5 Ideas to Soothe IT Staff Burnout — from campustechnology.com by David Raths
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the mental health of students, faculty and staff alike. But IT in particular has borne the brunt of keeping institutions’ technology infrastructure afloat through relentless change, often in the face of budget cuts and staffing shortages. Here are ways to help mitigate stress and better support IT teams during this challenging time.

Excerpt:

Faced with an increasingly stressed-out IT workforce, CIOs are trying to find innovative ways to boost morale, maintain work/life balance and enhance communication among teams. We spoke to three IT leaders who offered the following five suggestions, based on their own experiences over the past year and a half.

 

Dreamscape Learn Pod Unveiled at ASU+GSV Summit — from gettingsmart.com by Rachelle Dene Poth

Excerpt:

At the ASU+GSV Summit, a leading digital learning summit held in San Diego, California, virtual reality (VR) enthusiasts had an opportunity to experience Dreamscape Learn pod, a first-of-its-kind, full-body tracking, immersive VR experience. Created in partnership with Steven Spielberg, Dreamscape Immersive and Arizona State University (ASU) unveiled the pod for the first time during the event.

ASU President Michael M. Crow and Dreamscape Immersive founder/president and former DreamWorks Pictures studio head Walter Parkes, worked together to create Dreamscape Learn. President Crow and Parkes together merged the ideas of creating Hollywood storytelling with the innovation from ASU. ASU has been a leader in innovation and cutting-edge technology and has been ranked number one in innovation for the sixth year by the US News and World Report.

 

The Hardware and Materials Innovations Enabling Consumer Augmented Reality — from luxresearchinc.com by Vladimir Roznyatovskiy

Excerpt:

Consumer mass-market augmented reality (AR) products and applications could become a fourth wave of modern technological progress, following the PC and smartphone in transformative impact on nearly all aspects of life and business.

However, making widespread consumer AR a reality will require significant innovations in optical components, light engines, and cameras and sensors to reduce size and weight while improving performance. These advances will create significant opportunities for materials and hardware developers. It will be five years to seven years before these efforts translate into viable mass-market devices, but once they do, the opportunities for consumer insights and engagement will be tremendous and a significant source of competitive differentiation.

 

For recalculating those due dates out there: timeanddate.com — with thanks to Lisa Smith at the WMU-Cooley Law School for this resource; Lisa showed how this was used with Cidi Labs Multi-Tool to batch change dates and times within Canvas

Days Calculator -- calculating days between two dates

From DSC:
Along the lines of time and tools for the classroom…I also find classroomscreen.com helpful in providing some solid timers.

classroomscreen.com

 

What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning? [Christian]

From DSC:
For that matter, what does it open up for #JusticeTech? #Legaltech? #A2J? #Telehealth?

 

Learning from the living class room

 

New Research: Flipped Classrooms Improve Student Academics and Satisfaction — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
A new analysis of more than 317 studies found flipped classrooms to be tremendously successful although a partially flipped classroom might be best of all.

Excerpt:

In a meta analysis recently published in the Review of Educational Research, Bredow and her co-authors examined 317 high-quality studies with a combined sample size of  51,437 college students in which flipped classes were compared to traditional lecture classes taught by the same instructors. They found significant advantages for flipped versus traditional lecture in terms of academics, interpersonal outcomes, and student satisfaction.

But there were also some surprises in where and when flipped classrooms worked.

From DSC:
I love the idea of the flipped classroom due to its powerful ability to turn over more choice and more control to the students. They have much more control over the pacing of the delivery of content.

 

So this is what my new Streaming TV studio looks like – I call it ‘Keynote Television’ — from futuristgerd.com by Gerd Leonhard

Excerpt:

Many of you have asked me how I do my online keynotes, specifically my green screens, lights, virtual backgrounds etc. So here are some pictures and below is a short video from Twitter but the bottom line is… it’s complicated and took me some 6 months to learn it all:)). But well worth it: Keynote Television rocks!

Gerd Leonhard's studio where he makes what he calls Keynote Television

From DSC:
I was one of those people who asked Gerd if he would tell teachers, professors, trainers, IDs, and others how he does what he does. Thanks Gerd for sharing this information! May it be a blessing to many!

 
 

SF Conservatory of Music Uses Networked Audio to Overcome Pandemic Challenges — from avnetwork.com

Excerpt:

To unite the musicians virtually, the school installed a Dante network that runs throughout the facility, into classrooms, offices, practice rooms, and studio spaces, with Focusrite RedNet X2P 2×2 Dante audio interfaces serving as the system’s endpoints. The network was designed and installed by Emeryville, CA-based integration firm Advanced Systems Group (ASG).

Then, it occurred to O’Connell that a Dante network would solve the connectivity challenge, and a call to Groh brought the Focusrite RedNet X2P audio interfaces into the picture. Two RedNet X2P units arrived and were set up on the school’s VLAN as a proof of concept. 

 

AI cannot be recognised as an inventor, US rules — from bbc.com

An artificial intelligence system has been refused the right to two patents in the US, after a ruling only “natural persons” could be inventors.

 

Nvidia builds AI LaunchPad in the cloud with Equinix — from fierceelectronics.com by Dan O’Shea

Excerpt:

If we fail to evolve to a point where almost everyone in the world relies on AI in some fashion, it won’t be for Nvidia’s lack of commitment to that vision. The company continues to hammer away at the notion of democratizing AI so that a broader array of businesses can leverage the technology.

Its newest offering, announced today, is a comprehensive AI platform made available for easy consumption through hybrid cloud providers. This platform, AI LaunchPad, initially will be available through Nvidia cloud partner Equinix. Nvidia explained that as AI proliferates through enterprises and their applications, companies will need to access application resources that might be distributed across public and private clouds. AI LaunchPad via Platform Equinix will allow them to access those resources in minutes for an hourly fee and deploy them to distributed locations…

 
 

2021 CHLOE 6 Report
CHLOE 6: Online Learning Leaders Adapt for a Post-Pandemic World — from qualitymatters.org

CHLOE 6: Online Learning Leaders Adapt for a Post-Pandemic World

Excerpt:

The 2021 report, authored by Quality Matters and Eduventures® Research, tracks how institutions are reassessing their priorities related to online learning and shifting focus to ed tech enhancements, faculty professional development and online quality. The report was compiled from responses from 422 chief online officers (COO) representing 2- and 4-year colleges and universities.

More than half of the survey respondents (57%) across all sectors of higher education, including predominantly in-person institutions, indicated that, going forward, the pandemic experience is leading to a positive reassessment of institutional priorities related to online learning. Key survey findings from the 69-page report include:

  • An elevated commitment to online learning quality assurance goals, including having courses meet quality standards, supported by a commitment to faculty professional development.
  • An average 10-15% increase across institutions in online professional development and student orientation to online study to serve formerly in-person faculty and students.
  • The largest yearly increases ever in ed tech investment in 2020 and 2021 across all sectors of higher ed.
 

Student Experiences Learning with Technology in the Pandemic — from educause.edu

Excerpts:

However, as most institutions pivoted to remote learning as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020, we also pivoted to conduct a special fall 2020 study to gain insights on the student experience during what has been an exceptional time of disruption. In this report, we share results from the study related to student experiences with technology in the for-credit courses they were taking in fall 2020 in which they felt they were learning the most. Specifically, we asked students to think about their best course—the one in which they learned the most—and tell us about the learning environments and modalities of those courses, as well as instructors’ uses of technology in, the organizational and design features of, and the most and least effective uses of technology they experienced in those courses.1

Steps You Can Take
Institutional leaders should consider the following steps as they continue to respond to the most immediate needs of students and plan for a post-pandemic future.

  • Invest in the design, development, and implementation of hybrid course models and the people who support them.
  • Connect faculty with instructional designers and instructional technologists.
  • Put students at the center of your teaching.

The best student experiences were the ones that were focused on student learning experiences and did so from a position of empathy, care, and flexibility. If we learn one thing from higher education’s pandemic year it’s that higher education needs to invest in promoting caring, student-centered, and adaptive pedagogies.

 

Thursday, 5/20/21, is Global Accessibility Awareness Day!!!

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is this Thursday, May 20, 2021
Help us celebrate the tenth Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)! The purpose of GAAD is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion, and the more than One Billion people with disabilities/impairments.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is is Thursday, May 20th 2021

Also see:

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is Thursday, May 20, 2021

 

 

 
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