lifelong learning

From DSC: Some reflections from the “2017 Workplace Learning Report ” from LinkedIn Learning

On 10/02/2017, in 21st century, bots, business, career development, change, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, elearning, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Microsoft, online learning, online media, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, RSS, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tools, training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Getting employees to make time for L&D needs to be based upon “what’s in it for them” — i.e., the main role of the L&D Team/Department should be to create the platforms and means by which employees can learn whatever they need to learn in order to do their jobs well (as well as to learn the skills necessary to move into those new areas that they’ve been wanting to move into). They’re going to find ways to do this anyway, why not give them the tools/knowledge of the tools and the platforms in order to better facilitate that learning to happen at a quicker pace?

An L&D Team could provide content curation services themselves and/or they could connect the employees with knowledgeable people. For example, give employees the key people to connect with who are doing their jobs really well.

For example, the L&D Team could maintain and provide a list of the top 10*:

Internal Sales employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Sales people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Customer Service employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Customer Service people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Marketing employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Marketing people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Etc.

* Or top 5, or top 50, or top whatever # that the L&D Team
thinks would be most beneficial to the organization

I think each employee in the workforce needs to know about the power of RSS feeds and feed aggregators such as Feedly. In fact, I advocate that same approach for most every student in middle school, high school, and college as well. We need to be able to connect with others and tap into streams of content being produced — as well as contribute to those streams of content as well. Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, CMSs/LMSs, etc. can provide beneficial streams of content.

“And learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.”

Also, based upon the above image, I find it interesting that the corporate L&D teams are struggling with what higher education has been struggling with as well — i.e., predicting which skills will be needed and responding as quickly as possible in order to develop the necessary learning modules/RSS feeds/content/etc. to remain up-to-date. Actually, I suspect that it’s not that the learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them, rather its the required skills and needs of the positions that are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.

Our institutions and our L&D Departments are simply not used to this pace of change. No one is.

We need better mechanisms of dealing with this new pace of change.

One last random thought here…perhaps a portion of the L&D department will morph into creating bots for internal employees, helping answer questions at the point of need.

What if we were to tie in Google’s new Job Discovery service in w/ a next gen learning platform? [Christian]

On 09/27/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, business side of he, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, tools, TVs, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Google’s jobs AI service hits private beta, now works in 100 languages — from venturebeat.com by Blair Hanley Frank

Excerpt:

Google today announced the beta release of its Cloud Job Discovery service, which uses artificial intelligence to help customers connect job vacancies with the people who can fill them.

Formerly known as the Cloud Jobs API, the system is designed to take information about open positions and help job seekers take better advantage of it. For example, Cloud Job Discovery can take a plain language query and help translate that to the specific jargon employers use to describe their positions, something that can be hard for potential employees to navigate.

As part of this beta release, Google announced that Cloud Job Discovery is now designed to work with applicant-tracking systems and staffing agencies, in addition to job boards and career site providers like CareerBuilder.

It also now works in 100 languages. While the service is still primarily aimed at customers in the U.S., some of Google’s existing clients need support for multiple languages. In the future, the company plans to expand the Cloud Job Discovery service internationally, so investing in language support now makes sense going forward.

From DSC:
Now tie this type of job discovery feature into a next generation learning platform, helping people identify which skills they need to get jobs in their local area(s). Provide a list of courses/modules/RSS feeds to get them started. Allow folks to subscribe to constant streams of content and unsubscribe to them at any time as well.

We MUST move to lifelong, constant learning via means that are highly accessible, available 24×7, and extremely cost effective. Blockchain-based technologies will feed web-based learner profiles, which each of us will determine who can write to our learning profile and who can review it as well.

Addendum on 9/29/17:

Facebook partners with ZipRecruiter and more aggregators as it ramps up in jobs — from techcrunch.com by Ingrid Lunden
Excerpt:
Facebook has made no secret of its wish to do more in the online recruitment market — encroaching on territory today dominated by LinkedIn, the leader in tapping social networking graphs to boost job-hunting. Today, Facebook is taking the next step in that process.
Facebook will now integrate with ZipRecruiter — an aggregator that allows those looking to fill jobs to post ads to many traditional job boards, as well as sites like LinkedIn, Google and Twitter — to boost the number of job ads available on its platform targeting its 2 billion monthly active users.
The move follows Facebook launching its first job ads earlier this year, and later appearing to be interested in augmenting that with more career-focused features, such as a platform to connect people looking for mentors with those looking to offer mentorship.

These Are the Skills of the Future, According to 39 Industry Experts — from linkedin.com by Paul Petrone

Excerpts:

There’s a misconception out there that the future of work will be robots and artificial intelligence automating all the jobs, leaving nothing for majority of the world’s citizens to do.

History says that’s not the case. Over the past 120 years, there have been incredible technological advancements – cars, personal computers, the internet, smartphones, etc. – that have automated or eliminated aspects of nearly every job. But jobs haven’t gone away; instead, they’ve generally become more complex or changed scope, requiring new skills to complete them.

Hence, over the next five years, with AI and other technologies changing the market, jobs won’t go away. But the skills needed to do most jobs will change (and, in many cases, change drastically).

This sounds scary, but it really isn’t. Preparing for the future merely requires a commitment to learning – one of the most empowering activities a person can engage in. And, with all this change comes great opportunity. So, if you commit to learning and stay ahead of your industry, you’ll put yourself in position to reach your goals – regardless of where you stand now.

…

And while those answers were all specific to their individual fields, there were three skills we saw again and again that apply to all professionals moving forward. They are:

* A growth mindset
* Strategy
* Employee empowerment

…

It’s Time for Student Agency to Take Center Stage — from gettingsmart.com by Marie Bjerede and Michael Gielniak

Excerpt:

Jason took ownership of his class project, exhibiting agency. Students who take ownership go beyond mere responsibility and conscientiously completing assignments. These students are focused on their learning, rather than their grade. They are genuinely interested in their work and are as likely as not to get up and work on a project on a Saturday morning, even though they don’t have to (and without considerations of extra credit.)

They complete their homework on time and may well go above and beyond, and they have interesting thoughts to add to classroom dialog. For many teachers, they are a joy to teach, but they are also the ones who may ask the hard questions and they may be quick to point out what they see as hypocrisy in the authority figures.

“Responsible” students, on the other hand, are compliant. Most teachers think they are a joy to teach. They complete their homework without fail, and pay attention and participate in class. These are the kids typically considered “good” students. They usually win most of the academic awards because they are thought of as the “best and brightest.”

Responsible students are concerned about their grades, and can be identified when they ask questions like::

“Will that be on the test?”
“How many words do I have to write?”
“What does it take to get an A?”

Students who take ownership, on the other hand ask questions like:

“There are several different viewpoints on this subject so why is that, and what does it mean?
“Is what you are teaching, or what is in my textbook, consistent with my research?”
“Why is this important?”

Compliance or agency? We need to decide.

The past decades have been the age of the responsible, compliant student. Students who used to be able to get into college and then immediately secure a good job. But the world and the workforce have changed.

How can you prepare for tomorrow’s blockchain world? [Zetlin]

On 09/20/2017, in 21st century, Blockchain, career development, credentialing, economics, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, learner profiles, learning, lifelong learning, MBA, society, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Blockchain predictions: What it means to you — from enterprisersproject.com by Minda Zetlin
How can you prepare for tomorrow’s blockchain world? TCS blockchain expert Andreas Freund shares perspective

Excerpts:

Blockchain technology will be as revolutionary as the internet, or maybe even the steam engine, predicts Andreas Freund, Ph.D., a senior manager for Tata Consultancy Services‘ blockchain advisory. It’s a bold claim. But in the first part of our two-part interview, Freund makes a strong case that blockchain technology will, at the very least, change our marketplaces and our enterprises in ways that are hard to imagine right now.

Blockchain protocols (best known for enabling cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or ether) create a distributed ledger in which many nodes on a network each have a record of every transaction that has taken place. (See our recent story, Blockchain: 3 big implications for your company.)

“To really understand and appreciate the value blockchain can bring, you need to understand why it’s a paradigm shift,” Freund says. “You need to look at human beings. What defines us is our physical strength, our intelligence, and our trust relationships. The most fundamental shifts occur when these functions become automated and exponentiated.”
…
When we’re interacting through the blockchain, not only as human beings but as things as well, I can trust the transaction will be executed properly every single time. There’s no chance of tampering or censorship. From a human perspective, I can now trust you without trusting you.”

Right now, people who want to transact with strangers must use a trusted intermediary, as people do when they buy and sell items on the Amazon Marketplace, or buy and sell shares on an exchange, or, say, summon an Uber ride.

It’s more important to understand how blockchain will change many common practices than it is to understand the precise technology behind it, Freund notes. “In the end, how the technology works doesn’t matter,” he says. “TCP/IP enables the internet, although nobody really knows how it works. Without it, we’d still have the walled gardens of the AOL era.”

When it comes to blockchain, he says, “We are still in the AOL era. We have these walled gardens, with many companies experimenting and many public blockchains, but eventually there will be something equivalent to that moment when TCP/IP broke down those walls.”

From DSC:
What happens with blockchain-based technologies and systems could easily impact higher education in the future, especially in the area of credentials and competencies (i.e., did someone really take that class/module/certificate program/etc.?). Blockchain-based techs are likely a part of our future learning ecosystems and next generation learning platforms, and may significantly impact and better support lifelong learning.

Global Human Capital Report 2017 [World Economic Forum]

On 09/18/2017, in 21st century, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, Canada, career development, collaboration, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, design, economics, education, education reform, Europe, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, India, innovation, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, pace of change, reinvent, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Global Human Capital Report 2017 — from the World Economic Forum

Excerpt from the Conclusion section (emphasis DSC):

Technological change and its impact on labour markets calls for a renewed focus on how the world’s human capital is invested in and leveraged for social well-being and economic prosperity for all. Many of today’s education systems are already disconnected from the skills needed to function in today’s labour markets and the exponential rate of technological and economic change is further increasing the gap between education and labour markets. Furthermore, the premise of current education systems is on developing cognitive skills, yet behavioural and non-cognitive skills that nurture an individual’s capacity to collaborate, innovate, self-direct and problem-solve are increasingly important. Current education systems are also time-compressed in a way that may not be suited to current or future labour markets. They force narrow career and expertise decisions in early youth. The divide between formal education and the labour market needs to be overcome, as learning, R&D, knowledge-sharing, retraining and innovation take place simultaneously throughout the work life cycle, regardless of the job, level or industry.

Insert from DSC…again I ask:

“Is is time to back up a major step and practice design thinking on the entire continuum of lifelong learning?”

Education delivery and financing mechanisms have gone through little change over the last decades. In many countries, many youth and children may find their paths constrained depending on the type of education they are able to afford, while others may not have access to even basic literacy and learning. On the other hand, many developed world education systems have made enormous increases in spending—with little explicit return. Early childhood education and teacher quality remain neglected areas in many developed and developing countries, despite their proven impact on learning outcomes. Both areas also suffer from lack of objective, global data.

Generational shifts also necessitate an urgent focus by governments on human capital investments, one that transcends political cycles. Ageing economies will face a historical first, as more and more of their populations cross into the 65 and over age group and their workforces shrink further, necessitating a better integration of youth, female workers, migrants and older workers. Many emerging economies face change of a different kind as a very large cohort of the next generation—one that is more connected and globalized than ever before—enters the workforce with very different aspirations, expectations and worldviews than their predecessors.

The expansion of the digital economy is accelerating the presence of a new kind of productive entity, somewhere between human capital and physical capital—robots and intelligent algorithms. As a result, some experts expect a potential reduction in the use of human labour as part of economic value creation while others expect a restructuring of the work done by people across economies but stable or growing overall levels of employment.¹⁹ Yet others have cautioned of the risks to economic productivity of technological reticence at the cost of realizing the raw potential of new technological advancements unfettered.²⁰ While in the immediate term the link between work and livelihoods remains a basic feature of our societies, the uncertainty around the shifts underway poses fundamental questions about the long-term future structure of economies, societies and work. However, for broad-based transition and successful adaptation towards any one of these or other long-term futures, strategic and deep investments in human capital will be even more—not less—important than before.

Stroll along the canals of Venice, stand at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, or soar through the sky faster than a speeding bullet; explore Street View imagery from 85 countries! Amazing!!!

On 09/16/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, Canada, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Europe, geography / geology, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, India, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, online media, participation, platforms, play, society, sociology, teaching & learning, UK, United States, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Google AR and VR: Get a closer look with Street View in Google Earth VR

Excerpt:

With Google Earth VR, you can go anywhere in virtual reality. Whether you want to stroll along the canals of Venice, stand at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro or soar through the sky faster than a speeding bullet, there’s no shortage of things to do or ways to explore. We love this sense of possibility, so we’re bringing Street View to Earth VR to make it easier for you to see and experience the world.

This update lets you explore Street View imagery from 85 countries right within Earth VR. Just fly down closer to street level, check your controller to see if Street View is available and enter an immersive 360° photo. You’ll find photos from the Street View team and those shared by people all around the world.

Best question I’ve heard in a while: “K-12 & higher education are considered separate systems. What if they converged?” [Young]

On 09/15/2017, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, career development, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, design, expectations, faculty/staff, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, microlearning, pedagogy, social learning / networks, social media, society, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, universities, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

K-12 and higher education are considered separate systems. What if they converged? — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young

Excerpt:

Education in America is a tale of two systems. There’s K-12 education policy and practice, but a separate set of rules—and a separate culture—for higher education. A new book argues that it doesn’t have to be that way.

In “The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education: Policies and Programs in a Changing Era,” two education professors point out potential benefits of taking a more holistic view to American education (in a volume that collects essays from other academics). They acknowledge that there are potential pitfalls, noting that even well-intentioned systems can have negative consequences. But they argue that “now more than ever, K-12 and higher education need to converge on a shared mission and partner to advance the individual interests of American students and the collective interests of the nation.”

EdSurge recently talked with one of the book’s co-editors, Christopher Loss, associate professor of public policy and higher education at Vanderbilt University. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Which is to say that we have tended not to think of the sector as most people actually experience it—which is one continuous ladder, one that often is missing rungs, and is sometimes difficult to climb, depending on a whole host of different factors. So, I think that the research agenda proposed by Pat and I and our collaborators is one that actually gets much closer to the experience that most people actually are having with the educational sector.

From DSC:
This is a great 50,000-foot level question and one that reminds me of a graphic I created a couple of years ago that speaks of the continuum that we need to more holistically address — especially as the topic of lifelong learning is increasingly critical to members of our workforce today.

Because in actuality, the lines between high school and college continue to blur. Many students are taking AP courses and/or are dually-enrolled at colleges/universities already. Some high school graduates already have enough credits to make serious headway in obtaining a college degree.

The other thing that I see over and over again is that K-12 is out innovating higher education and is better at communicating with other educators than most of higher education is. As an example, go look at some of the K-12 bloggers and educators out there on Twitter. They have tens of thousands of followers — and many of those followers being other K-12 educators. They are sharing content, best practices, questions, issues/solutions, new pedagogies, new technologies, live communication/training sessions, etc. with each other. Some examples include:

Eric Sheninger 127 K followers
Alice Keeler 110 K followers
Kyle Pace 63.6 K followers
Monica Burns 44.5 K
Lisa Nielsen 32.4 K followers

The vast majority of the top bloggers within higher ed — and those who regularly are out on social media within higher education — are not even close to those kinds of numbers.

What that tells me is that while many educators within K-12 are out on social media sharing knowledge with each other via these relatively new means, the vast majority of administrators/faculty members/staff working within higher education are not doing that. That is, they are not regularly contributing streams of content to Twitter.

But that said, there are few people who are trying to “cross over the lines” of the two systems and converse with folks from both higher ed and K-12. We need more of these folks who are attempting to pulse-check the other systems out there in order to create a more holistic, effective continuum.

I wonder about the corporate world here as well. Are folks from the training departments and from the learning & development groups pulse-checking the ways that today’s students are being educated within higher education? Within K-12? Do they have a good sense of what the changing expectations of their new employees look like (in terms of how they prefer to learn)?

We can do better. That’s why I appreciated the question raised within Jeff’s article.

Is is time to back up a major step and practice design thinking on the entire continuum of lifelong learning?

Daniel Christian

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education [Blackboard, w/ a variety of contributors]

On 09/08/2017, in 21st century, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), change, changing business models, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, face-to-face, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning theories, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, pace of change, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education — from Blackboard with a variety of contributors

Excerpts:

As you read their reflections you’ll find several themes emerge over and over:

Our current system is unsustainable and ill-suited for a globally connected world that is constantly changing.
Colleges and universities will have to change their current business model to continue to thrive, boost revenue and drive enrollment.
The “sage on the stage” and the “doc in the box” aren’t sustainable; new technologies will allow faculty to shift their focus on the application of learning rather than the acquisition of knowledge.
Data and the ability to transform that data into action will be the new lifeblood of the institution.
Finally, the heart and soul of any institution are its people. Adopting new technologies is only a small piece of the puzzle; institutions must also work with faculty and staff to change institutional culture.

Some quotes are listed below.

“What’s more, next-generation digital learning environments must bridge the divide between the faculty-directed instructivist model our colleges and universities have always favored and the learner-centric constructivist paradigm their students have come to expect and the economy now demands.”

…

It will be at least 10 years before systems such as this become the standard rather than the exception. Yet to achieve this timeline, we will have to begin fostering a very different campus culture that embraces technology for its experiential value rather than its transactional expediency, while viewing education as a lifelong pursuit rather than a degree-driven activity.

Susan Aldridge

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think it is a difficult time for decisionmakers to know how to move boldly forward. It’s almost funny, nobody’s doing five-year strategic plans anymore. We used to do ten-year plans, but now it’s “What’s our guiding set of principles and then let’s sort of generally go towards that.” I think it’s really hard to move an entire institution, to know how to keep it sustainable and serving your core student population. Trying to figure out how to keep moving forward is not as simple as it used to be when you hired faculty and they showed up in the classroom. It’s time for a whole new leadership model. I’m not sure what that is, but we have to start reimagining our organizations and our institutions and even our leadership.

Marie Cini

One of the things that is frustrating to me is the argument that online learning is just another modality. Online learning is much more than that. It’s arguably the most transformative development since the G.I. Bill and, before that, the establishment of land-grant universities.
…
I don’t think we should underestimate the profound impact online education has had and will continue to have on higher education. It’s not just another modality; it’s an entirely new industry.

Robert Hansen

From DSC:
And I would add (to Robert’s quote above) that not since the printing press was invented close to 500 years ago have we seen such an enormously powerful invention as the Internet. To bypass the Internet and the online-based learning opportunities that it can deliver is to move into a risky, potentially dangerous future. If your institution is doing that, your institution’s days could be numbered. As we move into the future — where numerous societies throughout the globe will be full of artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, algorithms, business’ digital transformations, and more — your institutions’ credibility could easily be at stake in a new, increasingly impactful way. Parents and students will want to know that there’s a solid ROI for them. They will want to know that a particular college or university has the foundational/core competencies and skills to prepare the learner for the future that the learner will encounter.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think the biggest challenge is the stubborn refusal of institutions to acknowledge that the 20th century university paradigm no longer works, or at least it doesn’t work anymore for the majority of our institutions. I’m not speaking on behalf of our members, but I think it’s fair to say that institutions are still almost entirely faculty-centered and not market-driven. Faculty, like so many university leaders today who come from faculty ranks, are so often ill-equipped to compete in the Wild West that we’re seeing today, and it’s not their fault. They’re trained to be biologists and historians and philosophers and musicians and English professors, and in the past there was very little need to be entrepreneurial. What’s required of university leadership now looks very much like what’s required in the fastpaced world of private industry.

…

If you are tuition dependent and you haven’t figured out how to serve the adult market yet, you’re in trouble.

Robert Hansen

It’s not just enough to put something online for autodidacts who already have the time, energy, and prior skills to be able to learn on their own. You really need to figure out how to embed all the supports that a student will need to be successful, and I don’t know if we’ve cracked that yet.

Amy Laitinen

The other company is Amazon. Their recent purchase of Whole Foods really surprised everybody. Now you have a massive digital retailer that has made billions staying in the online world going backwards into brick-and-mortar. I think if you look at what you can do on Amazon now, who’s to say in three years or five years, you won’t say, “You know what, I want to take this class. I want to purchase it through Amazon,” and it’s done through Amazon with their own LMS? Who’s to say they’re not already working on it?

Justin Louder

We are focused on four at Laureate. Probably in an increasing order of excitement to me are game-based learning (or gamification), adaptive learning, augmented and virtual reality, and cognitive tutoring.

Darrell Luzzo

I would wave my hand and have people lose their fear of change and recognize that you can innovate and do new things and still stay true to the core mission and values. My hope is that we harness our collective energy to help our students succeed and become fully engaged citizens.

Felice Nudelman

Each of us needs to be drawing from — and contributing to — streams of content [Christian]

On 08/24/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, career development, communications, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, faculty/staff, generational differences, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online media, participation, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, tools, training / L&D, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Readers of this Learning Ecosystems blog will recognize the following graphic:

I have long believed that each of us needs to draw from the relevant streams of content that are constantly flowing by us — and also that we should be contributing content to those streams as well. Such content can come from blogs, websites, Twitter, LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube channels, Google Alerts, periodicals, and via other means.

I’m a big fan of blogging and using RSS feeds along with feed aggregators such as Feedly. I also find that Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Alerts to be excellent means of tapping into — and contributing to — these streams of content. (See Jane Hart’s compilations to tap into other tools/means of learning as well.)

This perspective is echoed in the following article at the Harvard Business Review:

Help Employees Create Knowledge — Not Just Share It — from hbr.org by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown
Excerpt:
Without diminishing the value of knowledge sharing, we would suggest that the most valuable form of learning today is actually creating new knowledge. Organizations are increasingly being confronted with new and unexpected situations that go beyond the textbooks and operating manuals and require leaders to improvise on the spot, coming up with new approaches that haven’t been tried before. In the process, they develop new knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work in specific situations. We believe the old, “scalable efficiency” approach to knowledge needs to be replaced with a new, more nimble kind of “scalable learning.” To foster the latter, managers should understand five essential distinctions…

We need to be constantly challenging our assumptions and beliefs about what is required to achieve impact because, as the world changes, what used to work in the past may no longer work.

— Hagel and Brown

So whether you are working or studying within the world of higher education, or whether you are in the corporate world, or working in a governmental office, or whether you are a student in K-12, you need to be drawing from — and contributing your voice/knowledge to — streams of content.

In fact, in my mind, that’s what Training/L&D Departments should shift their focus to, as employees are already self-motivated to build their own learning ecosystems. And in the world of higher education, that’s why I work to help students in my courses build their own online-based footprints, while encouraging them to draw from — contribute to — these streams of content. As more people are becoming freelancers and consultants, it makes even more sense to do this.

But when we recognize that the environment around us is rapidly changing, skills have a shorter and shorter half-life. While skills are still necessary for success, the focus should shift to cultivating the underlying capabilities that can accelerate learning so that new skills can be more rapidly acquired. These capabilities include curiosity, critical thinking, willingness to take risk, imagination, creativity, and social and emotional intelligence. If we can develop those learning capabilities, we should be able to rapidly evolve our skill sets in ways that keep us ahead of the game.

— Hagel and Brown

First wholly online state university in U.S. [Aldridge & Powell]

On 08/23/2017, in business side of he, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, higher education, innovation, leadership, lifelong learning, online learning, strategy, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

First wholly online state university in U.S. — from virtuallyinspired.org by Susan Aldridge and Marci Powell
Colorado State University Global Campus takes non-traditional approach

Excerpt:

A university that is light and limber, with excellent quality…that is an apt description for the first 100% fully online, independently accredited, public university in the United States. Open universities around the world should take notice of Colorado State University Global Campus’s innovative approach. What they are doing is a game changer.

Created by the Colorado State University System Board of Governors in 2007, CSU-Global Campus is focused on facilitating adult success in a global marketplace through career-relevant education including bachelor’s degree completion and master’s degree programs.

All courses are 100% online and designed for working adults. With accelerated 8-week courses and monthly starts, CSU Global Campus attracts a wide audience. The same affordable tuition rate applies to all students regardless of where they live. For those outside of the state of Colorado, this is great relief. Their Tuition Guarantee program means that the rate remains the same from the day a student first enrolls through the day they graduate.

From DSC:
Funny how I was just reflecting on the gaps that the bootcamps seem to be addressing. My hats off to Colorado State University’s Global Campus for their visionary, innovative approach.

Not taking any risks is the biggest risk of all these days.

NOTE: They went from 200 students — and almost closing their doors — to a current enrollment of close to 20,000 students! Seems their risk was calculated — and paid off big time!

Thanks Marci and Susan for your work and for posting this item.

Reflections on “Coding bootcamp graduate for every 3.5 university grads” [Ravipati]

On 08/23/2017, in 21st century, accreditation, adult learning, business side of he, career development, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, lifelong learning, new business models, professional development, programming, traditional / tradition, United States, universities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
According to the article below, bootcamps appear to be filling several (perceived and/or real) gaps. Quoting from the article:

Why are students enrolling in coding bootcamps? One reason may be the adaptability of these accelerated computer science programs, where students are taught web and mobile development skills that align with industry demands. Programs are offered in-person or online, providing students with flexible learning options. The payoff is decent too: At a typical coding bootcamp, Course Report estimates average tuition is $11,400 for about 14 weeks of instruction, from which the majority students complete on-time and find relevant jobs.

Cost.

Time.

Responsiveness to industry demands.

Greater flexibility.

These are some of the things for traditional institutions of higher education to grapple with, and I would argue the sooner, the better — before this trend finds its legs and gains even more traction/momentum.

For example, in your own mind/thinking…how long do you think it will take bootcamps to begin offering programs that help learners develop content for augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) — as compared to programs coming out of institutions of traditional higher education?

Whatever your answers are in regards to the reasons for that time difference are likely the exact sort of things institutions need to be working on. For me, at least one of the answers has to do with our current accreditation systems. Other reasons come to my mind as well, but I don’t have time to go there right now.

Study: 1 Coding Bootcamp Graduate for Every 3.5 University Grads — from campustechnology.com by Sri Ravipati

Excerpt:

The five-year coding bootcamp industry estimated at $266 million is rapidly expanding, according to a new market study from Course Report.

The study counted 94 full-time coding bootcamps across the United States and Canada (with programs in 74 U.S. cities). Compared to 2012, there will be 10 times as many graduates this year — or roughly one coding bootcamp graduate for every 3.5 graduates from a traditional university or college. Course Report estimates that 22,814 developers will graduate from coding bootcamps this year — an increase from 15,048 graduates last year.

Radically open: Tom Friedman on jobs, learning, and the future of work — from dupress.delotte.com by Tom Friedman, Cathy Engelbert, and John Hagel

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Tom Friedman: My thoughts on the future of work are very influenced by my friend, a business strategist, Heather McGowan. She really describes that what’s going on is that work is being disconnected from jobs, and jobs and work are being disconnected from companies, which are increasingly becoming platforms. That’s Heather’s argument, and that is what I definitely see.

[A good] example is what’s happened to the cab business. In Bethesda, we have a [local] cab company that owns cars and has employees who have a job; they drive those cars. They’re competing now with Uber, which owns no cars, has no employees, and just provides a platform of work that brings together ride-needers—myself—and ride-providers. And I do think that the Uber platform model, and the way it is turning a job into work and monetizing work, is the future of work.

And that will have a huge impact on the future of learning. Because if work is being extracted from jobs, and if jobs and work are being extracted from companies—and because, as you and I have both written, we’re now in a world of flows — then learning has to become lifelong. We have to provide both the learning tools and the learning resources for lifelong learning when your job becomes work and your company becomes a platform.

So I’m not sure what the work of the future is, but I know that the future of companies is to be hiring people and constantly training people to be prepared for a job that has not been invented yet. If you, as a company, are not providing both the resources and the opportunity for lifelong learning, [you’re sunk], because you simply cannot be a lifelong employee anymore unless you are a lifelong learner. If you’re training people for a job that’s already been invented, or if you’re going to school in preparation for a job that’s already been invented, I would suggest that you’re going to have problems somewhere down the road.

…
CE: In a recent report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, some leading labor economists did an analysis of net new employment in the United States between 2005 and 2015, and found that about 94 percent of that net new employment was from alternative work arrangements—everything from gig to freelance and off-balance-sheet kinds of work.
…
I think that’s why we need to teach filtering, literally, to our students. There should be Filtering 101, Filtering 102, Filtering 103. How do I filter information so I get enough of it to advance, but not so much that I’m overwhelmed? How do I filter news?

…it seems to me that rule number one is you want to be radically open. And that’s a really hard sell right now, because it feels so counterintuitive, and everyone’s putting up walls right when you want to be, actually, radically open. Why do you want to be radically open? Because you’ll get more flows; you’ll get the signals first, and you will attract more flow-minded people, which I would call high-IQ risk-takers. That’s from a country point of view, but I have to believe that’s also right from a company point of view: that you want to be plugged into as many discussions, as many places, and as many flow generators as possible, because you’ll simply get the signals first in order to understand where the work of the future is coming from.

[GE] offered $20,000 in prize money — 7,000 to the winner, and the rest split up among the other finalists. Well, within six weeks, they got over 600 responses. The 10 finalists were all tested by GE engineers, and they picked the winner. None of the 10 finalists was an American, and none was an aeronautical engineer, and the winner was a 21-year-old from Indonesia who was not an aeronautical engineer, and he took more than 80 percent of the weight out of this fastener.
…
No, let’s actually create jump balls and access all the talent wherever it is.

And what did the best artisans do? They brought so much personal value-add, so much unique extra, to what they did that they carved their initials into their work at the end of the day. So always do your job [in a way that] you bring so much empathy to it, so much unique, personal value-add, that it cannot be automated, digitized, or outsourced, and that you want to carve your initials into it at the end of the day.

From DSC:
If what Tom, Cathy, and John discuss here is true, think of what that means for our students. Our students need to be digitally literate, online, adaptable, lifelong learners, and they need to be highly comfortable with change. They need to be tapped into the “flows” that the authors describe (what they refer to as flows, I call “streams of content” — if I’m understanding their perspective correctly). They need to think entrepreneurially, as Friedman asserts.

Also, they discuss three new social contracts that need to evolve:

There are three new social contracts that have to evolve here. Government has to incentivize companies to create these lifelong learning opportunities. Companies have to create the platforms for employees to afford to be able to take these courses. And the employee has to have a new social contract with themselves: “I have to do this on my own time; I have to be more self-motivated.” More is on you.

…and thus enters my vision that I call Learning from the Living [Class] Room. A global, powerful, next generation learning platform — meant to help people reinvent themselves quickly, cost-effectively, conveniently, & consistently.

But there is no more important survival skill than learning to love learning.

…because you simply cannot be a lifelong employee anymore unless you are a lifelong learner.

Always think of yourself as if you need to be reengineered, retooled, relearned, retaught constantly. Never think of yourself as “finished”; otherwise you really will be finished.

4 ways augmented reality could change corporate training forever –from by Jay Samit

Excerpt:

In the coming years, machine learning and augmented reality will likely take both educational approaches to the next level by empowering workers to have the latest, most accurate information available in context, when and where they need it most.

Here are four ways that digital reality can revolutionize corporate training…

…augmented reality (AR) is poised not only to address issues faced by our aging workforce, but to fundamentality increase productivity by changing how all employees are trained in the future.

Amazon’s Alexa passes 15,000 skills, up from 10,000 in February [Perez]

On 07/21/2017, in 24x7x365 access, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Daniel S. Christian, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, lifelong learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Amazon’s Alexa passes 15,000 skills, up from 10,000 in February — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez

Excerpt:

Amazon’s Alexa voice platform has now passed 15,000 skills — the voice-powered apps that run on devices like the Echo speaker, Echo Dot, newer Echo Show and others. The figure is up from the 10,000 skills Amazon officially announced back in February, which had then represented a 3x increase from September.

The new 15,000 figure was first reported via third-party analysis from Voicebot, and Amazon has now confirmed to TechCrunch that the number is accurate.

According to Voicebot, which only analyzed skills in the U.S., the milestone was reached for the first time on June 30, 2017. During the month of June, new skill introductions increased by 23 percent, up from the less than 10 percent growth that was seen in each of the prior three months.

The milestone also represents a more than doubling of the number of skills that were available at the beginning of the year, when Voicebot reported there were then 7,000 skills. That number was officially confirmed by Amazon at CES.

From DSC:
Again, I wonder…what are the implications for learning from this new, developing platform?

Learning Ecosystems

How can you prepare for tomorrow’s blockchain world? [Zetlin]

First wholly online state university in U.S. [Aldridge & Powell]

Reflections on “Coding bootcamp graduate for every 3.5 university grads” [Ravipati]

Reflections on “Radically open: Tom Friedman on jobs, learning, & the future of work” [Friedman, Engelbert, & Hagel]

4 ways augmented reality could change corporate training forever [Samit]

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