Excerpt:
We were asked to consider the Internet of Things (IoT) from the user’s viewpoint. Well, my viewpoint is exactly this, since I’m neither a company director nor a software coder or a hardware creator. From an user’s viewpoint I think we are undergoing a big transformation. The Internet of Things comes out from an evolution process which involves calculation power, connections, networking, personal technologies, and that can be resumed in four phases.
Apple University will train executives to think like Steve Jobs — from good.is by Liz Dwyer
Excerpt:
If you want to honor Steve Jobs’ life by following in his entrepreneurial footsteps, forget heading to business school. The Los Angeles Times reports that an Apple team has been working on a top-secret project to create an executive training program called Apple University. The goal? To train people to think like Steve Jobs.
…
Apple refused to comment on the existence of Apple University, but the Times says that in 2008, Jobs “personally recruited” Joel Podolny, the dean of Yale Business School, to “help Apple internalize the thoughts of its visionary founder to prepare for the day when he’s not around anymore.” Apple analyst Tim Bajarin told the Times that, “it became pretty clear that Apple needed a set of educational materials so that Apple employees could learn to think and make decisions as if they were Steve Jobs.” Though the curriculum is still under wraps, Jobs himself oversaw the creation of the “university-caliber courses.” (emphasis DSC)
Also see:
Steve Jobs helped plan Apple University — an executive training program to help
Apple carry on without him. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times / October 6, 2011)
From DSC:
If Apple were to choose to disrupt higher education, several other pieces of the puzzle have already been built and/or continue to be enhanced:
- Siri — a serious start towards the use of intelligent agents / intelligent tutoring
- An infrastructure to support 24x7x365 access and synchronization of content/assignments/files to a student’s various devices — via iCloud (available today via iTunes 10.5)
- iTunes U already has millions of downloads and contains content from some of the world’s top universities
- The internal expertise and teams to create incredibly-rich, interactive, multimedia-based, personalized, customized educational content
- Students — like employees in the workplace — are looking for information/training/learning on demand — when they need it and on whatever device they need it
- Apple — or other 3rd parties — could assist publishers in creating cloud-based apps (formerly called textbooks) to download to students’/professors’ devices as well as to the Chalkboards of the Future
- The iPad continues to be implemented in a variety of education settings, allowing for some seriously interactive, mobile-based learning
At the least, I might be losing a bit more sleep if I were heading up an MBA program or a business school…
Also see:
- The page is no longer a cage – publishing books on iPad — from Mag+
- Publishing in the digital era [infographic] — from visual.ly
Addendum on 9-28-11:
- Everything you need to know about how to digitally self publish — from livingdigitally.net
Also see:
Above items originally/ultimately from:
- Pervasive Entertainment – Games, film, real world, TV merged with social networks — from personalizemedia.com by Gary Hayes
Social media and its impact on how we learn in the workplace — from C4PLT by Jane Hart
From DSC:
One reflection that jumped out at me from Jane’s excellent presentation…and that I believe is a universal truth:
If an organization doesn’t respond to changing conditions, needs, desires, preferences, best interests, and/or the requirements of its customers, that organization will diminish in usefulness and will most likely (albeit eventually) go out of business.
I know I’m not introducing a new thought here and the above statement seems very self-evident, but do we heed this advice in corporate L&D? Corporate IT? IT within higher education? In higher education as an industry?
My thanks to Mrs. Krista Spahr, Calvin College, for this resource and the quote below:
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is meant to minimize barriers and to maximize learning.
…
Reflections from DSC:
Though I still have much to learn about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), my initial thought is that I really like this approach, as it moves us away from the one-size-fits-all approach and towards a teaching and learning environment that offers more choice, more selection, and more opportunities for customization and personalization. Plus, as companies such as Apple and Microsoft have seen, functionality that started out trying to address accessibility-related needs ended up helping everyone!
Along these lines, I created this graphic years ago — with the idea that students would have a choice on which media they might prefer to use to absorb the information:
Again, the idea being that we could provide the same content in 3-5 different ways and let the students select what works best for them. Plus, in the example above, we could even see how other students are describing/making meaning of something.
But it goes further than this as I’m understanding UDL. For example, the methods for achieving a learning outcome can be greatly varied, as the assignments for a particular outcome might be reaching via watching a video clip, or reading a book, or doing a project, or writing a story, or creating music, or ___(fill in the blank) ____.
Also see:
Apollo to buy adaptive-learning company for $75-Million — from The Chronicle by Josh Keller
Excerpt:
The Apollo Group, which runs the University of Phoenix, announced on Tuesday that it plans to pay $75-million to purchase Carnegie Learning, which develops interactive math instruction that adapts to the needs of individual students.
Universal Design for Learning: It’s Not Just for Disability Experts Anymore (The Confessions of a First-Time Teacher) — from National Collaborative on Workforce & Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) by Amy Katzel
Excerpt:
All students, with or without disabilities, have different strengths and weaknesses. Early on, it was clear to me that I had a wide range of abilities in the room. Some students started out unable to consistently construct full sentences, while others were already writing complex prose. Some students raised their hand frequently to answer questions, while others preferred to stay quiet. When we did reading assignments during class, everyone read at different speeds. Some youth demonstrated they understood the material on quizzes, but then struggled with applying those concepts to their essays.
When I get up in front of the class, to which student am I teaching?
Also see:
- Leading Project-Based Learning / Universal Design for Learning
- Universal Design for Learning (UDL): What it is and Why You Should Care — from ISTE.org
Intel predicts Smart TV is the device of the future — from nyxiotechnologies.com’s blog
Chipmaker Intel believes that the Smart TV is the electronic device of the future, in the living room anyway.
Excerpt:
The Smart TV is already upon us, in its various forms from various manufacturers. It has arrived with 3D capabilities, web browsing and social networking and applications. Currently Samsung and LG seem to be two of the big players pushing the Smart TV to consumers.
Also see:
The future of TV is social and the revolution is coming ! | SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS | Digital Ministry — from Mark Mayhew
Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group the largest independent production company in the world responsible for Big brother said Social TV is going to be huge.
“The ability to create content that will enable people to interface with each other, to connect, to recommend, to share and experience over television, is going to change the landscape of the industry.”
Excerpts:
What is social TV?
Simply put, it’s about merging your social media networks to the TV. It’s making TV social–again. It’s about taking the water cooler effect and making this virtual, it’s about the empowered consumer viewing content when and where they want, deciding who they want to share it with and being able to do this all in real time.In essence it is a term that describes technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content.Viewers are now using social media to connect with the TV with content that matters to them. Then, as the MIT study shows, they are engaging in massive real-time conversations around those shows and learning to be a part of that conversation and it is a participatory culture as well as a personalised one.TV always been social and on the face of it TV and social media seem like a natural fit but if the TV industry is going to make the most of the opportunities it is going to have change quickly and learn the lessons of the music industry.
…
It is time to rethink TV. It is time to imagine what it could be and redefine it for the participatory culture of tomorrow.
From DSC:
In the graphic below…what thoughts might arise if, instead of entertainment-oriented items, we thought more along the lines of providing materials relating to education, training, professional development?
What TV operators are missing — from Emma Wells
From DSC:
It may not be that long before the word “learning” can either be added to — or substituted for — the word “TV” below (emphasis mine):
Many of the TV tablet apps have taken a few tentative steps toward personalisation, but no one has fully embraced the potential of TV interfaces that can learn and change according to an individual’s preferences and tastes.
What a lot of these operators seem to be overlooking is the chance not only to offer content anytime, anywhere, but to personalise the entire TV experience.
While watching the main TV tends to be a group experience, watching TV on an app is much more intimate and personal.
-- excerpt from What TV operators are missing [Wells]
Addendum on 6/17/11
- Has the Holy Grail of Adaptive Tech Been Discovered? — from Mind Shift by Tina Barseghian