online learning

Pearson moves away from print textbooks [Kelly]

On 07/17/2019, in 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, algorithms, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, Content aggregration, content development, content repositories, data mining, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, faculty, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning from the living [class] room, Microlearning, Mobile learning, multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, publishing, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, textbooks, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Pearson moves away from print textbooks — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

All of Pearson’s 1,500 higher education textbooks in the U.S. will now be “digital first.” The company announced its big shift away from print today, calling the new approach a “product as a service model and a generational business shift to be much more like apps, professional software or the gaming industry.”

The digital format will allow Pearson to update textbooks on an ongoing basis, taking into account new developments in the field of study, new technologies, data analytics and efficacy research, the company said in a news announcement. The switch to digital will also lower the cost for students: The average e-book price will be $40, or $79 for a “full suite of digital learning tools.”

Instructure’s Age of Adolescence: A Conversation With CEO Dan Goldsmith — from edsurge.com by Tony Wan

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

…we sat down with Goldsmith in Long Beach, California, at InstructureCon, the company’s annual user conference, to learn more about what lays ahead for the company as it enters, in his words, the “adolescent phase.”

How big is the company now?
We’re over 1,200. A little less than half the company is focused on R&D, which is a pretty high percentage for a technology company like ours.
…
What’s connecting the dots between the education and corporate sides is actually the market itself. Educational institutions are recognizing that the largest growing population is the professional worker, and there’s a lot of opportunity for online programs. When institutions are extending those programs to build corporate relationships, it’s very common they use Canvas to do that. Then Bridge comes in to provide the employee development piece.
…
I asked [Instructure’s co-founder and former CEO] Josh Coates this five years ago, and now I’ll ask you. What three words would you use to describe Instructure today?
Mission-minded. Curious. Optimistic.
(Coates’ answers: Impactful. Open. Innovative.)

From DSC:
To those of you graduate students out there: Never underestimate the impact/influence that you can have!

Were it not for his volunteering as an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University, Coates might still be on vacation. In 2008, he was approached by two graduate students in his venture startup class with a fledgling idea that would become Instructure. Skeptical at first, Coates saw potential after they shared transcripts from interviews with 17 university administrators, detailing pain points and the need for a better product.

In 2014: 450 employees
In 2019: Over 1200 employees and now the #1 LMS within U.S. higher ed

Reflections on “Clay Shirky on Mega-Universities and Scale” [Christian]

On 07/06/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, algorithms, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Blockchain, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, Content aggregration, content development, content repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data mining, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, Facebook, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, Law Schools, learner profiles, learning, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning preferences, Lifelong learning, love of learning, Microlearning, more choice more control, online learning, open courseware and systems, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, Smart/Connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, Technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), Using teams, vendors, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Clay Shirky on Mega-Universities and Scale — from philonedtech.com by Clay Shirky
[This was a guest post by Clay Shirky that grew out of a conversation that Clay and Phil had about IPEDS enrollment data. Most of the graphs are provided by Phil.]

Excerpts:

Were half a dozen institutions to dominate the online learning landscape with no end to their expansion, or shift what Americans seek in a college degree, that would indeed be one of the greatest transformations in the history of American higher education. The available data, however, casts doubt on that idea.

Though much of the conversation around mega-universities is speculative, we already know what a mega-university actually looks like, one much larger than any university today. It looks like the University of Phoenix, or rather it looked like Phoenix at the beginning of this decade, when it had 470,000 students, the majority of whom took some or all of their classes online. Phoenix back then was six times the size of the next-largest school, Kaplan, with 78,000 students, and nearly five times the size of any university operating today.

From that high-water mark, Phoenix has lost an average of 40,000 students every year of this decade.

From DSC:
First of all, I greatly appreciate both Clay’s and Phil’s thought leadership and their respective contributions to education and learning through the years. I value their perspectives and their work. Clay and Phil offer up a great article here — one worth your time to read.

The article made me reflect on what I’ve been building upon and tracking for the last decade — a next generation ***PLATFORM*** that I believe will represent a powerful piece of a global learning ecosystem. I call this vision, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.” Though the artificial intelligence-backed platform that I’m envisioning doesn’t yet fully exist — this new era and type of learning-based platform ARE coming. The emerging signs, technologies, trends — and “fingerprints”of it, if you will — are beginning to develop all over the place.

Such a platform will:

Be aimed at the lifelong learner.
Offer up major opportunities to stay relevant and up-to-date with one’s skills.
Offer access to the program offerings from many organizations — including the mega-universities, but also, from many other organizations that are not nearly as large as the mega-universities.
Be reliant upon human teachers, professors, trainers, subject matter experts, but will be backed up by powerful AI-based technologies/tools. For example, AI-based tools will pulse-check the open job descriptions and the needs of business and present the top ___ areas to go into (how long those areas/jobs last is anyone’s guess, given the exponential pace of technological change).

…

Below are some quotes that I want to comment on:

Not nothing, but not the kind of environment that will produce an educational Amazon either, especially since the top 30 actually shrank by 0.2% a year.

Instead of an “Amazon vs. the rest” dynamic, online education is turning into something much more widely adopted, where the biggest schools are simply the upper end of a continuum, not so different from their competitors, and not worth treating as members of a separate category.

Since the founding of William and Mary, the country’s second college, higher education in the U.S. hasn’t been a winner-take-all market, and it isn’t one today. We are not entering a world where the largest university operates at outsized scale, we’re leaving that world;

From DSC:
I don’t see us leaving that world at all…but that’s not my main reflection here. Instead, I’m not focusing on how large the mega-universities will become. When I speak of a forthcoming Walmart of Education or Amazon of Education, what I have in mind is a platform…not one particular organization.

Consider that the vast majority of Amazon’s revenues come from products that other organizations produce. They are a platform, if you will. And in the world of platforms (i.e., software), it IS a winner take all market.

Bill Gates reflects on this as well in this recent article from The Verge:

“In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets.

So it’s all about a forthcoming platform — or platforms. (It could be more than one platform. Consider Apple. Consider Microsoft. Consider Google. Consider Facebook.)

But then the question becomes…would a large amount of universities (and other types of organizations) be willing to offer up their courses on a platform? Well, consider what’s ALREADY happening with FutureLearn:

Finally…one more excerpt from Clay’s article:

Eventually the new ideas lose their power to shock, and end up being widely copied. Institutional transformation starts as heresy and ends as a section in the faculty handbook.

From DSC:
This is a great point. Reminds me of this tweet from Fred Steube (and I added a piece about Western Telegraph):

Why would anyone need a telephone when we already have the telegraph? [Western Telegraph] https://t.co/s6Rm67NAB0

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) May 23, 2019

Some things to reflect upon…for sure.

Likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems [Christian]

On 07/05/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, IT in HE, learning, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning preferences, Lifelong learning, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, society, tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, by Daniel Christian

DC: Likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems… #AI #LearningEcosystems #Learning #LifelongLearning #Platforms https://t.co/rIISC4BQ8b via @YouTube

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) July 5, 2019

“The world’s first full in VR semester course” — from VR First & Axon Park

On 06/28/2019, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, collaboration, computer science, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, global / globalization, Graphics, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, Law Schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, Lifelong learning, multimedia, online learning, platforms, programming, society, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, Technologies for your home, tools, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, Using teams, vendors, virtual reality / worlds / learning, vision, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

The World’s First Full in VR Semester Course Taught by Survios CTO — from medium.com by Rahel Demant

Excerpt:

VR First is excited to announce its strategic partnership with Axon Park?—?the world’s first educational campus in VR. To kick things off, they are running a full semester course taught in VR. Launching this fall, the course will teach expert-level Unreal Engine VR development, taught remotely by Survios CTO and Co-Founder Alex Silkin with support from the Unreal Engine team.

To enable Axon Park’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through immersive education, VR First has signed a strategic partnership with Axon Park, an organization which maintains the largest network of VR lab enabled universities and science parks internationally. Together, Axon Park and VR First are announcing a needs-based scholarship program that will provide students with low cost or free access to VR hardware and resources through their partner network of 850 universities. With their expertise in VR/AR workforce education and regional tech cluster facilities, VR First is the international distribution partner for Axon Park training solutions to universities, businesses and governments.

Also see:

Best USB Microphone for Mac in 2019 — from imore.com by Luke Filipowicz

Best Overall: Blue Yeti

Blue Yeti

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2019 Report

On 06/12/2019, in analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Asia, Australia, Canada, career development, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, Daniel S. Christian, data mining, education, education technology, emerging technologies, Europe, future of higher education, game-changing environment, health, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), India, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, Law Schools, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, marketing/social marketing, MBA, Microsoft, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more choice more control, multimedia, new business models, online learning, pace of change, platforms, social learning / networks, social media, society, storytelling, student-related, Technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, UK, Uncategorized, United States, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpts:

From DSC:
That last one reminded me of why I think the Living from the Living [Class] Room vision is so powerful…

Four research-based strategies every teacher should be using [Gonzalez]

On 06/10/2019, in adjunct faculty, assessment, colleges, community colleges, education, faculty, higher education, ideas, learning theories, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, online learning, pedagogy, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Four research-based strategies every teacher should be using — from cultofpedagogy.com by Jennifer Gonzalez

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

[Per Jennifer] Cognitive scientist Pooja Agarwal and K-12 teacher Patrice Bain have collaborated on a new book, Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning. In the book, they go into detail about what it looks like when we actually apply four research-based “Power Tools” in the classroom: retrieval practice, spaced practice, interleaving, and feedback-driven metacognition—which is one we haven’t covered at all on this podcast. Today I’m going to talk with Pooja and Patrice about these strategies, the research behind why they work, and some ways you can start using them right away in your instruction.

Instead of assigning homework to give students practice with course material, give mini-quizzes at the start of each class that ask 3-5 questions about the prior day’s learning. These should either receive no grades or be given a very low point value, because the goal of these is to reinforce the learning, not measure or grade student work.

In her social studies classroom, Bain used to assign homework most nights, and found that not only was she spending up to two hours a night grading it, it also was doing nothing to help students retain information.

Survey: Students Choosing Online Programs Closer to Home — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Mentioned in that article:

ONLINE COLLEGE STUDENTS 2019: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences — from learninghouse.com | Research Report | June 4, 2019

Also see:

Survey: Most students say online learning is as good or better than face-to-face
— from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

“It’s encouraging to see that a majority of students who are studying fully online are reporting great value and satisfaction with their online programs which are largely tied to ambitious career goals,” said Todd Zipper, president and CEO of Learning House, in a prepared statement. “With an increasing population of savvier consumers with high expectations, institutions need to do better at offering more quality, diverse programs that are sensitive to cost in order to keep up with the growing demands of online college students.”

From DSC:
If, in the year 2019, most students say online learning is as good or better than face-to-face, what will they say come 2025? 2035?

Many people will still prefer to have F2F-based learning experiences no matter what year it is. That said, as the innovation continues to occur mainly in the digital/online/virtual realms, F2F will likely find it harder and harder to compete. My advice to current faculty members? Get experience teaching online — and do so as soon as you possibly can.

“Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental” [APA] + 5 other items on the lack of support for learning styles

On 06/03/2019, in active learning, adjunct faculty, assessment, blended learning, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, Law Schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning theories, Lifelong learning, love of learning, more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, online learning, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, psychology, research, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental — from apa.org
Many people believe learning styles predict academic and career success, study finds

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON — Many people, including educators, believe learning styles are set at birth and predict both academic and career success even though there is no scientific evidence to support this common myth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
…
Previous surveys in the United States and other industrialized countries across the world have shown that 80% to 95% of people believe in learning styles. It’s difficult to say how that myth became so widespread, Nancekivell said.

Also see:

Maybe They’re Born With It, or Maybe It’s Experience: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Learning Style Myth — from apa.org by Shaylene E. Nancekivell, Priti Shah, and Susan A. Gelman
.
Learning Styles are NOT an Effective Guide for Learning Design — from debunker.club
Excerpt:
The strength of evidence against the use of learning styles is very strong. To put it simply, using learning styles to design or deploy learning is not likely to lead to improved learning effectiveness. While it may be true that learners have different learning preferences, those preference are not likely to be a good guide for learning. The bottom line is that when we design learning, there are far better heuristics to use than learning styles.
.
Learning styles: Worth our time? — from Cathy Moore
.
Learning Styles Debunked: There is No Evidence Supporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say — from psychologicalscience.org
.
Learning Styles FAQ — by Daniel Willingham
Excerpt:
How can you not believe that that people learn differently? Isn’t it obvious?
People do learn differently, but I think it is very important to say exactly how they learn differently, and focus our attention on those differences that really matter. If learning styles were obviously right it would be easy to observe evidence for them in experiments. Yet there is no supporting evidence. There are differences among kids that both seem obvious to us and for which evidence is easily obtained in experiments, e.g., that people differ in their interests, that students vary in how much they think of schoolwork as part of their identity (“I’m the kind of kid who works hard in school”) and that kids differ in what they already know at the start of a lesson. All three of these have sizable, easily observed effects on learning. I think that often when people believe that they observe obvious evidence for learning styles, they are mistaking it for ability.

From DSC:
While I’ve heard and read through the years that there isn’t support for learning styles — and I’ve come to adopt that perspective as well due to what I’ve read, such as the items listed above — I do think that each of us has our learning preferences (as the debunker club mentioned as well). That is, how we prefer to learn about a new subject:

Some people like to read the manual.
Others never pick up the manual…they prefer to use the trial and error / hands-on method.
Some people prefer to listen to audio books.
Others prefer to watch videos.
Others like to read about a new topic.
Others like to study in a very quiet place — while others prefer some background noise.
Some people love to learn in a 100% online-based mode…some people hate it, and that delivery method doesn’t work as well for them.

Along these lines…in my mind, offering learning in multiple media and in multiple ways maximizes the enjoyment of learning by a group of people. And now that we’re all into lifelong learning, the enjoyment of learning has notched waaay up in importance in my book. The more we enjoy learning, the more we enjoy life (and vice versa).

In fact, I’m getting closer to the point of putting enjoyment of learning over grades in terms of importance. Grades are a way to compare people/school systems/colleges/universities/etcetera…they are the currency of our current systems…and they are used to “incentivize” students. But such systems and methods often produce game players, not learners.

To attract talent, corporations turn to MOOCs [Tyler Millward]

On 05/24/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Europe, Microsoft, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, open courseware and systems, strategy, training / L&D, United States, Using teams, vendors, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

To attract talent, corporations turn to MOOCs — from edsurge.com by by Wade Tyler Millward

Excerpt:

When executives at tech giants Salesforce and Microsoft decided in fall 2017 to turn to an online education platform to help train potential users of products for their vendors, they turned to Pierre Dubuc and his team in fall 2017.

Two years later, Dubuc’s company, OpenClassrooms, has closed deals with both of them. Salesforce has worked with OpenClassrooms to create and offer a developer-training course to help people learn how to use the Salesforce platform. In a similar vein, Microsoft will use the OpenClassrooms platform for a six-month course in artificial intelligence. If students complete the AI program, they are guaranteed a job within six months or get their money back. They also earn masters-level diploma accredited in Europe.

Has Technology Made State Regional Universities Obsolete? — from campustechnology.com by Richard Rose
While SRUs do some things well, the current model is not sustainable, with students taking on enormous debt and receiving relatively little income benefit in return. Here’s how technology can help change the equation.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

What if the State Board of Higher Education assembled a team to create one exceptionally fine Official Texas Version of the sophomore Western Civilization course? The team would include brilliant subject-matter experts, the best graphic artists, senior instructional designers, professional film editors and sharp-eyed text editors, who could produce a 48-clock-hour video course of previously unimaginable quality.
…
When technology is fully embraced because the need for a better and cheaper product finally trumps the political protection of the status quo, the state regional university will be replaced as part of new state university systems in which local institutions will play a very different role. These new local institutions could be called Learning Satellite Centers (LSCs).
…
Much content will take the form of high-budget, high-quality multimedia productions with delivery available to all popular devices, from desktop computers to cell phones. Access to learning materials, from course movies and podcasts to reading materials, will be through an expanded electronic distribution system that will eliminate the need for paper-based academic libraries.
…
The goal of the University Center plus Learning Satellite Center model is to transfer agency back into the hands of the students, where it belongs. No longer will a self-appointed privileged group of professional academics with their arcane degrees and funny ceremonial robes be dictating to the rest of society what we all need to learn and how we need to learn it. Technology will be the great leveler and the marketplace will help individual students decide what choices are best.

Of course, a brief sketch like this one will raise many questions that cannot be explored in a single article, but the conversation must begin. The current State Regional University is not sustainable and can only be propped up by politics and sentiment for so long. Too many students are piling up huge debt to earn dubious degrees that don’t lead to marketable skills or significant economic benefits. Technology has made more effective models of higher education attainable and at a lower price. We need to fearlessly explore such models before our charming old regional campuses drift into irrelevance.

From DSC:
While the article has a bit of a bite to it (which I suppose readers of this blog would say they might see in my writings/comments as well from time to time), THIS is the kind of innovative, creative thinking that will get us somewhere. I really appreciate Richard’s article and the deep thought he was put into this topic.

In fact, as readers of this blog will know, I have long been a supporter of a TEAM-BASED approach. And listed below are some graphics that prove it — as well as this article I wrote for evolllution.com (where the “lll” stands for lifelong learning) back from 2016.

This page* lists those graphics plus the list of team members that I thought of in December 2008:

Subject Matter Experts
Instructional Designers
Project Managers
Recruiters
Legal Counsel
Researchers / Mind Experts
Digital Audio Specialists
Digital Video Specialists
Streaming Media Experts
Mobile Learning Consultants
Writers and Editors
Programmers and Database Specialists
Web Design and Production Specialists
Interactivity Designers
Multimedia Specialists including Multi-Touch Experts/Programmers
3D / 2D Graphic Designers and/or Animators
MindMappers / Visual Learning Experts
Personalized Learning Consultants
Security Experts
The students themselves
Other

*BTW, I renamed this idea from the Forthcoming Walmart of Education
to the Forthcoming Amazon.com of Higher Education

.

While I’m at it…below are a couple of ideas that I documented back in 2009 that Richard might like…

.

As of today…I would simplify that last graphic to
include a subscription model to streams of content.

Ok…one more graphic from 5/21/09 that describes what I thought would happen if institutions of traditional higher education maintained the status quo through the years. I feel pretty good about how these predictions turned out, but I wish that we would have made even more progress along these lines than we have (since the time I created this graphic).

Wouldn’t this be cool if we could do this? Perhaps this is a piece of our future learning ecosystems. [Christian]

On 05/13/2019, in assessment, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, Law Schools, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, legislatures / government / legal, Lifelong learning, marketplaces, memory, Michigan, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, online learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, second screen apps, smart classrooms, Smart/Connected TV, society, streams of content, student-related, teaching & learning, Technologies for your home, tools, United States, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Re: the Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision of a next gen learning platform…

…wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your voice to ask your smart/connected “TV” type of device:

“Show me the test questions for Torts I from WMU-Cooley Law School. Cooley could then charge $0.99 for these questions.”

Then, the system knows how you did on answering those questions. The ones you got right, you don’t get asked to review as often as the ones you got wrong. As you get a question right more often, the less you are asked to answer it.

You sign up for such streams of content — and the system assesses you periodically. This helps a person keep certain topics/information fresh in their memory. This type of learning method would be incredibly helpful for students trying to pass the Bar or other types of large/summative tests — especially when a student has to be able to recall information that they learned over the last 3-5 years.

Come to think of it…this method could help all of us in learning new disciplines/topics throughout our lifetimes. Sign up for the streams of content that you want to learn more about…and drop the (no-longer relevant) subscriptions as needed..

We need to tap into streams of content in our next gen learning platform

With flip of a giant ceremonial switch, CMU starts effort to energize ‘learning engineering’ — from edsurge.com by Jeff Young

Excerpt:

Pittsburgh, PA—For a moment this week, the provost of Carnegie Mellon University looked a bit like a game show host as he grabbed the lever of an oversized switch and called on an audience to join him in a countdown—“5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” Then, he toggled the cardboard lever and declared open a new website, one that gave away software that took more than $100 million in grant funding to develop.

It was an unusually theatrical moment for a gathering to announce the release of software tools to help professors improve their teaching. But the organizers were playfully acknowledging the size of their project’s ambition—which they hope will spark a more data-driven and experimental approach to teaching at colleges around the country. And the flair was fitting, since success will end up being based not so much on how well the software works, but on how well its creators can attract momentum to their cause—and change the culture of the academic profession to make teaching an area professors are excited to make discoveries around.
…
Plenty of others have tried in the past to bring the principles of engineering to college teaching, though with limited success. In fact, the effort at Carnegie Mellon is named for Herbert Simon, a longtime professor at Carnegie Mellon who won a Nobel Prize in economics and devoted his energy and academic capital to trying to spread his ideas about turning teaching from a solo sport to a team effort. But it didn’t catch on widely in his lifetime.

From DSC:

…and devoted his energy and academic capital to trying to spread his ideas about turning teaching from a solo sport to a team effort. But it didn’t catch on widely in his lifetime.

Why do you supposed getting faculty members to use a team-based approach is so difficult? We really need to look at that, especially if institutions of higher education are going to keep increasing how much it costs to take courses at their schools — and all the while placing the emphasis on research…not teaching.

Like using an indexing fund in investing — vs. a hand-picked set of stocks — a team-based approach will be more effective the majority of the time. How can it not? There are simply too many skillsets/interests needed, especially as teaching and learning continues to move more online.

“Learning by doing appears to have a 6x better [outcome] than learning by watching or reading,” Koedinger said. He and his colleagues published an academic paper with the finding called “Learning is Not a Spectator Sport.”

Also see:

From DSC:
Here’s a ~4 minute piece from CBS News re: student loan debt.

Here are two excerpts from that video:

From DSC to potential college students:
You need to know that the ramifications of this type of debt can last for decades! Do everything you possibly can to either not borrow anything or to minimize these types of loan amounts.

This is another reason why the United States desperately needs a ***next generation learning platform*** — one that’s convenient, very inexpensive, and one that can also help people quickly reinvent themselves! One that is highly social, features human Subject Matter Experts (SME’s), and is backed up by #AI – based apps/features as well.

Along these lines…no longer are we running sprints (i.e., get a 4-year degree and you’re done). We’re now all running marathons (i.e., we’re now into lifelong learning in order to stay relevant and employed).

Also, the following item was announced today:

Cengage and McGraw-Hill to Merge, Providing Students with More Affordable Access to Superior Course Materials and Platforms — from businesswire.com
Excerpt:
NEW YORK & BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–McGraw-Hill and Cengage today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine in an all-stock merger on equal terms. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, will bring together two premier learning companies that will deliver significant benefits for students, educators, professionals and institutions worldwide.“The new company will offer a broad range of best-in-class content – delivered through digital platforms at an affordable price,” said Michael E. Hansen, CEO of Cengage. “Together, we will usher in an era in which all students can afford the quality learning materials needed to succeed – regardless of their socioeconomic status or the institution they attend. Additionally, the combined company will have robust financial strength to invest in next-generation products, technology and services that create superior experiences and value for millions of students.”

Also see:

From DSC:
Along these lines, I don’t think Cengage/McGraw-Hill will be the largest company on the Internet by 2030 as predicted by Thomas Frey (a prediction I think he’s right on with…by the way). They were on watch when the prices of learning-related materials soared through the years. As such, they’ve likely burned through a great deal of good will…but we’ll see. They might be able to persuade myself and others that they’re the platform of choice for the future. Time will tell I guess.

Learning Ecosystems

Likely a piece of our future learning ecosystems [Christian]

To attract talent, corporations turn to MOOCs [Tyler Millward]

With flip of a giant ceremonial switch, CMU starts effort to energize ‘learning engineering’ [Young]

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