The Michigan Learning Channel is now available through your antenna on ALL Michigan PBS stations!
This Michigan school just landed a record gift for a public university: $550 million — from washingtonpost.com by Nick Anderson
Excerpt:
Western Michigan University, usually overshadowed by certain other state schools in Ann Arbor and East Lansing, announced Tuesday that it has landed the largest private gift ever to a public university: $550 million.
The blockbuster donation to the university in Kalamazoo, from anonymous Western Michigan alumni, eclipses the previous record of $500 million on a list kept by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
On 05/25/2021,
in career development, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, experimentation, face-to-face, formal learning, future, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, Michigan, more voice more choice more control, student-related, teachers,
by Daniel Christian
Michigan appeals to former teachers as districts face ‘dire’ shortage — from mlive.com by Kayla Miller
Kindergarten teacher Melissa Sanborn instructs students…Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020 at Cook Elementary School in Grand Blanc. (Jake May | MLive.com) Jake May | MLive.com
Excerpt:
Looking ahead to August, Beecher Community School District is expecting to be short about a quarter of their needed teaching staff for the 2021-22 school year.
The Flint-area district is one of many schools across Michigan fighting to keep educators in classrooms amid a statewide teacher shortage. The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) is now appealing to former teachers to get recertified and back to work.
…
David Crim, spokesperson for the Michigan Education Association, said multiple factors are keeping people from pursuing teaching and forcing young teachers to leave the profession.
“There’s no respect for teachers, no respect for the profession and poor compensation,” Crim said. “We have the perfect storm.”
From DSC:
It feels like there are major changes occurring throughout the K-12 learning ecosystems out there. It will be interesting to see what shakes out from this period of disruption.
By the way, those with little respect for teachers clearly have never taught themselves. Teaching is a very difficult profession. You try providing personalized learning to 25-30+ students at a time. Once you begin to scratch the surface, you’re retiring. We need to continue to try to share our knowledge, learnings, effective pedagogies/research, growth, tools, contacts, and more to help the next generation of teachers, students, administrators, and leaders.
Personally, I would like to see teachers have far more agency themselves. Don’t straight jacket them so much with standardized testing every ___ weeks/months. And allow more choice and control for the students (where possible). And allow the damn trains to slow down and/or vary their pace — allow them to stop if necessary for a student or a group of students.
I don’t see real personalized learning occurring until more technologies get involved/integrated into the classrooms out there — things like learner preferences, cloud-based learner profiles, AI and more.
On 05/17/2021,
in attention, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, formal learning, ideas, informal learning, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, love of learning, Michigan, student-related, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
My wife recently told me about The Thrive Learning Center. Though we don’t have any of our kids there, it looks very interesting to me! They offer play, choice, agency, a learning community, a chance to pursue one’s interests, and more! I wish we had seen this several years ago. But maybe it will help someone else out there reenvision what learning could look and be like.
On 04/19/2021,
in 21st century, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), Canada, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, human-computer interaction (HCI), India, intelligent systems, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Michigan, morals/values, parents/guardians, platforms, policy, robotics, science, society, sociology, the downsides of how people use tech, UK, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Artificial intelligence and the future of national security — from news.asu.edu
Excerpt:
Artificial intelligence is a “world-altering” technology that represents “the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity and enriching the human experience” and will be a source of enormous power for the companies and countries that harness them, according to the recently released Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.
This is not hyperbole or a fantastical version of AI’s potential impact. This is the assessment of a group of leading technologists and national security professionals charged with offering recommendations to Congress on how to ensure American leadership in AI for national security and defense. Concerningly, the group concluded that the U.S. is not currently prepared to defend American interests or compete in the era of AI.
Also see:
EU Set to Ban Surveillance, Start Fines Under New AI Rules — from bloomberg.com by Natalia Drozdiak
Excerpt:
The European Union is poised to ban artificial intelligence systems used for mass surveillance or for ranking social behavior, while companies developing AI could face fines as high as 4% of global revenue if they fail to comply with new rules governing the software applications.
Also see:
Wrongfully arrested man sues Detroit police over false facial recognition match — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
The case could fuel criticism of police investigators’ use of a controversial technology that has been shown to perform worse on people of color
Excerpts:
A Michigan man has sued Detroit police after he was wrongfully arrested and falsely identified as a shoplifting suspect by the department’s facial recognition software in one of the first lawsuits of its kind to call into question the controversial technology’s risk of throwing innocent people in jail.
Robert Williams, a 43-year-old father in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, was arrested last year on charges he’d taken watches from a Shinola store after police investigators used a facial recognition search of the store’s surveillance-camera footage that identified him as the thief.
Prosecutors dropped the case less than two weeks later, arguing that officers had relied on insufficient evidence. Police Chief James Craig later apologized for what he called “shoddy” investigative work. Williams, who said he had been driving home from work when the 2018 theft had occurred, was interrogated by detectives and held in custody for 30 hours before his release.
Williams’s attorneys did not make him available for comment Tuesday. But Williams wrote in The Washington Post last year that the episode had left him deeply shaken, in part because his young daughters had watched him get handcuffed in his driveway and put into a police car after returning home from work.
“How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” he wrote. “As any other black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly — even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.”
Addendum on 4/20/21:
- Aiming for truth, fairness, and equity in your company’s use of AI — from ftc.gov by Elisa Jillson
On 04/14/2021,
in Amazon, business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, law schools, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Michigan, new media literacies, professional development, training / L&D, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual courts and law firms, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Digital upskilling in legal: More than just new technology — from legalexecutiveinstitute.com by Bob Dolinsky; with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for this resource
Excerpt:
How many law firms have digital upskilling programs for their lawyers and staff members? Based on what I hear and read, very few, if any.
Amazon, for example, recently announced a commitment of more than $700 million to its “Upskilling 2025” program, an internal training initiative designed to promote customer satisfaction and worker advancement. Another example is PwC, which has a digital upskilling program to develop its in-house talent pool called “New world. New skills.” In 2019, PwC announced that it would invest $3 billion into job training for its 275,000 employees around the world, enhancing its workforce and client service delivery to better address emerging digital needs.
The goals of these and similar initiatives is to help ensure that employees have the skills in the digital arena to be successful, to position these organizations as preferred employers, and to provide customer and client service excellence.
Also from Gabe:
- The Geek in Review Ep. 112 – Dan Packel on the Rise of Distributed Law Firms — from geeklawblog.com by Greg Lambert & Marlene Gebauer
- Zoom Court Is Changing How Justice Is Served — ftom theatlantic.com by Eric Scigliano
For better, for worse, and possibly forever
“Virtual justice” (the preferred, if unsettling, term) is an emergency response to a dire situation. But it is also a vision some judicial innovators had long tried to realize. One leading booster, Michigan Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack, told me that going online can make courts not only safer but “more transparent, more accessible, and more convenient.” Witnesses, jurors, and litigants no longer need to miss hours of work and fight traffic. Attorneys with cases in multiple courts can jump from one to another by swiping on their phones.
On 04/04/2021,
in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, faith, future, hearts -- matters of the heart, India, Michigan, religion, student-related, UK, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
On 03/05/2021,
in adjunct faculty, adult learning, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, faculty, higher education, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, Michigan, motivation, professional development, student-related, teaching & learning, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
As a follow up to The Chegg situation is worse than you think [Feldstein] (which discussed cheating, buying answers, selling answers, proctoring software, and more), it seems to me that one of the challenges that we face in our teaching and learning efforts has to do with the transformation of our students: Helping them move from a K-16 world to the world of work. The below graphic tries to capture that idea.
DSC: This is a picture I took of the Michigan Hall of Justice, in Lansing, MI.
What I mean to say is that our learners’ future clients don’t care about our learners’ ability to cram and score high on tests and then forget about topic XYZ. They want our learners to know and be able to apply topic XYZ in order to solve their problems/issues/needs. (Not to mention that being able to cram and do well on a high-stakes test is not nearly as helpful as spacing out their retrieval of topic XYZ over a much longer span of time.)
I hope that our students are hearing/experiencing from us: “We’re on your team. We’re here to help you.” And being transparent with our teaching techniques is key (i.e., here’s WHY I’m assigning this item or asking you to do this activity).
On 02/14/2021,
in adjunct faculty, Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, colleges, communications, community colleges, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, drama/theater, education technology, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, Europe, experimentation, future, geography / geology, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, innovation, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, media/film, Michigan, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, music, online media, open courseware and systems, passions, platforms, play, smart/connected TV, society, streams of content, technologies for your home, telecommunications, UK, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
Radio.Garden — with thanks to David Pogue for this resource
This is the COOLEST. A Google Earth-type representation of the planet. Every green dot is a radio station. Click any dot to listen in. It’s like cultural teleportation. You could spend hours with this thing… https://t.co/rdEHUUfgvk pic.twitter.com/VJgyzVClJD
— David Pogue (@Pogue) February 14, 2021
From DSC:
This is amazing! Some screenshots:
Several questions/reflections come to my mind:
- What could those teachers and professors who are trying to teach someone a language do with this?!
- If this can be done with radio stations, what can be done with learning-related streams of content?!
- Talk about “More Choice. More Control.” Man o’ man!
Addendum on 2/28/21:
Could this type of interface be used to navigate the world of work? Where instead of nations, you would have arenas of work?
On 02/03/2021,
in community colleges, cost of getting a degree, culture, funding / grants, higher education, Michigan,
by Daniel Christian
Michigan residents over 25 without degrees can now apply for tuition-free community college, skills training — from mlive.com by Lauren Gibbons
Excerpt:
Michigan residents 25 and older who don’t have a college degree can now apply for funding to cover community college tuition costs or skilled trades training scholarships.
The initiative, known as the Michigan Reconnect program, is being funded initially by a $30 million appropriation in the state budget that had bipartisan backing from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Republican-majority legislature.