experimentation

“Amazon is winning the race to the future” plus 9 other items re: AI, personal assistants, chatbots, & more

On 10/10/2016, in Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, emerging technologies, experimentation, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, interactivity, internet, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), tools, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Amazon is winning the race to the future — from bizjournals.com by

Excerpt:

This is the week when artificially intelligent assistants start getting serious.

On Tuesday, Google is expected to announce the final details for Home, its connected speaker with the new Google Assistant built inside.

But first Amazon, which surprised everyone last year by practically inventing the AI-in-a-can platform, will release a new version of the Echo Dot, a cheaper and smaller model of the full-sized Echo that promises to put the company’s Alexa assistant in every room in your house.

The Echo Dot has all the capabilities of the original Echo, but at a much cheaper price, and with a compact form factor that’s designed to be tucked away. Because of its size (it looks like a hockey puck from the future), its sound quality isn’t as good as the Echo, but it can hook up to an external speaker through a standard audio cable or Bluetooth.

100 bot people to watch #BotWatch #1 — from chatbotsmagazine.com

Excerpt:

100 people to watch in the bot space, in no order.

I’ll publish a new list once a month. This one is #1 October 2016.
…
This is my personal top 100 for people to watch in the bot space.

Should We Give Chatbots Their Own Personalities? — from re-work.com by Sophie Curtis

Excerpt:

Today, we have machines that assemble cars, make candy bars, defuse bombs, and a myriad of other things. They can dispense our drinks, facilitate our bank deposits, and find the movies we want to watch with a touch of the screen.

Automation allows all kinds of amazing things, but it is all done with virtually no personality. Building a chatbot with the ability to be conversational with emotion is crucial to getting people to gain trust in the technology. And now there are plenty of tools and resources available to rapidly create and launch chatbots with the personality customers want and businesses needs.

Jordi Torras is CEO and Founder of Inbenta, a company that specializes in NLP, semantic search and chatbots to improve customer experience. We spoke to him ahead of his presentation at the Virtual Assistant Summit in San Francisco, to learn about the recent explosion of chatbots and virtual assistants, and what we can expect to see in the future.

How I built and launched my first chatbot in hours — from chatbotsmagazine.com by Max Pelzner
From idea to MVB (Minimum Viable Bot), and launched in 24 hours!

Developing a Chatbot? Do Not Make These Mistakes! — from chatbotsmagazine.com Hira Saeed

This is what an A.I.-powered future looks like — from venturebeat.com by Grayson Brulte

Excerpt:

Today, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible with artificial intelligence (A.I.) and how individuals will interact with its various forms. Every single aspect of our society — from cars to houses to products to services — will be reimagined and redesigned to incorporate A.I.

A child born in the year 2030 will not comprehend why his or her parents once had to manually turn on the lights in the living room. In the future, the smart home will seamlessly know the needs, wants, and habits of the individuals who live in the home prior to them taking an action.

Before we arrive at this future, it is helpful to take a step back and reimagine how we design cars, houses, products, and services. We are just beginning to see glimpses of this future with the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart voice assistants.

Artificial intelligence created to fold laundry for you — from geek.com by Matthew Humphries

Excerpt:

So, Seven Dreamers Laboratories, in collaboration with Panasonic and Daiwa House Industry, have created just such a machine. However, folding laundry correctly turns out to be quite a complicated task, and so an artificial intelligence was required to make it a reliable process.

Laundry folding is actually a five stage process, including:

Grabbing
Spreading
Recognizing
Folding
Sorting/Storing

The grabbing and spreading seems pretty easy, but then the machine needs to understand what type of clothing it needs to fold. That recognizing stage requires both image recognition and AI. The image recognition classifies the type of clothing, then the AI figures out which processes to use in order to start folding.

2 days of global chatbot experts at Talkabot in 12 minutes — from chatbotsmagazine.com by Alec Lazarescu

Excerpt:

During a delightful “cold spell” in Austin at the end of September, a few hundred chatbot enthusiasts joined together for the first talkabot.ai conference.

As a participant both writing about and building chatbots, I’m excited to share a mix of valuable actionable insights and strategic vision directions picked up from speakers and attendees as well as behind the scenes discussions with the organizers from Howdy.

In a very congenial and collaborative atmosphere, a number of valuable recurring themes stood out from a variety of expert speakers ranging from chatbot builders to tool makers to luminaries from adjacent industries.

Addendum:

The Alexa Prize (emphasis DSC)

The way humans interact with machines is at an inflection point and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) is at the center of the transformation. Alexa, the voice service that powers Amazon Echo, enables customers to interact with the world around them in a more intuitive way using only their voice.

The Alexa Prize is an annual competition for university students dedicated to accelerating the field of conversational AI. The inaugural competition is focused on creating a socialbot, a new Alexa skill that converses coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics and news events. Participating teams will advance several areas of conversational AI including knowledge acquisition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, context modeling, commonsense reasoning and dialog planning. Through the innovative work of students, Alexa customers will have novel, engaging conversations. And, the immediate feedback from Alexa customers will help students improve their algorithms much faster than previously possible.
…
Amazon will award the winning team $500,000. Additionally, a prize of $1 million will be awarded to the winning team’s university if their socialbot achieves the grand challenge of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.

A “heads up!” on the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference! I’ll be moderating a panel on AR, VR, & MR.

On 09/29/2016, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, Blockchain, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communications, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, machine-to-machine communications, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, Near Field Communication (NFC), pace of change, pedagogy, platforms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, wearables, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I have attended the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference for the past two years. Both conferences were very solid and they made a significant impact on our campus, as they provided the knowledge, research, data, ideas, contacts, and the catalyst for us to move forward with building a Sandbox Classroom on campus. This new, collaborative space allows us to experiment with different pedagogies as well as technologies. As such, we’ve been able to experiment much more with active learning-based methods of teaching and learning. We’re still in Phase I of this new space, and we’re learning new things all of the time.

For the upcoming conference in February, I will be moderating a New Directions in Learning panel on the use of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Time permitting, I hope that we can also address other promising, emerging technologies that are heading our way such as chatbots, personal assistants, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, tvOS, blockchain and more.

The goal of this quickly-moving, engaging session will be to provide a smorgasbord of ideas to generate creative, innovative, and big thinking. We need to think about how these topics, trends, and technologies relate to what our next generation learning environments might look like in the near future — and put these things on our radars if they aren’t already there.

Key takeaways for the panel discussion:

Reflections regarding the affordances that new developments in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) — such as AR, VR, and MR — might offer for our learning and our learning spaces (or is our concept of what constitutes a learning space about to significantly expand?)
An update on the state of the approaching ed tech landscape
Creative, new thinking: What might our next generation learning environments look like in 5-10 years?

I’m looking forward to catching up with friends, meeting new people, and to the solid learning that I know will happen at this conference. I encourage you to check out the conference and register soon to take advantage of the early bird discounts.

The Few, The Proud, the Unusual — by Jack Uldrich

Excerpt:

An army of ants is an awe-inspiring and efficient force of nature. While each ant is individually small, collectively they accomplish amazing things—provided they have a sufficient source of food. The same is true of today’s modern corporation—if it has a profitable source of revenue. Alas, when the food or the money dries up, both the army and the corporation are endangered.

To protect themselves, ants rely on a unique sub-group of “pioneer ants.” Their sole job is to move out away from the main army in search of the next source of food. In this way, the pioneers act as a hedge against the possibility of being caught without a future source of food.

Every organization should also have at least a few “pioneers ants” whose single job is to identify future opportunities. To ensure these individuals have the best chance of success, I have outlined a series of unusual characteristics that I believe will bolster their odds of success–and, thus, your success…

Every organization should also have at least a few “pioneers ants” whose single job is to identify future opportunities.

If you doubt that we are on an exponential pace of change, you need to check these articles out! [Christian]

On 09/22/2016, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, disruption, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, ethics, Europe, experimentation, faith, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, health, hearts -- matters of the heart, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, internet, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, psychology, reinvent, relationships, religion, research, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The articles listed in this PDF document demonstrate the exponential pace of technological change that many nations across the globe are currently experiencing and will likely be experiencing for the foreseeable future. As we are no longer on a linear trajectory, we need to consider what this new trajectory means for how we:

Educate and prepare our youth in K-12
Educate and prepare our young men and women studying within higher education
Restructure/re-envision our corporate training/L&D departments
Equip our freelancers and others to find work
Help people in the workforce remain relevant/marketable/properly skilled
Encourage and better enable lifelong learning
Attempt to keep up w/ this pace of change — legally, ethically, morally, and psychologically

PDF file here

One thought that comes to mind…when we’re moving this fast, we need to be looking upwards and outwards into the horizons — constantly pulse-checking the landscapes. We can’t be looking down or be so buried in our current positions/tasks that we aren’t noticing the changes that are happening around us.

THIS is what interactive video can look like! Excellent [team] work from Heineken!

On 09/16/2016, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, blended learning, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, drama/theater, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, interaction design, interactivity, online learning, pedagogy, play, story, storytelling, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Interactive video — a potentially very powerful medium to use, especially for blended and online-based courses or training-related materials! This interactive piece from Heineken is very well done, even remembering how you answered and coming up with their evaluation of you from their 12-question “interview.”

But notice again, a TEAM of specialists are needed to create such a piece. Neither a faculty member, a trainer, nor an instructional designer can do something like this all on their own. Some of the positions I could imagine here are:

Script writer(s)
Editor(s)
Actors and actresses
Those skilled in stage lighting and sound / audio recording
Digital video editors
Programmers
Graphic designers
Web designers
Producers
Product marketers
…and perhaps others

This is the kind of work that I wish we saw more of in the world of online and blended courses! Also, I appreciated their use of humor. Overall, a very engaging, fun, and informative piece!

U.S. Dept of Education Launches Initiative for Low-Income Students to Access New Generation Of Higher Education Providers

On 08/17/2016, in colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, experimentation, funding / grants, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, online learning, programming, student-related, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

FACT SHEET: ED Launches Initiative for Low-Income Students to Access New Generation Of Higher Education Providers — from ed.gov

Excerpt:

[On 8/16/16], the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is inviting eight selected partnerships between institutions of higher education and non-traditional providers to participate in the EQUIP (Educational Quality through Innovation Partnerships) experiment.

These partnerships will allow students—particularly low-income students—to access federal student aid for the first time to enroll in programs offered by non-traditional training providers, in partnership with colleges and universities, including coding bootcamps, online courses, and employer organizations. The goals of the experiment are to: (1) test new ways of allowing Americans from all backgrounds to access innovative learning and training opportunities that lead to good jobs, but that fall outside the current financial aid system; and (2) strengthen approaches for outcomes-based quality assurance processes that focus on student learning and other outcomes. The experiment aims to promote and measure college access, affordability, and student outcomes.

Obama Administration to Fund Nontraditional Training for Students — from wsj.com
Education Department will give up to $17 million in loans and grants for training at eight entities that aren’t traditional colleges

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration will inject millions of dollars into a group of nontraditional education providers to address a vexing problem: Many Americans are leaving college with debt but without skills the economy needs.

The administration is turning to the private sector for help. In a novel experiment, the Education Department announced Tuesday up to $17 million in loans and grants for students to undergo training at eight entities that aren’t traditional colleges. Most are for-profit companies. They include coding academies such as New York startup Flatiron School and Portland, Ore.-based Epicodus, as well as websites such as Study.com and StraighterLine that provide online courses at reduced costs.

The one that stands out from the group is corporate giant General Electric Co., which won’t receive funds directly but will provide training at one of its jet-engine plants under the program.

The program, called Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships, or Equip, is designed to enable low-income Americans to learn skills in areas where colleges often fall short, such as learning how to write computer code, or using new software to operate high-tech manufacturing equipment to make jet engines.

Can’t Afford Coding Camp? The Feds May Have a Loan for You — from wired.com by Issie Lapowsky

Excerpt:

A new Department of Education program focused on skills training aims to address that second part. Announced last year, the so-called Educational Quality through Innovation Partnerships program will offer federal student aid to students enrolled at non-traditional institutions like coding bootcamps and skills-training programs.

[On 8/16/16], the Department of Education revealed the eight organizations and educational institutions with programs that will be covered as part of the EQUIP pilot program. For now, the programs are located on both coasts and in Texas. They include bootcamps like The Flatiron School, as well as newly launched training programs from companies like General Electric. The Department of Education chose the programs from dozens of applications, and each organization will partner with an established, accredited college or university. Meanwhile, third-party quality assurance partners have signed up to monitor students’ results.

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education [Christian]

On 07/25/2016, in 21st century, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, expectations, experimentation, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, new business models, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education — from evolllution.com by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

So to apply this concept to the world of higher education: what higher education institutions need to develop these days are those smaller, nimbler groups that can innovate and experiment with a variety of things. Those smaller groups can then hand over to the larger organization—or to a brand new branch of the existing organization—what is successful and is showing promise. Then the smaller, nimbler group can move onto something else.
…
By forming Trim Tab Groups throughout higher education, we gain the capacity to experiment with relatively small projects that will ultimately have much larger impacts on the institutions and the learners that those institutions serve.

trim-tab

As such, many segments of higher education must adapt and change—or risk servicing far fewer learners over the next two to three decades, as they watch their customers head elsewhere. And then it’s a costly game of musical chairs for faculty and staff, as the larger organizations downsize.

— Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I would like to highlight a few items from this month’s Campus Technology magazine:

2016 Campus Technology Innovators Awards
We honor 11 institutions using technology in innovative ways to improve teaching, learning, administration and operations in higher education.

Editorial: CT Innovators Honorable Mentions
Gleaned from this year’s Campus Technology Innovators award nominations, these 8 projects are making strides in virtual reality, synchronous online learning, digital literacy and more.

How blockchain will disrupt the higher education transcript
Blockchain technology could offer a more learner-centered alternative to traditional credentialing.

“UX to LX: The Rise of Learner Experience Design” [Kilgore] — plus — “Ten skills you need to be a UX unicorn” [Ward]

On 06/21/2016, in 21st century, attention, career development, colleges, community colleges, digital learning, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, higher education, instructional design, learning, learning preferences, online learning, user experience (UX), using teams, by Daniel Christian

UX to LX: The Rise of Learner Experience Design — from edsurge.com by Whitney Kilgore

Excerpt:

Instructional design is now approaching a similar transition. Most student consumers have yet to experience great learning design, but the commoditization of online learning is forcing colleges and universities to think differently about how they construct digital courses. Courseware is enabling the development of new modalities and pedagogical shifts. An abundance of data now enables instructional designers to decode learning patterns. As a result, we are witnessing the growth of a new field: Learner Experience Design.

Parse higher-education job postings and descriptions, and it’s evident that LX design is, as a discipline, among the fastest growing fields in education. But what exactly makes for great learning design, and how can instructional designers ensure they remain competitive in this new era of student-centric education?
…
The transition to digital content has made entirely new layers of student data available. Learners now leave a digital footprint that allows designers to understand how students are interacting with course materials and for how long. LX designers can develop course pathways that connect student challenges to specific sections of content. For the first time, faculty have insights into time on task—before, during and after class. Ready access to student behavior data is helping institutions develop powerful predictive analytics, and LX designers are leading the field to make more and better informed choices on content delivery to help students better understand the critical concepts.

The groundswell of data and learning technology shows no sign of slowing down, and a LX designer’s job will grow more complex alongside it. Learner experience designers must rise to the challenge, so universities can deliver online courses that captivate and resonate with each unique student.

Ten skills you need to be a UX unicorn — from medium.com by Conor Ward

Excerpt:

So if the discipline of UX is not about improving how things LOOK, but instead how they WORK, then of course UX Design includes a multitude of varied deep specialisms and expertise. How could it not?

Well, thats where the mythical part of this discussion comes in, many UX designers out there still believe very strongly (and for good reason) that this multi skilled ‘specialist-generalist’ cannot exist.

They could well be correct in their current circumstances. For example if their company does not work like this, then how could they? Especially if their company is an agency, and their access to users is limited or non-existent.

My own experience is that we must strive towards unicorn-ism. I have created and curated a fantastic team of UX Unicorns (yes a group of unicorns is called a blessing, Google says so) and more importantly together with my colleagues and bosses we have created the environment for them to survive and thrive.

From DSC:
The above two articles get at a piece of what I was trying to relay out at The EvoLLLution.com. And that is, the growing complexities of putting digitally-based materials online — with a high degree of engagement, professionalism, and quality — require the use of specialists. One person simply can’t do it all anymore. In fact, User Experience Designers and Learner Experience Designers are but a couple of the potential players at the table.

5 essential skills you need to keep your job in the next 10 years — from fastcompany.com by Gwen Moran
Automation may affect half of jobs. Here are five areas to develop to keep yourself employed.

Excerpts/quotes (emphasis DSC):

Trendspotting
Collaborating in new ways
Building brands—even as employees
Learning next-level technology
Developing your emotional intelligence

Trendspotting
With the workplace changing so quickly, it’s essential to develop systems to not only monitor those changes, but to distill the information and training you’ll need to keep up with them. That means staying abreast of industry developments, taking classes, attending trade events, and following thought leaders who are talking about your sector. It also means being observant about the day-to-day tasks and functions that matter and how they’re changing, separating anomalies from trends.
Looking for the next changes and remaining ahead of the curve in learning about them will be essential to remaining among the most marketable employees.
In addition, following trends and thought leadership in your own sector and ensuring that your skills are staying up to date will also play a role.
…remaining employable will require embracing rather than eschewing tech changes
Pay attention to what’s happening in the most advanced workplaces in your field and prepare. That way, you’ll be ahead of the game when the changes come to you.

From DSC:
It is great to see an article that encourages trendspotting, being aware of what’s happening in the world around us, and looking upwards/into the horizons as key skills! Given the pace of change, this is becoming critical for people to do — otherwise, we risk being blindsided by changes — by incoming “waves” of change — that we didn’t see coming. We don’t want to be tapped on the shoulder, personally escorted to that conference room with all of the windows having cardboard on them, and then be let go…to our utter shock and dismay.

Laid Off Get Back On Track

Image from:
ttp://www.careerealism.com/laid-off-get-back-immediately/

This also means that we should be teaching more about trendspotting and futurism in K-20.

Further questions/thoughts:

Will our students be able to pivot? To reinvent themselves? To practice lifelong learning?
.
Will our students have the ability to peer into the horizons and be able to ascertain potential scenarios and directions that could impact them? Will they have the problem solving skills to plan for potential plans of action to address these scenarios?
.
Does each of us have an effective learning ecosystem that is robust enough — and up-to-date — that will help us adapt, learn, and grow?

CNBC’s Top 50 Disruptors for 2016

On 06/14/2016, in Augmented Reality (AR), business, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, entrepreneurship, experimentation, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, new business models, pace of change, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Meet the 2016 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies — from cnbc.com
CNBC reveals the 2016 Disruptor 50 list, identifying start-ups out ahead of big consumer and business shifts, and already worth billions.

Excerpt:

In the fourth annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC features private companies in 15 industries — from aerospace to financial services to cybersecurity to retail — whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking starts-ups have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses, and they rushed to fill them. Some have already passed the billion-dollar mark at a speed that is unprecedented. In the process, they are creating new ecosystems for their products and services. Unseating corporate giants is no easy feat. But we ranked those venture capital–backed companies doing the best job. In aggregate, these 50 companies have raised $41 billion in venture capital at an implied Disruptor 50 list market valuation of $242 billion, according to PitchBook data. Already it’s hard to think of the world without them. Read more about the consumer and business trends that stand out in the 2016 list ranking and the methodology used to select this year’s Disruptor companies.

Teaching while learning: What I learned when I asked my students to make video essays — from chronicle.com by Janine Utell, Professor of English at Widener University

Excerpt:

This is not exactly a post about how to teach the video essay (or the audiovisual essay, or the essay video, or the scholarly video). At the end I share some resources for those interested in teaching the form: the different ways we might define the form, some of the theoretical/conceptual ideas undergirding the form, how it allows us to make different kinds of arguments, and some elements of design, assignment and otherwise.

What I’m interested in here is reflecting on what this particular teaching moment has taught me. It’s a moment still in progress/process. These reflections might pertain to any teaching moment where you’re trying something new, where you’re learning as the students are learning, where everyone in the room is slightly uncomfortable (in a good, stretching kind of way), where failure is possible but totally okay, and where you’re able to bring in a new interest of your own and share it with the students.

…

Take two: I tried this again in an upper-level narrative film course, and the suggestions made by students in the previous semester paid off. With the additional guidance, students felt comfortable enough being challenged with the task of making the video; a number of them shared that they liked having the opportunity to learn a new skill, and that it was stimulating to have to think about new ways of making choices around what they wanted to say. Every step of realizing their storyboard and outline required some problem-solving, and they were able to articulate the work of critical thinking in surprising ways (I think they themselves were a little surprised, too).

…

Some resources on the video essay/scholarly video:

“How to Make Video Essays: Resources for Teachers and Students,” by Catherine Grant, The Audiovisual Essay
“Teaching the Scholarly Video,” by Christian Keathley, Frames Cinema Journal
“On the Origin of the Video Essay,” by John Bresland, Blackbird: An Online Journal of Literature and Arts
“Resources: [in]Transition,” A MediaCommons/Cinema Journal Project

From DSC:

A couple of comments that I wanted to make here include:

I greatly appreciate Janine’s humility, her wonderful spirit of experimentation, and her willingness to learn something right along with her students. She expressed to her students that she had never done this before and that they all were learning together. She asked them for feedback along the way and incorporated that feedback in subsequent attempts at using this exercise. Students and faculty members need to realize/acknowledge/accept that few people know it all these days — experts are a dying breed in many fields, as the pace of change renders it thus.
.
Helping students along with their new media literacy skills is critical these days. Janine did a great job in this regard! Unfortunately, she is in an enormous minority. I run a Digital Studio on our campus, and so often I enter the room with dismay…a bit of sorrow creeps back into me again, as too many times our students are not learning some of the skills that will serve them so well once they graduate (not to mention how much they would benefit from being able to craft multimedia-based messages and put such messages online in their studies while in college). Such skills will serve students well in whatever future vocation they go into. Knowing some of the tools of the trade, working with digital audio and video, storyboarding, working with graphics, typography, and more — are excellent skills and knowledge to have in order to powerfully communicate one’s message.

Sesame Workshop, IBM launch early-childhood education initiative — from yahoo.com by Todd Spangler

Excerpt:

Cookie Monster, Elmo and friends are about to hit a new digital learning curve.

Sesame Workshop, the not-for-profit org that produces “Sesame Street,” and tech giant IBM have entered into a partnership to develop new personalized educational products and platforms for preschool-age kids — with the goal of transforming the ways children learn and teachers teach.

Under the three-year agreement, Sesame Workshop and Big Blue will design interactive educational experiences for use in homes and schools that adapt to the learning preferences and aptitude levels of individual preschoolers.

For now, the organizations are treating the project as an R&D investment. IBM and Sesame Street will deploy engineers, educators and researchers to work side-by-side in classrooms and in their own labs and learning facilities. Later this year, they plan to test and share prototypes with leading teachers, academics, researchers, technologists, gamers, performers and media execs to solicit feedback and brainstorm ways in which cognitive computing can best help preschoolers learn.

From DSC:
This will be an important experiment to watch. If it shows promise, it could help parents, pre-school teachers, and the pre-schoolers themselves. Then, the trajectory could make its way to helping early elementary students, to middle school students, to high school students and beyond.

If successful, this is exactly the sort of thing that I could see as one of the key ingredients in the Learning from the [Class] Room vision. Teachers, parents, coaches, etc. will still be critical. But these type of tools and technologies could be running in the background within a blended learning environment — one that can operate at a distance if need be.

I’m convinced this virtual reality short is the future of animation [Acuna]

On 04/21/2016, in animation, creativity, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), immersion, innovation, media/film, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

I’m convinced this virtual reality short is the future of animation — from techinsider.io by Kirsten Acuna

Excerpt:

If there’s one takeaway I’ve gathered from the Tribeca Film Festival, it’s that people are doing some incredible things with VR.

The New York City festival has 18 virtual experiences on display for attendees to check out this year in a Virtual Arcade, and one I kept hearing a lot of chatter about was “Allumette,” a nearly 20-minute animated short from startup Penrose Studios. I heard several people declare it the best VR short of the festival by far.

I agree. It’s excellent.

I checked out “Allumette” (French for Matchstick), which first debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Wednesday evening and was blown away by the experience.

It’s that level of immersion — where you feel like a participant in the actual story — that makes me excited to see what else filmmakers and artists will continue to do in this medium.

Will more institutions of higher education join something like the new “University Learning Store?”

On 04/05/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business, career development, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, distance education, elearning, experimentation, future of higher education, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, microlearning, new business models, online learning, platforms, professional development, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:

Will more institutions of higher education be joining/contributing courses to this type of University Learning Store? I’ve often wondered about the place of consortia in higher ed…perhaps this will be one of the ways that institutions pool their resources. (i.e., creating and contributing content, tapping into content that’s been aggregated)
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How will corporate training / L&D groups view his sort of development? Will it be helpful to them?
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Will the University Learning Store, like Lynda.com, continually expand the list of topics that they are offering/addressing?
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Will these types of efforts morph into what I’ve been calling Learning from the Living [Class] Room? (i.e., learning on demand across a lifetime; employing web-based learner profiles, cognitive computing, social networking/learning while offering the ability to instantly form or join communities of practice) Another way of asking this question is this: “As technology-enabled collaborations increase what’s possible, what’s to keep courses from being ported to tvOS-based apps for on demand learning?”

For example, fast forward a few years from the technologies found in “The Video Call Center” and one could imagine some powerful means of collaborating from one’s living room:

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

Also see:

Micro-credentials offer universities an opportunity to bridge skill gaps — from centerdigitaled.com by Tanya Roscorla
By working with employers, universities can help students of all ages learn skills that industry leaders need.

Excerpt:

Higher education leaders are pondering how to make bite-sized, low-cost learning opportunities available to students in different ways.

Working adults who change jobs and careers frequently often don’t need to go through an entire degree program to learn different skills. However, they do need a flexible way to earn credentials that are recognized by employers and that demonstrate their ability to apply the skills they learn, said David Schejbal, dean of continuing education, outreach and e-learning at University of Wisconsin-Extension. University micro-credentials can help fill that role.

Six universities have been working with employers to find out what skills they need their employees to have, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California Davis Extension, University of California Irvine Extension, University of Wisconsin-Extension, University of Washington and University of California, Los Angeles.

As a result of collaborating with industry, these universities created short courses and certification programs for the University Learning Store that launched last week. These courses fall into three categories: power skills, technical skills and career advancement skills. Power skills used to be called “soft skills” and include communication, collaboration and critical thinking.

Learning Ecosystems

Uldrich: Every organization should have at least a few “pioneers ants” whose single job is to identify future opportunities.

THIS is what interactive video can look like! Excellent [team] work from Heineken!

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education [Christian]

Highlighting a few items from this month’s Campus Technology Magazine

“UX to LX: The Rise of Learner Experience Design” [Kilgore] — plus — “Ten skills you need to be a UX unicorn” [Ward]

CNBC’s Top 50 Disruptors for 2016

Reflections on “Teaching while learning: What I learned when I asked my students to make video essays” [Utell]

I’m convinced this virtual reality short is the future of animation [Acuna]

Will more institutions of higher education join something like the new “University Learning Store?”

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