdTech startups across North America.

This annual list helps to surface the innovations occurring across all parts of the market, and the teams who are supporting institutions, teachers, parents, learners and employers.

HolonIQ North America EdTech 100 HolonIQ’s annual list of the most innovative EdTech startupsacross North America.

 

Marni Baker Stein on What’s Next For Higher Education — — from gettingsmart.com by Getting Smart Staff

Excerpt:

On this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, we’re talking with Marni Baker Stein, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Western Governors University (WGU).

For example, with regards to skills: WGU put together a skills architecture team alongside national competency networks. They then used EMSI, a common way to describe skills, to tag them to a competency and execute dynamic audits of performance.

“Learners desperately need education to organize itself around what they need it to become.”

 

Digital Credentials: A Better Way to Capture and Communicate Learning — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark, Rebecca Midles and Rashawn Caruthers

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

There is an invention opportunity to better credential units of learning, to open up individual learning pathways, to better communicate capabilities, and to reduce friction in talent transactions.

The pandemic is accelerating this shift to verified credentials. Enrollment in short-term credential classes increased by 70% over last year while freshman college enrollment dropped by 16%.

There are six opportunities to better capture and communicate learning.

 

The Opportunity for Personalized and Local Guidance — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark, Rebecca Midles and Rashawn Caruthers

Excerpt:

There is a big opportunity to create tools that complement advisor efforts to help learners better understand themselves, spot and try out possible futures, make informed decisions about what’s next, and persist through challenges.

 
 

The Non-Traditional Higher Ed Landscape with Amrit Ahluwalia — from trendingineducation.com

Excerpt:

Amrit shares what got him to where he is in his career as we explore why the pandemic may be increasing awareness of the importance of continuing education and the wide array of learners who engage with it. We conclude with Amrit’s perspectives on what’s on the horizon for non-traditional higher education and beyond.

Google “60-year curriculum.”

Also see:

  • S1E3 — School in 2025 & The Future of Work — from edcircuit.com
    In this episode of Future of School: The Podcast, you’ll hear predictions regarding the outlook for U.S. schools five years from now, the skills required to succeed in the future of work, why K-12 needs to innovate, and more.
  • How to Take Responsibility for the Future of Education — from gettingsmart.com by Thomas Hatch
    Excerpt:
    New technologies, artificial intelligence, and many other kinds of innovations can help to improve education. But those technical achievements will not accomplish much without the personal commitments and broader social movements that can transform our communities. If we are truly going to develop collective responsibility in education, then we have to develop collective responsibility for education. We have to hold ourselves, our elected officials, and our communities accountable for making the changes in our society that will end segregation and discrimination, create equitable educational opportunities, and provide the support that everyone needs to thrive.
 

The Dice Q3 Tech Job Report Tech Hiring and COVID-19: What You Need to Know

The Dice Q3 Tech Job Report: Tech Hiring and COVID-19: What You Need to Know — from techhub.dice.com
The report, issued quarterly by Dice, provides exclusive statistics and analysis on the tech hiring landscape, including top cities and states, top employers and the most sought-after skills and occupations.

From DSC:
One can quickly see how valuable this information would be as a data feed into an AI-based, next-generation learning platform.

The platform would connect the marketable skills with the courses, websites, blogs, RSS feeds/streams of content, etc. that would help a learner quickly and affordably build such in-demand skills. Given the shortening half-lives of many kinds of information, such a service is needed desperately…especially now with the impact of the Coronavirus.

Also relevant: See how ISTE built its upcoming virtual event!

 

Canvas Certified Educator program for higher education

Per “Instructure Launches Canvas Certified Educator Program” out at The Journal by Dian Schaffhauser:

Each course is expected to take about four weeks to finish. They include:

  • Core 1: Foundational frameworks, which explores the impact of technology on student learning and the classroom and how Canvas can be used to help educators boost student achievement, motivation and engagement;
  • Core 2: Engagement strategies, to examine how Canvas can help enrich teaching practices and maximize student achievement;
  • Core 3: Personalized learning, to dive into personalized learning and learn how to create opportunities for student voice and choice within the learning environment;
  • Core 4: Transformational practices, to help participants learn how to evaluate open standard digital learning tools that can enhance learning through Canvas; and
  • Electives, described as a series of optional courses that can be selected by educators based on interests and needs.
 
 

The pandemic pushed universities online. The change was long overdue. — from hbr-org.cdn.ampproject.org by Sean Gallagher and Jason Palmer; with thanks to Mike Mathews for his posting on LinkedIn re: this item

Excerpt:

A number of elite institutions — such as Princeton University, Williams College, Spelman College, and American University — have substantially discounted tuition for their fully online experience in an historically unprecedented fashion, highlighting pricing pressures and opening up Pandora’s box. This comes after a decade of growth in postsecondary alternatives, including “massively open online courses” (MOOCs), industry-driven certification programs, and coding bootcamps.

This moment is likely to be remembered as a critical turning point between the “time before,” when analog on-campus degree-focused learning was the default, to the “time after,” when digital, online, career-focused learning became the fulcrum of competition between institutions.

 

 

From DSC:
Along these lines…

Sometimes, I think we need to be very careful with Artificial Intelligence (#AI) — which elements of it and which applications of it that we use in our society and which we don’t move forward with. But in the case of cloud-based learning profiles (some might say competency profiles), AI makes sense. Algorithms could make sense. Data mining could make sense.

A cloud-based learning profile might not make sense always to us — as it could be very large indeed. But AI-based algorithms could assist with finding appropriate matches between jobs, competencies, passions, skills, and candidates.

Such services will likely be part of a next-gen learning platform.

 

College Admissions in a Covid Year: SATs Are Out, Personal Stories Are In — from wsj.com by Douglas Belkin
The pandemic has dramatically changed what admissions officers are looking for

 

 
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