Radio.Garden — with thanks to David Pogue for this resource

From DSC:
This is amazing! Some screenshots:

Radio.garden -- tune into thousands of live radio stations across the globe!

Radio.garden -- tune into thousands of live radio stations across the globe!

Several questions/reflections come to my mind:

  • What could those teachers and professors who are trying to teach someone a language do with this?!
  • If this can be done with radio stations, what can be done with learning-related streams of content?!
  • Talk about “More Choice. More Control.”  Man o’ man!

Streams of content


Addendum on 2/28/21:
Could this type of interface be used to navigate the world of work? Where instead of nations, you would have arenas of work?

 

MI Governor Gretchen Whitmer's email from

This programming is being broadcast on special on-air channels established by each of the participating public television stations in Michigan. It is also available as a livestream and stored for on-demand viewing on a variety of digital platforms, ensuring accessibility to all students, teachers and families in the state.

Michigan Learning Channel -- which stations carry it

An example schedule from About MLC:

Michigan Learning Channel Program Schedule for January 2021

 


From DSC:
It’s great to see this inclusive, FREE, convenient piece of the K-12 learning ecosystem! I’m all about this. Perhaps such a developing platform could integrate further interactivity and social/network-based learning into it:

Let's use television -- and later on smart TVs -- to provide a free medium to all K-12 students -- and build on top of that platform as time goes by.


Also see:

The MIchigan Learning Channel on Twitter

 

Remote Learning Isn’t Just for Kids — from nytimes.com by Kerry Hannon
New online tools and an array of remote classes and programs are ramping up education and training for adults.

Excerpt:

Adult education, however, is “the Wild West” of education technology, according to Mr. Yoquinto. There are many outlets experimenting with ways to get a handle on the online adult education marketplace, including community colleges and universities, for-profit learning platforms, workshop providers and nonprofit organizations.

Above resource per Laurie Burruss out on LinkedIn:

The internet has empowered adult learners by providing new online tools to ramp up education and training. “The need for workers to keep pace with fast-moving economic, cultural and technological changes, combined with longer careers, will add up to great swaths of adults who need to learn more than generations past — and faster than ever,” said Luke Yoquinto, a research associate at the M.I.T. AgeLab and co-author of “Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn


Learning from the living class room

 

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.

 

Nearly three-quarters of pandemic affected parents feel students should learn subjects they’re passionate about, not those of little interest — from newswire.ca by Unschooling School

Excerpt:

TORONTO, Feb. 1, 2021 /CNW/ – A nation-wide survey of Canadian parents released today finds that nearly three in four of them (73%) believe the education system today would be better for students if it were structured to give them more choice and time to just learn those subjects and topics, they are either excited or passionate about.

Also, more than two-thirds (67%) want a school reset, so students learn more of the subject areas they’re passionate about and not those of little interest to them.

From DSC:
I feel the same way about many K12 systems here in the United States. Our youngest daughter — who has been studying at home this past year — has so much more energy and passion when we give her more agency to do the things that *she* wants to do and to learn about the things that *she* wants to learn about.

Learning channels of the future will provide us with more choice, more control.

And readers of this blog know that I’m all about the love of learning (or even liking it better), seeing as we all need to be lifelong learners these days.

The more we enjoy learning = The better, more fulfilling, enjoyable that our lives will be! (Not to mention how much more productive we’ll be as well.)

 

 

Five free keynotes on online learning for streaming into virtual conferences — from tonybates.ca by Tony Bates

These are the five keynotes:

  1. Developing quality blended learning courses
  2. Digital learning and the new economy
  3. New technologies and their potential and limitations for teaching and learning
  4. Ten lessons for online learning from the Covid-19 experience (based on research findings)
  5. Online learning in the (k-12) school sector

From DSC:
Thanks Tony for sharing these keynotes and your expertise — which is drawn from so much research and experience. Thanks for giving it away — may your gift bless many. (And I thought you were going to retire…?!? Selfishly, I’m/we’re glad you didn’t!)   🙂

 

Equipping Youth to Change the World — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpt:

Through self-directed learning and impact projects, participants build stronger mindsets, develop real-world skills, learn to code, and expand their social capital. TKS’ teachers hail from leading companies in every sector.

The TKS team works with big companies to see what problems they are facing. This creates a bank of problems students can choose to work on. “[TKS] is as much about problem finding as it is about problem-solving,” says Navid.

 

From DSC:
THIS is incredible technology! Check out the Chroma-keying technology and the handwriting extraction feature of the Sony Analytics appliance.

#AR hits the active learning classroom! THIS in incredible technology/functionality! See through your instructor as they write on the board!

From Sony’s website (emphasis DSC):

No matter where the speaker is standing, the Handwriting Extraction feature ensures that any words and diagrams written on a board or screen remain in full view to the audience — via AR (augmented reality).

Even if the speaker is standing directly in front of the board, their ideas, thinking process, and even their animated presentation, are all accessible to the audience. It’s also easy for remote viewers and those playing back the presentation at a later date to become immersed in the content too, as the presenter is overlaid and the content is never compromised.

Also, the chroma keying tech can be useful/engaging as well.

Chroma keying hits the Active Learning Classroom as well

 

Grab your audience’s attention and increase their engagement with intelligent video analytics technology.

I saw this at IUPUI’s recent webinar/tour of their new facilities. Here’s further information on that webinar from last Friday, 1/29/21:

Designing Large Active Learning Classrooms webinar/tour on 1/29/21 from the Mosaic Program at Indiana University; also features rooms/staff at IUPUI.

 

8 Strategies to Prevent Teaching Burnout — from chronicle.com by Flower Darby
What can you do this semester to protect your well-being and support your students? 

Excerpt:

My takeaway? Don’t rely on your usual, in-person discussion strategies. Now is the time to think creatively about what works well online. So what else might you try?

  • Use chat box and polling frequently.
  • Offer individual reflection activities. For example, two or three times during class, ask students to write a five-word summary of the preceding section. Students can submit their responses in a private chat or as a text-entry assignment after class in your learning management system.
  • Provide a guided notes document, partial slides, or diagrams that students can annotate with their own notes during class, and then submit to you at the end of class in the LMS for participation credit.
  • Create a Padlet or Jamboard where students post key takeaways at the end of class. (Bonus: They can serve as useful review documents later in the term.)
 

From DSC:
I was reviewing an edition of Dr. Barbara Honeycutt’s Lecture Breakers Weekly, where she wrote:

After an experiential activity, discussion, reading, or lecture, give students time to write the one idea they took away from the experience. What is their one takeaway? What’s the main idea they learned? What do they remember?

This can be written as a reflective blog post or journal entry, or students might post it on a discussion board so they can share their ideas with their colleagues. Or, they can create an audio clip (podcast), video, or drawing to explain their One Takeaway.

From DSC:
This made me think of tools like VoiceThread — where you can leave a voice/audio message, an audio/video-based message, a text-based entry/response, and/or attach other kinds of graphics and files.

That is, a multimedia-based exit ticket. It seems to me that this could work in online- as well as blended-based learning environments.


Addendum on 2/7/21:

How to Edit Live Photos to Make Videos, GIFs & More! — from jonathanwylie.com


 

Tutor.com Has Delivered 20 Million Online Tutoring Sessions — with thanks to Jeanne Krier for the resource (of which I present an excerpt below)
Milestone Reached Amid Unprecedented Demand for Company’s Services During COVID

NEW YORK, February 1, 2021 / — Tutor.com ™ , one of the nation’s largest online tutoring companies, has reached an impressive milestone: 20 million one-to-one tutoring sessions—and counting.

Nearly two million of those 20 million sessions were delivered in 2020—a year in which Tutor.com met record-breaking demand for its services. At peak times, Tutor.com was delivering 7,500 tutoring sessions a day. Overall, 2020 saw the highest single-year delivery of services in the company’s 21-year history—an increase of more than 50 percent above the 1.3 million tutoring sessions completed in 2019. Learners also made exceptional use of the platform’s drop-off review services, practice quizzes, video lessons, and test prep from The Princeton Review ® .

“With unprecedented demand for our services, our full team at Tutor.com has risen to the challenge,” said Sandi White, Vice President and General Manager, Tutor.com. “We are mission-driven, and our dedicated tutors and staff work tirelessly to support learners, whenever they need help—24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” said White, adding that Tutor.com responded to outreach from more than 900 additional institutions and businesses seeking partnerships to serve their learning communities.

The extraordinary demand was primarily due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19–related school closures meant that the nation’s 55 million K–12 students as well as 14 million college students abruptly transitioned to remote, virtual, or hybrid learning last spring—and many have remained that way. As school-at-home and work-at-home became the new normal, the requests for Tutor.com services soared.

 

What 2021 Means for Learning — from GettingSmart.com

What 2021 Means for Learning from Getting Smart on Vimeo.

Last week we hosted a live conversation to talk about what 2021 has in store for learning, a new set of shared priorities including mutuality and agency and emerging trends and topics that we are excited to explore this year.

 

Great books to read with your kids in February — from raisinglifelonglearners.com by Colleen Kessler

Great books to read with your kids in February -- from Colleen Kessler

 

Forever Changed: Education Predictions for 2021 — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Teachers Will Become Massive Social Media Influencers
Teachers will be subject-matter experts who other teachers feature in video mixtapes and that parents will follow to support their students. Expect teachers to go live in Twitch-style “going live” environments. What can we expect in video?

 

9 BIG Questions Schools Must Answer to Avoid Going “Back to Normal” (*Because “Normal” Wasn’t That Great to Begin With) — from bigquestions.institute

Excerpt from email/e-newsletter (dated 1/27/21)

As we start to emerge from this dark moment, individuals and institutions need to be asking two important questions Given the trauma of the last 12 months, who are we now? And now that so much has changed about the world, who do we want to become?

Reflecting on those questions is especially important for educators. The “old normal” of schools is not coming back, nor should we want it to. Instead, this is an incredible opportunity to reset, to redefine our work.

To that end, we’ve written a new, free ebook9 Questions Schools Must Answer to Avoid Going Back to Normal (*Because Normal Wasn’t That Great to Begin With). Rather than innovate our way forward, Homa and I believe this is a moment to interrogate deeply the foundations of our work with children. That starts with a willingness to answer some big questions upon which we build our collective futures.

Q1: What is Sacred?  

Q2: What is Learning?  

Q3: Where is the Power?  

Q4: Why do we _________? 

Q5: Who is Unheard?  

Q6: Are we Literate? 

Q7: Are we OK?  

Q8: Are we Connected? 

Q9: What’s Next? 

“Real change will require us to leave many of our old ideas about school behind.”

From DSC:
We must figure out better ways to get away from creating game-players to developing curious, passionate learners instead. Even in law schools, points and grades are still used as the currency to get students to do some things. Holy smokes!  That pull/embedded behavior is a strong undercurrent even for adults learning about new things.

Students need to see their faculty members and/or teachers as people who ARE ON THEIR TEAM. Not an adversarial, controlling relationship. But one wherein the teacher or the professor is trying to help that person develop into a better, ___, ___, or ____.

I love the suggestion mentioned in the “Towards a new normal” on page 23 that says…

“Instead of ‘students’ and ‘teachers,’ refer to everyone in the school as ‘learners.'”


#behaviorism #learning #education #educationreform #K12 #lawschools and more.


Learning channels of the future will offer More choice. More control. Daniel Christian

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian