passions

Students are being prepared for jobs that no longer exist. Here’s how that could change. — from nbcnews.com by Sarah Gonser, The Hechinger Report
As automation disrupts the labor market and good middle-class jobs disappear, schools are struggling to equip students with future-proof skills.

Excerpts:

In many ways, the future of Lowell, once the largest textile manufacturing hub in the United States, is tied to the success of students like Ben Lara. Like many cities across America, Lowell is struggling to find its economic footing as millions of blue-collar jobs in manufacturing, construction and transportation disappear, subject to offshoring and automation.

The jobs that once kept the city prosperous are being replaced by skilled jobs in service sectors such as health care, finance and information technology — positions that require more education than just a high-school diploma, thus squeezing out many of those blue-collar, traditionally middle-class workers.

As emerging technologies rapidly and thoroughly transform the workplace, some experts predict that by 2030 400 million to 800 million people worldwide could be displaced and need to find new jobs. The ability to adapt and quickly acquire new skills will become a necessity for survival.

“We’re preparing kids for these jobs of tomorrow, but we really don’t even know what they are,” said Amy McLeod, the school’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment. “It’s almost like we’re doing this with blinders on. … We’re doing all we can to give them the finite skills, the computer languages, the programming, but technology is expanding so rapidly, we almost can’t keep up.”

For students like Amber, who would rather do just about anything but go to school, the Pathways program serves another function: It makes learning engaging, maybe even fun, and possibly keeps her in school and on track to graduate.

“I think we’re turning kids off to learning in this country by putting them in rows and giving them multiple-choice tests — the compliance model,” McLeod said. “But my hope is that in the pathways courses, we’re teaching them to love learning. And they’re learning about options in the field — there’s plenty of options for kids to try here.”

What if more of our learning spaces featured this level of creativity, colors, passion, & energy? [Christian]

On 03/30/2018, in art, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, higher education, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, passions, play, society, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Very clever designs! Some serious creativity here!

From DSC:
NOTE: I’ve never been to this site before, but I saw the clever QWERTY image on Pinterest, which lead me to this page. What if more of our learning spaces — and/or perhaps our playgrounds — featured this level of creativity, color, innovative design, passion, beauty, and energy?

Some examples:

A Curiosity Guide [Ian Byrd]

On 01/19/2018, in attention, engagement / engaging students, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning theories, memory, parents/guardians, passions, pedagogy, psychology, student-related, teachers, by Daniel Christian

A Curiosity Guide — from byrdseed.com Ian Byrd

Excerpts:

Anticipation and Dopamine: In part one of this curiosity series, we explore the connection between curiosity, anticipation, and dopamine and discover why we remember things better when we are allowed to wonder.

So, to wrap up our first round of exploring curiosity:

When we become curious, we are anticipating learning information.
Our brain releases dopamine, a pleasurable chemical related to the anticipation of a reward (in this case information).
Simply being in this curious state activates the hippocampus, enhancing memory.
We remember things better when we are in this state, even things we weren’t actually curious about.

Closing Question:
How many times a day are your students in a curious state, eagerly anticipating information?

Confusion and Curiosity: So how do we make kids curious? We’ll cover two aspects: creating information gaps and (yes) purposefully confusing our students.

In the first article, we covered what happenings in our brains when we become curious. We also noted that just being in a state of curiosity can improve memory, even for things you’re not curious about.
…
Here’s one key: to become curious, you must already know something about the topic. Curiosity only fires up when we discover that some important information is missing or that it contradicts information we already had. George Loewenstein calls this the Information Gap theory of curiosity.

Simply put: we have to give students enough information for them to become curious about the missing information.
…

To wrap up part two:

Curiosity requires us to know something about the topic.
We become curious when information doesn’t fit an existing mental model.
Confusion is part of curiosity. We enjoy a certain amount of cognitive disequilibrium.
But! No one wants to be curious forever. It must be resolved.

Curiosity Is Social: When we’re curious, we can enhance that curiosity by discussing it with others. Our mutual confusion takes us deeper into the experience.

So, in classrooms, it’s worth purposefully (but gently) confusing students and then letting them talk to each other. It will build their interest and enhance their curiosity.

Creating Cultures of Curiosity: The biggest factor in our students’ curiosity at school is us! Teachers can create (or kill) cultures of curiosity. We’ll look at four qualities and a couple experiments run by Susan Engel.

Teachers have enormous power to encourage or discourage curiosity. Every word and action can either build a culture of curiosity or a culture of compliance.

Talk about displaying your students’ artwork throughout your hallways!!! (What about on your connected “TVs?”) Talk about discovering & displaying art masterpieces! Wow! Very cool.

On 01/03/2018, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, art, attention, colleges, community colleges, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital photography, education technology, engagement / engaging students, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, multimedia, online media, passions, photography, platforms, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, teachers, technologies for your home, tools, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

From Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS – January 3, 2018.
#986 – Updates on Learning, Business & Technology Since 1997.

2. Curation in Action – Meural Picture Frame of Endless Art.
What a cool Curation Holiday Gift that arrived. The Meural Picture Frame is an amazing digital display, 30 inches by 20 inches, that will display any of over 10,000 classical or modern paintings or photos from the world’s best museums.

A few minutes of setup to the WiFi and my Meural became a highly personalized museum in the living room. I selected collections of an era, a specific artist, a theme or used someone else’s art “playlist”.

It is curation at its best! A personalized and individualized selection from an almost limitless collection. Check it out at http://www.meural.com

Also see:

From DSC:
As I understand it, you can upload your own artwork and photography into this platform. As such, couldn’t we put such devices/frames in schools?!

Wouldn’t it be great to have each classroom’s artwork available as a playlist?! And not just the current pieces, but archived pieces as well!

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to walk down the hall and swish through a variety of pieces?

Wouldn’t such a dynamic, inspirational platform be a powerful source of creativity in our hallways? The frames could display the greatest works of art from around the world!

Wouldn’t such a platform give young/budding artists and photographers incentive to do their best work, knowing many others can see their creative works as a part of a playlist?

Wouldn’t it be cool to tap into such a service and treasure chest of artwork and photography via your Smart/Connected TV?

Here’s to creativity!

Keeping Joy in the Classroom — from teachervision.com by Lisa Koplik
How do we keep joy in our classrooms — for both students and teachers?

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Teaching today is nothing like it was in the past. Gone are the days of loose curriculum, infrequent observations by your principal, and learning cursive; we now have structured lessons, unannounced walkthroughs by both the principal and the superintendent, and a lack of downtime.

How do we keep joy in our classrooms — for the kids and also for us? Take a look at some tips for continuing to make teaching and learning fun.
…
4. Allow for Choice
As much as you can, give the kids choices. While this isn’t always possible, there are ways to promote student choice. If your school has an intervention time, or a “What I Need” (WIN) block, create a menu of student options. Recently, my WIN time menu has included Greek myths, multiplication practice, a persuasive essay piece, informational task cards, and multi-step word problems in math. These activities are considered Must-Do, and if they finish all Must-Dos, they can move on to optional choices. Another great way to allow for choice is by using Seesaw, a website that allows for students to represent their learning in a variety of ways. I have used Seesaw during assessments to allow students the choice of typing, voice recording, or writing by hand. They definitely enjoy filming themselves talking!

From DSC:
Seeing as all of us are now into lifelong learning, it’s to all of our benefits to make learning fun and enjoyable. In fact, I wish that were more a part of our formative assessments…not just how did our students score on this or that standardized test. The skills that are needed in the future are hard to cram into a standardized test; skills such as creativity, entrepreneurship, tenacity/grit, patience, teamwork and collaboration, being innovative, being able to quickly adapt to change, etc.

Sometimes the problem is that it takes too much time to provide a solid level of choice. I get that. But with some tools/services — as in the case where Lisa mentioned her use of Seesaw — there are some options that aren’t so labor-intensive for the teachers.

I have it that if someone has had an extended period of painful or bad learning experiences, chances are that they won’t want to “go back to school” — in whatever form that additional training/education might look like. But if they enjoyed their learning experiences, it becomes much easier for consistent, lifelong learning to get baked into our daily/weekly habits and into our lives.

How a Flipped Syllabus, Twitter and YouTube Made This Professor Teacher of the Year — from edsurge.com by Bruce Anderson

Excerpt:

A few years after John Boyer began teaching world geography at Virginia Tech, a survey revealed that 58 percent of college-aged Americans could not locate Japan on a map. Sixty-nine percent could not find the United Kingdom.

Boyer raced ahead undaunted. He loved the scope and implications of his subject. “The great thing about geography is . . . everything happens somewhere,” he explains. “Geography is the somewhere.”

Boyer is now a senior instructor and researcher at Virginia Tech. He took over World Regions, an entry-level geography class, while he was working on a master’s degree nearly 20 years ago. The class then had 50 students. Now the course is offered each semester and a whopping 3,000 students take it in any given school year.

What has made it so popular? Innovative pedagogy, for starters. Boyer uses a “flipped syllabus” in which students’ final grades are based on the points they’ve earned—not lost—throughout the semester. His legendary assignments range from reviewing films to tweeting on behalf of world leaders (more on that below). Mostly, Boyer himself has made the class a rite of passage for undergraduates, who typically find him funny, passionate, and consummately engaging. Boyer even created a comic alter ego called the Plaid Avenger, who has narrated textbooks and podcasts but is now largely retired—though Boyer still sports his famous plaid jackets and drives a plaid Scion.

Given the disparity in knowledge levels as well as the disparity in what they like to do in terms of work, whether that be watching international film or writing papers, I wanted to increase the flexibility of what the students could do to achieve a grade in this class.

Tell us about the Twitter World Leaders.
You can choose to be a true, real world leader. Of course, they’re fake accounts and we make sure everyone knows you’re the fake Donald Trump or the fake Angela Merkel of Germany. Once you take on that role, you will tweet as the world leader for the entire semester, and you have to tweet two to three times a day. And it’s not silly stuff. What is the chancellor of Germany working on right now? What other world leaders is Angela Merkel meeting with? What’s going on in Germany or the EEU?

It’s Time for Student Agency to Take Center Stage — from gettingsmart.com by Marie Bjerede and Michael Gielniak

Excerpt:

Jason took ownership of his class project, exhibiting agency. Students who take ownership go beyond mere responsibility and conscientiously completing assignments. These students are focused on their learning, rather than their grade. They are genuinely interested in their work and are as likely as not to get up and work on a project on a Saturday morning, even though they don’t have to (and without considerations of extra credit.)

They complete their homework on time and may well go above and beyond, and they have interesting thoughts to add to classroom dialog. For many teachers, they are a joy to teach, but they are also the ones who may ask the hard questions and they may be quick to point out what they see as hypocrisy in the authority figures.

“Responsible” students, on the other hand, are compliant. Most teachers think they are a joy to teach. They complete their homework without fail, and pay attention and participate in class. These are the kids typically considered “good” students. They usually win most of the academic awards because they are thought of as the “best and brightest.”

Responsible students are concerned about their grades, and can be identified when they ask questions like::

“Will that be on the test?”
“How many words do I have to write?”
“What does it take to get an A?”

Students who take ownership, on the other hand ask questions like:

“There are several different viewpoints on this subject so why is that, and what does it mean?
“Is what you are teaching, or what is in my textbook, consistent with my research?”
“Why is this important?”

Compliance or agency? We need to decide.

The past decades have been the age of the responsible, compliant student. Students who used to be able to get into college and then immediately secure a good job. But the world and the workforce have changed.

“Personalized learning seeks to accelerate student learning by tailoring the instructional environment — what, when, how, and where students learn — to address the individual needs, skills, and interests of each student. Students can take ownership of their own learning, while also developing deep, personal connections with each other, their teachers, and other adults.”

WE’VE ALWAYS HAD FOUR STRONG BELIEFS:

Students’ ownership of their learning is critical to long-term success.
When it comes to learning, students should get more of what they need exactly when they need it.
Ensuring equity requires getting each student what he or she needs to succeed.
It is possible to redesign schools to work much better for students and teachers.

We do not believe that there is yet definitive proof that personalized learning works better than other models. Ultimately, we hope that personalized learning will improve life outcomes for students, with clear evidence to support its efficacy. In the interim, we look to traditional academic measures (e.g. state assessments or assessments like NWEA MAP), to provide early signs of the efficacy of personalized learning.

Despite the lack of conclusive proof, there are two important data sets that we find compelling. First, RAND conducted a study of 11,000 students and 62 personalized learning schools nationally and found that “students made significant gains in mathematics and reading overall, and in elementary and middle schools [1].” More recently, RAND published the third of its studies of personalized learning. It again found statistically significant gains in math, however, the effect size had decreased notably [2].

“Learning is leaving the (school) building” — and other items from Will Richardson & Bruce Dixon

On 09/01/2017, in 21st century, active learning, attention, change, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, digital learning, education, education reform, education technology, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, game-changing environment, generational differences, ideas, innovation, internet, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, pace of change, parents/guardians, participation, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, real-world assignments, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, story, storytelling, strategy, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), traditional / tradition, United States, user experience (UX), vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I appreciated hearing the perspectives from Bruce Dixon and Will Richardson this morning, as I listed to a webinar that they recently offered. A few key takeaways for me from that webinar — and with a document that they shared — were:

The world has fundamentally changed. (Bruce and Will also mentioned the new pace of change; i.e., that it’s much faster.)
We need to have more urgency about the need to reimagine school, not to try to improve the existing model.
“Because of the advent of the Web and the technologies we use to access it, learning is, in a phrase, leaving the (school) building.”
There is a newfound capacity to take full control of one’s own learning; self-determined learning should be at the center of students’ and teachers’ work; co-constructed curriculum
And today, at a moment when learners of all ages have never had more agency over their own learning, schools must unlearn centuries old mindsets and practices and relearn them in ways that truly will serve every child living in the modern, connected world.
Will and Bruce believe that every educator — and district for that matter — should articulate their own “principles of learning”
Beliefs about how kids learn (powerfully and deeply) need to be articulated and consistently communicated and lived out
Everything we do as educators, administrators, etc. tells a story. What stories are we telling? (For example, what does the signage around your school building say? Is it about compliance? Is is about a love of learning? Wonder? What does the 20′ jumbo tron say about priorities? Etc.)
Bruce and Will covered a “story audit” and how to do one

“Learning is, in a phrase, leaving the (school) building.”

Richardson & Dixon

Also see:

These educators have decades worth of experience. They are pulse-checking their environments. They want to see students thrive both now and into the future. For these reasons, at least for me, their perspectives are highly worth reflecting upon.

Getting students ready for the gig economy [Liebtag]

On 07/22/2017, in active learning, career development, economics, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, marketing/social marketing, passions, project-based learning, society, sociology, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Getting students ready for the gig economy — from gettingsmart.com by Emily Liebtag

Excerpt:

1) Finding a Passion and Making an Impact
Exploring passions, interests and causes that matter should be a part of every student’s education. Projects or several short-term gigs are a great way to help students reveal (or discover) their personal passions and to facilitate their interest explorations (all while still covering core content and standards). There are many students who already have opportunities to explore their passions during the regular school day through projects and are thriving as a result.

We’ve seen students at High Tech High create business plans and sell self-designed t-shirts, students at Thrive Public Schools engage in projects around kindness and empathy in their communities, and students at One Stone work with clients on advertising and marketing gigs, exploring their passions one project at a time.

Need ideas? Engage students in projects around the Sustainable Development Goals, snag an idea from the the PBL Q & A blog or simply ask students what they are curious about exploring in their community.

The case for a next generation learning platform [Grush & Christian]

On 07/11/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, Blockchain, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, Michigan, microlearning, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, pace of change, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, RSS, second screen apps, simulations, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

The case for a next generation learning platform — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush & Daniel Christian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Grush: Then what are some of the implications you could draw from metrics like that one?

Christian: As we consider all the investment in those emerging technologies, the question many are beginning to ask is, “How will these technologies impact jobs and the makeup of our workforce in the future?”

While there are many thoughts and questions regarding the cumulative impact these technologies will have on our future workforce (e.g., “How many jobs will be displaced?”), the consensus seems to be that there will be massive change.

Whether our jobs are completely displaced or if we will be working alongside robots, chatbots, workbots, or some other forms of AI-backed personal assistants, all of us will need to become lifelong learners — to be constantly reinventing ourselves. This assertion is also made in the aforementioned study from McKinsey: “AI promises benefits, but also poses urgent challenges that cut across firms, developers, government, and workers. The workforce needs to be re-skilled to exploit AI rather than compete with it…”

A side note from DSC:
I began working on this vision prior to 2010…but I didn’t officially document it until 2012.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:

A global, powerful, next generation learning platform

What does the vision entail?

A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

“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.

A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determines that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and streams of content that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)
(Potentially) Integration with one-on-one tutoring services

Further details here >>

Addendum from DSC (regarding the resource mentioned below):
Note the voice recognition/control mechanisms on Westinghouse’s new product — also note the integration of Amazon’s Alexa into a “TV.”

Westinghouse’s Alexa-equipped Fire TV Edition smart TVs are now available — from theverge.com by Chaim Gartenberg

The key selling point, of course, is the built-in Amazon Fire TV, which is controlled with the bundled Voice Remote and features Amazon’s Alexa assistant.

Finally…also see:

NASA unveils a skill for Amazon’s Alexa that lets you ask questions about Mars — from geekwire.com by Kevin Lisota
Holographic storytelling — from jwtintelligence.com
The stories of Holocaust survivors are brought to life with the help of interactive 3D technologies.
New Dimensions in Testimony is a new way of preserving history for future generations. The project brings to life the stories of Holocaust survivors with 3D video, revealing raw first-hand accounts that are more interactive than learning through a history book. Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter, the first subject of the project, was filmed answering over 1000 questions, generating approximately 25 hours of footage. By incorporating natural language processing from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), people are able to ask Gutter’s projected image questions that trigger relevant responses.

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.

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?

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.

ISNS students embrace learning in a world of virtual reality — from by

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

To give students the skills needed to thrive in an ever more tech-centred world, the International School of Nanshan Shenzhen (ISNS) is one of the world’s first educational facilities now making instruction in virtual reality (VR) and related tools a key part of the curriculum.

Building on a successful pilot programme last summer in Virtual Reality, 3D art and animation, the intention is to let students in various age groups experiment with the latest emerging technologies, while at the same time unleashing their creativity, curiosity and passion for learning.

To this end, the school has set up a special VR innovation lab, conceived as a space for exploration, design and interdisciplinary collaboration involving a number of different subject teachers.

Using relevant software and materials, students learn to create high-quality digital content and to design “experiences” for VR platforms. In this “VR Lab makerspace” – a place offering the necessary tools, resources and support – they get to apply concepts and theories learned in the classroom, develop practical skills, document their progress, and share what they have learned with classmates and other members of the tech education community.

As a next logical step, she is also looking to develop contacts with a number of the commercial makerspaces which have sprung up in Shenzhen. The hope is that students will then be able to meet engineers working on cutting-edge innovations and understand the latest developments in software, manufacturing, and areas such as laser cutting, and 3D printing, and rapid prototyping.

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