Learning from the Living (Class) Room [Grush & Christian]

CampusTechnology-12-5-13-DSCLivingClassRoom

 

Learning in ‘the Living [Class] Room’
From campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Daniel Christian
Convergent technologies have the ability to support streams of low-cost, personalized content, both at home and in college.

 
 

A proposal for Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and any other company who wants to own the future living room [Christian]

DanielChristian-A-proposal-to-Apple-MS-Google-IBM-Nov182013

 

 

 

“The main obstacle to an Apple television set has been content. It has mostly failed to convince cable companies to make their programming available through an Apple device. And cable companies have sought to prevent individual networks from signing distribution deals with Apple.”

— Apple, closer to its vision for a TV set, wants
ESPN, HBO, Viacom, and others to come along

qz.com by Seward, Chon, & Delaney, 8/22/13

 

From DSC:
I wonder if this is because of the type of content that Apple is asking for. Instead of entertainment-oriented content, what if the content were more focused on engaging, interactive, learning materials? More on educational streams of content (whether we — as individuals — create and contribute that content or whether businesses do)?

Also see:

 

internet of things

 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The communications landscape has historically taken the form of a tumultuous ocean of opportunities. Like rolling waves on a shore, these opportunities are often strong and powerful – yet ebb and flow with time.

Get ready, because the next great wave is upon us. And, like a tropical storm, it is likely to change the landscape around us.

As detailed by analyst Chetan Sharma, this particular wave is the one created by the popularity of over-the-top (OTT) solutions – apps that allow access to entertainment, communication and collaboration over the Internet from smartphones, tablets and laptops, rather than traditional telecommunications methods. Sharma has coined this the mobile “fourth wave” – the first three being voice, messaging (SMS) and data access, respectively – and it is rapidly washing over us.

 

Addendum on 11/25:

 

SmartTVFeatures

 

 

 

 

Jeff Gomez Masterclass: Creating Blockbuster Transmedia Story Worlds & Brands — from nymediacenter.com

Excerpt:

Who Should Attend?

SCREEN PROFESSIONALS
Producers, writers, directors, commissioners, distributors, investors, policy makers from the film, television and online industries

INTERACTIVE MEDIA PROFESSIONALS
Web developers and designers, app and mobile developers, games developers and designers, multiplatform producers, digital media strategists

BRAND + COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONALS
Advertising, marketing and PR professionals and creatives, public relations professionals, social media strategists, branded content producers

PUBLISHING PROFESSIONALS
Publishers, authors, editors, agents, Commissioners

 

From DSC:
Wondering a few things here:

1)  Why aren’t there similar events aimed at educators, professors, teachers, and trainers? At instructional designers and instructional technologists?

2)  Are we preparing our students for these types of opportunities?

3) That same web page also reads:

It is a philosophy of communication and brand extension that creates intense audience loyalty and long-term engagement, enriches the value of creative content, and generates multiple revenue streams.

Hmmm…couldn’t this also apply to higher education/K-12 education/training as well? 

 

 

 

mindsy-November2013

 

From DSC:
Does Mindsy represent a new ingredient of — and/or model for — our future learning ecosystems?

Learning on demand.

 

Addendum from The Economist:

Mindsy’s website hosts more than 5,000 courses provided by vendors, many of whom are specialised in e-learning. Tens of thousands of users pay $29 a month to access as many courses as they would like in that time, a model some have compared to Netflix, a popular online film-rental service. Users pick and choose their courses, says Christian Owens, Mindsy’s founder, with many preferring to watch short modular videos on one topic before moving on to another area. Whereas TED provides lofty academia in easily-digestible formats, Mindsy prefers to focus on the practical. One of the most popular courses explains how to build a website. Swap the ankle boots on our TED Talks commuter for winklepickers, and the flannel shirt for a well-cut suit, and you have the young professional who makes up most of Mindsy’s user base.

 

Xbox, watch TV: inside Microsoft’s audacious plan to take over the living room — from by Nilay Patel
Can the Xbox One finally kickstart the TV revolution?

 

msft lede

 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Taking over your cable box also means the Xbox can overlay your TV signal with interesting information: a voice-activated channel guide, pop-up notifications when you get a Skype call and Xbox Live invites, a new NFL app that shows you real-time fantasy stats. You can even snap the TV window to the side of the screen while you play games. Your nasty cable interface is still there, but it allows the Xbox One to replace the cable box as the primary living-room entertainment device and go from gaming console to major new computing platform.

…

So the entire Xbox One is designed around what you might call a bold compromise: instead of directly integrating TV, the system hijacks it. Rather than plugging your cable box and Xbox into the TV separately, you first plug the cable box into the Xbox, and then the Xbox into the TV. Your cable box is still there, and still doing all the heavy lifting of providing TV, but now it’s doing it in service of the overall Xbox One experience. Smith describes it as “augmenting” the cable box experience in an effort to eliminate the friction of switching between games, apps, and TV.

 

From DSC:
The battle for the living room continues.  I hope that we can eventually leverage these developments not just for entertainment, but for creating, contributing, sharing, absorbing, and discussing streams of content. The creative possibilities involving transmedia-based storytelling are exciting in this type of environment as well.

 

 

 

 

5 ways to reduce cognitive load in eLearning — from elearningindustry.com by by  Matthew Guyan

Excerpt:

  1. Present some information via the visual channel and some via the verbal channel
  2. Break content into smaller segments and allow the learner to control the pace
  3. Remove non-essential content
  4. Words should be placed close as possible to the corresponding graphics
  5. Don’t narrate on-screen text word-for-word

 

From DSC:
Thanks Matt for a well-written, concise, beneficial posting here.  I especially appreciated the quick review of the Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) as well as the 5 suggestions to reduce cognitive load (with the goal being to move content into peoples’ long term memories).

 

GottaMakeItThoughTheGate

 

 

 

 

Faculty Coalition: Forget About Cost Savings with Online Programs — from CampusTechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpts:

Cost savings promised by the expansion of online education are tough to pinpoint, including those programs that promise to be free for students.
…
According to the Campaign, there are no guarantees that online courses save students money.
…
The Campaign declared the idea that MOOCs could lower the cost of college degrees a “pipe dream.”
…
But even as public institutions introduce their own online programs, they frequently charge students more for those courses, the report said.

 

From DSC:
(Dian, these thoughts are not aimed at you. Keep up the excellent work out there!)

The only way that online education costs as much as a face-to-face offering is if such a course/offering is ***highly*** sophisticated — that is, that it incorporates a ***significant*** amount of programing, educational gaming, deep analytics and sophisticated reporting, home-grown animations and/or simulations, etc.

Otherwise, there is no way in the world that an online course costs as much to produce and offer as a face-to-face course.  Consider two key things:

  1. Ask any Director of Physical Plant to lay out their annual budget and expenses ***just to keep their campus(es) up and running*** — let alone enhance them further — and you’ll quickly see what I mean!
  2. In many cases, the infrastructures already exist to serve the face-to-face students (i.e. systems like the CMS’s/LMS’s, Student Information Systems, etc.). So offering online courses only serves to increase the ROI for this infrastructure. (If one couldn’t use the existing systems, then I could see where there would be additional expenses; with that said, the bottom lines are still not the same.)

Many colleges and universities are using the increased demand for online courses to keep the prices up; they are not passing along the savings to the students. (BTW, for those who claim higher education isn’t a business, how do you explain this?  The argument that higher education isn’t a business holds no water at all; such viewpoints can no longer be taken seriously.)

By keeping the costs of online courses as high or higher than F2F courses, such colleges and universities are making a big mistake.  By doing so, they are only causing the existing bubble in higher education to expand even further.  It will pop.  In fact, with the increased use of incentives and lowering the tuition that’s actually being paid by the students (vs. the “list” price), one can’t help but wonder if the bubble hasn’t already popped at many colleges and universities.

We need to start passing along more of the savings to our students.  I can’t think of a good reason why everyuniversity and college in the U.S. should not offer a spectrum/variety of pricing structures.  If you want to take a face-to-face course, you will need to pay more for that course, as there are greater expenses involved in providing that type of learning environment.

Last thoughts:

  • While I think that MOOCs are half-baked, they continue to improve.
  • If MOOCs morph into something that uses technologies like IBM’s Watson, that will be a game-changer for sure.  We will still need SME’s, but the prices that can be offered will be drastically less.  See this recent posting for further thoughts on this perspective.

 

 

CenterForDigitalEducation-2013Yearbook

 

Description:

The Yearbook is a unique publication produced annually by the Center for Digital Education (CDE) that highlights some of the outstanding trends,

people and events over the past year in education technology. The first part of the Yearbook gives readers market awareness by outlining how much money schools spent on education technology, where the funding came from and what technologies have been garnering the most attention.

The second part features 40 education innovators who are using technology to inspire their students, improve learning and better the K-20 education system. We hope that this 2013 Yearbook issue provides inspiration to our readers to continue on their quests towards innovation in education.

 

From DSC:
My quote in the Center for Digital Education’s 2013 Yearbook reads:

 

“Educational technologists need to be bold, visionary and creative. They need to be in tune with the needs, missions and visions of their organizations. We have the opportunity — and responsibility — to make lasting and significant contributions within our fields and for the organizations that we work for.”

 

 

Items re: Helpouts by Google, which was just introduced on Monday, November 4th, 2013:


 

HelpoutsByGoogle-IntroducedNov-4-2013

 

 

 


From DSC:
This type of thing goes hand and hand with what I’m saying in the Learning from the Living Room vision/concept:  “More choice. More control.”   This type of thing may impact K-12, higher ed, and corporate training/L&D departments.

It this how we are going to make a living in the future?  If so, what changes do we need to make:

  • To the curricula out there?
  • To the “cores” out there?
  • In helping people build their digital/online-based footprints?
  • In helping people market themselves?

 

 

 

A new pedagogy is emerging..and online learning is a key contributing factor — from Contact North ; with thanks to Stephen Downes (@oldaily) for putting this on The MOOC Newsletter

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

What is clear is that major changes in the way we teach post-secondary students are being triggered by online learning and the new technologies that increase flexibility in, and access to, post-secondary education.

…

What drives the development of this new pedagogy? Changes in society, student expectations, and technology are motivating innovative university and college professors and instructors to re-think pedagogy and teaching methods.

…

As professors and instructors become more familiar with digital technologies for teaching and learning, pedagogical challenges and strategies are emerging. The developments listed below have had an impact on how teaching is structured and how and where learning happens.

 

 

Streaming International: How the Internet has made TV a global medium — from sparksheet.com by Maura McWalters

Excerpt:

Television used to be one of America’s biggest exports. But the internet is bringing content from Asia, India and the Middle East into U.S. homes – and new advertising opportunities along with it, reports TV columnist Maura McWalters.

 

“Learning in the Living [Class] Room” — as explained by Daniel Christian [Campus Technology]

Learning from the Living [Class] Room  — from Campus Technology by Daniel Christian and Mary Grush; with a huge thanks also going out to Mr. Steven Niedzielski (@Marketing4pt0) and to Mr. Sam Beckett (@SamJohnBeck) for their assistance and some of the graphics used in making these videos.

From DSC:
These 4 short videos explain what I’m trying to relay with a vision I’m entitling, Learning from the Living [Class] Room.  I’ve been pulse checking a variety of areas for years now, and the pieces of this vision continue to come into fruition.  This is what I see Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) morphing into (though there may be other directions/offshoots that they go in as well).

After watching these videos, I think you will see why I think we must move to a team–based approach.

(It looks like the production folks for Campus Technology had to scale things way back in terms of video quality to insure an overall better performance for the digitally-based magazine.) 


To watch these videos in a higher resolution, please use these links:


  1. What do you mean by “the living [class] room”?
  2. Why consider this now?
  3. What are some examples of apps and tech for “the living [class] room”?
  4. What skill sets will be needed to make “the living [class] room” a reality?

 

 


Alternatively, these videos can be found at:


 

DanielSChristianLearningFromTheLivingClassRoom-CampusTechnologyNovember2013

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Innovation imperative: Change everything  — from nytimes.com by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn; with a special thanks to Mr. Joel Adams at Calvin College for the resource here

Online education as an agent of transformation

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Like steam, online education is a disruptive innovation — one that introduces more convenient and affordable products or services that over time transform sectors. Yet many bricks-and-mortar colleges are making the same mistake as the once-dominant tall ships: they offer online courses but are not changing the existing model. They are not saving students time and money, the essential steps to disruption. And though their approach makes sense in the short term, it leaves them vulnerable as students gravitate toward less expensive colleges.

…

Still, the theory predicts that, be it steam or online education, existing consumers will ultimately adopt the disruption, and a host of struggling colleges and universities — the bottom 25 percent of every tier, we predict — will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years.  Already traditional universities are showing the strains of a broken business model, reflecting demand and pricing pressures previously unheard-of in higher education.

 

 

To serve them, it will enlist operators to create mini-campuses around the globe where clusters of its students will live and socialize together in residence halls, as well as take online courses and work together on projects.

 

 

 

Citrix-Mobile-Education-10-31-13

 

 

Citrix-Mobile-Education-TOC-10-31-13

 

Description:

Education is at a tipping point. From the rising cost of a college education and the financial pressures upon local districts and state agencies to fund K-12 schools and programs, to the questions of how to employ mobile technologies and leverage social platforms to support the growing trend toward mobile, collaborative learning models, educators face an almost overwhelming set of challenges. While there are no easy answers to these and other issues, Citrix believes strongly that online learning technologies can help enhance and extend the teaching and learning process and provide greater, more wide-spread access to education to students. We are committed to developing and delivering learning solutions that will meet the evolving needs of teachers and students in this changing landscape. We hope that our sponsorship of this ebook and other projects will help you, the reader, gain a better understanding of the opportunities that online learning technologies provide, increase your mastery of these solutions, and enable you to put them to productive use. We look forward to working with you as we explore new and effective ways to help teachers teach and learners learn.

CaIlin Pitcher
Product Line Director, Collaboration, Citrix

 

Comments/disclosure from DSC:
I do not work for Citrix — I have been at Calvin College since
March 2007.  I was not paid to develop/contribute this piece.

I’d like to thank David Rogelberg for his work on this project.

 

 

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian