The 12/31/20 EIEIO from Michael Moe 

The 12/31/20 EIEIO from Michael Moe 

Excerpts:

The 10 Megatrends Shaping Our World

  1. Knowledge Economy
  2. Global Silicon Valley 
  3. Digitization
  4. Smart Everything
  5. HomeWork
    The Office has become optional but the Zoom Room has become essential. 88% of companies encouraged or required employees to work from home during the pandemic. A near term problem that is rapidly being solved is that only 1 in 4 people are set up currently to work efficiently from home but 99% of employees say they like that option. Overall, due to reducing commutes, office distractions etc., productivity on average rose for most knowledge workers up to 20% greater.It is expected that many knowledge workers will continue to work from home even post the pandemic.
  6. Winner Take All
  7. Data King
  8. Sustainability
  9. Everything is a Subscription
  10. Mission Corp

 

 

EdSurge Reflects On a Year of Pandemic-Era Education Journalism — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey Young, Rebecca Koenig and Tony Wan

Excerpts:

[Wan] It has never been a better time to be in education. It has also never been a worse time to be in education.

Which is it for you?

The answer depends on where you are in this ecosystem.

[Koenig] If I didn’t know before, I do now: Education is not merely the transmission of knowledge. It is experiences shared and relationships nurtured among people who have not only brains, but also bodies and spirits. Lungs vulnerable to viruses and eyes to screen fatigue. Hearts susceptible to fear and grief and doubt and loneliness.

[Young] There will probably be lessons from all the forced experimentation. But during 2020, there was little time for reflection, only a push to turn in something that looked as much like a college experience as possible.

 

5 Educational Concepts to Eliminate in 2021 — from principalsdesk.org by David Franklin

Excerpts:

Here are 5 educational concepts we need to eliminate in 2021. 

  1. Not Valuing 1-to-1 Devices for All Students
  2. Brick and Mortar Districts Not Offering a Virtual Learning Option
  3. Not Having Technology Use a Part of Teacher Evaluations
  4. Teachers Using Old, Outdated Technology
  5. Measuring Instructional Rigor By Seat Time
 

Interleaving: How Mixed Practice Can Boost Learning— from effectiviology.com

Excerpt:

Interleaving is a learning technique that involves mixing together different topics or forms of practice, in order to facilitate learning. For example, if a student uses interleaving while preparing for an exam, they can mix up different types of questions, rather than study only one type of question at a time.

Interleaving, which is sometimes referred to as mixed practice or varied practice, is contrasted with blocked practice (sometimes referred to as specific practice), which involves focusing on only a single topic or form of practice at a time.

Also see:

 Also see:

Excerpts:

Interleaving boosts learning by mixing up closely related topics, encouraging discrimination between similarities and differences. (Agarwal & Bain, p. 14)

It’s “re-arranging the order of retrieval opportunities during spacing without changing the content to be learned.”  It’s mixing up concepts. (Agarwal & Bain, pgs. 106-107).

Consider this basic example of practice problems in any math course:

Problem Set 1: AAAA BBBB CCCC DDDD [i.e., blocked practice]
Problem Set 2: ABCD BCAD DBAC CBDA [i.e., interleaved practice]

Both have the same practice problems, but they’ve been re-arranged. If letters represented addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the students need to be able to choose and retrieve the appropriate strategy — vs. plug-and-chug without thinking about which strategy to use.

Also see:
retrievalpractice.org/interleaving

 

 

The Year TV Leaped Into The Future [Roettgers]

The Year TV Leaped Into The Future [Roettgers]

The Year TV Leaped Into The Future — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers

The lockdowns this year have transformed our homes into offices, schools, concert halls, movie theaters and gyms. Our homes are working harder for us, but so is our technology. The device that is working the hardest is perhaps the TV—becoming our lifeline to a far more virtual world.

Addendums:

The Second Year of The MOOC: 2020 Saw a Rush to Large-Scale Online Courses

The Second Year of The MOOC: 2020 Saw a Rush to Large-Scale Online Courses — from edsurge.com by Dhawal Shah

Excerpt:

This was the year that more people learned what a MOOC is.

As millions suddenly found themselves with free time on their hands during the pandemic, many turned to online courses—especially, to free courses known as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. This phenomenon was compounded by media worldwide compiling lists of “free things to do during lockdown,” which tended to include MOOCs.

Within two months, Class Central had received over 10 million visits and sent over six million clicks to MOOC providers. These learners also turned out to be more engaged than usual. In April 2020, MOOC providers Coursera, edX and FutureLearn attracted as many new users in a single month as they did in the entirety of 2019.

.

From DSC:
The pieces continue to come together…

Learning from the living class room

...team-based content creation and delivery will dominate in the future (at least for the masses). It will offer engaging, personalized learning and the AI-based systems will be constantly scanning for the required/sought-after skills and competencies. The systems will then present a listing of items that will help people obtain those skills and competencies.

#AI #LearningProfiles #Cloud #LearningFromTheLivingClassRoom #LearningEcosystems #LearningSpaces #21stCentury #24x7x365 #Reinvent #Surviving #StayingRelevant #LifeLongLearning and many more tags/categories are applicable here.

 

The most fundamental skill: Intentional learning and the career advantage — from mckinsey.com by Lisa Christensen, Jake Gittleson, and Matt Smith
Learning itself is a skill. Unlocking the mindsets and skills to develop it can boost personal and professional lives and deliver a competitive edge.

Excerpt:

This article, supported by research and our decades of experience working as talent and learning professionals, explores the core mindsets and skills of effective learners. People who master these mindsets and skills become what we call intentional learners: possessors of what we believe might be the most fundamental skill for professionals to cultivate in the coming decades. In the process they will unlock tremendous value both for themselves and for those they manage in the organizations where they work.

Our ability to reflect is threatened on many fronts. Being overscheduled, overworked, and overloaded affects our ability to pause and assess our circumstances and performance. But the noisier the world around us, the greater the need for dedicated reflection time. Intentional learners not only engage in reflection but also, in many cases, ritualize it. They create consistent and predictable patterns, both for when they will reflect and what they will think about. They establish strategies for capturing these thoughts and referring back to them often. By relying on ritual, learners reduce the number of decisions associated with reflection (for example, when, what, and how), so it becomes easier to return to the practice repeatedly.

From DSC:
That last quote (re: taking the time to reflect and to think about one’s thinking) brought the power of learning journals to my mind.

 
 

Resources For Teachers and Instructional Coaches – December 2020 — from blog.edthena.com

Excerpt:

Here are a few articles for educators about professional development. This month’s recommendations include creating virtual literature circles, making remote learning work, and strategies learned on how to combat the Covid learning loss.

 

The Future of Hybrid Learning — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
HyFlex pioneer Dr. Brian Beatty discusses what’s working and what’s not in hybrid learning, and what’s to come

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

When designing his own classes these days, Beatty tends to think about the asynchronous vs. synchronous experience rather than online vs. in-person. 

Beatty says instructors should attempt to create a reasonably good asynchronous version of a course but don’t need to build the perfect version. Instructors then need to block out time to respond to forum posts and other online components of the class the same way online students need to schedule time to work. He advises a mindset of, “I’m learning how to teach differently, and I’m reserving this time for that. So maybe I’m not going to be part of that committee.”

From DSC:
The teaching toolboxes throughout the continuum (PreK-12, higher ed, vocational programs, other alternatives to higher ed, corporate training & development) have been enhanced and expanded greatly during 2020. The ramifications of these larger toolboxes will benefit many for years to come. They should allows us to pivot and adapt much more quickly — while providing a greater array of teaching techniques/tools to choose from.

Enhancing our teaching toolboxes

 

 

Gift giving ideas from Ian Byrd

Excerpt:

Here are a few gift-giving articles I like to share every December:

 
 

Raising Lifelong Learners #98: Enjoying literature with Kendra Fletcher — from raisinglifelonglearners.com by Colleen Kessler

Excerpt:

Nearly every level of learning involves literature in some form, but the study of literature is really more than simply reciting plot lines or following themes. In this podcast, Colleen speaks with Kendra Fletcher, long-time homeschooler and teacher of all things literature, on how enjoying the study of literature helps our kids to see it’s importance for themselves and for humanity.

 

Report: There’s More to Come for AI in Ed — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpts:

The group came up with dozens of “opportunities” for AI in education, from extending what teachers can do to better understanding human learning:

  • Using virtual instructors to free up “personalization time” for classroom teachers;
  • Offloading the “cognitive load” of teaching;
  • Providing “job aids” for teachers;
  • Identifying the links between courses, credentials, degrees and skills;
  • “Revolutionizing” testing and assessment;
  • Creating new kinds of “systems of support”;
  • Helping with development of “teaching expertise”; and
  • Better understanding human learning through “modeling and building interfaces” in AI.

But contributors also offered just as many barriers to success:

  • Differences in the way teachers teach would require “different job aids”;
  • Teachers would fear losing their jobs;
  • Data privacy concerns;
  • Bias worries;
  • Dealing with unrealistic expectations and fears about AI pushed in “popular culture”;
  • Lack of diversity in gender, ethnicity and culture in AI projects; and
  • Smart use of data would require more teacher training.
 

24 Big Ideas that will change our world in 2021 — from linkedin.com by Scott Olster

Excerpt:

The remote classroom will get a much-needed upgrade

One key idea: making it easy for students to “sit” together at tables of two to eight learners, while an instructor’s lesson unfolds. Students can confer with table-mates without being heard by the larger group. Meanwhile, the instructor can explain things to all the tables at once, while still being able to visit specific tables to make sure everything is on track. Avida says educators prefer this model to the rigid constraints of other vendors’ breakout rooms, which were built to suit corporate needs.

Meanwhile, leading business-video players such as Zoom, Cisco’s WebEx, and Microsoft Teams are likely to move quickly to address the needs of the education market in 2021, too. (Microsoft also owns LinkedIn.) But Avida says Engageli has been filing lots of patents to protect its ideas, adding that its single-minded focus on education may help it move faster than other rivals for whom education is only a niche market. — George Anders

 

Google Launches Code Next Connect — from thejournal.com by David Nagel

Excerpt:

Google’s free computer science education program, Code Next, is adding a virtual component and expanding into more states. The launch of the virtual component of the program, called Code Next Connect, was announced as part of Google’s Computer Science Education Week activities yesterday.

The Code Next program is aimed at black and Latinx high school students (primarily grades 10 and 11, but open to all high school students), providing training and experience in coding and leadership and offering mentoring and other experiences for participants.

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian