personalized/customized learning

What if we were to tie in Google’s new Job Discovery service in w/ a next gen learning platform? [Christian]

On 09/27/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, business side of he, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, tools, TVs, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Google’s jobs AI service hits private beta, now works in 100 languages — from venturebeat.com by Blair Hanley Frank

Excerpt:

Google today announced the beta release of its Cloud Job Discovery service, which uses artificial intelligence to help customers connect job vacancies with the people who can fill them.

Formerly known as the Cloud Jobs API, the system is designed to take information about open positions and help job seekers take better advantage of it. For example, Cloud Job Discovery can take a plain language query and help translate that to the specific jargon employers use to describe their positions, something that can be hard for potential employees to navigate.

As part of this beta release, Google announced that Cloud Job Discovery is now designed to work with applicant-tracking systems and staffing agencies, in addition to job boards and career site providers like CareerBuilder.

It also now works in 100 languages. While the service is still primarily aimed at customers in the U.S., some of Google’s existing clients need support for multiple languages. In the future, the company plans to expand the Cloud Job Discovery service internationally, so investing in language support now makes sense going forward.

From DSC:
Now tie this type of job discovery feature into a next generation learning platform, helping people identify which skills they need to get jobs in their local area(s). Provide a list of courses/modules/RSS feeds to get them started. Allow folks to subscribe to constant streams of content and unsubscribe to them at any time as well.

We MUST move to lifelong, constant learning via means that are highly accessible, available 24×7, and extremely cost effective. Blockchain-based technologies will feed web-based learner profiles, which each of us will determine who can write to our learning profile and who can review it as well.

Addendum on 9/29/17:

Facebook partners with ZipRecruiter and more aggregators as it ramps up in jobs — from techcrunch.com by Ingrid Lunden
Excerpt:
Facebook has made no secret of its wish to do more in the online recruitment market — encroaching on territory today dominated by LinkedIn, the leader in tapping social networking graphs to boost job-hunting. Today, Facebook is taking the next step in that process.
Facebook will now integrate with ZipRecruiter — an aggregator that allows those looking to fill jobs to post ads to many traditional job boards, as well as sites like LinkedIn, Google and Twitter — to boost the number of job ads available on its platform targeting its 2 billion monthly active users.
The move follows Facebook launching its first job ads earlier this year, and later appearing to be interested in augmenting that with more career-focused features, such as a platform to connect people looking for mentors with those looking to offer mentorship.

Where does personalized learning end and special education begin? [Baker]

On 09/25/2017, in accessibility / UDL, education, education reform, ideas, K-12 related, learning, neurodivergent/special needs, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Where does personalized learning end and special education begin? — from edsurge.com by Stefanina Baker

Excerpt:

It’s the start of a new school year and the air is full of promise. I’ve set up my room, made my copies and attended all of my meetings. As students flood into the school, I’m charged with positive energy and hope.

But as I peruse my class list and the academic data that accompanies it, anxiety sets in. I’ve committed to personalizing learning, but how can I do that for every student in my inclusion classroom when the range of abilities among them is so vast?

This is my third year teaching at William Penn High School in the Colonial School District in New Castle, Delaware. Dually certified in special education and English Language Arts, I teach an ELA inclusion class to 11th and 12th graders, which means I serve students with and without Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) in the same setting. Additionally, I manage a caseload of 18 students with IEPs, and enter goals and progress for over 60 other students.

A core element of my job has always been to consider how I can tailor instruction to meet the needs of each student—that’s the crux of special education. IEPs are legal documents designed to include specific goals, objectives and strategies for how to modify instruction to meet each student’s needs. Personalized learning doesn’t seem that far off—but meeting the needs of every student in an inclusion class when some have IEPs and some do not can get hairy.

It also raises some questions around where special education practices and personalized learning intersect.

Does personalized learning mean every student gets an IEP? Does it mean that students who had an IEP no longer need one because now every learner is receiving tailored instruction? Can I use the same measuring tools to gauge growth for all students? Should it be different than how I was teaching before?

I’d like to see special education take a front seat in conversations about personalized learning.

The vast majority of lessons in K-12 and lectures in higher education should be recorded. Here’s why. [Christian]

On 09/20/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, education reform, education technology, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, multimedia, online learning, online media, parents/guardians, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, RSS, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, TVs, United States, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The vast majority of the lessons being offered within K-12 and the lectures (if we’re going to continue to offer them) within higher education should be recorded.

Why do I say this?

Well…first of all…let me speak as a parent of 3 kids, one of whom requires a team of specialists to help her learn. When she misses school because she’s out sick, it’s a major effort to get her caught up. As a parent, it would be soooooo great to log into a system and obtain an updated digital playlist of the lessons that she’s missed. She and I could click on the links to the recordings in order to see how the teacher wants our daughter to learn concepts A, B, and C. We could pause, rewind, fast forward, and replay the recording over and over again until our daughter gets it (and I as a parent get it too!).

I realize that I’m not saying anything especially new here, but we need to do a far better job of providing our overworked teachers with more time, funding, and/or other types of resources — such as instructional designers, videographers and/or One-Button Studios, other multimedia specialists, etc. — to develop these recordings. Perhaps each teacher — or team — could be paid to record and contribute their lessons to a pool of content that could be used over and over again. Also, the use of RSS feeds and content aggregators such as Feedly could come in handy here as well. Parents/learners could subscribe to streams of content.

Such a system would be a huge help to the teachers as well. They could refer students to these digital playlists as appropriate — having updated the missing students’ playlists based on what the teacher has covered that day (and who was out sick, at another school-sponsored event, etc.). They wouldn’t have to re-explain something as many times if they had recordings to reference.

—–

Also, within the realm of higher education, having recordings/transcripts of lectures and presentations would be especially helpful to learners who take more time to process what’s being said. And while that might include ESL learners here in the U.S., such recordings could benefit the majority of learners. From my days in college, I can remember trying to write down much of what the professor was saying, but not having a chance to really process much of the information until later, when I looked over my notes. Finally, learners who wanted to review some concepts before a mid-term or final would greatly appreciate these recordings.

Again, I realize this isn’t anything new. But it makes me scratch my head and wonder why we haven’t made more progress in this area, especially at the K-12 level…? It’s 2017. We can do better.

Some relevant tools here include:

One Button Studio
Swivl
Double Robotics Telepresence Robots (especially helpful for learners who need to be at home or in a hospital for a while)
Echo 360
Panopto
Mediasite
Blackboard Collaborate
Explain Everything
ScreenFlow (on the Mac); also see Telestream‘s other products as well
Educreations
Adobe Captivate
Several products from Techsmith
…and more

“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].

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education [Blackboard, w/ a variety of contributors]

On 09/08/2017, in 21st century, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), change, changing business models, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, face-to-face, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning theories, lifelong learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, pace of change, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Future Forward: The Next Twenty Years of Higher Education — from Blackboard with a variety of contributors

Excerpts:

As you read their reflections you’ll find several themes emerge over and over:

Our current system is unsustainable and ill-suited for a globally connected world that is constantly changing.
Colleges and universities will have to change their current business model to continue to thrive, boost revenue and drive enrollment.
The “sage on the stage” and the “doc in the box” aren’t sustainable; new technologies will allow faculty to shift their focus on the application of learning rather than the acquisition of knowledge.
Data and the ability to transform that data into action will be the new lifeblood of the institution.
Finally, the heart and soul of any institution are its people. Adopting new technologies is only a small piece of the puzzle; institutions must also work with faculty and staff to change institutional culture.

Some quotes are listed below.

“What’s more, next-generation digital learning environments must bridge the divide between the faculty-directed instructivist model our colleges and universities have always favored and the learner-centric constructivist paradigm their students have come to expect and the economy now demands.”

…

It will be at least 10 years before systems such as this become the standard rather than the exception. Yet to achieve this timeline, we will have to begin fostering a very different campus culture that embraces technology for its experiential value rather than its transactional expediency, while viewing education as a lifelong pursuit rather than a degree-driven activity.

Susan Aldridge

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think it is a difficult time for decisionmakers to know how to move boldly forward. It’s almost funny, nobody’s doing five-year strategic plans anymore. We used to do ten-year plans, but now it’s “What’s our guiding set of principles and then let’s sort of generally go towards that.” I think it’s really hard to move an entire institution, to know how to keep it sustainable and serving your core student population. Trying to figure out how to keep moving forward is not as simple as it used to be when you hired faculty and they showed up in the classroom. It’s time for a whole new leadership model. I’m not sure what that is, but we have to start reimagining our organizations and our institutions and even our leadership.

Marie Cini

One of the things that is frustrating to me is the argument that online learning is just another modality. Online learning is much more than that. It’s arguably the most transformative development since the G.I. Bill and, before that, the establishment of land-grant universities.
…
I don’t think we should underestimate the profound impact online education has had and will continue to have on higher education. It’s not just another modality; it’s an entirely new industry.

Robert Hansen

From DSC:
And I would add (to Robert’s quote above) that not since the printing press was invented close to 500 years ago have we seen such an enormously powerful invention as the Internet. To bypass the Internet and the online-based learning opportunities that it can deliver is to move into a risky, potentially dangerous future. If your institution is doing that, your institution’s days could be numbered. As we move into the future — where numerous societies throughout the globe will be full of artificial intelligence, big data, robotics, algorithms, business’ digital transformations, and more — your institutions’ credibility could easily be at stake in a new, increasingly impactful way. Parents and students will want to know that there’s a solid ROI for them. They will want to know that a particular college or university has the foundational/core competencies and skills to prepare the learner for the future that the learner will encounter.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing higher education right now?

A: I think the biggest challenge is the stubborn refusal of institutions to acknowledge that the 20th century university paradigm no longer works, or at least it doesn’t work anymore for the majority of our institutions. I’m not speaking on behalf of our members, but I think it’s fair to say that institutions are still almost entirely faculty-centered and not market-driven. Faculty, like so many university leaders today who come from faculty ranks, are so often ill-equipped to compete in the Wild West that we’re seeing today, and it’s not their fault. They’re trained to be biologists and historians and philosophers and musicians and English professors, and in the past there was very little need to be entrepreneurial. What’s required of university leadership now looks very much like what’s required in the fastpaced world of private industry.

…

If you are tuition dependent and you haven’t figured out how to serve the adult market yet, you’re in trouble.

Robert Hansen

It’s not just enough to put something online for autodidacts who already have the time, energy, and prior skills to be able to learn on their own. You really need to figure out how to embed all the supports that a student will need to be successful, and I don’t know if we’ve cracked that yet.

Amy Laitinen

The other company is Amazon. Their recent purchase of Whole Foods really surprised everybody. Now you have a massive digital retailer that has made billions staying in the online world going backwards into brick-and-mortar. I think if you look at what you can do on Amazon now, who’s to say in three years or five years, you won’t say, “You know what, I want to take this class. I want to purchase it through Amazon,” and it’s done through Amazon with their own LMS? Who’s to say they’re not already working on it?

Justin Louder

We are focused on four at Laureate. Probably in an increasing order of excitement to me are game-based learning (or gamification), adaptive learning, augmented and virtual reality, and cognitive tutoring.

Darrell Luzzo

I would wave my hand and have people lose their fear of change and recognize that you can innovate and do new things and still stay true to the core mission and values. My hope is that we harness our collective energy to help our students succeed and become fully engaged citizens.

Felice Nudelman

“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.

A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry [Spencer]

On 08/14/2017, in assessment, competency-based learning/education, education, education reform, education technology, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, online learning, participation, personalized/customized learning, United States, by Daniel Christian

A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry — from nytimes.com by Kyle Spencer

Excerpt:

Moheeb is part of a new program that is challenging the way teachers and students think about academic accomplishments, and his school is one of hundreds that have done away with traditional letter grades inside their classrooms. At M.S. 442, students are encouraged to focus instead on mastering a set of grade-level skills, like writing a scientific hypothesis or identifying themes in a story, moving to the next set of skills when they have demonstrated that they are ready. In these schools, there is no such thing as a C or a D for a lazily written term paper. There is no failing. The only goal is to learn the material, sooner or later.

For struggling students, there is ample time to practice until they get it. For those who grasp concepts quickly, there is the opportunity to swiftly move ahead. The strategy looks different from classroom to classroom, as does the material that students must master. But in general, students work at their own pace through worksheets, online lessons and in small group discussions with teachers. They get frequent updates on skills they have learned and those they need to acquire.

Mastery-based learning, also known as proficiency-based or competency-based learning, is taking hold across the country. Vermont and Maine have passed laws requiring school districts to phase in the system. New Hampshire is adopting it, too, and piloting a statewide method of assessment that would replace most standardized tests. Ten school districts in Illinois, including Chicago’s, are testing the approach. In 2015, the Idaho State Legislature approved 19 incubator programs to explore the practice.

More than 40 schools in New York City — home to the largest school district in the country, with 1.1 million students — have adopted the program. But what makes that unusual is that schools using the method are doing so voluntarily, as part of a grass-roots movement.

Amazon’s Alexa passes 15,000 skills, up from 10,000 in February [Perez]

On 07/21/2017, in 24x7x365 access, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Daniel S. Christian, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, lifelong learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Amazon’s Alexa passes 15,000 skills, up from 10,000 in February — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez

Excerpt:

Amazon’s Alexa voice platform has now passed 15,000 skills — the voice-powered apps that run on devices like the Echo speaker, Echo Dot, newer Echo Show and others. The figure is up from the 10,000 skills Amazon officially announced back in February, which had then represented a 3x increase from September.

The new 15,000 figure was first reported via third-party analysis from Voicebot, and Amazon has now confirmed to TechCrunch that the number is accurate.

According to Voicebot, which only analyzed skills in the U.S., the milestone was reached for the first time on June 30, 2017. During the month of June, new skill introductions increased by 23 percent, up from the less than 10 percent growth that was seen in each of the prior three months.

The milestone also represents a more than doubling of the number of skills that were available at the beginning of the year, when Voicebot reported there were then 7,000 skills. That number was officially confirmed by Amazon at CES.

From DSC:
Again, I wonder…what are the implications for learning from this new, developing platform?

From DSC:
I thought the article below was a good one. But I’m not sure I arrived at the same conclusion. Rather than putting the business of leadership & development training squarely on the shoulders of team leaders, I would put it on each individual employee and inform/empower them to seek out what works best for them in fulfilling their role.

The L&D team can work with introducing the best tools and examples of streams of content to tap into for any given role or topic.

I’m thinking here of tools like Twitter, streams of content from LinkedIn or from relevant blogs and websites. The team leaders can follow up with their team members and check in with them to see how things are going. If an employee says, “I don’t know who to connect with or follow” then perhaps the team leader can say, I’ve found these particular people, blogs, websites, streams of content from LinkedIn (or other sources) to be effective for what we do within our organization. Introduce them to communities of practice and/or to other individuals that do X, Y or Z really well.

It brings in the social element that this article discusses, but it also serves each individual’s best interests — each one of us needs to know how and where to keep learning. If it’s in their best interests to keep learning, then give them the tools and potential streams of content to tap into. Give them:

Let them own it. They’re likely creating their own learning pathways anyway. L&D become a consulting organization. L&D can consult with each group (or even individual employees) re: potential streams of content and possible/effective connections for that group (or individual).

Revive. — from revive.zaglearning.com

How enterprise learning for leadership and team development is tripping up human potential, and slowly sending the L&D brand into irrelevance. This is the story of how to save it, step by radical step.

Excerpts:

Over 18 months of research with 65 one-on-one interviews, 511 managers surveyed, and 900 teams representing 8K people, we witnessed the unintentional damage: marginalized learning and development people (L&D), learners who see leadership and team development as a necessary but random and usually disappointing transaction, and executives who line-item “soft skills” training (labeled decades ago by, no surprise, a hard-skills proponent) as a tax or necessary benefit, as if it were a dental plan.

If you’re curious, it can’t help but spark a few questions:

How can something so strategically important be so realistically unimportant?

How did L&D pros, who make such a compelling psychological and organizational case for the most pivotal kind of learning, get so minimized and, in the process, drag down human potential and the social intelligence of corporate culture?

How are smart, passionate L&D people who are in it for the greater good—and not the big payday—getting stuck with a brand that’s as sexy as K-Mart?

The problems are systemic, and the curiosity and ambition to fix them have received as little attention as any problem in enterprise history.

So, what’s the big switch? Learning for leadership and team development doesn’t belong with L&D. It belongs squarely with the team leader, the person who is 70% of the variance in her team’s engagement. Learning belongs fundamentally, not loosely, where it’s always in context and relevant: the leader and her team.

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor [Nitta]

On 07/15/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, colleges, community colleges, computer science, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, programming, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor — from er.educause.edu by Satya Nitta

Excerpt:

How is IBM using Watson’s intelligent tutoring system? So we are attempting to mimic the best practices of human tutoring. The gold standard will always remain one on one human to human tutoring. The whole idea here is an intelligent tutoring system as a computing system that works autonomously with learners, so there is no human intervention. It’s basically pretending to be the teacher itself and it’s working with the learner. What we’re attempting to do is we’re attempting to basically put conversational systems, systems that understand human conversation and dialogue, and we’re trying to build a system that, in a very natural way, interacts with people through conversation. The system basically has the ability to ask questions, to answer questions, to know who you are and where you are in your learning journey, what you’re struggling with, what you’re strong on and it will personalize its pedagogy to you.

…

There’s a natural language understanding system and a machine learning system that’s trying to figure out where you are in your learning journey and what the appropriate intervention is for you. The natural language system enables this interaction that’s very rich and conversation-based, where you can basically have a human-like conversation with it and, to a large extent, it will try to understand and to retrieve the right things for you. Again the most important thing is that we will set the expectations appropriately and we have appropriate exit criteria for when the system doesn’t actually understand what you’re trying to do.

2017 Teaching with Technology Survey [Rhea Kelly; Campus Technology]

On 07/12/2017, in 21st century, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, Augmented Reality (AR), Bring your own device (BYOD), collaboration, colleges, community colleges, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital video, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, emerging technologies, face-to-face, faculty/staff, internet, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, mobile learning, mobile technologies, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, smart classrooms, student-related, tablets, teaching & learning, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, wearables, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

2017 Teaching with Technology Survey — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpts:

We asked faculty to dish on their use of technology, likes and dislikes, views of the future and more. Here’s what they told us.

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 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, 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, TVs, 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.

DC: We had better begin working immediately on a next generation learning platform — before the other tidal waves start hitting the beach

On 07/05/2017, in 21st century, accreditation, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, disruption, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, microlearning, online learning, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, streams of content, surviving, trends, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
With the ever increasing usage of artificial intelligence, algorithms, robotics, and automation, people are going to need to reinvent themselves quickly, cost-effectively, and conveniently. As such, we had better begin working immediately on a next generation learning platform — before the other tidal waves start hitting the beach. “What do you mean by saying ‘other tidal waves’ — what tidal waves are you talking about anyway?” one might ask.

Well….here’s one for you:

New Report Predicts Over 100,000 Legal Jobs Will Be Lost To Automation — from futurism.com by Jelor Gallego
An extensive new analysis by Deloitte estimates that over 100,000 jobs will be lost to technological automation within the next two decades. Increasing technological advances have helped replace menial roles in the office and do repetitive tasks

From DSC:
I realize that not all of this is doom and gloom. There will be jobs lost and there will be jobs gained. A point also made by MIT futurists Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson in a recent podcast entitled, “Want to stay relevant? Then listen up” (in which they explain the momentous technological changes coming next–and what you can do to harness them).

But the point is that massive reinvention is going to be necessary. Traditional institutions of higher education — as well as the current methods of accreditation — are woefully inadequate to address the new, exponential pace of change.

Here’s my take on what it’s going to take to deliver constantly up-to-date streams of relevant content at an incredibly affordable price.

What a future, powerful, global learning platform will look & act like [Christian]

On 06/22/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, assistive technologies, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, love of learning, machine-to-machine communications, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, RSS, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A vision for a global, powerful, next generation learning platform

By Daniel Christian

NOTE: Having recently lost my Senior Instructional Designer position due to a staff reduction program, I am looking to help build such a platform as this. So if you are working on such a platform or know of someone who is, please let me know: danielchristian55@gmail.com.

I want to help people reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively — while providing more choice, more control to lifelong learners. This will become critically important as artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, and automation continue to impact the workplace.

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
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)

Further details:
While basic courses will be accessible via mobile devices, the optimal learning experience will leverage two or more displays/devices. So while smaller smartphones, laptops, and/or desktop workstations will be used to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other learners, the larger displays will deliver an excellent learning environment for times when there is:

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
The SME(s)
An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, M, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This new learning platform will also feature:

Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
Speech-to-text capabilities for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
Chatbots
- For learning how to use the system
- For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
- For asking questions within a course
As many profiles as needed per household
(Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
(Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”

In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Likely players:

Amazon – personal assistance via Alexa
Apple – personal assistance via Siri
Google – personal assistance via Google Assistant; language translation
Facebook — personal assistance via M
Microsoft – personal assistance via Cortana; language translation
IBM Watson – cognitive computing; language translation
Polycom – videoconferencing
Blackboard – videoconferencing, application sharing, chat, interactive whiteboard
T1V, Prsym, and/or Bluescape – submitting content to a digital canvas/workspace
Samsung, Sharp, LCD, and others – for large displays with integrated microphones, speakers, webcams, etc.
Feedly – RSS aggregator
_________ – for providing backchannels
_________ – for tools to create videocasts and interactive videos
_________ – for blogs, wikis, podcasts, journals
_________ – for quizzes/assessments
_________ – for discussion boards/forums
_________ – for creating AR, MR, and/or VR-based content

7 things you should know about artificial intelligence in teaching and learning — from Educause Learning Initiative (ELI)

Abstract:

The term artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems that undertake tasks usually thought to require human cognitive processes and decision-making capabilities. To exhibit intelligence, computers apply algorithms to find patterns in large amounts of data—a process called machine learning, which plays a key role in a number of AI applications. AI learning agents have the potential to function like adaptive learning but at a much more sophisticated and nuanced level, potentially giving every student a computer-simulated personal mentor. Many colleges and universities are developing AI projects that aid teaching and learning.

7 things you should know about the evolution of teaching and learning professions — from Educause Learning Initiative (ELI)

Abstract

For this issue of the 7 Things, we asked a set of seven community leaders—who come from different walks of life in the community—to offer a short meditation on the evolution of the profession. In this issue you will find comments from professionals such as an instructional designer, a CIO, an accessibility expert, and a librarian. We hope that this issue and the spotlight it casts on the evolution of our profession will encourage us to begin further conversations about where we are headed and how we can help one another to achieve our professional goals.

Chief information officers are fast becoming chief innovation officers. It is increasingly critical for the CIO to be an advocate and leader of transformational change on campus rather than a director and manager of IT operations.

A key “big picture” area is the mission of teaching and learning. How do the systems we select today enable improved learning opportunities over the next three years? Will this solution empower students and faculty for years to come or merely meet a tactical need today?

There are increasing opportunities for librarians to work as partners with faculty to develop challenging assignments that encourage students to create a project with an output of a video, podcast, website, data visualization, blog, or other format.

“Support” connotes a hierarchy that doesn’t recognize that staff are valuable assets who play an important role in postsecondary education. We need to find a new language that promotes the ethos of service and servant leadership, within the context of describing ourselves as non-faculty educators and alternative academics.

Once, we thought the faculty role was expanding such that instructors would become learning designers and proto-technologists. Instead, an increasingly competitive and austere landscape is putting competing pressures on faculty, either around research expectations or expanded teaching responsibilities, preventing most from expanding their roles.

Learning Ecosystems

Categories

Tags