Beacons at the museum: Pacific Science Center to roll out location-based Mixby app next month — from geekwire.com by Todd Bishop

Excerpt:

Seattle’s Pacific Science Center has scheduled an Oct. 4 public launch for a new system that uses Bluetooth-enabled beacons and the Mixby smartphone app to offer new experiences to museum guests — presenting them with different features and content depending on where they’re standing at any given moment.

 

Also see:

 

From DSC:
The use of location-based apps & associated technologies (machine-to-machine (M2M) communications) should be part of all ed tech planning from here on out — and also applicable to the corporate world and training programs therein. 

Not only applicable to museums, but also to art galleries, classrooms, learning spaces, campus tours, and more.  Such apps could be used on plant floors in training-related programs as well.

Now mix augmented reality in with location-based technology.  Come up to a piece of artwork, and a variety of apps could be launched to really bring that piece to life! Some serious engagement.

Digital storytelling. The connection of the physical world with the digital world. Digital learning. Physical learning. A new form of blended/hybrid learning.  Active learning. Participation.

 

 

 

Addendum on 9/4/14 — also see:

Aerohive Networks Delivers World’s First iBeacon™ and AltBeacon™ – Enabled Enterprise Wi-Fi Access Points
New Partnership with Radius Networks Delivers IoT Solution to Provide Advanced Insights and Mobile Experience Personalization

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aerohive Networks® (NYSE:HIVE), a leader in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-managed mobile networking for the enterprise market today announced that it is partnering with Radius Networks, a market leader in proximity services and proximity beacons with iBeacon™ and AltBeacon™ technology, to offer retailers, educators and healthcare providers a cloud-managed Wi-Fi infrastructure enabled with proximity beacons. Together, Aerohive and Radius Networks provide complementary cloud platforms for helping these organizations meet the demands of today’s increasingly connected customers who are seeking more personalized student education, patient care and shopper experiences.

 

Also:

 

 

 

TextingInTV-Film-Romano-Aug2014

 

Excerpt from A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film — by Tony Zhou

Is there a better way of showing a text message in a film? How about the internet? Even though we’re well into the digital age, film is still ineffective at depicting the world we live in. Maybe the solution lies not in content, but in form.

 

 

From DSC:
With a shout out/thanks to Krista Spahr,
Senior Instructional Designer at Calvin College, for this resource

 

TechInEducation-FutureClassroom-Jan2014NemroffPictures

 

From DSC:
With thanks to Mr. Jeff Finder at
Faculty Row for this resource!

Also, take note of how
interdisciplinary this piece is,
encompassing Daniel Nemroff’skills
in filmmaking, visual effects,
photography, & graphic design — but also
his visionary thinking and his awareness
of what might be effective uses of
educational technologies.

 

2014 Student and Faculty Technology Research Studies — from  educause.edu / ECAR

From the ECAR RESEARCH HUB
This hub contains the 2014 student and faculty studies from the EDUCAUSE Technology Research in the Academic Community research series. In 2014, ECAR partnered with 151 college/university sites yielding responses from 17,451 faculty respondents across 13 countries. ECAR also collaborated with 213 institutions to collect responses from more than 75,306 undergraduate students about their technology experiences.

Key Findings

  • Faculty recognize that online learning opportunities can promote access to higher education but are more reserved in their expectations for online courses to improve outcomes.
  • Faculty interest in early-alert systems and intervention notifications is strong.
  • The majority of faculty are using basic features and functions of LMSs but recognize that these systems have much more potential to enhance teaching and learning.
  • Faculty think they could be more effective instructors if they were better skilled at integrating various kinds of technology into their courses.
  • Faculty recognize that mobile devices have the potential to enhance learning.

 

Excerpts from infographic:

 

ThirdTaughtOnlineLastYr-EducauseRpt-8-2014

 

 

EducauseRpt-8-2014

 

 

From DSC:
Below is the presentation I gave to a group of K-12 teachers/administrators earlier today.  I thought I might post it here in case it’s helpful to someone else out there:

 

DanielSChristian-GoogleAppsForEducation-8-18-14

 

 

 

Also see:

 

Living social: How second screens are helping TV make fans — from nielsensocial.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Television viewing used to be an experience strictly between viewer and show, with water cooler talk coming the day after. The rise of social TV has changed that relationship, and according to a study by Nielsen, more and more Americans are quickly warming up to this new behavior. With tablets, smartphones and laptops at their side, TV viewers can follow their favorite shows, share content and connect with fellow fans before, during and after a program.

 

 

 

 

From DSC:
Instead of TV/entertainment-oriented programs, how about a service that offers cloud-based, scaffolded streams of content that are more educational/training-related in nature, complete with digital playlists of interactive content that can be offered up on the main display, while lifelong learners interact and discuss the content via their PLNs, cohorted groups of learners within their learning hubs, etc.?

 

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 
 

Reflections on “C-Suite TV debuts, offers advice for the boardroom” [Dreier]

C-Suite TV debuts, offers advice for the boardroom — from streamingmedia.com by Troy Dreier
Business leaders now have an on-demand video network to call their own, thanks to one Bloomberg host’s online venture.

Excerpt:

Bringing some business acumen to the world of online video, C-Suite TV is launching today. Created by Bloomberg TV host and author Jeffrey Hayzlett, the on-demand video network offers interviews with and shows about business execs. It promises inside information on business trends and the discussions taking place in the biggest boardrooms.

 

MYOB-July2014

 

The Future of TV is here for the C-Suite — from hayzlett.com by Jeffrey Hayzlett

Excerpt:

Rather than wait for networks or try and gain traction through the thousands of cat videos, we went out and built our own network.

 

 

See also:

  • Mind your own business
    From the About page:
    C-Suite TV is a web-based digital on-demand business channel featuring interviews and shows with business executives, thought leaders, authors and celebrities providing news and information for business leaders. C-Suite TV is your go-to resource to find out the inside track on trends and discussions taking place in businesses today. This online channel will be home to such shows as C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett, MYOB – Mind Your Own Business and Bestseller TV with more shows to come.

 

 

From DSC:
The above items took me back to the concept of Learning from the Living [Class] Room.

Many of the following bullet points are already happening — but what I’m trying to influence/suggest is to bring all of them together in a powerful, global, 24 x 7 x 365, learning ecosystem:

  • When our “TVs” become more interactive…
  • When our mobile devices act as second screens and when second screen-based apps are numerous…
  • When discussion boards, forums, social media, assignments, assessments, and videoconferencing capabilities are embedded into our Smart/Connected TVs and are also available via our mobile devices…
  • When education is available 24 x 7 x 365…
  • When even the C-Suite taps into such platforms…
  • When education and entertainment are co-mingled…
  • When team-based educational content creation and delivery are mainstream…
  • When self-selecting Communities of Practice thrive online…
  • When Learning Hubs combine the best of both worlds (online and face-to-face)…
  • When Artificial Intelligence, powerful cognitive computing capabilities (i.e., IBM’s Watson), and robust reporting mechanisms are integrated into the backends…
  • When lifelong learners have their own cloud-based profiles…
  • When learners can use their “TVs” to tap into interactive, multimedia-based streams of content of their choice…
  • When recommendation engines are offered not just at Netflix but also at educationally-oriented sites…
  • When online tutoring and intelligent tutoring really take off…

…then I’d say we’ll have a powerful, engaging, responsive, global education platform.

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

Transmedia and education: How transmedia is changing the way we learn — from thedigitalshift.com by Carolyn Sun

 

From

Transmedia -Illustration By Oanh Le

 

 

Excerpt:

Transmedia, a broad descriptive word that literally translated means “across media” and encompasses many strategies that transverse industries, is generally regarded as the use of multiple media platforms to tell a story or story experience. Though the word “transmedia” is thought to have entertainment franchise origins, its adaptation for education purposes is both valuable and becoming more and more common. While teachers like Sansing are using coding and programming in their language arts instruction, others are taking advantage of increasingly sophisticated apps and interactive media for classroom use.

 

 

Also see:

  • The Science of Storytelling [Infographic] The chemical and psychological makeup of our minds affects how we consume content: Our brains are wired to connect with compelling stories.
 

The New Digital Learning Playbook, Advancing College and Career Ready Skill Development in K-12 Schools | from tomorrow.org | June 2014
The second in a two part series to document the key national findings from Speak Up 2013.

 


Key Findings from this year’s report include:


  • Infographic: The New Digital Learning Playbook: The Digital Content Story
  • More than 40 percent of high school principals are now offering online classes for students in math, science, history and English/language arts. Only 17 percent of high schools are not offering online classes, according to school principals.
  • Principals are offering online learning for multiple reasons, including providing academic remediation (66 percent), keeping students engaged in staying in school (63 percent) and providing options for students that need credit recovery (61 percent).
  • Teachers who teach online classes, in particular, see a strong correlation between the use of technology and students’ college and career ready skill development. More than half of these teachers say technology use helps students understand how to apply academic concepts to real world problems (58 percent), take ownership of their learning (57 percent) and develop problem solving and critical thinking skills (57 percent).
  • The professional development requests of teachers are fairly common among new and veteran teachers. Even new teachers, who are presumed to be more digitally native and comfortable with technology, have a wish list of professional development support. The rookie teachers have a greater interest than other teachers in learning more about incorporating games and using social media with both students and parents.
  • Parental support of mobile device as part of learning does not appear to have an economic, community type or grade level bias. Around 60 percent of all parents said they would like their children to be in a class where using one’s own mobile device was allowed. Two-thirds said they would purchase a mobile device for their child to use within class, if that was allowed by the school.
  • Two-thirds of community members and a similar number of parents of school-aged children expressed support for paying $.50 more per month on their phone bill if those funds were used to increase school access to the Internet for student learning.
  • One-third of elementary school teachers (32 percent) report using games in their classrooms. The top two reasons given for using games within instruction were increasing student engagement in learning (79 percent) and providing a way for teachers to address different learning styles in the classroom (72 percent).
 

Goodbye, TV Channels—And Hello, TV Apps — from readwrite.com by Adriana Lee
How a small change in language represents a universal shift in the television experience.

 

GoodbyeTVChannels-May2014

 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But television is evolving. Increasingly, it’s all about the apps now—browsable, downloadable, interactive TV applications. You can thank the swelling ranks of streaming services and devices for that.

The software applications they’re delivering to our living rooms are growing in number and prominence. And they’re starting to eclipse the passive, one-way broadcasts we once fought over for two-way, interactive experiences that let you share democratically among multiple users (née viewers) across mobile devices and computers.

According to research firm NPD Group, the smart television business has begun to boom. In the beginning of 2013, there were 140 million Internet-ready TVs in American homes. By 2015, it will grow 44 percent, to 202 million. And by that time, nearly two-thirds of them will actually be connected to the Internet, compared to just 56 percent now.

How they connect is important. When it comes to television, “apps” are where it’s at, not ye olde “TV channels.” It’s just a shift in language, true—but it’s also a shift in thinking.

 

 

In a multi-screen future, phones don’t control TVs, TVs control phones — from foxnews.com by Alex Tretbar

Excerpt:

Right now, most “second-screen” usage is more distracting than it is enriching, but that’s about to change. Soon your tablet will spring to life when you tune into your favorite show, and you’ll have more opportunities than ever to engage. The million-dollar buzzword here is Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. But, before we get too far into that, let’s start at the beginning: the screen itself.

Navin wants his apps to automatically deliver content viewers might otherwise seek out manually. This might mean recommendations, related video, social-media discussions, or even a simple plot synopsis.

 

 

What television will look like in 2025, according to Netflix — from  wired.com by Issie Lapowsky

Excerpts:

People have traditionally discovered new shows by tuning into the channels that were most aligned with their interests. Love news?  Then CNN might be the channel for you.  If it’s children’s programming you want, Nickelodeon has you covered.  And yet, none of these channels can serve 100 percent of their customers what they want to watch 100 percent of the time.

According to Hunt, this will change with internet TV.  He said Netflix is now working to perfect its personalization technology to the point where users will no longer have to choose what they want to watch from a grid of shows and movies.  Instead, the recommendation engine will be so finely tuned that it will show users “one or two suggestions that perfectly fit what they want to watch now.”

“I think this vision is possible,” Hunt said. “We’ve come a long way towards it, and we have a ways to go still.” He said Netflix is now devoting as much time and energy to building out that personalization technology as the company put into building the infrastructure for delivering that content in the first place.

“The stories we watch today are not your parents’ TV,” Hunt said, “and the stories your kids watch in 2025 will blow your mind away.”

 

And by the year 2025, he told his audience, everyone will own a smart TV.

 

 

TV transformed by smart thinking — from theaustralian.com.au/ by

Excerpt:

As LG puts it, your apps to the right of the cards are “the future” — what you will watch, while the display of your recently used apps, to the left of the cards, is “the past” — so the launcher is an amalgam of your past, present and future viewing activity

 

 

 

From DSC:
“…everyone will own a smart TV by 2025.”  Well, maybe not everyone, but many of us will have access to these Internet-connected “TV’s”  (if they are even called TV’s at that point). 

I hope that Netflix will license those personalization technologies to other vendors or, if not, that some other vendor will create them for educationally-related purposes.

Can you imagine a personalization engine — focused on education and/or training — that could provide the scaffolding necessary for learning about many topics?  i.e. digital playlists of learning. Streams of content focused on education.  Such engines would remember where you left off and what you still need to review…what you have mastered and what you are still struggling with…what you enjoy learning about…your learning preferences…and more.

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

Addendum:
How Samsung is enabling the future of social TV — from lostremote.com by Natan Edelsburg

 

 

The seven habits of highly effective digital enterprises — from mckinsey.com by Tunde Olanrewaju, Kate Smaje, and Paul Willmott
To stay competitive, companies must stop experimenting with digital and commit to transforming themselves into full digital businesses. Here are seven habits that successful digital enterprises share.

Excerpt:

The age of experimentation with digital is over. In an often bleak landscape of slow economic recovery, digital continues to show healthy growth. E-commerce is growing at double-digit rates in the United States and most European countries, and it is booming across Asia. To take advantage of this momentum, companies need to move beyond experiments with digital and transform themselves into digital businesses. Yet many companies are stumbling as they try to turn their digital agendas into new business and operating models. The reason, we believe, is that digital transformation is uniquely challenging, touching every function and business unit while also demanding the rapid development of new skills and investments that are very different from business as usual. To succeed, management teams need to move beyond vague statements of intent and focus on “hard wiring” digital into their organization’s structures, processes, systems, and incentives.

 

From DSC:
“The age of experimentation with digital is over.  …  To take advantage of this momentum, companies need to move beyond experiments with digital and transform themselves into digital businesses.”

Though this may be true for the corporate world (the audience for whom this piece was written), the experimentation within higher education is just beginning.  With that said, I still couldn’t help but wonder if some of these same habits might apply to the world of higher education. For example, three habits that the article mentioned jumped out at me as being highly relevant to those of us working within higher education:

1. Be unreasonably aspirational

4. Challenge everything

7. Be obsessed with the customer
Rising customer expectations continue to push businesses to improve the customer experience across all channels. Excellence in one channel is no longer sufficient; customers expect the same frictionless experience in a retail store as they do when shopping online, and vice versa.

 

 

A potentially-related item, at least from the perspective of the higher ed student of the near future:

  • Accelerating the digitization of business processes — from by Shahar Markovitch and Paul Willmott
    Customers want a quick and seamless digital experience, and they want it now.
    Excerpt:
    Customers have been spoiled. Thanks to companies such as Amazon and Apple, they now expect every organization to deliver products and services swiftly, with a seamless user experience.
 

Reinventing libraries for ‘hanging out, messing around and geeking out’ — from CNN.com by Emanuella Grinberg

Excerpt:

The staff takes special pride in its mentor-led activities, offered in partnerships with various community organizations: a spoken word workshop, a video game program and a makerspace, or workshop, where teens create birdcages, duct tape wallets and other art projects.

It might be a library, but for 18-year-old Alexis Woodward, the atmosphere is more like a “family reunion,” she said.

“It’s always packed until it closes. Everybody goes to the library after school,” said Woodward, who began participating in the spoken word program when she was 14.

 

ReinventingLibraries-CNN-June2014

 

 

Augmented Reality: 32 resources about using it in education — from mediaspecialistsguide.blogspot.com by Julie Greller

Excerpt:

According to Webster’s Dictionary, augmented reality is “an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device (as a smartphone camera); also :  the technology used to create augmented reality.”  Think of it as a type of virtual reality, using the computer to copy your world. You are probably familiar with a tool created by Google which falls into this category: Google Glass. Although augmented reality has existed for a long time, we as teachers are only now grasping how to use it in the classroom. Let’s take a look below.

 

Harvard MOOCs up ante on production quality — from educationnews.org by Grace Smith

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

It’s called HarvardX, a program begun two years ago, that films professors who are creating lessons that act as an adjunct to their coursework.   The catch is, the production value is equally proportioned to the subject matter.  The underproduced in-class lecture being filmed by a camera at the back of the lecture hall is being updated, in a big way.

Two video studios, 30 employees, producers, editors, videographers, composers, animators, typographers, and even a performance coach, make HarvardX a far cry from a talking head sort of online class.

The Harvard idea is to produce excellent videos, on subject matters that might be difficult to pull off in a lecture hall or class.  Then, to bring these videos into the class for enrichment purposes.  An example is Ulrich’s online class, “Tangible Things”.

 

 

Also see:

Sea change of technology: Education — from the Harvard Gazette, Christina Pazzanese, May 26, 2014

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

After centuries of relative torpor, technology breakthroughs have begun to reshape teaching and learning in ways that have prompted paradigm shifts around pedagogy, assessment, and scholarly research, and have upended assumptions of how and where learning takes place, the student-teacher dynamic, the functions of libraries and museums, and the changing role of scholars as creators and curators of knowledge.

“There are massive changes happening right now,” said Robert A. Lue, the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and faculty director of HarvardX (harvardx.harvard.edu). “What has brought it into particularly tight focus now is that the revolution in online education has raised a whole host of very important questions about: What do students do with faculty face-to-face; what is the value of the brick-and-mortar experience; and how does technology in general really support teaching and learning in exciting, new ways? It’s been a major catalyst, if you will, for a reconsideration of how we teach in the classroom.”

Classrooms of the future are likely to resemble the laboratory or studio model, as more disciplines abandon the passive lecture and seminar formats for dynamic, practice-based learning, Harvard academicians say.

“There’s a move away from using the amphitheater as a learning space … toward a room that looks more like a studio where students sit in groups around tables, and the focus is on them, not on the instructor, and the instructor becomes more the ‘guide outside’ rather than the ‘sage onstage,’ facilitating the learning process rather than simply teaching and hoping people will learn,” said Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

It’s a shift that’s changing teaching in the humanities as well. “It’s a project-based model where students learn by actually being engaged in a collaborative, team-based experience of actually creating original scholarship, developing a small piece of a larger mosaic — getting their hands dirty, working with digital media tools, making arguments in video, doing ethnographic work,” said Jeffrey Schnapp, founder and faculty director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, an arts and humanities research and teaching unit of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

 

 

From DSC:
HarvardX is a great example of using teams to create and deliver learning experiences.

Also, the “Sea change…” article reminded me of the concept of learning hubs — whereby some of the content is face-to-face around a physical table, and whereby some of the content is electronic (either being created by the students or being consumed/reviewed by the students).  I also appreciated the work that Jeff Schnapp is doing to increase students’ new media literacy skills.

 

 

 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian