LinkedIn’s Blockbuster deal w/ Lynda.com: What it means to the online learning industry — from forbes.com by Stephen Meyer

Excerpt:

The press coverage of LinkedIn’s recent acquisition of Lynda.com for $1.5 billion has largely overlooked a key aspect of the deal. Yes, it integrates learning into a powerful social media site. Yes, per LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, it’ll “connect our members to opportunity,” giving them access to skills training that will enhance their careers.

But what does it mean to corporate e-learning? Lynda.com, based in Carpinteria, CA, used to be strictly a consumer company, but its strategy for the past couple years has clearly been to muscle into workplace training. What does the acquisition mean to market leader Skillsoft and other providers of online corporate learning? (Disclosure: I am the CEO of Rapid Learning Institute, an e-learning company)

Well, it’s an atomic bomb.

What’s different is that Lynda.com’s “content producers” know they’re creating a video, a medium that operates under a different set of rules from traditional learning vehicles. Content producers know that an instructionally sound e-learning module fails if people don’t watch it.

The most important thing Lynda.com does is find credentialed subject matter experts who speak comfortably in front of a camera. That’s a one-in-20 quality. Ivy League professors who excel in a classroom often look wooden on camera. You don’t have to be pretty. In fact, actors usually bomb in e-learning. You need to be credible and hold people’s attention by combining tight scripts and captivating delivery. Lynda.com’s e-learning, especially their soft-skills content, does it better than Skillsoft and other major players in the industry.

The message for corporate e-learning insiders is clear: The quality of content matters.

 

From DSC:
The articles below illustrate the continued convergence of multiple technologies and means of communication. For example, what we consider “TV” is changing rapidly. As this space changes, I’m looking for new opportunities and affordances that would open up exciting new approaches and avenues for educationally-related learning experiences.


 

Hootsuite and Tagboard team up to power social TV workflow — from adweek.com by Kimberlee Morrison

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

More and more TV viewers are engaging with second screen devices while they watch broadcasts. A new partnership between Hootsuite and Tagboard hopes to bridge the gap between television and second screen social experiences.

Tagboard is a social media aggregation and curation platform that allows users to manage incoming social media posts for display, either on television broadcasts, or on screens at live events, and Hootsuite is a social media campaign management program. Their partnership enables integration for mutual users for real-time engagement.

 

 

Capture social content on display and TV with Hootsuite and Tagboard — from blog.hootsuite.com

Excerpt:

Adding social content to live TV broadcasts and sports games is a proven way to capture and keep your audience’s attention.

But the process isn’t that easy. For one, digital teams need to ensure that they review each piece of content (to keep it safe for the big screen), and this can create complicated and slow social media workflows.

To help streamline this process, Hootsuite has integrated with Tagboard, an innovative social media display tool, to provide an easy way to capture social content and incorporate it into on-air broadcasts, live event screens, or on digital platforms.

With the Tagboard app for Hootsuite, your team can put relevant and timely social content on air within seconds—when it matters most to the viewer.

KUSA Weather Touchscreen 2 women anchors.png

 

Introducing the Tagboard App for Hootsuite — from blog.tagboard.com
Social TV is easier than ever with Tagboard’s new app for Hootsuite

 

 

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

New from Educause:
Higher Ed IT Buyers Guide

 

HEITBuyersGuideEducauseApril2015

 

Excerpt:

Quickly search 50+ product and service categories, access thousands of IT solutions specific to the higher ed community, and send multiple RFPs—all in one place. This new Buyers Guide provides a central, go-to online resource for supporting your key purchasing decisions as they relate to your campus’s strategic IT initiatives.

Find the Right Vendors for Higher Education’s Top Strategic Technologies

Three of the Top 10 Strategic Technologies identified by the higher education community this year are mobile computing, business intelligence, and business performance analytics.* The new Buyers Guide connects you to many of the IT vendors your campus can partner with in the following categories related to these leading technologies, as well as many more.

View all 50+ product and service categories.

 

TeachingInADigitalAge-TonyBates-April2015

Teaching in a Digital Age
A.W. (Tony) Bates
Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age

The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when everyone, and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology.  A framework for making decisions about your teaching is provided, while understanding that every subject is different, and every instructor has something unique and special to bring to their teaching. The book enables teachers and instructors to help students develop the knowledge and skills they will need in a digital age: not so much the IT skills, but the thinking and attitudes to learning that will bring them success.

 

As Tony mentions here, his intended audience is primarily:

  • college and university instructors anxious to improve their teaching or facing major challenges in the classroom,
  • school teachers, particularly in secondary or high schools anxious to ensure their students are ready for either post-secondary education or a rapidly changing and highly uncertain job market.

 

An example chapter:
Chapter 7: Pedagogical differences between media

 

 

 

6 ways Virtual Reality will change filmmaking — from indiewire.com by DJ Roller 

Excerpt:

From the Chauvet Cave paintings of 30,000 years ago, to 6K digital cinema today, we’ve always told stories, we just do it differently as media changes. There’s a new leap in storytelling happening now. Virtual Reality (VR) is going to change the way we express ourselves, communicate with each other and experience the world. That may sound like hyperbole. If anything it’s an understatement. There are innumerable ways VR will change filmmaking that we can’t see yet. Here are a few changes that have already arrived:

From seeing to experiencing
The leap from film to VR is even bigger than the leap from radio to film was. There was sound, then sight. With VR, an even more immersive sensation is added: presence. People who try it say, “I was at the Golden Gate Bridge,” not, “I saw the Golden Gate Bridge.” They describe it as if they’re there. And with live VR, it’s an almost indescribable sensation of being there. It’s different from VR that’s recorded. People will regard it as an experience they’ve never had before.

 

The leap from film to VR is even bigger than the leap from radio to film was.

 

What does ‘learning’ have to learn from Netflix? — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Excerpts:

Of course, young people are watching way less TV these days, TV is dying, and when they do watch stuff, it’s streamed, at a time that suits them. Education has to learn from this. I’m not saying that we need to replace all of our existing structures but moving towards understanding what the technology can deliver and what learners want (they shape each other) is worth investigation. Hence some reflections on Netflix.

Areas discussed:

  • Timeshifting
  • Data driven delivery — Netflix’ recommendations engine
  • Data driven content
  • Content that’s accessible via multiple kinds of devices
  • Going global

 

From DSC:
I just wanted to add a few thoughts here:

  1. The areas of micro-credentials, nano-degrees, services like stackup.net, big data, etc. may come to play a role with what Donald is talking about here.
  2. I appreciate Donald’s solid, insightful perspectives and his thinking out loud — some great thoughts in that posting (as usual)
  3. Various technologies seem to be making progress as we move towards a future where learning platforms will be able to deliver a personalized learning experience; as digital learning playlists and educationally-related recommendation engines become more available/sophisticated, highly-customized learning experiences should be within reach.
  4. At a recent Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference, one of the speakers stated, “People are control freaks — so let them have more control.”  Along these lines…ultimately, what makes this vision powerful is having more choice, more control.

 

 

MoreChoiceMoreControl-DSC

 

 

 

Also, some other graphics come to my mind:

 

MakingTVMorePersonal-V-NetTV-April2014

 

EducationServiceOfTheFutureApril2014

 

 

 

YouTube’s Chief, Hitting a New ‘Play’ Button — from nytimes.com by Jonathan Mahler

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

At one point, the moderator asked Ms. Wojcicki if she thought cable television would still be around in 10 years. She paused for a moment before answering, with a bit of a sly smile, “Maybe.” The crowd laughed, even though just about everyone in the packed auditorium knew she was only half-joking.

If cable TV is gone in a decade, Ms. Wojcicki and the global digital video empire over which she presides will be one of the main causes. YouTube, founded in 2005 as a do-it-yourself platform for video hobbyists — its original motto was “Broadcast Yourself” — now produces more hit programming than any Hollywood studio.

Smosh, a pair of 20-something lip-syncing comedians, have roughly 30 million subscribers to their various YouTube channels. PewDiePie, a 24-year-old Swede who provides humorous commentary while he plays video games, has a following of similar size. The list goes on and on. For the sake of perspective, successful network television shows like “NCIS: New Orleans” or “The Big Bang Theory” average a little more than half that in weekly viewership. The 46-year-old Ms. Wojcicki — who will soon give birth to her fifth child — has quietly become one of the most powerful media executives in the world.

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

 

 

Also see:

  • Smart TV Alliance serves 58 million TV sets — from broadbandtvnews.com by The Smart TV Alliance development platform is now compatible with one-third of the global smart TV market. App developers who use the Alliance’s common developer portal can reach 58 million smart TVs in a single, integrated process. The brands served include LG Electronics, Panasonic, TP Vision and Toshiba
  • Roku-Connected Televisions And The Future Of The Smart TV Wars — from fastcompany.com by Chris Gayomali
    At CES, Roku announced new partnerships that will cram its platform inside more televisions. Built-in is the new box.
    .
  • Netflix Launches Smart TV Seal of Approval Program — from variety.com by Todd Spangler
    Sony, LG, Sharp, Vizo and makers of Roku TVs are expected to be first certified under ‘Netflix Recommended TV’ program
    Excerpt:
    Netflix — in a smart bid to get its brand affixed onto smart TVs — has announced the “Netflix Recommended TV” certification program under which it will give the thumbs up to Internet-connected television sets that deliver the best possible video-streaming experience for its service.

 

From DSC:
As you can see, BBBBBIIIIIGGGGG players are getting into this game.  And there will be BBBBBIIIIIGGGGG opportunities that open up via what occurs in our living rooms. Such affordances won’t be limited to the future of entertainment only.

 

Ferguson, Journalism, Twitter — from zeteojournal.com by (my sister) Sue Ellen Christian and Herbert Lowe

Excerpt:

Our own evaluation of the performance of traditional and social media in the Ferguson story is mixed. News consumers have had access to great reporting and predictable, tablet-thin coverage, as well as to a powerful social-media movement that has roiled the Twittersphere with posts both smart and stupid. Twitter and the news media will be intertwined for some time as the story in Ferguson and related police shootings and protests, in New York and elsewhere nationwide, continue to be broadcast via hashtags.

What follows relates to how, in a sense, and even if unintentionally, traditional and social media worked together to report what happened in Ferguson. We will first address Twitter’s most salient contributions, then traditional media’s, and then similarities between the two.

 

From DSC:
To Sue Ellen –> Nice work sister!

 

 

TheFutureOfDigital2014

 

Excerpts:

 

TheFutureOfDigital2014-generational-shift

 

 

TheFutureOfDigital2014-connectedTVst

 

 

TheFutureOfDigital2014-multi-screen

 

 

TheFutureOfDigital2014-digital-decades

 

 

 

Some notes:

  • Google is now bigger than all newspapers, magazines and dwarfs big media
  • YouTube reaches more 18-34 year olds than any cable network
  • YouTube is closing in on broadcast-network revenue
  • TV now has to share attention with digital
  • TV still massive, digital video still a blip
  • Basically, Google is swallowing the world…

 

 

 

 

LearningNowTV-Nov2014

 


From their website:
(emphasis DSC)

LEARNING NOW tv is a live-streamed internet tv channel bringing you inspirational interviews, debates and round tables, and advice and guidance on real world issues to keep you up-to date in the world of learning and development.

Membership to the channel is FREE. You will be able to interact with us on our social channel during the live stream as well as having a resource of the recorded programmes to refer to throughout the year.

Learning Now tv is run and produced by some of the L&D world’s leading experts who have many years’ experience of reporting the real-world issues for today’s learning and development professionals.

 

I originally saw this at Clive Sheperd’s posting:
TV very much alive for learning professionals

 

 

Also see:

 

MYOB-July2014

 

 

 

 

This new service makes me think of some related graphics:

 

 

MoreChoiceMoreControl-DSC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

StreamsOfContent-DSC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

 

 

Addendum on 12/2/14 — from Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie – December 2, 2014 | #857

Idea – Courses in the Air:
There were representatives from airlines, Aviation Authorities and even Panasonic – which makes the interactive movie and TV systems on long distance airplanes.  So, I rolled out one of my “aha ideas” that I would love to see invented sometime: Courses in the Air.

What if a passenger could choose to take a mini-course on a 4 to 14 hour flight. It would be a MOOC in the Sky – with video, reading and interactive elements – and someday might even include a real time video chat function as well.  The learner could strive to earn a “badge” or roll them up into a certificate or degree program – that they pursued over several years of flights.  It would be an intriguing element to add to international travel.

 

Oculus Connect Videos and Presentations Online — from oculus.com

 

 

Excerpt:

All the keynotes, panels, and developer sessions from Connect are now available to watch online. The slides from each session are also available for download from the Connect site under the “Schedule” section.  Complete list of the keynotes, panels, and developer sessions from Connect:

Keynotes:

  • Brendan Iribe and Nate Mitchell — Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe and VP of Product Nate Mitchell officially open Connect with their Keynote discussing Oculus, the Gear VR, and the newest prototype: Crescent Bay.
  • Michael Abrash  — Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash discusses perception in virtual reality, the future of VR, and what that means for developers.
  • John Carmack — Oculus CTO John Carmack discusses the Gear VR and shares development stories at Oculus Connect.

.

Keynote Panel:

.

Developer Sessions:

 

 

 

Related items:

 

 

Last week I attended the 20th Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference.  While there, I was inspired by an excellent presentation entitled, A Disruptive Innovation: MSU’s Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Are You Ready to Survive a New Way of Learning?   The four team members from Michigan State University included:

  • Glenn R. Stutzky | Course Instructor
  • Keesa V. Muhammad | Instructional Designer
  • Christopher Irvin | Instructional Designer
  • Hailey Mooney | Course Librarian

Check out the intro clip on the website about the course:

 

MSUZombie-Oct2014

 

From the description for the presentation:

This session highlights MSU’s award winning, groundbreaking online course that fuses social theory, filmmaking, social media, and viral marketing while students survive an apocalyptic event. http://zombie.msu.edu/

MSU created and used powerful digital storytelling and multimedia to overlay real, experiential, immersive learning. Important content was relayed, but in a way that drew upon your emotions, your ability to solve problems and navigate in a world where you didn’t have all of the information, your ability to work with others, and more.

“This innovative course integrates current research and science on catastrophes and human behavior together with the idea of a zombie apocalypse. In doing so, we actively engage with students as they think about the nature, scope, and impact of catastrophic events on individuals, families, societies, civilizations, and the Earth itself.”

“Our innovative approach to teaching and learning features: students as active participants, the instructor becomes the facilitator, storytelling replaces lectures, zombies become the catalyst of teaching, a “zombrarian” (librarian) drives research, and the students emerge as digital storytellers as a way of assessing their own learning.”

Others outside MUS have found out about the course and have requested access to it. As a result of this, they’ve opened it up to non-credit seeking participants and now various people from police forces, Centers for Disease Control, and others are able to take the course. To make this learning experience even more accessible, the cost has been greatly reduced: from $1600+ to just $500. (So this talented team is not only offering powerful pedagogies, but also significant monetary contributions to the university as well.)

For me, the key thing here is that this course represents what I believe is the direction that’s starting to really pull ahead of the pack and, if done well, will likely crush most of the other directions/approaches.  And that is the use of teams to create, deliver, teach, and assess content – i.e., team-based learning approaches.

So many of the sessions involved professional development for professors and teachers – and much of this is appropriate. However, in the majority of cases, individual efforts aren’t enough anymore.  Few people can bring to the table what a talented, experienced group of specialists are able to bring.  Individual efforts aren’t able to compete with team-based content creation and delivery anymore — and this is especially true online, whereby multiple disciplines are immediately invoked once content hits the digital realm.

In this case, the team was composed of:

  • The professor
  • Two Instructional Designers
  • and a librarian

The team:

  • Developed websites
  • Designed their own logo
  • Marketed the course w/ a zombie walking around campus w/ brochures and a walking billboard
  • Used a Twitter stream
  • Used a tool called Pensu for their students’ individual journals
  • Made extensive use of YouTube and digital storytelling
  • Coined a new acronym called MOLIE – multimedia online learning immersive experience
  • Used game-like features, such as the development of a code that was found which revealed key information (which was optional, but was very helpful to those who figured it out).  The team made it so that the course ended differently for each group, depending upon what the teams’ decisions were through the weeks
  • Used some 3D apps to make movies more realistic and to create new environments
  • Continually presented new clues for students to investigate.  Each team had a Team Leader that posted their team’s decisions on YouTube.

They encouraged us to:
THINK BIG!  Get as creative as you can, and only pull back if the “suits” make you!  Step outside the box!  Take risks!  “If an idea has life, water it. Others will check it out and get involved.”

In their case, the idea originated with an innovative, risk-taking professor willing to experiment – and who started the presentation with the following soliloquy:

Syllabi are EVIL

Syllabi are EVIL and they must die!
Listen to me closely and I’ll tell you why.
Just want students to know what is known?
See what’s been seen?
Go – where we’ve been going?
Then the Syllabus is your friend,
cuz you know exactly where you’ll end.
But if you want to go somewhere new,
see colors beyond Red, Green, and Blue.
Then take out your Syllabus and tear-it-in-half,
now uncertainty has become your path.
Be not afraid because you’ll find,
the most amazing things from Creative Minds,
who have been set free to FLY,
once untethered from the Syllabi.

Glenn Stutzky
Premiered at the 2014
Online Learning Consortium International Conference
October 29, 2014

 

 

They started with something that wasn’t polished, but it’s been an iterative approach over the semesters…and they continue to build on it.

I congratulated the team there — and do so again here. Excellent, wonderful work!

 


By the way, what would a creative movie-like trailer look like for your course?


 

 

Millennials move TV content beyond the TV set — from statista.com by Felix Richter

Excerpt:

 

Infographic: Millennials Move TV Content Beyond the TV Set | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista

From DSC:
Why post this here?

Because as expectations around where people are going to get their entertainment-related content change, so will new doors open for where they will get their educationally-related content.

.

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

The amazing ways new tech shapes storytelling — from stuff.tv by Stephen Graves

Excerpt:

From the moment some singer-poet livened up his verse performances with a musical instrument, technology has changed entertainment. The printing press, theatrical lighting, the cinema, radio, cinematic sound – they’ve all either impacted on existing storytelling forms, or created whole new ones.

In recent years, the arrival of digital formats and non-linear editing changed TV. Existing TV formats like drama benefited from the same level of technical polish as films; and at the same time, the ability to shoot and edit large amounts of footage quickly and cheaply created a whole new form of storytelling – reality TV.

Streaming media’s one thing – but the biggest tech leap in years is, of course, your smartphone. Texting during films may infuriate but whipping your phone out in the cinema may become an integral part of the story: the 2013 film App used a second-screen app to display extra layers of narrative, synced to the film’s soundtrack. There are books that use second-screen apps: last year’s Night Film lets you scan tags in the physical book to unlock extra content, including mocked-up websites and trailers.

 

 

The amazing ways new tech shapes storytelling

 

 

 

Also see:

 

It’s Not Film. It’s Not TV. It’s Convergence. Here’s What It’s All About.– from indiewire.com by Paula Bernstein
A new wave of creators is blurring the lines of storytelling to span multiple platforms. Here, a handful of those creators from this year’s New York Film Festival Convergence program explain what convergence means to them.

 

NYFFConvergence-Sept2014

 

 

Comment from DSC:
If this trend continues, I would guess that it would affect education as well.  That is, students no longer want to be passive consumers, but active participants.  Hmmm…sounds very familiar to me.  Aren’t we already there (i.e., active learning, project-based learning, makerspaces, and more)?

 

Also see:

 

 
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