DIGITAL SERIES – FUTURE OF WORK: THE NEXT GENERATION
Excerpt:
The working landscape in the United States has rapidly changed in the last 30 years. The one job-for-life model is vanishing and younger workers are trading in stability and security for flexibility and autonomy. GBH and PBS Digital Studios present the Future of Work digital series, a six-part docuseries chronicling six mid-career adults as they navigate the rapidly changing work landscape covering topics such as debt, the gig economy, remote working, career identity, and more.
DC: At times, I wonder…what are the unintended consequences of #emergingtechnologies? Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. That thought came to my mind when I saw this article: https://t.co/vngu9hs4Mb
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 18, 2021
From DSC:
Yet another example of the need for the legislative and legal realms to try and catch up here.
A LIFETIME OF LEARNING — from continuum.uw.edu
Excerpts:
The 60-year curriculum is the modern approach to a lifetime of learning. Getting a degree, getting a job and never setting foot in a classroom again are not today’s reality.
A discussion paper from the McKinsey Global Institute predicts that in the next 10 to 15 years, the need for new tech skills will accelerate. We will also need people who will develop, innovate and adapt those technologies. The paper asserts that, right now, 80% of the workforce doesn’t have the skills for most of the jobs that will be available in the next five to 10 years.
From DSC:
It would be good to integrate more vocational types of pathways/items in here as well.
For College Finances, There’s No ‘Return to Normal’ — from chronicle.com by Mark S. LeClair
The critical problems facing higher education won’t end with the pandemic.
Excerpt:
Higher ed is in trouble. It faces a demographic crunch in 2026, when smaller high-school graduating classes will mean greater competition for students. That will lead to tuition discounting and underenrolled classes for many colleges. And yet that demographic crisis is only one of many significant challenges the sector faces. As noted by Forbes in its annual review of college and university financials, approximately 20 percent of all institutions now warrant a “D” ranking (its lowest). Many are under serious financial strain and may not survive.
The Forbes financial analyses have been warning of a worsening situation for years. The added stresses from the Covid-19 pandemic will further aggravate the untenable circumstances facing hundreds of institutions. There is now a very short window within which we must carry out significant reforms.
The Future of Social Media: Re-Humanisation and Regulation — by Gerd Leonhard
How could social media become ‘human’ again? How can we stop the disinformation, dehumanisation and dataism that has resulted from social media’s algorithmic obsessions? I foresee that the EXTERNALTIES i.e. the consequences of unmitigated growth of exponential digital technologies will become just as big as the consequences of climate change. In fact, today, the social media industry already has quite a few parallels to the oil, gas and coal business: while private make huge profits from extracting the ‘oil’ (i.e. user data), the external damage is left to society and governments to fix. This needs to change! In this keynote I make some precise suggestions as to how that could happen.
Some snapshots/excerpts:
From DSC:
Gerd brings up some solid points here. His presentation and perspectives are not only worth checking out, but they’re worth some time for us to seriously reflect on what he’s saying.
What kind of future do we want?
And for you professors, teachers, instructional designers, trainers, and presenters out there, check out *how* he delivers the content. It’s well done and very engaging.
10 AI tech trends data scientists should know — from by Lisa Morgan
The rising environmental and monetary costs of deep learning are catching enterprises’ attention, as are new AI techniques like graph neural networks and contrastive learning.
Excerpt:
AI adoption is accelerating across industries, driven by a combination of concrete results, high expectations and a lot of money. Among the many new AI concepts and techniques launching almost daily, 10 AI tech trends in particular grab data scientists’ attention.
Career Tracker: Virtual firms hit an industry milestone as hires continue — from reuters.com by Sara Merken & Arriana Mclymore
Virtual law firm FisherBroyles announced Tuesday that it has cracked the Am Law 200, saying it’s the first non-traditional, so-called distributed law firm to rank among the top 200 highest-grossing U.S. firms.
The 300-partner firm said its annual gross revenue reached $113 million in 2020, adding that in the last year alone it added 51 new partners “almost entirely from Am Law 100 and 200 ranked firms.” It cited the role of the pandemic, which upended expectations about remote work, in spurring its growth and accelerating the adoption of its mostly cloud-based approach to legal services.
The metaverse: real world laws give rise to virtual world problems — from cityam.com by Gregor Pryor
Legal questions
Like many technological advances, from the birth of the internet to more modern-day phenomena such as the use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), the metaverse will in some way challenge the legal status quo.Whilst the growth and adoption of the metaverse will raise age-old legal questions, it will also generate a number of unique legal and regulatory obstacles that need to be overcome.
From DSC:
I’m posting this because this is another example of why we have to pick up the pace within the legal realm. Organizations like the American Bar Association (ABA) are going to have to pick up the pace big time. Society has been being impacted by a variety of emerging technologies such as these. And such changes are far from being over. Law schools need to assess their roles and responsibilities in this new world as well.
Addendum on 3/29/21:
Below are some more examples from Jason Tashea’s “The Justice Tech Download” e-newsletter:
From DSC:
This is what we’re up against –> Reskilling 1 billion people by 2030” — from saffroninteractive.com by Jessica Anderson
Excerpts:
According to the World Economic Forum, this statistic is a critical economic imperative.
Does this shock or scare you? Perhaps you’re completely unflappable? Whatever your reaction, this situation will undoubtedly impact your organisation and the way you tackle skills development.
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What are the roadblocks?
So, we’ve laid down the gauntlet; an adaptable, agile, multi-skilled workforce. What stands in the way of achieving this? A recent survey of the top 5 challenges facing learning leaders sheds some light:
1. Building a learning culture
2. Learning in the flow of work
3. Digital transformation
4. Learner engagement and ownership
5. Keeping informed of best practices
From DSC:
The article mentions that nations could lose billions in potential GDP growth. And while that is likely very true, I think a far bigger concern is the very peace and fabric of our societies — the way of living that billions of people will either enjoy or have to endure. Civil unrest, increased inequality, warfare, mass incarcerations, etc. are huge concerns.
The need for a next-gen learning platform is now! The time for innovation and real change is now. It can’t come too soon. The private and public sectors need to collaborate to create “an Internet for learning” (in the sense that everyone can contribute items to the platform and that the platform is standards based). Governments, corporations, individuals, etc. need to come together. We’re all in the same boat here. It benefits everyone to come together.
Best NASA Pictures of 2020 — from fubiz.net
Beyond the beauty of these contemplative images, the space agency also had another goal: that of raising awareness of the urgency of taking action to protect the Earth and its fragile environments. Fires, pollution, rising waters, floods…so many phenomena that these images reveal and document with precision and that should challenge us. As Thomas Pesquet said after his experience in orbit, looking down on the Earth can make us aware of its fragility and the sometimes disastrous action of man on nature.
Also see:
From DSC:
As we move into 2021, the blistering pace of emerging technologies will likely continue. Technologies such as:
Along the positive lines of this topic, I’ve been reflecting upon how we might be able to use AI in our learning experiences.
For example, when teaching in face-to-face-based classrooms — and when a lecture recording app like Panopto is being used — could teachers/professors/trainers audibly “insert” main points along the way? Similar to something like we do with Siri, Alexa, and other personal assistants (“Heh Siri, _____ or “Alexa, _____).
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Pretend a lecture, lesson, or a training session is moving right along. Then the professor, teacher, or trainer says:
Like a verbal version of an HTML tag.
After the recording is done, the AI could locate and call out those “main points” — and create a table of contents for that lecture, lesson, training session, or presentation.
(Alternatively, one could insert a chime/bell/some other sound that the AI scans through later to build the table of contents.)
In the digital realm — say when recording something via Zoom, Cisco Webex, Teams, or another application — the same thing could apply.
Wouldn’t this be great for quickly scanning podcasts for the main points? Or for quickly scanning presentations and webinars for the main points?
Anyway, interesting times lie ahead!
Online learning and law schools during the pandemic — from tonybates.ca by Tony Bates
Excerpt:
Pre-Covid, law schools and especially law accrediting agencies in North America have been pretty conservative in the past with regard to online or more accurately distance learning (see Online education and the professional associations: the case of law, for more details on the situation in 2018).
We can then fairly safely assume that most of these schools would have had no or little prior experience of online learning before March of this year. So it is interesting that 89% of students in law schools in the USA responding to a Thomson Reuters survey reported that during Covid-19 they were taking classes entirely online.
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However, for me the most interesting results are in the graph below:
Preferences for permanent changes
It seems clear that at least some level of online instruction will continue in the future, and that online learning will become widespread for at least some types of classes.
Given that there was almost no online learning in law schools in the USA pre-Covid 19, this is a significant conclusion.
From DSC:
I appreciate Tony writing about this topic. He’s correct in saying the ABA and the legal education field — along with the entire legal realm — was behind the 8 ball in terms of online learning (and I would add the use of emerging technologies in general). In fact, I’d say that the ABA was essentially twenty years behind in terms of getting on board the online learning train. It still has a ways to go…but the pressure is on the ABA to get with the times. Our society requires that they do so. The pace of change has been changing for a decade or more now. They can no longer walk on the race track and hope to not get in the way of a world that’s traveling at 180 mph.
Make no mistake, if the ABA — and the legal field in general — continues at their previous pace, we all will pay the price. Consider but a few areas that are already having an impact on our society:
Along with other tags that apply here:
From DSC:
I saw this item out at:
Also see:
