leadership

The 2017 Top 10 IT Issues [Educause]

On 01/18/2017, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, data related items, education technology, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, strategy, student-related, universities, by Daniel Christian

The 2017 Top 10 IT Issues — a new report from Educause
It’s all about student success.

Excerpt:

Colleges and universities are concentrating on student success to address concerns about the costs, value, and outcomes of higher education. Student success initiatives are making use of every available resource and opportunity and involving every relevant stakeholder. Institutional technology is all three: resource, opportunity, and stakeholder.

The 2017 issues list identifies the four focus areas for higher education information technology:

Develop the IT foundations
Develop the data foundations
Ensure effective leadership
Enable successful students

These issues and focus areas are not just about today. Higher education information technology is very clearly building foundations for student success to last into the future.

Also see:

Educause Announces Top IT Issues, Trends and Tech Report for 2017 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Expanding on the preview of its annual ranking of IT issues for higher education released last fall, Educause today announced its full report on the key issues, trends and technologies poised to impact higher ed in 2017. The prevailing themes across the board, according to the higher education technology association with a membership of 2,100 colleges, universities and other education organizations: information security, student success and data-informed decision-making.

The top 10 IT issues for 2017, reiterated in today’s report:

Information security;
Student success and completion;
Data-informed decision-making;
Strategic leadership;
Sustainable funding;
Data management and governance;
Higher education affordability;
Sustainable staffing;
Next-generation enterprise IT; and
Digital transformation of learning.

How will leadership change in the cognitive era? [Cancialosi]

On 01/17/2017, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, future, game-changing environment, leadership, pace of change, strategy, by Daniel Christian

How will leadership change in the cognitive era? — from forbes.com by Chris Cancialosi

Excerpt:

Technological innovation is continuing to accelerate on a hockey stick growth curve. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon are bringing cognitive computing capability to the masses. And it’s only a matter of time until nearly every aspect of our work and personal lives are impacted.

These advances are still relatively new. Time will tell when and how they change things, but it will happen, and it will happen quickly. In a recent article, Steve Denning reminds us that a repeating pattern of massive transformation has occurred regularly over the last 250 years.

With massive change at our doorstep, now is the time to begin a collective discussion to help leaders navigate this new age.

Leadership behaviors that yielded success in the past may no longer be effective as the way we work changes over time.

From DSC:
First, some items regarding the enormous emphasis being put towards the use of robotics and automation:

$18.867 billion paid to acquire 50 robotics companies in 2016 — from robohub.org by Frank Tobe
Excerpt:
2016 was a banner year for acquisitions of companies involved in robotics and automation: 50 sold; 11 for amounts over $500 million; five were over a billion. 30 of the 50 companies disclosed transaction amounts which totaled up to a colossal $18.867 billion!
.
2017: The year people are forced to learn new skills… or join the Lost Generation — from enterpriseirregulars.com by Phil Fersht
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Let’s cut to the chase – there have never been times as uncertain as these in the world of business. There is no written rule-book to follow when it comes to career survival. The “Future of Work” is about making ourselves employable in a workforce where the priority of business leaders is to invest in automation and digital technology, more than training and developing their own workforces. As our soon-to-be-released State of Operations and Outsourcing 2017 study, conducted in conjunction with KPMG across 454 major enterprise buyers globally, shows a dramatic shift in priorities from senior managers (SVPs and above), where 43% are earmarking significant investment in robotic automation of processes, compared with only 28% placing a similar emphasis on training and change management. In fact, the same number of senior managers are as focused on cognitive computing as their own people… yes, folks, this is the singularity of enterprise operations, where cognitive computing now equals employees’ brains when it comes to investment!
…
My deep-seated fear for today’s workforce is that we’re in danger of becoming this “Lost Generation” of workers if we persist in relying on what we already know, versus avoiding learning new skills that business leaders now need. We have to become students again, put our egos aside, and broaden our capabilities to avoid the quicksand of legacy executives no longer worth employing.

Below are some other resources along these lines:

Our Automated Future — from newyorker.com by Elizabeth Kolbert
How long will it be before you lose your job to a robot?
Artificial Intelligence: Silicon Valley’s Next Frontier – from toptechnews.com by Ethan Baron
The Great A.I. Awakening – from the nytimes.com by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
2017 will be big year for AI thanks to tech giants — from cio.com by Matt Kapko
The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future Is Here — from technologyreview.com by Jamie Condliffe
IBM & Rice University Partner to Build a Robot for the Elderly — from finance.yahoo.com
If a Robot is Going to Take My Job, Should it Pay My Taxes? – from datafloq.com
The White House is prepping for an AI-powered future — from wired.com by April Glaser
Artificial intelligence could cost millions of jobs. The White House says we need more of it. — from gazette.com by The Washington Post
Retail inventory robots could replace the need for store employees — from interestingengineering.com by Trevor English
Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 humans with robots in China — from marketwatch.com
There are now 260,000 robots working in U.S. factories — from marketwatch.com by Jennifer Booton
Robots expected to run half of Japan by 2035 — from engadget.com by Andrew Tarantola
and many, many more…

From DSC:
Given that these trends continue (i.e., to outsource work to software and to robots), what will the ramifications be for:

Society at large? Will enough people have enough income to purchase the products/services made by the robots and the software?
Will there be major civil unrest / instability? Will crime rates shoot through the roof as peoples’ desperation and frustration escalate?
How we should change our curricula within K-12?
How should we change our curricular within higher education?
How should corporate training & development departments/groups respond to these trends?
Is there some new criteria that we need to use (or increase the usage of) in selecting C-level executives?

People don’t want to hear about it. But if the only thing that the C-level suites out there care about is maximizing profits and minimizing costs — REGARDLESS of what happens to humankind — then we are likely going to be creating a very dangerous future. Capitalism will have gone awry. (By the way, the C-level suite is probably making their decisions based upon how their performance is judged by Wall Street and by shareholders. So I can’t really put all the blame on them. Perhaps the enemy is ourselves…?)

Bottom line: We need to be careful which technologies we implement — and how they are implemented. We need to create a dream in our futures, not a nightmare. We need people at the helms who care about their fellow humankind, and who use the power of these technologies responsibly.

5 Online Education Trends to Watch in 2017 — from usnews.com by Jordan Friedman
Experts predict more online programs will offer alternative credentials and degrees in specialized fields.

Excerpts:

Greater emphasis on nontraditional credentials
Increased use of big data to measure student performance
Greater incorporation of artificial intelligence into classes
Growth of nonprofit online programs
Online degrees in surprising and specialized disciplines

The Future of Online Learning Is Offline: What Strava Can Teach Digital Course Designers — from edsurge.com by Amy Ahearn

Excerpt:

I became a Strava user in 2013, around the same time I became an online course designer. Quickly I found that even as I logged runs on Strava daily, I struggled to find the time to log into platforms like Coursera, Udemy or Udacity to finish courses produced by my fellow instructional designers. What was happening? Why was the fitness app so “sticky” as opposed to the online learning platforms?

As a thought experiment, I tried to recast my Strava experience in pedagogical terms. I realized that I was recording hours of deliberate practice (my early morning runs), formative assessments (the occasional speed workout on the track) and even a few summative assessments (races) on the app. Strava was motivating my consistent use by overlaying a digital grid on my existing offline activities. It let me reconnect with college teammates who could keep me motivated. It enabled me to analyze the results of my efforts and compare them to others. I didn’t have to be trapped behind a computer to benefit from this form of digital engagement—yet it was giving me personalized feedback and results. How could we apply the same practices to learning?

I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest misunderstandings about online learning is that it has to be limited to things that can be done in front of a computer screen. Instead, we need to reimagine online courses as something that can enable the interplay between offline activities and digital augmentation.

A few companies are heading that way. Edthena enables teachers to record videos of themselves teaching and then upload these to the platform to get feedback from mentors.

DIY’s JAM online courses let kids complete hands-on activities like drawing or building with LEGOs and then has them upload pictures of their work to earn badges and share their projects.

My team at +Acumen has built online courses that let teams complete projects together offline and then upload their prototypes to the NovoEd platform to receive feedback from peers. University campuses are integrating Kaltura into their LMS platforms to enable students to capture and upload videos.

We need to focus less on building multiple choice quizzes or slick lecture videos and more on finding ways to robustly capture evidence of offline learning that can be validated and critiqued at scale by peers and experts online.

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.

Tech breakthroughs megatrend— from pwc.com by Vicki Huff Eckert, Sahil Bhardwaj, and Chris Curran; with thanks to Woontack Woo for this resource

Excerpt:

Given the sheer pace and acceleration of technological advances in recent years, business leaders can be forgiven for feeling dazed and perhaps a little frustrated. When we talked to CEOs as part of our annual Global CEO Survey, 61% of them told us they were concerned about the speed of technological change in their industries. Sure, more and more C-suite executives are genuinely tech-savvy – increasingly effective champions for their companies’ IT vision – and more and more of them know that digital disruption can be friend as well as enemy. But it’s fair to say that most struggle to find the time and energy necessary to keep up with the technologies driving transformation across every industry and in every part of the world.

Not one catalyst, but several
History is littered with companies that have waited out the Next New Thing in the belief that it’s a technology trend that won’t amount to much, or that won’t affect their industries for decades. Yet disruption happens. It’s safe to say that the history of humankind is a history of disruption – a stream of innovations that have tipped the balance in favour of the innovators. In that sense, technological breakthroughs are the original megatrend. What’s unique in the 21st century, though, is the ubiquity of technology, together with its accessibility, reach, depth, and impact.

Business leaders worldwide acknowledge these changes, and have a clear sense of their significance. CEOs don’t single out any particular catalyst that leads them to that conclusion. But we maintain that technological advancements are appearing, rapidly and simultaneously, in fields as disparate as healthcare and industrial manufacturing, because of the following concurrent factors…

From DSC:
For those of us working in K-20 as well as in the corporate training/L&D space, how are we doing in getting people trained and ready to deal these developments?

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

Example slides from their
SlideShare presentation:

and from the PDF:

accenture: Technology Vision 2016 | People First: The Remedy to Digital Culture Shock — from accenture.com

Excerpt:

Winners in the digital age do much more than complete a technology checklist. They know their success hinges on people. Understanding changing customer needs and behaviors is, of course, hugely important. But the real deciding factor in the digital era will be the ability to evolve corporate culture. That means not simply taking advantage of emerging technologies but, critically, embracing the new business strategies that those technologies drive.

You can’t solve this challenge just by consuming more and more technology. Nor, as some fear, by replacing humans with machines. Instead, enterprises must focus on enabling people – consumers, employees and ecosystem partners – to do more with technology. That demands a digital corporate culture enabling people to continuously adapt, learn, create new solutions, drive relentless change, and disrupt the status quo. In an age where tech is grabbing the limelight, true leaders will, in fact, put people first.

But the real deciding factor in the era of intelligence will be a company’s ability to evolve its corporate culture to not only take advantage of emerging technologies, but also, critically, embrace the new business strategies that those technologies drive.

From DSC:
Are we preparing our students to be ready for — and successful in — this changing workplace? Are adults ready for this changing workplace? It appears that some are, and some are left reeling by the pace of change.

What is our role as educators in K-12? In higher ed?

What are the roles of trainers and/or mentors in the marketplace?

How does one help another person to learn quickly?

——–

Addendum:

The Most Digital Companies Are Leaving All the Rest Behind — from Harvard Business Review by James Manyika, Gary Pinkus, and Sree Ramaswamy
Excerpt:
The answer is that a new digital divide has opened up in America. Just about every individual, company and sector of the economy now has access to digital technologies — there are hardly any “have nots” anymore. But a widening gap exists between the “haves” and a group we call the “have-mores”: companies and sectors that are using their digital capabilities far more than the rest to innovate and transform how they operate.

Reflections on “University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private” [Cohen & Bray]

On 02/09/2016, in change, funding / grants, higher education, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private — from nytimes.com by Patricia Cohen and Chad Bray

Excerpt:

The troubled for-profit education company that owns the giant University of Phoenix agreed on Monday to be bought for $1.1 billion by a group of investors that includes a private equity firm with close ties to the Obama administration.

The university and its owner, the Apollo Education Group, have been subject to a series of state and federal investigations into allegations of shady recruiting, deceptive advertising and questionable financial aid practices.

In recent years, many for-profit educational institutions that have received billions of dollars in federal aid, including the University of Phoenix, have been pummeled by criticisms that they preyed upon veterans and low-income students, saddling them with outsize student loan debt and subpar instruction.

Also see:

New education department office to crack down on colleges — from wsj.com by Josh Mitchell
Student Aid Enforcement Unit will focus on schools accused of misconduct
Excerpt:
The Obama administration plans to boost the federal government’s power to investigate and punish colleges accused of deceptive marketing tactics and other misconduct, part of a campaign to address years of student complaints about for-profit institutions.

Also see:

Student Aid Enforcement Unit Formed to protect students, borrowers, taxpayers — from ed.gov on 2/8/16

Excerpt:

As part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive action to protect students and taxpayers, the U.S. Department of Education is creating a Student Aid Enforcement Unit to respond more quickly and efficiently to allegations of illegal actions by higher education institutions.

“When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they’ll actually get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families,” said Acting Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. “When that doesn’t happen we all pay the price. So let me be clear: schools looking to cheat students and taxpayers will be held accountable.”

From DSC:
For profits have brought some solid things to the education table…but they’ve also brought some bad practices to the table as well. To some degree, the above items relate to the efforts and influence of the federal government to affect institutions involved in higher education.

Taking this thought into a different direction then…one should think carefully, therefore, when the federal government opens up new efforts to support innovation within higher education — something I support, by the way, as it could facilitate the creation of alternative pathways for learners and it finally enforces some true competition — and therefore a greater emphasis on innovation — within the higher ed landscape. (Yes I realize that there’s some level of competition within institutions of traditional higher education…but historical and current accreditation practices have pretty much kept things looking quite similar across the landscape.)

Institutions of traditional higher education may now be forced to rethink their game plans and strategies as they move forward — something I hope that will positively impact our future students. Such forces and events should make institutions of traditional higher education more innovative, open to change (where it’s needed), relevant, and responsive to changes in the environment.

Equipped for EQUIP? Here’s a primer — from edsurge.com by Bart Epstein and Ben Wallerstein (on 11/9/15)

Excerpt:

On October 15th, the Department of Education launched a new Experimental Site called Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships (EQUIP), which creates a pathway to federal aid for unaccredited education providers–including the fast-growing bootcamp sector. Here’s what you need to know.

The US Department of Education’s Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI) is a policymaker’s dream. The authority granted though the ESI allows the Secretary of Education to waive certain rules governing federal financial aid to experiment with new models and test their impact. The goal: improve access for low-income students, and increase the return on our $130 billion annual investment in student aid.

As a policy “lab,” Experimental Sites have allowed the Department of Education to provide Title IV access for self-paced and competency-based programs, decouple aid from the credit hour, and fund students who demonstrate prior learning through assessments.

From DSC:
As higher ed (as an industry) doesn’t seem to be able to decrease the costs of obtaining a degree, alternatives continue to crop up.

If…

The prices don’t start coming down from institutions of traditional higher education
Alternatives continue to crop up and gather steam
The U.S. Federal Government gets behind such alternatives

…then higher ed (again, as an industry) can only blame itself for not responding more significantly than we did.

We need to respond. We need to address this growing wave of unrest regarding higher ed. We need more innovation. We need lower prices. Towards that end, that’s why I’ve been saying that we need more TrimTab Groups to find ways to maintain quality, but reduce the price.

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

Reflections on “Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect” [Malat]

On 01/14/2016, in 21st century, active learning, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning spaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, participation, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, smart classrooms, strategy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, universities, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect — from ecampusnews.com by Lisa Malat
Survey finds digital natives “Gen Z” set to reshape higher ed landscape with focus on careers, dependence on technology.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Educators take note: it’s time to make way for Generation Z (Gen Z).

In a recent study by Barnes & Noble College, 1,300 middle-school and high school students ages 13-18 from 49 different states shared their attitudes, preferences and expectations regarding their educational and learning experiences. The findings from the study are clear: Gen Z is significantly different than previous generations, and these students will bring both challenges and opportunities for the future of higher education.
…

With Gen Z being a generation of “digital natives,” it stands to reason that the future of educational technology is now. Technology is embraced almost universally by Gen Z. In fact, the students surveyed shared that they are apt to regularly use five different computer tools for their social and educational purposes: laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and video game consoles.

Unlike Millennials, who have broadly adopted technology, Gen Z has adopted a technology-centric lifestyle. They define themselves in online, digital terms. Gen Z doesn’t distinguish between devices or online territories. It is one continuous, multi-faceted, completely integrated experience – connecting social, academic and professional interests.
…
Gen Z also has different learning style preferences from past generations. While they are very into DIYL (do-it-yourself-learning), these students also embrace peer-to-peer learning, with 80 percent reporting that they study with their friends and classmates. Fifty percent said they enjoy the element of leadership it presents, and 60 percent reported that it gives them the perfect way to exchange ideas and consider new perspectives.

From DSC:
The article/report above prompted me to reflect…

Many throughout higher education are responding to change. But many are not. We aren’t nearly as nimble as we need to be.

I hope that the faculty, staff, boards, administrations, and the heavy-hitting donors at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. appreciate how important it is to be aware of — and respond to — changes within the K-12 world, changes in today’s students, changes within the higher ed landscape, and to changes within the corporate/business world.

We operate in a continuum.

With all of those changes, maintaining the status quo seems to be a dangerous experiment to me. We are not in control. Rather, we all need to adapt and to respond.

DanielChristian-MonitoringTrends

DanielChristian-what-should-our-learning-environments-look-and-act-like

Along these lines, maintaining the status quo shows a blatant disregard of our customers’ preferences — an unwise strategy to take. (And for those of you who don’t like the word customer here, bear with me…because in my mind, any person who pays anywhere near the price of a house to obtain their education has earned the right to be called a customer. Today’s students are paying a heck of a lot more than we did.)

Also, maintaining the status quo seems like a dangerous strategy when we’re talking about recruitment and retention. Remember, we are talking about depending upon the decisions of 18 year olds here.

So as I:

Read the above article and the report that it refers to
Consider the higher ed landscape that continues to encounter new alternatives
Observe that different pathways that are cropping up all the time
See that the federal government is moving towards funding such alternative methods

…I am forced to ask myself, “Given all of this, will maintaining the status quo suffice? Really?“

This report should encourage us to:

Seek to do a better job of pulse checking the K-12 world and the students’ learning preferences coming out of that world — and to develop our responses to those changing preferences.
Pursue more instances of blended/hybrid learning and active learning-based classrooms
Provide a variety of delivery mechanisms to meet our students’ needs — including a solid line up of online-based courses and programs. Students are often having to work in order to get through college, and they need flexible solutions.
Better address our physical learning spaces, which should offer strong/secure wireless networks and means of quickly collaborating via BYOD-based devices.
Continue to invest in selecting and investigating how best to use a variety of educationally-related technologies (something which, in my mind, invites the use of teams of specialists).
(I could, and probably should, think bigger here, but I’ll stop at these reflections.)

I’ll leave you with the following graphic, relaying that often times members of Gen Z tend to prefer active learning-based classrooms:

Reflections on “Best Online Bachelor’s Programs for 2016” [U.S. News & World Report]

On 01/13/2016, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, faculty/staff, higher education, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, online learning, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

U.S. News assessed schools based on four general categories. Here is a look at each category and its weight in the current rankings formula. All weights are unchanged from 2015.

Student engagement (40 percent): Quality bachelor’s degree programs promote participation in courses, allowing students opportunities to readily interact with their instructors and classmates, as is possible in a campus-based setting. In turn, instructors not only are accessible and responsive, but they also are tasked with helping to create an experience rewarding enough that students stay enrolled and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time.
Faculty credentials and training (20 percent): Strong online programs employ instructors with academic credentials that mirror those of instructors for campus-based programs, and they have the resources to train these instructors on how to teach distance learners.
Student services and technology (20 percent): Programs that incorporate diverse online learning technologies allow greater flexibility for students to take classes from a distance. Outside of classes, strong support structures provide learning assistance, career guidance and financial aid resources commensurate with quality campus-based programs.
Peer reputation (20 percent): A survey of high-ranking academic officials helps account for intangible factors affecting program quality that are not captured by statistics. Also, degrees from programs that are well respected by academics may be held in higher regard among employers.

From DSC:
I’m not a huge fan of college/university ranking systems and programs. However, I post this in order to say “Congratulations!” to these programs on the work they have been doing — the faculty, staff, administration, and students. Nice work to you all!

These programs most certainly are helping students prepare for the future that these students will be inheriting. Students will need to be able to learn online — that will be a key ingredient/component in their learning ecosystems. In fact, it should be a requirement for every single college graduate in this country to take at least 1 course online. Many states are already doing this type of thing with high school graduation requirements — requiring students to take at least 1 online course in order to graduate from high school. If we truly cared about our students and their futures, this would be a requirement within higher education as well.

U.S. Department of Education Releases 2016 National Education Technology Plan [ed.gov]

On 12/20/2015, in assessment, education, education reform, education technology, K-12 related, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, open courseware and systems, student teaching/teacher education, teachers, United States, by Daniel Christian

U.S. Department of Education Releases 2016 National Education Technology Plan — from ed.gov

Excerpts:

The U.S. Department of Education announced [on 12/10/15] the release of the 2016 National Education Technology Plan and new commitments to support personalized professional learning for district leaders across the country working to improve teaching and student achievement through the effective use of technology.

Updated every five years, the plan is the flagship educational technology policy document for the United States. The 2016 plan outlines a vision of equity, active use, and collaborative leadership to make everywhere, all-the-time learning possible. While acknowledging the continuing need to provide greater equity of access to technology itself, the plan goes further to call upon all involved in American education to ensure equity of access to transformational learning experiences enabled by technology.

“Technology has the potential to bring remarkable new possibilities to teaching and learning by providing teachers with opportunities to share best practices, and offer parents platforms for engaging more deeply and immediately in their children’s learning,” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “It can change the experiences of students in the most challenging circumstances by helping educators to personalize the learning experience based on students’ needs and interests—meeting our students where they are and challenging them to reach even higher. This year’s update to the National Education Technology Plan includes a strong focus on equity because every student deserves an equal chance to engage in educational experiences powered by technology that can support and accelerate learning.”

The plan calls for schools and districts to:

Redesign teacher preparation programs to shift from a single technology course to thoughtful use of technology throughout a teacher’s preparation and minimum standards for higher education instructors’ tech proficiency.
Set an expectation of equitable access to technology and connectivity inside and outside of school regardless of students’ backgrounds.
Adopt high-quality openly licensed educational materials in place of staid, traditional textbooks.
Implement universal design principles for accessibility across all educational institutions and include these principles within teacher preparation programs.
Improve technology-based assessments to allow for embedded delivery within instruction and making near real-time feedback for educators possible.
Establish a robust technology infrastructure that meets current connectivity goals and can be augmented to meet future demand.

From DSC:
Below are some further items that discuss the need for some frameworks, policies, institutes, research, etc. that deal with a variety of game-changing technologies that are quickly coming down the pike (if they aren’t already upon on). We need such things to help us create a positive future.

Also see Part I of this thread of thinking entitled, “The need for ethics, morals, policies, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want has never been greater!“ There have been so many other items that came out since that posting, I felt like I needed to add another one here.

What kind of future do we want? How are we going to insure that we get there?

As the saying goes…”Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.” Or another saying comes to my mind…”What could possibly go wrong with this? It’s a done deal.”

While some of the items below should have very positive impacts on society, I do wonder how long it will take the hackers — the ones who are bent on wreaking havoc — to mess up some of these types of applications…with potentially deadly consequences? Security-related concerns must be dealt with here.

5 amazing and alarming things that may be done with your DNA — from washingtonpost.com by Matt McFarland

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Venter is leading efforts to use digital technology to analyze humans in ways we never have before, and the results will have huge implications for society. The latest findings he described are currently being written up for scientific publications. Venter didn’t want to usurp the publications, so he wouldn’t dive into extensive detail of how his team has made these breakthroughs. But what he did share offers an exciting and concerning overview of what lies ahead for humanity. There are social, legal and ethical implications to start considering. Here are five examples of how digitizing DNA will change the human experience:

These are the decisions the Pentagon wants to leave to robots — from defenseone.com by Patrick Tucker
The U.S. military believes its battlefield edge will increasingly depend on automation and artificial intelligence.

Excerpt:

Conducting cyber defensive operations, electronic warfare, and over-the-horizon targeting. “You cannot have a human operator operating at human speed fighting back at determined cyber tech,” Work said. “You are going to need have a learning machine that does that.” He did not say whether the Pentagon is pursuing the autonomous or automatic deployment of offensive cyber capabilities, a controversial idea to be sure. He also highlighted a number of ways that artificial intelligence could help identify new waveforms to improve electronic warfare.

Britain should lead way on genetically engineered babies, says Chief Scientific Adviser — from.telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton
Sir Mark Walport, who advises the government on scientific matters, said it could be acceptable to genetically edit human embryos

Excerpt:

Last week more than 150 scientists and campaigners called for a worldwide ban on the practice, claiming it could ‘irrevocably alter the human species’ and lead to a world where inequality and discrimination were ‘inscribed onto the human genome.’

But at a conference in London [on 12/8/15], Sir Mark Walport, who advises the government on scientific matters, said he believed there were ‘circumstances’ in which the genetic editing of human embyros could be ‘acceptable’.

Cyborg Future: Engineers Build a Chip That Is Part Biological and Part Synthetic — from futurism.com

Excerpt:

Engineers have succeeded in combining an integrated chip with an artificial lipid bilayer membrane containing ATP-powered ion pumps, paving the way for more such artificial systems that combine the biological with the mechanical down the road.

Robots expected to run half of Japan by 2035 — from engadget.com by Andrew Tarantola
Something-something ‘robot overlords’.

Excerpt:

Data analysts Nomura Research Institute (NRI), led by researcher Yumi Wakao, figure that within the next 20 years, nearly half of all jobs in Japan could be accomplished by robots. Working with Professor Michael Osborne from Oxford University, who had previously investigated the same matter in both the US and UK, the NRI team examined more than 600 jobs and found that “up to 49 percent of jobs could be replaced by computer systems,” according to Wakao.

Cambridge University is opening a £10 million centre to study the impact of AI on humanity — from businessinsider.com by Sam Shead

Excerpt:

Cambridge University announced on [12/3/15] that it is opening a new £10 million research centre to study the impact of artificial intelligence on humanity.

The 806-year-old university said the centre, being funded with a grant from non-profit foundation The Leverhulme Trust, will explore the opportunities and challenges facing humanity as a result of further developments in artificial intelligence.

Tech leaders launch nonprofit to save the world from killer robots — from csmonitor.com by Jessica Mendoza
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other tech titans have invested $1 billion in a nonprofit that would help direct artificial intelligence technology toward positive human impact.

2016 will be a pivotal year for social robots — from therobotreport.com by Frank Tobe
1,000 Peppers are selling each month from a big-dollar venture between SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn; Jibo just raised another $16 million as it prepares to deliver 7,500+ units in Mar/Apr of 2016; and Buddy, Rokid, Sota and many others are poised to deliver similar forms of social robots.

Excerpt:

These new robots, and the proliferation of mobile robot butlers, guides and kiosks, promise to recognize your voice and face and help you plan your calendar, provide reminders, take pictures of special moments, text, call and videoconference, order fast food, keep watch on your house or office, read recipes, play games, read emotions and interact accordingly, and the list goes on. They are attempting to be analogous to a sharp administrative assistant that knows your schedule, contacts and interests and engages with you about them, helping you stay informed, connected and active.

IBM opens its artificial mind to the world — from fastcompany.com by Sean Captain
IBM is letting companies plug into its Watson artificial intelligence engine to make sense of speech, text, photos, videos, and sensor data.

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is the big, oft-misconstrued catchphrase of the day, making headlines recently with the launch of the new OpenAI organization, backed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and other tech luminaries. AI is neither a synonym for killer robots nor a technology of the future, but one that is already finding new signals in the vast noise of collected data, ranging from weather reports to social media chatter to temperature sensor readings. Today IBM has opened up new access to its AI system, called Watson, with a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow other companies and organizations to feed their data into IBM’s big brain for analysis.

GE wants to give industrial machines their own social network with Predix Cloud — from fastcompany.com by Sean Captain
GE is selling a new service that promises to predict when a machine will break down…so technicians can preemptively fix it.

Foresight 2020: The future is filled with 50 billion connected devices — from ibmbigdatahub.com by Erin Monday

Excerpt:

By 2020, there will be over 50 billion connected devices generating continuous data.

This figure is staggering, but is it really a surprise? The world has come a long way from 1992, when the number of computers was roughly equivalent to the population of San Jose. Today, in 2015, there are more connected devices out there than there are human beings. Ubiquitous connectivity is very nearly a reality. Every day, we get a little closer to a time where businesses, governments and consumers are connected by a fluid stream of data and analytics. But what’s driving all this growth?

Designing robots that learn as effortlessly as babies — from singularityhub.com by Shelly Fan

Excerpt:

A wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked, babbling human baby hardly looks like the ultimate learning machine.

But under the hood, an 18-month-old can outlearn any state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithm.

Their secret sauce?

They watch; they imitate; and they extrapolate.

Artificial intelligence researchers have begun to take notice. This week, two separate teams dipped their toes into cognitive psychology and developed new algorithms that teach machines to learn like babies. One instructs computers to imitate; the other, to extrapolate.

Researchers have found a new way to get machines to learn faster — from fortune.com by Hilary Brueck

Excerpt:

An international team of data scientists is proud to announce the very latest in machine learning: they’ve built a program that learns… programs. That may not sound impressive at first blush, but making a machine that can learn based on a single example is something that’s been extremely hard to do in the world of artificial intelligence. Machines don’t learn like humans—not as fast, and not as well. And even with this research, they still can’t.

Team showcase how good Watson is at learning — from adigaskell.org

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence has undoubtedly come a long way in the last few years, but there is still much to be done to make it intuitive to use. IBM’s Watson has been one of the most well known exponents during this time, but despite it’s initial success, there are issues to overcome with it.

A team led by Georgia Tech are attempting to do just that. They’re looking to train Watson to get better at returning answers to specific queries.

Why The Internet of Things will drive a Knowledge Revolution. — from linkedin.com by David Evans

Excerpt:

As these machines inevitably connect to the Internet, they will ultimately connect to each other so they can share, and collaborate on their own findings. In fact, in 2014 machines got their own ”World Wide Web” called RoboEarth, in which to share knowledge with one another. …
The implications of all of this are at minimum twofold:

The way we generate knowledge is going to change dramatically in the coming years.
Knowledge is about to increase at an exponential rate.

What we choose to do with this newfound knowledge is of course up to us. We are about to face some significant challenges at scales we have yet to experience.

Drone squad to be launched by Tokyo police — from bbc.com

Excerpt:

A drone squad, designed to locate and – if necessary – capture nuisance drones flown by members of the public, is to be launched by police in Tokyo.

An advance in artificial intelligence rivals human abilities — from todayonline.com by John Markoff

Excerpt:

NEW YORK — Computer researchers reported artificial-intelligence advances [on Dec 10] that surpassed human capabilities for a narrow set of vision-related tasks.

The improvements are noteworthy because so-called machine-vision systems are becoming commonplace in many aspects of life, including car-safety systems that detect pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as in video game controls, Internet search and factory robots.

Somewhat related:

Novo Nordisk, IBM Watson Health to create ‘virtual doctor’ — from wsj.com by Denise Roland
Software could dispense treatment advice for diabetes patients

Excerpt:

Novo Nordisk A/S is teaming up with IBM Watson Health, a division of International Business Machines Corp., to create a “virtual doctor” for diabetes patients that could dispense treatment advice such as insulin dosage.

The Danish diabetes specialist hopes to use IBM’s supercomputer platform, Watson, to analyze health data from diabetes patients to help them manage their disease.

Why Google’s new quantum computer could launch an artificial intelligence arms race — from washingtonpost.com

8 industries robots will completely transform by 2025 — from techinsider.io

Addendums on 12/17/15:

Russia and China are building highly autonomous killer robots — from businessinsider.com.au by Danielle Muoi

Excerpt:

Russia and China are creating highly autonomous weapons, more commonly referred to as killer robots, and it’s putting pressure on the Pentagon to keep up, according to US Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work. During a national-security forum on Monday, Work said that China and Russia are heavily investing in a roboticized army, according to a report from Defense One.

Your Algorithmic Self Meets Super-Intelligent AI — from techcrunch.com by Jarno M. Koponen

Excerpt:

At the same time, your data and personalized experiences are used to develop and train the machine learning systems that are powering the Siris, Watsons, Ms and Cortanas. Be it a speech recognition solution or a recommendation algorithm, your actions and personal data affect how these sophisticated systems learn more about you and the world around you.

The less explicit fact is that your diverse interactions — your likes, photos, locations, tags, videos, comments, route selections, recommendations and ratings — feed learning systems that could someday transform into super–intelligent AIs with unpredictable consequences.

As of today, you can’t directly affect how your personal data is used in these systems

Addendum on 12/20/15:

Humans Are Slamming Into Driverless Cars and Exposing a Key Flaw — from bloomberg.com by Keith Naughton

Addendum on 12/21/15:

Facewatch ‘thief recognition’ CCTV on trial in UK stores — from bbc.com
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Face-recognition camera systems should be used by police, he tells me. “The technology’s here, and we need to think about what is a proportionate response that respects people’s privacy,” he says.
…
“The public need to ask themselves: do they want six million cameras painted red at head height looking at them?

Addendum on 1/13/16:

The Algorithms Are Taking Over: Who Controls Our Online Future? — from forbes.com by Kalev Leetaru

How education will be smarter, less intrusive, and able to respond to how you feel [Kumar]

On 12/04/2015, in assessment, blended learning, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, hybrid learning, innovation, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
When done well, blended/hybrid learning can be very powerful, offering students the best of both worlds:

Let's take the best of both worlds -- online learning and face-to-face learning

Numerous technologies involved with education continue to get better. Still, students don’t always have the discipline to be totally on their own…and I often read that learners desire someone to help them navigate through the content. (This can be done online as well, I realize.) Those things said, the article below caught my eye.

How education will be smarter, less intrusive, and able to respond to how you feel — from techcrunch.com by Amar Kumar

Excerpts:

We are on the verge of a tide of smarter innovation that, if allowed to spread, will turbocharge the learning experience for students. Here are four areas worth watching:

Using technology to learn from learners
Using technology to adapt to how students feel
Building invisible assessments that are less intrusive
Keeping pace with technology in the classroom

…

Take SimCityEdu: Pollution Challenge – developed by GlassLab Games – where students learn how city-planning is impacted by environmental issues. As they play the game, the system is capturing their actions – such as the sequence of what they do or requests for help – and interprets patterns in data to assess how well the player understands important concepts. This helps teachers better evaluate how a student solves problems, rather than just the final product of their work.

In time, learning games like this should decrease reliance on stop-and-test exams and provide more real-time and actionable information to teachers.

Also related/see:

Search for Quick, Rigorous Ed-Tech Evaluations Underway –– from blogs.edweek.org by Michele Molnar
Excerpt:
Work began [in October 2015] on a federally-funded project designed to quickly determine “what works” with educational technology, so that schools and districts can make faster decisions about it.Mathematica Policy Research won the $3.67 million contract to devise tools for rapid—and rigorous—evaluation of ed-tech products. The goal is to come up with a platform where educators can choose a test that will help them determine—within one to three months—how effective a particular ed-tech product is in their schools. SRI International is a partner on the project.The idea is that the platform will have tools to walk a practitioner, school leader, researcher or app developer through the process of figuring out which research design makes the most sense, and it will ask them questions to help them set it up, said Katrina Stevens, a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, which is funding the so-called “rapid-cycle tech evaluation” project.
Public-university group expands ‘personalized learning’ efforts — from chronicle.com by Ellen Wexler
Excerpt:

The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities is expanding its support of “personalized learning” with the help of a new $4.6-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Personalized learning” means different things to different people. It’s a buzzword, and it can be difficult to get past the hype. Depending on whom you ask, it can mean such things as data analytics, video games, or artificial-intelligence research.

Learning Ecosystems

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

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