Quality Matters > Higher Education News > December 2021

Throughout the year, we — along with members of our amazing community — share resources to help all of us deliver on our online promise. Here are some of the most popular items from 2021 for you to use and share:

 

ELC 070: Conversation Design for the Voice User Interface — from theelearningcoach.com (ELC) by Connie Malamed
A Conversation with Myra Roldan

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Do you wonder what learning experience designers will be doing in the future? I think one area where we will need to upskill is in conversation design. Think of the possibilities that chatbots and voice interfaces will provide for accessing information for learning and for support in the flow of work. In this episode, I speak with Myra Roldan about conversation design for the voice user interface (VUI). We discuss what makes an effective conversation and the technologies for getting started with voice user interface design.

 
 
 

What Will Online Learning Look Like in 10 Years? Zoom Has Some Ideas — from edsurge.com by Stephen Noonoo

Excerpt:

This week at Zoom’s annual conference, Zoomtopia, a trio of education-focused Zoom employees (er, Zoomers?) speculated wildly about what hybrid Zoom learning might look like 10 years from now, given the warp speed advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning expected. Below are highlights of their grandiose, if sometimes vague, vision for the future of learning on Zoom.

Zoom very much sees itself as one day innovating on personalized learning in a substantial way, although beyond breakout rooms and instant translation services, they have few concrete ideas in mind. Mostly, the company says it will be working to add more choices to how teachers can present materials and how students can display mastery to teachers in realtime. They’re bullish on Kahoot-like gamification features and new ways of assessing students, too.

Also see:

An Eighth Grader Was Tired of Being Late to Zoom School. So He Made an App for That. — from edsurge.com by Nadia Tamez-Robledo

“I could not find anything else that exists like this to automatically join meetings at the right times,” says Seth, a high school freshman based in Walnut Creek, Calif. “Reminders are just really easy to ignore. I’ll get a notification maybe five minutes before my meeting, and it’ll just sit there and not do anything. [LinkJoin] interrupts whatever you’re doing and says, ‘Join this meeting. In fact it’s already opening, so better get on it.’”

 

 
 

Graphic of digital audio for the article entitled An Edtech User’s Glossary to Speech Recognition and AI in the Classroom

An Edtech User’s Glossary to Speech Recognition and AI in the Classroom — from edsurge.com by Thomas C. Murray

Per Thomas Murray:

Recently, I collaborated with SoapBox Labs’ Amelia Kelly, the vice president of speech technology there, to create a glossary to help educators and edtech developers better familiarize themselves with speech recognition and make informed decisions about its use in educational settings. Below are some of the key terms that are particularly important, along with an explanation for why those terms matter.

 

 

 

When Should You Use Branching Video Scenarios for eLearning? — from learningsolutionsmag.com by Bill Brandon

Excerpt:

Among the many changes today in the way we think about learning and training is the shift from knowledge transfer to skill development. Scenario-based learning (SBL) and the inclusion of practice with feedback are often overlooked but in many cases more effective approaches to the development of skill and competence.

What’s a scenario?
A scenario is a type of story; it presents learners with a situation in a way that engages them and places them in the situation. Scenarios are a methodology for quickly creating and delivering content to an audience based on needs and feedback. Scenarios are closely related to microlearning, and in fact some microlearning employs short scenarios as the main method of delivery. Learners are able to make decisions, solve problems, apply knowledge, and practice skills. The scenario presents challenges like the ones the learners will face in real-life situations.

The story is important! In his book Scenario-based Learning: Using Stories to Engage Learners, Ray Jimenez says, “The design of scenario-based training requires the craftsmanship of a storyteller, an instructional designer, and a subject matter expert.” 

 

Video Lectures: 4 Tips for Teachers — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Creating short and engaging video lectures for students is a growing trend at education institutions

Excerpt:

To encourage a more professional type of evergreen video resource, the institution has invested in lecture capture studios, adding five new ones over the past year so each campus has at least one. Some of these studios are DIY, others require a crew, but all enable professors to record lectures in a professional recording environment, complete with green screens and high-quality lighting and audio. The recordings are then edited by the studio team who can help the professor follow the best pedagogical practices for video recordings, including keeping videos short and engaging.

Picture of a recording studio setup to record a professor at IUPUI

From DSC:
A great example of using of teams to create higher-quality, engaging, interactive learning content. 

 

Also see:

Adorama Business Solutions Equips New Classroom Studio for West Coast Baptist College Creative Arts Department — from svconline.com
Workspace Allows Department to Expand Video Production and Editing Course Offerings

Picture of a new classroom studio within a learning space

Picture of a new classroom studio within a learning space

 

Making VR a Reality in the Classroom — from er.educause.edu by Cat Flynn and Peter Frost
Faculty and staff at Southern New Hampshire University piloted virtual reality in an undergraduate psychology course to see if it can be an effective pedagogical tool.

Excerpt:

Meeting the Learning Needs of Gen Z and Beyond
While this study was conducted with current SNHU undergraduates, our team aimed to understand the implications of immersive learning for both today’s students and future learners.

Given Gen Z’s documented love for gaming and their desire for higher education to equip them with problem-solving and practical skills, VR provides a confluence of experiential learning and engagement.

From DSC:
Cost and COVID-19 are major issues here, but this is an interesting article nonetheless.

I think Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Augmented Reality (AR) will play a significant role in the future of how we learn. It may take us some time to get there, but I believe that we will.

 

GPT-3: We’re at the very beginning of a new app ecosystem — from venturebeat.com by Dattaraj Rao

From DSC: NLP=Natural Language Processing (i.e., think voice-driven interfaces/interactivity).

Excerpt:

Despite the hype, questions persist as to whether GPT-3 will be the bedrock upon which an NLP application ecosystem will rest or if newer, stronger NLP models with knock it off its throne. As enterprises begin to imagine and engineer NLP applications, here’s what they should know about GPT-3 and its potential ecosystem.

 

Learning from the Living [Class] Room: Adobe — via Behance — is already doing several pieces of this vision.

From DSC:
Talk about streams of content! Whew!

Streams of content

I received an email from Adobe that was entitled, “This week on Adobe Live: Graphic Design.”  (I subscribe to their Adobe Creative Cloud.) Inside the email, I saw and clicked on the following:

Below are some of the screenshots I took of this incredible service! Wow!

 

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

 

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

 

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

 

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

 

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

Adobe -- via Behance -- offers some serious streams of content

 


From DSC:
So Abobe — via Behance — is already doing several pieces of the “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” vision. I knew of Behance…but I didn’t realize the magnitude of what they’ve been working on and what they’re currently delivering. Very sharp indeed!

Churches are doing this as well — one device has the presenter/preacher on it (such as a larger “TV”), while a second device is used to communicate with each other in real-time.


 

 

When the Animated Bunny in the TV Show Listens for Kids’ Answers — and Answers Back — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt:

Yet when this rabbit asks the audience, say, how to make a substance in a bottle less goopy, she’s actually listening for their answers. Or rather, an artificially intelligent tool is listening. And based on what it hears from a viewer, it tailors how the rabbit replies.

“Elinor can understand the child’s response and then make a contingent response to that,” says Mark Warschauer, professor of education at the University of California at Irvine and director of its Digital Learning Lab.

AI is coming to early childhood education. Researchers like Warschauer are studying whether and how conversational agent technology—the kind that powers smart speakers such as Alexa and Siri—can enhance the learning benefits young kids receive from hearing stories read aloud and from watching videos.

From DSC:
Looking at the above excerpt…what does this mean for elearning developers, learning engineers, learning experience designers, instructional designers, trainers, and more? It seems that, for such folks, learning how to use several new tools is showing up on the horizon.

 

From DSC:
I was thinking about projecting images, animation, videos, etc. from a device onto a wall for all in the room to see.

  • Will more walls of the future be like one of those billboards (that presents two or three different images) and could change surfaces?

One side of the surface would be more traditional (i.e., a sheet wall type of surface). The other side of the surface would be designed to be excellent for projecting images onto it and/or for use by Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and/or Virtual Reality (VR).

Along these lines, here’s another item related to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI):

Mercedes-Benz debuts dashboard that’s one giant touchscreen — from futurism.com

 
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