Ten predictions for the very near future of higher education — from forbes.com by Brandon Busteed
Excerpt:
Instead of going to college to get a job, students will increasingly be going to a job to get a college degree.
DIY Mindset Reshaping Education — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
Excerpt:
A do-it-yourself mindset is changing the face of education worldwide, according to new survey results. Learners are “patching together” their education from a “menu of options,” including self-teaching, short courses and bootcamps, and they believe that self-service instruction will become even more prevalent for lifelong learning. In the United Sates specifically, 84 percent of people said learning would become even more self-service the older they get.
Among those who have needed to reskill in the last two years to continue doing their jobs, 42 percent found information online and taught themselves and 41 percent took a course or training offered by their employers, a professional association or bootcamp, compared to just 28 percent who pursued a professional certification program, 25 percent who enrolled in a university-level degree program or 12 percent who did nothing.
If people had to learn something new for their career quickly, they said they would be more likely turn to a short training program (47 percent), followed by access to a free resource such as YouTube, Lynda.com or Khan Academy (33 percent). A smaller share (20 percent) would head to an accredited university or college.
From DSC:
This is why the prediction from Thomas Frey carries weight and why I’ve been tracking a new learning platform for the 21st century. Given:
…there needs to be a new, up-to-date, highly responsive, inexpensive learning-related platform for the 21st century. I call this learning platform of the future, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.” And while it requires subject matter experts / humans in significant ways, AI and other technologies will be embedded throughout such a platform.
“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.
— source
Addendum on 9/18/19:
For $400 per course, students will be able to gain access to course videos that are cinematically filmed and taught by “some of the brightest minds in academia.” Outlier.org students will also have access to problem sets, one-on-one tutoring and assessments proctored through artificial intelligence.
The future of work in America — from mckinsey.com by Jacques Bughin, James Manyika. and Jonathan Woetzel | July 2019
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Local economies across the country have been on diverging trajectories for years, and ***they are entering the automation age from different starting points.*** Our view incorporates the current state of local labor markets as well as the jobs that could be lost and gained in the decade ahead.
The US labor market looks markedly different today than it did two decades ago. It has been reshaped by dramatic events like the Great Recession but also by a quieter ongoing evolution in the mix and location of jobs. In the decade ahead, the next wave of technology may accelerate the pace of change. Millions of jobs could be phased out even as new ones are created. More broadly, the day-to-day nature of work could change for nearly everyone as intelligent machines become fixtures in the American workplace.
…
The labor market could become even more polarized. Workers with a high school degree or less are four times as likely as those with a bachelor’s degree to be displaced by automation. Reflecting more limited access to education, Hispanic workers are most at risk of displacement, followed by African Americans. Jobs held by nearly 15 million workers ages 18–34 may be automated, so young people will need new career paths to gain an initial foothold in the working world. Roughly 11.5 million workers over age 50 could also be displaced and face the challenge of making late-career moves. The hollowing out of middle wage work could continue.
…
The future of work is not just about how many jobs could be lost and gained. Technology is altering the day-to-day mix of activities associated with more and more jobs over time. The occupational mix of the economy is changing, and the demand for skills is changing along with it. Employers will need to manage large-scale workforce transformations that could involve redefining business processes and workforce needs, retraining and moving some people into new roles, and creating programs for continuous learning. This could be an opportunity to upgrade jobs and make them more rewarding. The choices that employers make will ripple through the communities in which they operate.
The need for a next gen learning platform is quickly approaching us!
Either that, or colleges and universities better get FAR more
responsive/nimble, and focus FAR more on lifelong learning.
This is not a joke.
This is not just text on a web page.
This is a future that’s barreling at us at amazingly fast speeds.
A new chapter is coming at us quickly.
From DSC:
Re: the Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision of a next gen learning platform…
…wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your voice to ask your smart/connected “TV” type of device:
“Show me the test questions for Torts I from WMU-Cooley Law School. Cooley could then charge $0.99 for these questions.”
Then, the system knows how you did on answering those questions. The ones you got right, you don’t get asked to review as often as the ones you got wrong. As you get a question right more often, the less you are asked to answer it.
You sign up for such streams of content — and the system assesses you periodically. This helps a person keep certain topics/information fresh in their memory. This type of learning method would be incredibly helpful for students trying to pass the Bar or other types of large/summative tests — especially when a student has to be able to recall information that they learned over the last 3-5 years.
Come to think of it…this method could help all of us in learning new disciplines/topics throughout our lifetimes. Sign up for the streams of content that you want to learn more about…and drop the (no-longer relevant) subscriptions as needed..
Excerpt:
In addition to making sure you list at least five skills, Guo suggests adding the field you work in since more than 300,000 people search by industry on LinkedIn each week. And don’t forget to update the city you work in since this can make you up to 23 times more likely to be found in search, according to LinkedIn’s data.
From DSC:
This next article is likely somewhat of an ad to take courses out at Lynda.com, but it’s still helpful I think:
Also see (emphasis DSC):
LinkedIn 2019 Talent Trends: Soft Skills, Transparency and Trust — from linkedin.com by Josh Bersin
Excerpts:
This week LinkedIn released its 2019 Global Talent Trends research, a study that summarizes job and hiring data across millions of people, and the results are quite interesting. (5,165 talent and managers responded, a big sample.)
In an era when automation, AI, and technology has become more pervasive, important (and frightening) than ever, the big issue companies face is about people: how we find and develop soft skills, how we create fairness and transparency, and how we make the workplace more flexible, humane, and honest.
…
The most interesting part of this research is a simple fact: in today’s world of software engineering and ever-more technology, it’s soft skills that employers want. 91% of companies cited this as an issue and 80% of companies are struggling to find better soft skills in the market.
What is a “soft skill?” The term goes back twenty years when we had “hard skills” (engineering and science) so we threw everything else into the category of “soft.” In reality soft skills are all the human skills we have in teamwork, leadership, collaboration, communication, creativity, and person to person service. It’s easy to “teach” hard skills, but soft skills must be “learned.”
Also see:
Employers Want ‘Uniquely Human Skills’ — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
Excerpt:
According to 502 hiring managers and 150 HR decision-makers, the top skills they’re hunting for among new hires are:
LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) — from edsurge by Jeff Young
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
A few years ago, in a move toward professional learning, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, adding the well-known library of video-based courses to its professional social network. Today LinkedIn officials announced that they plan to open up their platform to let in educational videos from other providers as well—but with a catch or two.
The plan, announced Friday, is to let companies or colleges who already subscribe to LinkedIn Learning add content from a select group of other providers. The company or college will still have to subscribe to those other services separately, so it’s essentially an integration—but it does mark a change in approach.
For LinkedIn, the goal is to become the front door for employees as they look for micro-courses for professional development.
LinkedIn also announced another service for its LinkedIn Learning platform called Q&A, which will give subscribers the ability to pose a question they have about the video lessons they’re taking. The question will first be sent to bots, but if that doesn’t yield an answer the query will be sent on to other learners, and in some cases the instructor who created the videos.
Also see:
LinkedIn becomes a serious open learning experience platform — from clomedia.com by Josh Bersin
LinkedIn is becoming a dominant learning solution with some pretty interesting competitive advantages, according to one learning analyst.
Excerpt:
LinkedIn has become quite a juggernaut in the corporate learning market. Last time I checked the company had more than 17 million users, 14,000 corporate customers, more than 3,000 courses and was growing at high double-digit rates. And all this in only about two years.
And the company just threw down the gauntlet; it’s now announcing it has completely opened up its learning platform to external content partners. This is the company’s formal announcement that LinkedIn Learning is not just an amazing array of content, it is a corporate learning platform. The company wants to become a single place for all organizational learning content.
LinkedIn now offers skills-based learning recommendations to any user through its machine learning algorithms.
Is there demand for staying relevant? For learning new skills? For reinventing oneself?
From DSC:
So…look out higher ed and traditional forms of accreditation — your window of opportunity may be starting to close. Alternatives to traditional higher ed continue to appear on the scene and gain momentum. LinkedIn — and/or similar organizations in the future — along with blockchain and big data backed efforts may gain traction in the future and start taking away some major market share. If employers get solid performance from their employees who have gone this route…higher ed better look out.
Microsoft/LinkedIn/Lynda.com are nicely positioned to be a major player who can offer society a next generation learning platform at an incredible price — offering up-to-date, microlearning along with new forms of credentialing. It’s what I’ve been calling the Amazon.com of higher ed (previously the Walmart of Education) for ~10 years. It will take place in a strategy/platform similar to this one.
Also, this is what a guerilla on the back looks like:
Also see:
An AI Bot for the Teacher — with thanks to Karthik Reddy for this resource
Artificial intelligence is the stuff of science fiction – if you are old enough, you will remember those Terminator movies a good few years ago, where mankind was systematically being wiped out by computers.
The truth is that AI, though not quite at Terminator level yet, is already a fact and something that most of us have encountered already. If you have ever used the virtual assistant on your phone or the Ask Google feature, you have used AI.
Some companies are using it as part of their sales and marketing strategies. An interesting example is Lowe’s Home Improvement that, instead of chatbots, uses actual robots into their physical stores. These robots are capable of helping customers locate products that they’re interested in, taking a lot of the guesswork out of the entire shopping experience.
Of course, there are a lot of different potential applications for AI that are very interesting. Imagine an AI teaching assistant, for example. They could help grade papers, fact check and assist with lesson planning, etc., all to make our harassed teachers’ lives a little easier.
Chatbots could be programmed as tutors to help kids better understand core topics if they are struggling with them, ensuring that they don’t hold the rest of the class up. And, for kids who have a real affinity with the subject, help them learn more about what they are interested in.
It could also help enhance long distance training. Imagine if your students could get instant answers to basic questions through a simple chatbot. Sure, if they were still not getting it, they would come through to you – the chatbot cannot replace a real, live, teacher after all. But it could save you a lot of time and frustration.
Here, of course, we have only skimmed the surface of what artificial intelligence is capable of. Why not look through this infographic to see how different brands have been using this tech, and see what possible applications of it we might expect.
Brands that use AI to enhance marketing (infographic) 2018
From 16best.net with thanks to Karthik Reddy for this resource
Uber and Lyft drivers’ median hourly wage is just $3.37, report finds — from theguardian.com by Sam Levin
Majority of drivers make less than minimum wage and many end up losing money, according to study published by MIT
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Uber and Lyft drivers in the US make a median profit of $3.37 per hour before taxes, according to a new report that suggests a majority of ride-share workers make below minimum wage and that many actually lose money.
Researchers did an analysis of vehicle cost data and a survey of more than 1,100 drivers for the ride-hailing companies for the paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. The report – which factored in insurance, maintenance, repairs, fuel and other costs – found that 30% of drivers are losing money on the job and that 74% earn less than the minimum wage in their states.
The findings have raised fresh concerns about labor standards in the booming sharing economy as companies such as Uber and Lyft continue to face scrutiny over their treatment of drivers, who are classified as independent contractors and have few rights or protections.
“This business model is not currently sustainable,” said Stephen Zoepf, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University and co-author of the paper. “The companies are losing money. The businesses are being subsidized by [venture capital] money … And the drivers are essentially subsidizing it by working for very low wages.”
From DSC:
I don’t know enough about this to offer much feedback and/or insights on this sort of thing yet. But while it’s a bit too early for me to tell — and though I’m not myself a driver for Uber or Lyft — this article prompts me to put this type of thing on my radar.
That is, will the business models that arise from such a sharing economy only benefit a handful of owners or upper level managers or will such new business models benefit the majority of their employees? I’m very skeptical in these early stages though, as there aren’t likely medical or dental benefits, retirement contributions, etc. being offered to their employees with these types of companies. It likely depends upon the particular business model(s) and/or organization(s) being considered, but I think that it’s worth many of us watching this area.
Also see:
The Economics of Ride-Hailing: Driver Revenue, Expenses and Taxes— from ceepr.mit.edu / MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research by Stephen Zoepf, Stella Chen, Paa Adu, and Gonzalo Pozo
February 2018
We perform a detailed analysis of Uber and Lyft ride-hailing driver economics by pairing results from a survey of over 1100 drivers with detailed vehicle cost information. Results show that per hour worked, median profit from driving is $3.37/hour before taxes, and 74% of drivers earn less than the minimum wage in their state. 30% of drivers are actually losing money once vehicle expenses are included. On a per-mile basis, median gross driver revenue is $0.59/mile but vehicle operating expenses reduce real driver profit to a median of $0.29/mile. For tax purposes the $0.54/mile standard mileage deduction in 2016 means that nearly half of drivers can declare a loss on their taxes. If drivers are fully able to capitalize on these losses for tax purposes, 73.5% of an estimated U.S. market $4.8B in annual ride-hailing driver profit is untaxed.
Keywords: Transportation, Gig Economy, Cost-Bene t Analysis, Tax policy, Labor Center
Full Paper | Research Brief
Addendum on 3/7/18:
The ride-hailing wage war continues
How much do Lyft and Uber drivers really make? After reporting in a study that their median take-home pay was just 3.37/hour—and then getting called out by Uber’s CEO—researchers have significantly revised their findings.
Closer to a living wage: Lead author Stephen Zoepf of Stanford University released a statement on Twitter saying that using two different methods to recalculate the hourly wage, they find a salary of either $8.55 or $10 per hour, after expenses. Zoepf’s team will be doing a larger revision of the paper over the next few weeks.
Still low-balling it?: Uber and Lyft are adamant that even the new numbers underestimate what drivers are actually paid. “While the revised results are not as inaccurate as the original findings, driver earnings are still understated,” says Lyft’s director of communications Adrian Durbin.
The truth is out there: Depending on who’s doing the math, estimates range from $8.55 (Zoepf, et al.) up to over $21 an hour (Uber). In other words, we’re nowhere near a consensus on how much drivers in the gig-economy make.
——-
Michelle Weise: ‘We Need to Design the Learning Ecosystem of the Future’ — from edsurge.com by Michelle Weise
Excerpts:
These days, education reformers, evangelists and foundations pay a lot of lip service to the notion of lifelong learning, but we do little to invest in the systems, architecture and infrastructure needed to facilitate seamless movements in and out of learning and work.
Talk of lifelong learning doesn’t translate into action. In fact, resources and funding are often geared toward the traditional 17- to 22-year-old college-going population and less often to working adults, our growing new-traditional student population.
We’ll need a different investment thesis: For most adults, taking time off work to attend classes at a local, brick-and-mortar community college or a four-year institution will not be the answer. The opportunity costs will be too high. Our current system of traditional higher education is ill-suited to facilitate flexible, seamless cost-effective learning pathways for these students to keep up with the emergent demands of the workforce.
…
Many adults may have no interest in coming back to college. Out of the 37 million Americans with some college and no degree, many have already failed one or twice before and will be wholly uninterested in experiencing more educational trauma.We can’t just say, “Here’s a MOOC, or here’s an online degree, or a 6- to 12-week immersive bootcamp.”
We have to do better. Let’s begin seeding the foundational elements of a learning ecosystem of the future—flexible enough for adults to move consistently in and out of learning and work. Enough talk about lifelong learning: Let’s build the foundations of that learning ecosystem of the future.
From DSC:
I couldn’t agree more with Michelle that we need a new learning ecosystem of the future. In fact, I have been calling such an effort “Learning from the Living [Class] Room — and it outlines a next generation learning platform that aims to deliver everything Michelle talks about in her solid article out at edsurge.com.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
Along these lines…I just saw that Amazon is building out more cashierless stores (and Walmart is also at work on introducing more cashierless stores.) Now, let’s say that you are currently a cashier. 2-5 years from now (depending upon where you’re currently working and which stores are in your community), what are you going to do? The opportunities for such a position will be fewer and fewer. Who can help you do what Michelle mentioned here:
Working learners will also need help articulating their learning goals and envisioning a future for themselves. People don’t know how to translate their skills from one industry to another. How does a student begin to understand that 30% of what they already know could be channeled into a totally different and potentially promising pathway they never even knew was within reach?
And that cashier may have had a tough time with K-12 education and/or with higher education. As Michelle writes:
Many adults may have no interest in coming back to college. Out of the 37 million Americans with some college and no degree, many have already failed one or twice before and will be wholly uninterested in experiencing more educational trauma. We can’t just say, “Here’s a MOOC, or here’s an online degree, or a 6- to 12-week immersive bootcamp.”
And like the cashier in this example…we are quickly approaching an era where, I believe, many of us will need to reinvent ourselves in order to:
Higher ed, if it wants to remain relevant, must pick up the pace of experimentation and increase the willingness to innovate, and to develop new business models — to develop new “learning channels” so to speak. Such channels need to be:
FREEDOM 2.0 – Blockchain’s Biggest Use Case with Richie Etwaru @richieetwaru — with thanks to Mike Mathews for his posting this on LinkedIn
Description:
While the Internet has profoundly impacted global society, new questions must be asked. When the human species reflects on the Internet in 2081 a hundred years after its invention will the Internet be viewed as good for our species, and has the impact of the set of adjacent inventions of the Internet furthered the triumph of the human species? Did we connect the last billion with mobility, did we distribute wealth meaningfully, and was basic healthcare democratized? Or, did social media coupled with mobile cameras create a spike in vanity that affected important social constructs such as love, self-esteem and family? Did AI create a new class system of robo sapiens that constrict freedom? And did we change the core of commerce of trust between citizens, communities and governments? Maybe; the Internet is only 49% of the story of our species, and the remaining 51% of our story is still unfolding. Richie will discuss the other 51% which he believes is blockchain, and how we can change the answers to some of these new types of questions of mankind.
Blockchain has a great potential for innovation. Some potential domains, where Blockchain can be successfully applied.https://t.co/LXQOEIzYLm #Blockchain #Cryptocurrency #Decentralization #Bigdata #Smartdata #Smartcontracts #Fintech #MedTech #IoT #Voting #Democratization #AI pic.twitter.com/Ne9k91blD3
— David Holm (@cloudpreacher) January 5, 2018
The Advantages of Blockchain Technology — from hortonworks.com by Ryan Wheeler
Excerpt:
Blockchain ensures data objectivity—a single source of truth. Blockchain also represents a security layer that ensures that data is encrypted in such a way that only the people you want to can read your data. It makes it next to impossible for people to corrupt or manipulate the data—or even gain wrongful access to it—because the system raises an instant red flag when a problem occurs, and it uses a new, advanced encryption method to secure the data.
Blockchain is both reactionary—alerting users to changes—and proactive, by preventing the security threat. And even if the data is somehow breached, it still can’t be used. The effects have already been seen in the healthcare industry, where technologies using blockchain have provided the proper balance of security and governance for people’s health data.
From DSC:
Interesting to see this new platform developing, one that combines 2 big trends — blockchain and freelancing:
Also interesting to see:
“Peculium: The first savings system in cryptocurrency utilizing AIEVE and Blockchain Technology with artificial intelligence. PECULIUM revolutionizes savings management by deploying immutable Smart-Contracts over Ethereum blockchain.”
Addendum/also see:
The blockchain provides a rich, secure, and transparent platform on which to create a global network for higher learning. This Internet of value can help to reinvent higher education in a way the Internet of information alone could not.
