Daniel S. Christian - Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Joel 2:23” — especially after passing various farms and fields this am [Christian]

On 09/20/2023, in Daniel S. Christian, geography / geology, global / globalization, Michigan, by Daniel Christian

Joel 2:23 — from biblegateway.com

Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

From DSC:
As I sit here with our youngest daughter, waiting for her choir practice/class to start, I’m thinking how fitting it is that I read this Verse of the Day from BibleGateway.com this morning. To get here, we went through several miles of farmland. Even before getting here, I had been reflecting (once again) upon what it would be like to be a farmer…hoping for a good harvest/crop year after year….depending upon God to send enough rain and sunshine and for the crops to do what they were created and designed to do.

I think we have lost much of our dependence upon God as many of us have moved off the farms through the last many decades now. Sitting behind computers is very different then tilling the soil, feeding the livestock, etc.

Anyway, I’m grateful for all of the farmers out there. Thank you for the work that you do. And I’m also grateful to the LORD for the good harvests. I thank Him often as I pass by the fields of corn, hay, wheat, soybeans, and more — or as I pass by the blueberry fields, the apple orchards, and even the few vineyards in the area. The older I get, the more I’m drawn to the soil. To working in the yard. To planting things. To taking joy when the flowering plant brings out new flowers again.

Thank. You. LORD.

Crops beginning to appear from the earth

Next, The Future of Work is… Intersections — from linkedin.com by Gary A. Bolles; via Roberto Ferraro

So much of the way that we think about education and work is organized into silos. Sure, that’s one way to ensure a depth of knowledge in a field and to encourage learners to develop mastery. But it also leads to domains with strict boundaries. Colleges are typically organized into school sub-domains, managed like fiefdoms, with strict rules for professors who can teach in different schools.

Yet it’s at the intersections of seemingly-disparate domains where breakthrough innovation can occur.

Maybe intersections bring a greater chance of future work opportunity, because that young person can increase their focus in one arena or another as they discover new options for work — and because this is what meaningful work in the future is going to look like.

From DSC:
This posting strikes me as an endorsement for interdisciplinary degrees. I agree with much of this. It’s just hard to find the right combination of disciplines. But I supposed that depends upon the individual student and what he/she is passionate or curious about.

Speaking of the future of work, also see:

Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
I think we have an answer on whether AIs will reshape work…

A lot of people have been asking if AI is really a big deal for the future of work. We have a new paper that strongly suggests the answer is YES.
.

Consultants using AI finished 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without. Those are some very big impacts. Now, let’s add in the nuance.

Can this point be expanded/applied to traditional institutions of HE as a whole? [Christian]

On 09/18/2023, in business side of he, colleges, community colleges, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, higher education, ideas, leadership, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In Rick Seltzer’s Daily Briefing for 9-18-23, he ends the briefing with this important point:

The bigger picture: Culture is exceedingly hard to change, especially after trust evaporates in a crisis. And crises can be particularly wrenching when institutions haven’t established cultures of transparency and accountability during good times. Instead, trust continues to erode in a vicious cycle.

And I thought to myself, the scope of Rick’s conclusion could likely be expanded/applied to institutions of higher education as a whole.

Solid idea from Brandon Busteed: “Create externship programs for faculty.”

On 09/12/2023, in adjunct faculty, business, career development, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, faculty, higher education, professional development, training / L&D, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

An excerpt from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ posting from Brandon Busteed on LinkedIn:

6. Create externship programs for faculty. Many college and university faculty have never worked outside of academia. Given a chance to be exposed to modern workplaces and work challenges, faculty will find innovative and creative ways to weave more work-integrated learning into their curriculum.

From DSC:
This is a great idea — thanks Brandon!

I might add another couple of thoughts here as well:

And/or treat your Adjunct Faculty Members much better as well!
And/or work with more L&D Departments at local companies (i.e., to develop closer, more beneficial/WIN-WIN collaborations).

Are your students prepared for active learning? You can help them! — from The Educationalist at educationalist.substack.com by Alexandra Mihai

What does active learning require from students?
There is no secret that PBL and all other active learning approaches are much more demanding from students compared to traditional methods, mainly in terms of skills and attitudes towards learning. Here are some of the aspects where students, especially when first faced to active learning, seem to struggle:

Formulating own learning goals and following through with independent study. While in traditional teaching the learning goals are given to students, in PBL (or at least in some of its purest variants), they need to come up with their own, for each problem they are solving. This requires understanding the problem well but also a certain frame of mind where one can assess what is necessary to solve it and make a plan of how to go about it (independently and as a group). All these seemingly easy steps are often new to students and something they intrinsically expect from us as educators.

From DSC:
The above excerpt re: formulating one’s own learning goals reminded me of project management and learning how to be a project manager.

It reminded me of a project that I was assigned back at Kraft (actually Kraft General Foods at the time). It was an online-based directory of everyone in the company at the time. When it was given to me, several questions arose in my mind:

Where do I start?
How do I even organize this project?
What is the list of to-do’s?
Who will I need to work with?

Luckily I had a mentor/guide who helped me get going and an excellent contact with the vendor who educated me and helped me get the ball rolling.

I’ll end with another quote and a brief comment:

Not being afraid of mistakes and learning from them.
The education system, at all stages, still penalises mistakes, often with long term consequences. So it’s no wonder students are afraid of making mistakes…

From DSC:
How true.

Some scripture for us — including, “What does the LORD require of us?”

On 09/03/2023, in Daniel S. Christian, faith, relationships, religion, society, by Daniel Christian

Micah 6:8

⁸He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly^[a] with your God.

Psalm 119:64

⁶⁴The earth is filled with your love, Lord;
teach me your decrees.

DC: I can’t see the LORD’s face — not in this lifetime. But I can try to fix my *thoughts* & *heart* on the LORD. Thus, slowly & over the years, the transformation is made — via what I think about & how I think.

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 31, 2023

Introductory comments from DSC:

Sometimes people and vendors write about AI’s capabilities in such a glowingly positive way. It seems like AI can do everything in the world. And while I appreciate the growing capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the like, there are some things I don’t want AI-driven apps to do.

For example, I get why AI can be helpful in correcting my misspellings, my grammatical errors, and the like. That said, I don’t want AI to write my emails for me. I want to write my own emails. I want to communicate what I want to communicate. I don’t want to outsource my communication.

And what if an AI tool summarizes an email series in a way that I miss some key pieces of information? Hmmm…not good.

Ok, enough soapboxing. I’ll continue with some resources.

ChatGPT Enterprise

Introducing ChatGPT Enterprise — from openai.com
Get enterprise-grade security & privacy and the most powerful version of ChatGPT yet.

We’re launching ChatGPT Enterprise, which offers enterprise-grade security and privacy, unlimited higher-speed GPT-4 access, longer context windows for processing longer inputs, advanced data analysis capabilities, customization options, and much more. We believe AI can assist and elevate every aspect of our working lives and make teams more creative and productive. Today marks another step towards an AI assistant for work that helps with any task, is customized for your organization, and that protects your company data.

Enterprise-grade security & privacy and the most powerful version of ChatGPT yet. — from openai.com

NVIDIA

Nvidia’s Q2 earnings prove it’s the big winner in the generative AI boom — from techcrunch.com by Kirsten Korosec

Nvidia Quarterly Earnings Report Q2 Smashes Expectations At $13.5B — from techbusinessnews.com.au
Nvidia’s quarterly earnings report (Q2) smashed expectations coming in at $13.5B more than doubling prior earnings of $6.7B. The chipmaker also projected October’s total revenue would peak at $16B

MISC

DC: And many business people in the early/mid-90’s thought electronic mail was only good for arranging a business lunch but it was never going to take off.

ChatGPT: Few Americans think it will impact their job in a major way| Pew Research Center https://t.co/dsUfoNOeVO

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 30, 2023

OpenAI Passes $1 Billion Revenue Pace as Big Companies Boost AI Spending — from theinformation.com by Amir Efrati and Aaron Holmes

OpenAI is currently on pace to generate more than $1 billion in revenue over the next 12 months from the sale of artificial intelligence software and the computing capacity that powers it. That’s far ahead of revenue projections the company previously shared with its shareholders, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

OpenAI’s GPTBot blocked by major websites and publishers — from the-decoder.com by Matthias Bastian
An emerging chatbot ecosystem builds on existing web content and could displace traditional websites. At the same time, licensing and financing are largely unresolved.

OpenAI offers publishers and website operators an opt-out if they prefer not to make their content available to chatbots and AI models for free. This can be done by blocking OpenAI’s web crawler “GPTBot” via the robots.txt file. The bot collects content to improve future AI models, according to OpenAI.

Major media companies including the New York Times, CNN, Reuters, Chicago Tribune, ABC, and Australian Community Media (ACM) are now blocking GPTBot. Other web-based content providers such as Amazon, Wikihow, and Quora are also blocking the OpenAI crawler.

Introducing Code Llama, a state-of-the-art large language model for coding — from ai.meta.com

Takeaways re: Code Llama:

Is a state-of-the-art LLM capable of generating code, and natural language about code, from both code and natural language prompts.
Is free for research and commercial use.
Is built on top of Llama 2 and is available in three models…
In our own benchmark testing, Code Llama outperformed state-of-the-art publicly available LLMs on code tasks

Key Highlights of Google Cloud Next ‘23— from analyticsindiamag.com by Shritama Saha
Meta’s Llama 2, Anthropic’s Claude 2, and TII’s Falcon join Model Garden, expanding model variety.

AI finally beats humans at a real-life sport— drone racing — from nature.com by Dan Fox
The new system combines simulation with onboard sensing and computation.

From DSC:
This is scary — not at all comforting to me. Militaries around the world continue their jockeying to be the most dominant, powerful, and effective killers of humankind. That definitely includes the United States and China. But certainly others as well. And below is another alarming item, also pointing out the downsides of how we use technologies.

The Next Wave of Scams Will Be Deepfake Video Calls From Your Boss — from bloomberg.com by Margi Murphy; behind paywall

Cybercriminals are constantly searching for new ways to trick people. One of the more recent additions to their arsenal was voice simulation software.

10 Great Colleges For Studying Artificial Intelligence — from forbes.com by Sim Tumay

The debut of ChatGPT in November created angst for college admission officers and professors worried they would be flooded by student essays written with the undisclosed assistance of artificial intelligence. But the explosion of interest in AI has benefits for higher education, including a new generation of students interested in studying and working in the field. In response, universities are revising their curriculums to educate AI engineers.

What if the presenter/teacher/professor/ trainer/preacher provided a set of notes for the AI to compare to the readers’ notes? [Christian]

On 08/29/2023, in Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, communications, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, lifelong learning, presentations, religion, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Yesterday, I posted the item about Google’s NotebookLM research tool. Excerpt:

What if you could have a conversation with your notes? That question has consumed a corner of the internet recently, as companies like Dropbox, Box, Notion, and others have built generative AI tools that let you interact with and create new things from the data you already have in their systems.

Google’s version of this is called NotebookLM. It’s an AI-powered research tool that is meant to help you organize and interact with your own notes.

That got me to thinking…

What if the presenter/teacher/professor/trainer/preacher provided a set of notes for the AI to compare to the readers’ notes?

That way, the AI could see the discrepancies between what the presenter wanted their audience to learn/hear and what was actually being learned/heard. In a sort of digital Socratic Method, the AI could then generate some leading questions to get the audience member to check their thinking/understanding of the topic.

The end result would be that the main points were properly communicated/learned/received.

A First Look at Teaching Preferences since the Pandemic”— from library.educause.edu/ by Muscanell

This is the first faculty research conducted by EDUCAUSE since 2019. Since then, the higher education landscape has been through a lot, including COVID-19, fluctuations in enrollment and public funding, and the rapid adoption of multiple instructional modalities and new technologies. In this report, we describe the findings of the research in four key areas:

Modality preferences and the impacts of teaching in non-preferred modes
Experiences teaching online and hybrid courses
Technology and digital availability of course components
Types of support needed and utilized for teaching

From DSC:
Polling the faculty members and getting their feedback is not as relevant and important to the future of higher education as better addressing the needs and wants of parents and students who are paying the bills. Asking faculty members what they want to post online is not as relevant as what students want and need to see online.

“It’s an example of the streamlined admissions practices that colleges across the country are using to combat the ongoing problem of low student enrollment.”

DC: But it’s not getting at the problem of *not providing enough value* for the price. https://t.co/Ye1FFep48z

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 25, 2023

From DSC:
More fringe responses — versus overhauling pricing, updating curriculum, providing more opportunities to try out jobs before investing in a degree, and/or better rewarding those adjunct faculty members who are doing the majority of the teaching on many campuses.

Online college enrollment is on the rise: What brings students to virtual campuses? — from digitaljournal.com by Jill Jaracz and Emma Rubin; via GSV

Before the pandemic, online learning programs were typically for people going back to school to augment or change their career or pursuing a graduate degree to enhance their career while they work. That attitude is shifting as students juggle learning with jobs, family responsibilities, and commutes. In California, 4 in 5 community college classes were in person before the pandemic. By 2021, just 1 in 4 were in person, while 65% were online, according to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Younger students are also opting for online classes. EducationDynamics found in 2023 that the largest share of students pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees online is 35 or younger. That said, 35% of students pursuing online undergraduate degrees are between

A Guide to Finding Housing For The Previously Incarcerated [Bennett & Curls]

On 08/25/2023, in Daniel S. Christian, policy, political science, reinvent, society, sociology, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A Guide to Finding Housing For The Previously Incarcerated — from todayshomeowner.com by Alexis Bennett & Alexis Curls

For many individuals stepping back into society after incarceration, finding a stable place to call home can be complicated. The reality is that those who have been previously incarcerated are almost 10 times more likely to face homelessness compared to the general public. With over 725,000 people leaving state and federal prisons each year, the quest for housing becomes not only a personal challenge but a broader societal concern. Stable housing is crucial for successful reintegration, providing a foundation for building a new chapter in life. In this article, we’ll shed light on the challenges and offer empowering resources for those on their journey to find housing after prison.

Table of Contents

Understanding the Housing Landscape
Utilizing Support Services
Creating a Housing Plan
Securing and Maintaining Housing
Continuing Personal Growth and Reintegration
Conclusion

From DSC:
I’m posting this in the hopes that this information may help someone out there. Also, my dad used to donate some of his time in retirement to an agency that helped people find housing. He mentioned numerous times how important it was for someone to have a safe place to stay that they could call their own.

Unsurprising move by the ABA. Just a reminder, the legal market is already embracing innovation whether the ABA, or lawyers, participate or not. https://t.co/MJNgqNNXVB

— Timothy B. Corcoran (@tcorcoran) August 25, 2023

***
From DSC:
Having come from various other areas of higher education back in 2017, I was *amazed* to see *how far behind* legal education was from the rest of higher ed. And this is directly tied to what the American Bar Association allows (or doesn’t allow). The ABA has done a terrible job of helping Americans deal with today’s pace of change.

From DSC: If this is true, how will we meet this type of demand?!?

RESKILLING NEEDED FOR 40% OF WORKFORCE BECAUSE OF AI, REPORT FROM IBM SAYS — from staffingindustry.com; via GSV

Generative AI will require skills upgrades for workers, according to a report from IBM based on a survey of executives from around the world. One finding: Business leaders say 40% of their workforces will need to reskill as AI and automation are implemented over the next three years. That could translate to 1.4 billion people in the global workforce who require upskilling, according to the company.

Will one of our future learning ecosystems look like a Discord server type of service? [Christian]

On 08/17/2023, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Alternatives, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, simulations, skills, social learning / networks, society, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

DC: Is the future of one of our powerful learning ecosystems more like adding your own desired groups/cohorts, topics, items, etc. to your server? Like a learning-focused type of Discord service? (https://t.co/Vq4dZamBf2)#future #learningecosystems #personalizedlearning pic.twitter.com/wVMWYBN3R1

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 17, 2023

Some reflections on college sports [Christian]

On 08/14/2023, in business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, student-related, surviving, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

College sports is following the money but may not like where it leads — from theathletic.com by Chris Vannini

Excerpts:

College sports long ago hitched its entire wagon to the money train.
…
But college sports is about to learn, if it hasn’t already, that when you’ve sacrificed everything at the altar of money, you no longer control where things go, and you might not like where it ends. The big brands will be fine, but a lot of fans will be left behind, and this isn’t the end of it.

The people who make these decisions won’t deal with the long-term consequences. The Big Ten commissioner who added USC and UCLA last year — the beginning of the end of the Pac-12 — bailed on college sports less than a year later. Most of the commissioners who created the CFP a decade ago have left. More commissioners, athletic directors and other administrators are just passing through to their next job, blowing up the sport to make money and put something on the resume. It’s not their fault. It’s what they were asked to do.
…
As we shrink at the top, the big brands will survive. I fear for everyone else. Nothing in the history of sports has shown that shrinking your product helps it, yet it’s happening to the No. 2 sport in the country. What happens to the fans you leave out? Are they supposed to change school allegiances? Are their kids?

It was fun when college football fans could argue about who was better on the field. Now we spend each offseason arguing about who has the better television deal. I can’t blame fans for that. Because the industry’s leaders have been yelling for years that the only thing that mattered was money. The supposed apocalyptic future they feared for years has arrived by their own hand, and it won’t stop here.

From DSC:
I played tennis at Northwestern University. We had a very solid team. (We finished #2 in the Big 10 my freshman year, losing to Michigan by 1 point. My partner and I won our flight that year in doubles.) So I know what it’s like to travel 8-10 hours in the back of a station wagon or a van to play another Big 10 Team. And then to try and get ready for that midterm on the Monday after being gone all weekend. I know what it’s like to get back from practices almost every day to find others leaving the dining room and I’m just getting there. I know what it’s like to see people getting back from the library when I’m just going there. I know what it’s like to dedicate some serious time and energy to a sport while trying to get a solid degree in — knowing that I wouldn’t be pursuing tennis after college.

So when these enormous decisions are made for football and their lucrative TV contracts, I feel for all of the other athletes who are trying to be STUDENT-ATHLETES and not just pre-NFL players. There are some seriously long weeks/weekends ahead for them, as they have to make their way ***clear across the country*** to play their conference opponents.

Along these lines, see this Tweet:

Several softball players who compete for schools that are leaving the Pac-12 have spoken out against the latest round of conference realignment.

They cited mental health and further distances for their families to travel for road games. pic.twitter.com/jeURfGGqjC

— Andy Wittry (@AndyWittry) August 5, 2023

Also relevant, see the following addendum made on 8/15/23:
Athletes and Grad Students and Higher Ed’s Next Headache — from jeffselingo-14576223.hs-sites.com by Jeff Selingo

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Joel 2:23” — especially after passing various farms and fields this am [Christian]

Can this point be expanded/applied to traditional institutions of HE as a whole? [Christian]

Solid idea from Brandon Busteed: “Create externship programs for faculty.”

Are your students prepared for active learning? You can help them! [Mihai]

Some scripture for us — including, “What does the LORD require of us?”

“Introducing ChatGPT Enterprise” [OpenAI] + other items re: AI in general

A Guide to Finding Housing For The Previously Incarcerated [Bennett & Curls]

“Unsurprising move by the ABA. Just a reminder, the legal market is already embracing innovation whether the ABA, or lawyers, participate or not.” [Corcoran]

If this is true, how will we meet this type of demand?!? [Christian]

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