microlearning

The first state to offer free community college to nearly every adult – from npr.org by Emily Siner

Excerpt:

The opportunity to go to college for free is more available than ever before. States and cities, in the last year especially, have funded programs for students to go to two-year, and in some cases, four-year, schools.

Tennessee has taken the idea one step further. Community college is already free for graduating high school students. Now Tennessee is first state in the country to offer community college — free of charge — to almost any adult.

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has long preached the importance of getting adults back to school. He says it’s the only way that more than half of Tennesseans will get a college degree or certificate.

And the program is simple: If you don’t have a degree, and you want one, your tuition is free.

From DSC:
I’m listing universities and colleges as some of the selected keywords/categories here as well, as such institutions will certainly be significantly impacted if this becomes a trend.

Increasingly, people need to reinvent themselves in order to remain marketable and employed — and to do so as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. That’s what I want to be involved in/with. But the direction that I would like to personally pursue is the development of a next generation learning platform/paradigm/system that helps people reinvent themselves, quickly and cost-effectively.* A system that offers constant, up-to-date, curated micro-learning streams of content on a lifelong basis. Team-based efforts will leverage this platform within K-12, higher ed, as well as in corporate learning & development space. Such a system will be accessed on the road, at home, in the office, in group study spaces/learning hubs, as well as in the classrooms across the land.

*If you or someone you know is working on a state-of-the-art, next generation learning platform, please email me at danielchristian55@gmail.com and let me know. I would greatly appreciate being involved in the development of this kind of learning platform — working on what the various pieces/tools should be and how the various features should work and interoperate. I can plug into other areas as well.

Veeery interesting. Alexa now adds visuals / a screen! With the addition of 100 skills a day, where might this new platform lead?

On 05/09/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, microlearning, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, smart classrooms, streams of content, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, tools, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual tutoring, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Amazon introduces Echo Show

The description reads:

Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things. Watch video flash briefings and YouTube, see music lyrics, security cameras, photos, weather forecasts, to-do and shopping lists, and more. All hands-free—just ask.
Introducing a new way to be together. Make hands-free video calls to friends and family who have an Echo Show or the Alexa App, and make voice calls to anyone who has an Echo or Echo Dot.
See lyrics on-screen with Amazon Music. Just ask to play a song, artist or genre, and stream over Wi-Fi. Also, stream music on Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and more.
Powerful, room-filling speakers with Dolby processing for crisp vocals and extended bass response
Ask Alexa to show you the front door or monitor the baby’s room with compatible cameras from Ring and Arlo. Turn on lights, control thermostats and more with WeMo, Philips Hue, ecobee, and other compatible smart home devices.
With eight microphones, beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation, Echo Show hears you from any direction—even while music is playing
Always getting smarter and adding new features, plus thousands of skills like Uber, Jeopardy!, Allrecipes, CNN, and more

From DSC:

Now we’re seeing a major competition between the heavy-hitters to own one’s living room, kitchen, and more. Voice controlled artificial intelligence. But now, add the ability to show videos, text, graphics, and more. Play music. Control the lights and the thermostat. Communicate with others via hands-free video calls.

Hmmm….very interesting times indeed.

Developers and corporates released 4,000 new skills for the voice assistant in just the last quarter. (source)

…with the company adding about 100 skills per day. (source)

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

Addendum on 5/10/17:

Everything You Need to Know About Amazon’s New Echo Show Alexa-Enabled Touch Screen Device — from medium.com
Excerpts:
- A touchscreen
- Video calling / intercom
- Music player
- News / Video player
- Cameras
- Skills / Apps
- Shopping

Faculty members & teachers: Do your students a huge favor & assign them a digital communications project next time.

On 05/08/2017, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, Adobe, animation, art, assessment, attention, blogs / blogging / vlogging, change, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, media/film, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new media literacies, passions, pedagogy, podcasting, project-based learning, real-world assignments, RSS, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, using teams, vendors, web design and production, web-based collaboration, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC and Adobe — for faculty members and teachers out there:

Do your students an enormous favor by assigning them a digital communications project. Such a project could include images, infographics, illustrations, animations, videos, websites, blogs (with RSS feeds), podcasts, videocasts, mobile apps and more. Such outlets offer powerful means of communicating and demonstrating knowledge of a particular topic.

As Adobe mentions, when you teach your students how to create these types of media projects, you prepare them to be flexible and effective digital communicators. I would also add that these new forms and tools can be highly engaging, while at the same time, they can foster students’ creativity. Building new media literacy skills will pay off big time for your students. It will land them jobs. It will help them communicate to a global audience. Students can build upon these skills to powerfully communicate numerous kinds of messages in the future. They can be their own radio station. They can be their own TV station.

For more information, see this page out at Adobe.com.

From DSC:
This is where we may need more team-based approaches…because one person may not be able to create and grade/assess such assignments.

Melbourne University to pilot blockchain based micro-credentialing system [econotimes.com; AU]

On 05/01/2017, in accreditation, Australia, Blockchain, credentialing, higher education, ideas, innovation, microlearning, universities, by Daniel Christian

Melbourne University to pilot blockchain based micro-credentialing system — from econotimes.com

Excerpt:

The University of Melbourne is all set to become the first Australian institution to trial blockchain technology.

Last week, the university announced that it is teaming up with Learning Machine, a US-based company associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, to pilot a blockchain based micro-credentialing system, which will enable employers to verify those credentials quickly.

Speaking at the annual meeting of a data portability consortium in Melbourne last week, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) Professor Gregor Kennedy said the decision to pilot Learning Machine’s blockchain platform for micro-credentialing is based on supporting new types of learning recognition that are increasingly being demanded by students and employers in a globalised, digital world.

Heads-up higher ed! These vendors can help us bring remote learners into our face-to-face based classrooms! [Christian]

On 04/20/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, blended learning, change, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, formal learning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, geography / geology, global / globalization, Google, higher education, hybrid learning, ideas, informal learning, innovation, internet, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, microlearning, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, participation, platforms, professional development, reinvent, student-related, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telepresence, tools, training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In terms of learning, having to be in the same physical place as others continues to not be a requirement nearly as much as it used to be. But I’m not just talking about online learning here. I’m talking about a new type of learning environment that involves both hardware and software to facilitate collaboration (and it was designed that way from day 1). These new types of setups can provide us with new opportunities and affordances that we should begin experimenting with immediately.

Check out the following products — all of which allow a person to contribute to a discussion or conversation from anywhere they can get Internet access:

When you go to those sites, you will see words and phrase such as:

Visual collaboration software
Virtual workspace
Develop
Share
Inspire
Design
Global teams
A visual collaboration solution that links locations, teams, content, and devices in an immersive, shared workspace
Teamwork
Create and brainstorm with others
Digital workplace platform
Eliminate the distance between in-office and remote employees
Jumpstart spontaneous brainstorms and working sessions

So using these types of software and hardware setups, I can contribute regardless of where I’m located. Remote learning — from anywhere in the world — being combined with our face-to-face based classrooms.

Also, the push for Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) continues across higher education. Such hands-on, project-learning based, student-centered approaches fit extremely well with the collaboration setups mentioned above.

Then, there’s the insight from Simon Dudley in this article:

“…video conferencing is increasingly an application within in a larger workflow…”

Lastly, if colleges and universities don’t have the funds to maintain their physical plants, look for higher education to move increasingly online — and these types of solutions could play a significant role in that environment. Plus, for working adults who need to reinvent themselves, this is an extremely efficient means of picking up some new skills and competencies.

So the growth of these types of setups — where the software and hardware work together to support worldwide collaboration — will likely create a powerful, new, emerging piece of our learning ecosystems.

Remote learning — from anywhere in the world — being combined with our face-to-face based classrooms.

What are the ramifications for higher education re: the massive changes beginning to take place due to AI, automation, & robotics?

On 04/13/2017, in 21st century, accreditation, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, Michigan, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, pace of change, passions, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, the downsides of how people use tech, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The recent pieces below made me once again reflect on the massive changes that are quickly approaching — and in some cases are already here — for a variety of nations throughout the world.

They caused me to reflect on:

What the potential ramifications for higher education might be regarding these changes that are just starting to take place in the workplace due to artificial intelligence (i.e., the increasing use of algorithms, machine learning, and deep learning, etc.), automation, & robotics?
The need for people to reinvent themselves quickly throughout their careers (if we can still call them careers)
How should we, as a nation, prepare for these massive changes so that there isn’t civil unrest due to soaring inequality and unemployment?

As found in the April 9th, 2017 edition of our local newspaper here:

When even our local newspaper is picking up on this trend, you know it is real and has some significance to it.

Then, as I was listening to the radio a day or two after seeing the above article, I heard of another related piece on NPR. NPR is having a journalist travel across the country, trying to identify “robot-safe” jobs. Here’s the feature on this from MarketPlace.org

What changes do institutions of traditional higher education
immediately need to begin planning for? Initiating?

What changes should be planned for and begin to be initiated
in the way(s) that we accredit new programs?

Keywords/ideas that come to my mind:

Change — to society, to people, to higher ed, to the workplace
Pace of technological change — no longer linear, but exponential
Career development
Staying relevant — as institutions, as individuals in the workplace
Reinventing ourselves over time — and having to do so quickly
Adapting, being nimble, willing to innovate — as institutions, as individuals
Game-changing environment
Lifelong learning — higher ed needs to put more emphasis on microlearning, heutagogy, and delivering constant/up-to-date streams of content and learning experiences. This could happen via the addition/use of smaller learning hubs, some even makeshift learning hubs that are taking place at locations that these institutions don’t even own…like your local Starbucks.
If we don’t get this right, there could be major civil unrest as inequality and unemployment soar
Traditional institutions of higher education have not been nearly as responsive to change as they have needed to be; this opens the door to alternatives. There’s a limited (and closing) window of time left to become more nimble and responsive before these alternatives majorly disrupt the current world of higher education.

Addendum from the corporate world (emphasis DSC):

From The Impact 2017 Conference:

The Role of HR in the Future of Work – A Town Hall

Josh Bersin, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Nicola Vogel, Global Senior HR Director, Danfoss
Frank Møllerop, Chief Executive Officer, Questback
David Mallon, Head of Research, Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP

Massive changes spurred by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, mobile platforms, sensors and social collaboration have revolutionized the way we live, work and communicate – and the pace is only accelerating. Robots and cognitive technologies are making steady advances, particularly in jobs and tasks that follow set, standardized rules and logic. This reinforces a critical challenge for business and HR leaders—namely, the need to design, source, and manage the future of work.

In this Town Hall, we will discuss the role HR can play in leading the digital transformation that is shaping the future of work in organizations worldwide. We will explore the changes we see taking place in three areas:

Digital workforce: How can organizations drive new management practices, a culture of innovation and sharing, and a set of talent practices that facilitate a new network-based organization?
Digital workplace: How can organizations design a working environment that enables productivity; uses modern communication tools (such as Slack, Workplace by Facebook, Microsoft Teams, and many others); and promotes engagement, wellness, and a sense of purpose?
Digital HR: How can organizations change the HR function itself to operate in a digital way, use digital tools and apps to deliver solutions, and continuously experiment and innovate?

The disruption of digital learning: Ten things we have learned — from joshbersin.com

Excerpt:

Over the last few months I’ve had a series of meetings with Chief Learning Officers, talent management leaders, and vendors of next generation learning tools. My goal has been simple: try to make sense of the new corporate learning landscape, which for want of a better word, we can now call “Digital Learning.” In this article I’d like to share ten things to think about, with the goal of helping L&D professionals, HR leaders, and business leaders understand how the world of corporate learning has changed.

Digital Learning does not mean learning on your phone, it means “bringing learning to where employees are.”

It is a “way of learning” not a “type of learning.”

The traditional LMS is no longer the center of corporate learning, and it’s starting to go away.

What Josh calls a Distributed Learning Platform, I call a Learning Ecosystem:

Also see:

Watch Out, Corporate Learning: Here Comes Disruption — from forbes.com by Josh Bersin
Excerpt:
The corporate training market, which is over $130 billion in size, is about to be disrupted. Companies are starting to move away from their Learning Management Systems (LMS), buy all sorts of new tools for digital learning, and rebuild a whole new infrastructure to help employees learn. And the impact of GSuite, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Workplace by Facebook could be enormous.
…
We are living longer, jobs are changing faster than ever, and automation is impinging on our work lives more every day. If we can’t look things up, learn quickly, and find a way to develop new skills at work, most of us would prefer to change jobs, rather than stay in a company that doesn’t let us reinvent ourselves over time.

The Blockchain Revolution and Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott
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.

Excerpt:

What will be the most important technology to change higher education? In our view, it’s not big data, the social web, MOOCs, virtual reality, or even artificial intelligence. We see these as components of something new, all enabled and transformed by an emerging technology called the blockchain.

OK, it’s not the most sonorous word ever, sounding more like a college football strategy than a transformative technology. Yet, sonorous or not, the blockchain represents nothing less than the second generation of the Internet, and it holds the potential to disrupt money, business, government, and yes, higher education.

The opportunities for innovators in higher education fall into four categories:

Identity and Student Records: How we identify students; protect their privacy; measure, record, and credential their accomplishments; and keep these records secure
New Pedagogy: How we customize teaching to each student and create new models of learning
Costs (Student Debt): How we value and fund education and reward students for the quality of their work
The Meta-University: How we design entirely new models of higher education so that former MIT President Chuck Vest’s dream can become a reality¹

The blockchain may help us change the relationships among colleges and universities and, in turn, their relationship to society.

Let us explain.

What if there was an Internet of value — a global, distributed, highly secure platform, ledger, or database where we could store and exchange things of value and where we could trust each other without powerful intermediaries? That is the blockchain.

From DSC:
The quote…

In 2006, MIT President Emeritus Vest offered a tantalizing vision of what he called the meta-university. In the open-access movement, he saw “a transcendent, accessible, empowering, dynamic, communally constructed framework of open materials and platforms on which much of higher education worldwide can be constructed or enhanced.”

…made me wonder if this is where a vision that I’m tracking called Learning from the Living [Class] Room is heading. Also, along these lines, futurist Thomas Frey believes

“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)

Blockchain could be a key piece of this vision.

From DSC:
Given the exponential pace of technological change that many societies throughout the globe are now on, we need some tools to help us pulse-check what’s going on in the relevant landscapes that we are trying to scan.

Below, I would like to suggest 2 methods/tools to do this. I have used both methods for years, and I have found them to be immensely helpful in pulse-checking the landscapes. Perhaps these tools will be helpful to you — or to your students or employees — as well. I vote for these 2 tools to be a part of all of our learning ecosystems. (And besides, they also encourage micro-learning while helping us spot emerging trends.)

Google Alerts

Feedly.com

Reflections on “HarvardX rolls out new adaptive learning feature in online course” [Lestch]

On 02/22/2017, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online tutoring, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, by Daniel Christian

HarvardX rolls out new adaptive learning feature in online course — from edscoop.com by Corinne Lestch
Students in MOOC adaptive learning experiment scored nearly 20 percent better than students using more traditional learning approaches.

Excerpt:

Online courses at Harvard University are adapting on the fly to students’ needs.

Officials at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution announced a new adaptive learning technology that was recently rolled out in a HarvardX online course. The feature offers tailored course material that directly correlates with student performance while the student is taking the class, as well as tailored assessment algorithms.

HarvardX is an independent university initiative that was launched in parallel with edX, the online learning platform that was created by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both HarvardX and edX run massive open online courses. The new feature has never before been used in a HarvardX course, and has only been deployed in a small number of edX courses, according to officials.

From DSC:
Given the growth of AI, this is certainly radar worthy — something that’s definitely worth pulse-checking to see where opportunities exist to leverage these types of technologies. What we now know of as adaptive learning will likely take an enormous step forward in the next decade.

IBM’s assertion rings in my mind:

I’m cautiously hopeful that these types of technologies can extend beyond K-12 and help us deal with the current need to be lifelong learners, and the need to constantly reinvent ourselves — while providing us with more choice, more control over our learning. I’m hopeful that learners will be able to pursue their passions, and enlist the help of other learners and/or the (human) subject matter experts as needed.

I don’t see these types of technologies replacing any teachers, professors, or trainers. That said, these types of technologies should be able to help do some of the heavy teaching and learning lifting in order to help someone learn about a new topic.

Again, this is one piece of the Learning from the Living [Class] Room that we see developing.

Alexa got 4,000 new skills in just the last quarter! | DC: What are the teaching & learning ramifications of this?

On 02/03/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, change, communications, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, microlearning, platforms, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), vendors, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt from Amazon fumbles earnings amidst high expectations (emphasis DSC):

Aside from AWS, Amazon Alexa-enabled devices were the top-selling products across all categories on Amazon.com throughout the holiday season and the company is reporting that Echo family sales are up over 9x compared to last season. Amazon aims to brand Alexa as a platform, something that has helped the product to gain capabilities faster than its competition. Developers and corporates released 4,000 new skills for the voice assistant in just the last quarter.

Alexa got 4,000 new skills in just the last quarter!

From DSC:
What are the teaching & learning ramifications of this?

By the way, I’m not saying for professors, teachers, & trainers to run for the hills (i.e., that they’ll be replaced by AI-based tools). But rather, I would like to suggest that we not only put this type of thing on our radars, but we should begin to actively experiment with such technologies to see if they might be able to help us do some heavy lifting for students learning about new topics.

Let’s build facilities that have multiple types of production/recording studios — then let faculty pick which one(s) they want to use. [Christian]

On 01/12/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, architecture, Asia, blended learning, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, education technology, elearning, faculty/staff, flipping -- inverted learning, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, interactivity, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, online tutoring, pedagogy, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, teaching online, United States, universities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The following article reminded me of a vision that I’ve had for the last few years…

How to Build a Production Studio for Online Courses — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
At the College of Business at the University of Illinois, video operations don’t come in one size. Here’s how the institution is handling studio setup for MOOCs, online courses, guest speakers and more.

Though I’m a huge fan of online learning, why only build a production studio that’s meant to support online courses only? Let’s take it a step further and design a space that can address the content development for online learning as well as for blended learning — which can include the flipped classroom type of approach.

To do so, colleges and universities need to build something akin to what the National University of Singapore has done. I would like to see institutions create large enough facilities in order to house multiple types of recording studios in each one of them. Each facility would feature:

One room that has a lightboard and a mobile whiteboard in it — let the faculty member choose which surface that they want to use

Another room that has a Microsoft Surface Hub or a similar interactive, multitouch device

A recording booth with a nice, powerful, large iMac that has ScreenFlow on it. The booth would also include a nice, professional microphone, a pop filter, sound absorbing acoustical panels, and more. Blackboard Collaborate could be used here as well…especially with the Application Sharing feature turned on and/or just showing one’s PowerPoint slides — with or without the video of the faculty member…whatever they prefer.

Another recording booth with a PC and Adobe Captivate, Camtasia Studio, Screencast-O-Matic, or similar tools. The booth would also include a nice, professional microphone, a pop filter, sound absorbing acoustical panels, and more. Blackboard Collaborate could be used here as well…especially with the Application Sharing feature turned on and/or just showing one’s PowerPoint slides — with or without the video of the faculty member…whatever they prefer.

Another recording booth with an iPad tablet and apps loaded on it such as Explain Everything:

A large recording studio that is similar to what’s described in the article — a room that incorporates a full-width green screen, with video monitors, a tablet, a podium, several cameras, high-end mics and more. Or, if the budget allows for it, a really high end broadcasting/recording studio like what Harvard Business school is using:

A piece of this facility could look and act like the Sound Lab at the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)

Don’t discount the game-changing power of the morphing “TV” when coupled with AI, NLP, and blockchain-based technologies! [Christian]

On 01/03/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, Blockchain, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, communications, communities of practice, competency-based learning/education, computer science, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, smart classrooms, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:

Don’t discount the game-changing power of the morphing “TV” when coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and blockchain-based technologies!

When I saw the article below, I couldn’t help but wonder what (we currently know of as) “TVs” will morph into and what functionalities they will be able to provide to us in the not-too-distant future…?

For example, the article mentions that Seiki, Westinghouse, and Element will be offering TVs that can not only access Alexa — a personal assistant from Amazon which uses artificial intelligence — but will also be able to provide access to over 7,000 apps and games via the Amazon Fire TV Store.

Some of the questions that come to my mind:

Why can’t there be more educationally-related games and apps available on this type of platform?
Why can’t the results of the assessments taken on these apps get fed into cloud-based learner profiles that capture one’s lifelong learning? (#blockchain)
When will potential employers start asking for access to such web-based learner profiles?
Will tvOS and similar operating systems expand to provide blockchain-based technologies as well as the types of functionality we get from our current set of CMSs/LMSs?
Will this type of setup become a major outlet for competency-based education as well as for corporate training-related programs?
Will augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) capabilities come with our near future “TVs”?
Will virtual tutoring be one of the available apps/channels?
Will the microphone and the wide angle, HD camera on the “TV” be able to be disconnected from the Internet for security reasons? (i.e., to be sure no hacker is eavesdropping in on their private lives)

Forget a streaming stick: These 4K TVs come with Amazon Fire TV inside — from techradar.com by Nick Pino

Excerpt:

The TVs will not only have access to Alexa via a microphone-equipped remote but, more importantly, will have access to the over 7,000 apps and games available on the Amazon Fire TV Store – a huge boon considering that most of these Smart TVs usually include, at max, a few dozen apps.

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

Addendums

A top futurist predicts the largest internet company of 2030 will be an online school — from businessinsider.com by Chris Weller

“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.

.

Once thought to be a fad, MOOCs showed staying power in 2016 — from educationdive.com
Dive Brief:
- EdSurge profiles the growth of massive online open courses in 2016, which attracted more than 58 million students in over 700 colleges and universities last year.
- The top three MOOC providers — Coursera, Udacity and EdX — collectively grossed more than $100 million last year, as much of the content provided on these platforms shifted from free to paywall guarded materials.
- Many MOOCs have moved to offering credentialing programs or nanodegree offerings to increase their value in industrial marketplaces.

Today, we’re at the Windows Hardware Engineering Community event (WinHEC) in Shenzhen, China –where our OEM partners have created more than 300 Windows devices shipping in 75 countries generating more than 8 billion RMB in revenue for Shenzhen partners. We continue this journey with Intel, Qualcomm and hardware engineering creators from around the world. Together, we will build the next generation of modern PCs supporting mixed reality, gaming, advanced security, and artificial intelligence; make mixed reality mainstream; and introduce always-connected, more power efficient cellular PCs running Windows 10.

Also see:

The Race For AI: Google, Twitter, Intel, Apple In A Rush To Grab Artificial Intelligence Startups

Excerpt:

Nearly 140 private companies working to advance artificial intelligence technologies have been acquired since 2011, with over 40 acquisitions taking place in 2016 alone. Corporate giants like Google, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Apple and Salesforce, are competing in the race to acquire private AI companies, with Samsung emerging as a new entrant in October with its acquisition of startup Viv Labs, which is developing a Siri-like AI assistant, and GE making 2 AI acquisitions in November.

What are the teaching & learning-related ramifications when new “skills” are constantly added to devices like Amazon’s Alexa?

On 12/01/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, bots, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, microlearning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
When I saw the article below, I couldn’t help but wonder…what are the teaching & learning-related ramifications when new “skills” are constantly being added to devices like Amazon’s Alexa?

What does it mean for:

Students / learners
Faculty members
Teachers
Trainers
Instructional Designers
Interaction Designers
User Experience Designers
Curriculum Developers
…and others?

Will the capabilities found in Alexa simply come bundled as a part of the “connected/smart TV’s” of the future? Hmm….

NASA unveils a skill for Amazon’s Alexa that lets you ask questions about Mars — from geekwire.com by Kevin Lisota

Excerpt:

Amazon’s Alexa has gained many skills over the past year, such as being able to read tweets or deliver election results and fantasy football scores. Starting on Wednesday, you’ll be able to ask Alexa about Mars.

The new skill for the voice-controlled speaker comes courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s the first Alexa app from the space agency.

Tom Soderstrom, the chief technology officer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was on hand at the AWS re:invent conference in Las Vegas tonight to make the announcement.

Also see:

What Is Alexa? What Is the Amazon Echo, and Should You Get One? — from thewirecutter.com by Grant Clauser

Amazon launches new artificial intelligence services for developers: Image recognition, text-to-speech, Alexa NLP — from geekwire.com by Taylor Soper

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Amazon today announced three new artificial intelligence-related toolkits for developers building apps on Amazon Web Services

At the company’s AWS re:invent conference in Las Vegas, Amazon showed how developers can use three new services — Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Rekognition — to build artificial intelligence features into apps for platforms like Slack, Facebook Messenger, ZenDesk, and others.

The idea is to let developers utilize the machine learning algorithms and technology that Amazon has already created for its own processes and services like Alexa. Instead of developing their own AI software, AWS customers can simply use an API call or the AWS Management Console to incorporate AI features into their own apps.

Amazon announces three new AI services, including a text-to-voice service, Amazon Polly — from by D.B. Hebbard

AWS Announces Three New Amazon AI Services
Amazon Lex, the technology that powers Amazon Alexa, enables any developer to build rich, conversational user experiences for web, mobile, and connected device apps; preview starts today

Amazon Polly transforms text into lifelike speech, enabling apps to talk with 47 lifelike voices in 24 languages

Amazon Rekognition makes it easy to add image analysis to applications, using powerful deep learning-based image and face recognition

Capital One, Motorola Solutions, SmugMug, American Heart Association, NASA, HubSpot, Redfin, Ohio Health, DuoLingo, Royal National Institute of Blind People, LingApps, GoAnimate, and Coursera are among the many customers using these Amazon AI Services

Excerpt:

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 30, 2016– Today at AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced three Artificial Intelligence (AI) services that make it easy for any developer to build apps that can understand natural language, turn text into lifelike speech, have conversations using voice or text, analyze images, and recognize faces, objects, and scenes. Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, and Amazon Rekognition are based on the same proven, highly scalable Amazon technology built by the thousands of deep learning and machine learning experts across the company. Amazon AI services all provide high-quality, high-accuracy AI capabilities that are scalable and cost-effective. Amazon AI services are fully managed services so there are no deep learning algorithms to build, no machine learning models to train, and no up-front commitments or infrastructure investments required. This frees developers to focus on defining and building an entirely new generation of apps that can see, hear, speak, understand, and interact with the world around them.

To learn more about Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, or Amazon Rekognition, visit:
https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-ai

Learning Ecosystems

Melbourne University to pilot blockchain based micro-credentialing system [econotimes.com; AU]

Let’s build facilities that have multiple types of production/recording studios — then let faculty pick which one(s) they want to use. [Christian]

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