Here’s a peek at the Minerva Project’s classroom of the future — from washingtonpost.com by Matt McFarland
Check out five ideas that could impact the way we live, work and play.
Excerpt:
“Think of the fanciest version of Google Hangouts or Skype designed to be a classroom,” explains a student. “It’s very different than a traditional classroom, but in a way it’s what a traditional classroom distilled down to its purest form I feel like would look like,” says another.
Also see:
Digital Storytelling Resources from Classroom 2.0 Live (Oct 2014) — from speedofcreativity.org by
Excerpt:
…I facilitated a 60 minute webinar on Classroom 2.0 Live about digital storytelling. This was an “open mic” session, which is similar to facilitated conversations at EdCamps. The webinar is archived on YouTube, and referenced links are included in this LiveBinder.
These are some of the links I saved from the webinar, which were shared by participants. This was an excellent session and I learned about several new resources I’m anxious to try with my own students in digital storytelling projects!
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9 Free Tools For Digital Storytelling — from hongkiat.com by Fahad Khan
Excerpt from How Can English Teachers Benefit from Digital Storytelling Tools — from edtechreview.com by Prasanna Bharti
Digital Storytelling Tools for Students
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Creative storytelling with Storehouse — from blogs.elon.edu by Analise Godfrey (Storehouse was created by former Apple User Experience Evangelist, Mark Kawano)
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Over 40 web tools to create quizzes and polls in class — from educatorstechnology.com
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Theia
Introducing a new and exciting world view, Theia smart glasses naturally integrate augmented reality together with your reality using unique technology and seamless design.
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Platform lets users share documents with real-time audio comments — from springwise.com
Blrt is offering both real-time and anytime sharing of documents, with integrated drawing and voice commenting tools.
Excerpt:
The platforms that businesses most commonly use to communicate with both colleagues and clients — phone, email, face-to-face meetings and video chat — are typically only used one at a time. If it’s just a quick chat, you pick up the phone, if you need to send a document you send an email. But is there a way to make multimedia collaboration more seamless through a single platform? We recently wrote about Talko, which aims to make voice calls more like emails. Now a similar service, Blrt, is offering both real-time and anytime sharing of documents, with integrated drawing and voice commenting tools.
10 great iPad apps for teaching and learning piano — from educatorstechnology.com
Circle of Fifths – music theory reference
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30 Ways Google Glass Works in Classrooms [#Infographic] — from edtechmagazine.com by D. Frank Smith
From allowing student to connect virtually with peers and teachers to helping identify learning difficulties, the wearable tech has clear potential as an aid.
An App to Make Career Counseling More Like a Video Game — from chronicle.com by Rebecca Koenig
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Microsoft Research gives us a glimpse of future gaming with RoomAlive — from InterestingEngineering.com
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LinkedIn Introduces New Tools for Students Choosing Universities — from eduniverse.org by Philippe Taza
Excerpt:
Regardless of whether you agree with their criteria or the general practice of creating rankings, their newest initiative is undoubtedly an impressive leveraging of Big Data, applying complex algorithms to LinkedIn’s vast database of 313 million users to derive interesting conclusions for both students and those marketing higher education.
Lync to Become Skype for Business — from MikeBrandesAV.com
Excerpt:
Microsoft is rebranding it’s unified communication platform Microsoft Lync. Microsoft plans to retool their approach to unified communications, and launch under the name “Skype for Business” in 2015. Microsoft originally acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011.
The Redmond, WA based software giant made significant strides into the Unified Communications space, offering a cost-competitive unified communications platform which included Telephony, Chat, Collaboration and Video Conferencing all from the desktop, laptop or tablet.
The 10 best creative apps for tablets — from Creative Bloq
Excerpt:
Over recent years, many great drawing and painting apps have become available for tablets and smart phones. Here’s our pick of the most comprehensive packages on the market.
This clever app scans and solves maths problems instantly using your phone’s camera — from businessinsider.com.au
Excerpt:
While it seems likely that most will use PhotoMath to sidestep actual learning, PhotoMath includes a “Steps” button that cleverly walks you through the steps from the original equation to the final answer.
Addendum on 11/2014 — some music-related apps from the November 2014 edition of The Journal:
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:
Check out the intro clip on the website about the course:
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 team:
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
“The number of infected in Michigan has reached critical mass.” CSM Quintero #sw290 pic.twitter.com/F6m8ZaoRyG
— MSU Zombie (@MSUZombies) June 19, 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?
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.
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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.
Also see:
From DSC:
I’m thinking out loud again…
What if were were to be able to take the “If This Then That (IFTTT)” concept/capabilities and combine it with sensor-based technologies? It seems to me that we’re at the very embryonic stages of some very powerful learning scenarios, scenarios that are packed with learning potential, engagement, intrigue, interactivity, and opportunities for participation.
For example, what would happen if you went to one corner of the room, causing an app on your mobile device to launch and bring up a particular video to review? Then, after the viewing of the video, a brief quiz appears after that to check your understanding of the video’s main points. Then, once you’ve submitted the quiz — and it’s been received by system ABC — this triggers an unexpected learning event for you.
Combining the physical with the digital…
Establishing IFTTT-based learning playlists…
Building learning channels…learning triggers…learning actions…
Setting a schedule of things to do for a set of iBeacons over a period of time (and being able to save that schedule of events for “next time”).
Hmmm…there’s a lot of potential here!
Now throw augmented reality, wearables, and intelligent tutoring into the equation! Whew!
We need to be watching out for how machine-to-machine (M2M) communications can be leveraged in the classrooms and training programs across the globe.
One last thought here…
How are we changing our curricula to prepare students to leverage the power of the Internet of Things (IoT)?
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Excerpt:
Alice is presented as a mobile app, but it’s technically a book that can be read on iPads and Android tablets. The story is based on the classic Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and it features beautiful illustrations you can interact with by touching the tablet screen, as well as an engaging narrator reading each page.
“Regular e-books have limitations, and I wanted to create a new level of engagement. I wanted to combine interactive experience along with film ‘feel,’” Paletz said in an interview. “The application is an art book, a conceptual book, and an educational book all in one, so it has something for everyone.”
From DSC: With a shout out to
Laura Devaney who posted this on Twitter.
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.
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:
Check out this video! Incredible! — from Front Pictures; a great example of pushing the envelop and refusing to accept that something can’t be done
Multimedia Renaissance by Front Pictures — blog.frontpictures.com
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
NPR One is the new audio app that connects you to a stream of public radio news and stories curated for you. Informing, engaging, inspiring and surprising. From the ends of the earth to the tiniest corners of your city.
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Your stream is thoughtfully curated…
From DSC:
Makes me wonder how this sort of service might relate to other educational/training-related services…for example, streams of curated content delivered to you via customized playlists of learning, sent to your mobile devices or your smart/connected TV. Such pull-related methods — vs. push-related methods — could be very useful and engaging.
From DSC:
With a shout out and thanks
to the Indiana Jen blog,
where I originally saw this
Living social: How second screens are helping TV make fans — from nielsensocial.com
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Television viewing used to be an experience strictly between viewer and show, with water cooler talk coming the day after. The rise of social TV has changed that relationship, and according to a study by Nielsen, more and more Americans are quickly warming up to this new behavior. With tablets, smartphones and laptops at their side, TV viewers can follow their favorite shows, share content and connect with fellow fans before, during and after a program.
From DSC:
Instead of TV/entertainment-oriented programs, how about a service that offers cloud-based, scaffolded streams of content that are more educational/training-related in nature, complete with digital playlists of interactive content that can be offered up on the main display, while lifelong learners interact and discuss the content via their PLNs, cohorted groups of learners within their learning hubs, etc.?
![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)
C-Suite TV debuts, offers advice for the boardroom — from streamingmedia.com by Troy Dreier
Business leaders now have an on-demand video network to call their own, thanks to one Bloomberg host’s online venture.
Excerpt:
Bringing some business acumen to the world of online video, C-Suite TV is launching today. Created by Bloomberg TV host and author Jeffrey Hayzlett, the on-demand video network offers interviews with and shows about business execs. It promises inside information on business trends and the discussions taking place in the biggest boardrooms.
The Future of TV is here for the C-Suite — from hayzlett.com by Jeffrey Hayzlett
Excerpt:
Rather than wait for networks or try and gain traction through the thousands of cat videos, we went out and built our own network.
See also:
From DSC:
The above items took me back to the concept of Learning from the Living [Class] Room.
Many of the following bullet points are already happening — but what I’m trying to influence/suggest is to bring all of them together in a powerful, global, 24 x 7 x 365, learning ecosystem:
…then I’d say we’ll have a powerful, engaging, responsive, global education platform.
Here Comes Generation Z — from bloombergview.com by Leonid Bershidsky
Excerpts:
If Y-ers were the perfectly connected generation, Z-ers are overconnected. They multi-task across five screens: TV, phone, laptop, desktop and either a tablet or some handheld gaming device, spending 41 percent of their time outside of school with computers of some kind or another, compared to 22 percent 10 years ago. Because of that they “lack situational awareness, are oblivious to their surroundings and unable to give directions.”
Members of this new generation also have an 8-second attention span, down from 12 seconds in 2000, and 11 percent of them are diagnosed with attention deficiency syndrome, compared to 7.8 percent in 2003.
Also see Sparks & Honey’s presentation:
From DSC:
I have been wondering about the possibility that gaining students’ attention is becoming harder and harder to do. The above items seem to confirm that attentions are, in deed, shrinking. We must get through “the gate” (i.e., getting someone’s attention) if we want to have a chance of getting something into someone’s long term memory.
So what should professors, teachers, and trainers do?
For me, this is where things like active learning, project-based learning, and real-world learning come in. Highly relevant, hands-on learning where we turn over more control to the student, helping them own their own learning. We need to provide more choices as to how students can meet the learning objectives.
More choice. More control. Tap into their passions and internal motivations, introduce more play and more opportunities for students to display and cultivate their creativity.
The following article also has some solid thoughts/ideas that seem very relevant for this topic:
Mobile Megatrends 2014…uncovering major mobile trends in 2014 — from visionmobile.com
Excerpt:
This report examines five major trends that we expect to shape the future of mobile in the coming years:
From DSC:
In looking at the below excerpted slide from this solid presentation, I have to ask…
“Does this same phenomenon also apply to educationally-related products/services?”
…
Yes, I think it does.
That is, the educationally-related products and services of an organization will compete not by size, but how well the experience roams across screens. Lifelong learners (who are using well-designed learning experiences) will be able to tap into streams of content on multiple devices and never skip a beat. The organizations who provide such solid learning experiences across multiple “channels” should do well in the future. This is due to:
* From Here Comes Generation Z — bloombergview.com by Leonid Bershidsky
If Y-ers were the perfectly connected generation, Z-ers are overconnected. They multi-task across five screens: TV, phone, laptop, desktop and either a tablet or some handheld gaming device, spending 41 percent of their time outside of school with computers of some kind or another, compared to 22 percent 10 years ago.
Graduate School 2.0: Three ways to put technology to work for graduate student success — from evolllution.com by Susan Aldridge | President of Drexel University Online, Drexel University
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Podcasting and Vodcasting
Although these digital techniques are becoming a popular enhancement for “flipping” classrooms and furnishing supplemental course materials, they’re also a great way to teach professional skills. For example, Karl Okomoto created LawMeets, an online moot court experience for budding transactional attorneys who, up until now, have been expected to learn the art of negotiation by reading textbooks and listening to lectures.
As a result, law students across the country can now use this unique virtual platform to practice and perfect their deal-making skills, by posting videos of themselves counseling their moot clients, which are peer-reviewed through a digital voting device. Top-rated performances are then critiqued by seasoned attorneys, who furnish a demonstration video of their own. Equally important, professors in other law schools are incorporating these online exercises into their own classroom activities, with excellent results, while Okomoto is making plans to deploy his platform for role-playing job interviews and salary negotiations.
By the same token, an inventive cardiologist and professor at the Temple University School of Medicine employed podcast technology to help students learn how to listen for heart murmurs. Appropriately called Heartsongs, this MP3 teaching tool provides audio recordings of common murmurs, complete with running commentary — and, so far, its track record is nothing short of amazing. Among the medical students and residents using it, diagnostic accuracy rates have skyrocketed to 90 percent compared to the average of 20 to 30 percent.