How Art Class Became a Rare Bright Spot for Students and Families During the Pandemic — from edsurge.com by Daniel Lempres

Excerpt:

When schools went remote two years ago, the National Art Education Association (NAEA) was quick to offer guidance on how best to reach students who have experienced trauma. They offered strategies for remote learning, as well as mental and emotional wellbeing.

Now more than ever, art educators must employ the tenets of social emotional learning, the NAEA says. In a recent report, the association recommended trauma-informed teaching strategies to promote mental health through self-expression—for their students’ sake and their own.

But with asynchronous lessons and virtual events, the amount of parental participation skyrocketed, she says.

 

Why the World’s First Virtual Reality High School Changes Everything — from steve-grubbs.medium.com by Steve Grubs

Excerpts:

The recipe required key ingredients to happen. In addition to an accredited school to manage students, admissions and the for-credit learning, it also needed a platform. That’s where EngageVR comes in. There are other platforms that will ultimately host schools, perhaps AltSpace, Horizon or others, but the first is on Engage.

The bottom line is this: creators, coders, educators, entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, parents and students all played a role in finally bringing the first global virtual reality high school to life. It won’t be the last school to open in the metaverse, but to all those involved in this inaugural launch — the Neil Armstrongs of your age — a special tip of the hat today for having the vision and the willingness to launch a better and more equitable era of education.

Also see:

This is a snapshot from the Geo Guesser VR game

 

Triumphs and Troubles in Online Learning Abroad — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell

Excerpt:

In Canada, for example, about two-thirds of colleges offer online degrees—and many have for years. While here in the U.S., a far smaller number grant degrees online.

I thought it would be good to do some digging to explore a more nuanced appreciation of the status of virtual instruction outside the U.S.

From DSC:
I would also like to mention that there’s a lot happening in Australia and in India along these lines, and likely in many other countries as well. But I think that one can only cover so much in one posting.   🙂

 

Why some teams boost motivation while others totally sap it — from psyche.co by Ann-Kathrin Torka, Jens Mazei, Joachim Hüffmeieris, and edited by Matt Huston. With thanks to Mr. Tom Barrett for this resource via his weekly newsletter.

Excerpts:

In contrast, when people perceive their contribution to the team’s outcome as indispensable, they tend to show greater effort than they would when working alone. These ‘effort gains’ can be due to team members aiming to be prosocial: they care about others and want to make a difference to the team. By helping their team succeed, members also feel better about themselves – they can see themselves as helpful and competent human beings.

Managers, instructors, coaches, and other leaders can use this knowledge to design teamwork that boosts team members’ efforts. Remember the student from the introduction: maybe she felt that she could not contribute much to the academic team because the project did not include a specific (sub-)taskfor her to work on and to feel responsible for. If the instructor or a teammate had broken down the project into subtasks for each member, she might have felt that her efforts were indispensable.

 

 

Storytelling for impact — from nationalgeographic.org; a collaboration between National Geographic and Adobe
Visualize and communicate powerful stories that inspire change

Excerpt:

Stories can change the world.
Learn from world-class National Geographic photographers, videographers, and visual designers in a series of Storytelling for Impact online courses. Created in partnership with Adobe, this series will teach you how to use compelling photography, video, graphics, and audio to tell stories in the most impactful ways to inspire change.

 

Offered for both educators and youth ages 16–25, these short, free, self-paced online courses are designed to guide learners to visualize and communicate powerful stories that inspire action.

Ready to harness the power of storytelling?

 

Is there a skills gap in learning design? — from neilmosley.com by Neil Mosley

Excerpt:

Another deficiency in higher education has also been the dearth of support there is for learning design. Roles such as Learning Designer or Instructional Designer have been relatively niche in UK higher education, they have tended to exist only in online or distance education settings.

This seems to be changing a little and there’s been more of these roles created over the past two years. Hopefully, as a result of growing recognition of the design and planning work that’s needed in higher education as the teaching and study experience grows in complexity.

Whilst broadly positive, this has thrown up another problem – the inconsistency and variability of skills amongst those that might refer to themselves as a Learning or Instructional Designer.

From DSC:
Though this is from the UK, these perspectives and the issues Neil raises are also very much present here in the United States. Neil raises some important questions, such as:

  • Aare the Learning Designers and/or Instructional Designers getting the training that they need?
  • What’s expected of them?
  • Are they utilized properly?
  • How do you scale their work?
  • How do you get professors and teachers to think of *designing* their learning experiences?

Addendum on 2/19/22:

And if the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that this collective movement toward learning experience design will be essential to help striving students go on better, more productive, and personally meaningful educational journeys. Indeed, we must help spread the word that education is more than a collection of classes. It may include classes, but it is so much more. At its best, it is a carefully and thoughtfully crafted and curated family of experiences that can help striving students change their lives!  


 

Holograms? Check! Now what? — from blog.webex.com by Elizabeth Bieniek

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Two years ago, I wrote about the Future of Meetings in 2030 and hinted at an effort my team was building to make this a reality. Now, we have publicly unveiled Webex Hologram and brought the reality of a real-time, end-to-end holographic meeting solution to life.

With Webex Hologram, you can feel co-located with a colleague who is thousands of miles away. You can share real objects in incredible multi-dimensional detail and collaborate on 3D content to show perspective, share, and approve design changes in real-time, all from the comfort of your home workspace.

As the hype dies down, the focus on entirely virtual experiences in fanciful environments will abate and a resurgence in focus on augmented experiences—interjecting virtual content into the physical world around you for an enhanced experience that blends the best of physical and virtual—will emerge.

The ability to have curated information at one’s fingertips, still holds an incredible value prop that has yet to be realized. Applying AI to predict, find, and present this type of augmented information in both 2D and 3D formats will become incredibly useful. 

From DSC:
As I think of some of the categories that this posting about establishing a new kind of co-presence relates to, there are many relevant ones:

  • 21st century
  • 24x7x365
  • 3D
  • Audio/Visual (A/V)
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Cloud-based
  • Collaboration/web-based collaboration
  • Intelligent tutoring
  • Law schools, legal, government
  • Learning, learning agents, learning ecosystems, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces/hubs/pods
  • Libraries/librarians
  • K-12, higher education, corporate training
  • Metaverse
  • Online learning
  • Telelegal, telemedicine
  • Videoconferencing
  • Virtual courts, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips
  • Web3
 

How I use Minecraft to help kids with autism — from ted.com by Stuart Duncan; with thanks to Dr. Kate Christian for this resource

Description:

The internet can be an ugly place, but you won’t find bullies or trolls on Stuart Duncan’s Minecraft server, AutCraft. Designed for children with autism and their families, AutCraft creates a safe online environment for play and self-expression for kids who sometimes behave a bit differently than their peers (and who might be singled out elsewhere). Learn more about one of the best places on the internet with this heartwarming talk.

 

Below are two excerpted snapshots from Stuart’s presentation:

Stuart Duncan speaking at TEDX York U

These are the words autistic students used to describe their experience with Stuart's Minecraft server

 

5 Tips for Online Tutoring Based on New Research — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Matthew Kraft, a professor at Brown University, shares some best practices for implementing online tutoring programs based on his recent research.

Excerpt:

While in-person high-dosage tutoring has been shown to improve student learning in multiple studies, the extent that this translates to online tutoring is not as well researched. However, a recent pilot study of online tutoring in which college students volunteered as tutors and were paired with middle school students in Illinois found consistently positive effects of online tutoring on student achievement, though these effects were smaller than had been seen for in-person tutoring.

 

These 3 charts show the global growth in online learning — from weforum.org by Johnny Wood; with thanks to Ray Schroeder out on LinkedIn

Example chart:

Also relevant/see:

The company has launched 13 new degrees with colleges since 2021, bringing the total number of bachelor’s, master’s and postgraduate degrees up to 38, according to Maggioncalda.

2U saw $152.4 million from its degree segment in 2021’s fourth quarter, about 11 times the revenue Coursera brought in from its degree business over the same period. 

 

10 things you didn’t know you could do with Google Arts and Culture — from ditchthattextbook.com

Excerpt:

Google Arts and Culture is a massive collection of videos and images of cultural artifacts from over 2,000 museums around the world. But virtually visiting art exhibits is just one of the many things you can do with Google Arts and Culture. From virtually displaying life-sized art inside your house to playing in a blob opera, Google Arts and Culture runs an impressive gamut of ways to explore culture from your own home or classroom.

 

Skill assessments: The future of personalization in learning — from edyoucated.org by Julian Rasch

The future of personalization in professional online learning lies in detailed, but fast and effective skill assessments. Here’s how we do it at edyoucated.

 

S&P raises view of higher ed sector for 2022, but colleges’ fortunes are diverging — from highereddive.com by Rick Seltzer

Excerpts:

  • S&P Global Ratings revised its view of the U.S. not-for-profit higher education sector to stable, ending four years of negative outlooks even as it said it is monitoring divergence in fortunes between strong and weak institutions in the market.

Some stressed institutions will be able to leverage high-value real estate, branding or strong programs into a merger or affiliation, according to the ratings agency. But with colleges competing for often-shrinking pools of students, S&P expects more closures — especially of small, regional, private liberal arts colleges.

Also see:

Breaking Down Online Postsecondary Enrollment Growth in the United States — from holoniq.com
Welcome to the multi-speed online enrollment economy. The highs and the lows of the top 20+ institutions.

Digital capability is arguably the number one priority for US universities and colleges. Postsecondary enrollments in the United States are in decline, institutions are bracing for a much bigger 2025 enrollment crash (due to a falling birthrate from the last recession) and a tight labor market is encouraging employers to drop requirements such as degrees and instead embrace faster, cheaper and higher ROI online up-skilling programs.

 

Data-Informed Learning Design and the Shift to Online — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

The pandemic has been a testament to the progress that has been made in the use of technology to support online learning, but it has also revealed how poorly traditional course design translates to a digital experience. And that’s an opportunity for institutions to become more sophisticated in leveraging digital learning environments to go beyond what’s possible in a brick-and-mortar classroom. That’s according to Luyen Chou, chief learning officer at 2U. Here, we talk about transforming online pedagogy, the potential of emerging technologies, the beauty of simple data, essential human skills and more.

 

Arizona State wants to reach 100M learners by 2030. Can it meet its goal? — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz

Dive Brief:

  • Arizona State University launched an initiative Thursday that aims to reach 100 million learners worldwide in an online global management and entrepreneurship certificate program by 2030.
  • The certificate program, which will be translated into 40 languages, will be offered through Arizona State’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. An initial donation of $25 million is helping to fund the program, which will make the certificates free to learners through full scholarships.
  • Learners will receive a badge after completing each of five graduate-level courses in the program. Completion of all the courses leads to a certificate granting 15 credit hours that can be applied to degrees at Thunderbird, Arizona State and other institutions, according to a program brochure.

Also see:

 
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