Make sure to animate your creations
video prompt: an ocean wave moving dramatically and a boat moving on the wave
*animated with Firefly Video Model https://t.co/BQmrN7kDiq pic.twitter.com/G5cMqcVuTW
— Kris Kashtanova (@icreatelife) May 16, 2025
On 12/21/2024,
in Alternatives, career development, colleges, community colleges, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Design Thinking, education, education reform, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, more voice more choice more control, motivation, participation, passions, play, real-world assignments, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, universities, youth,
by Daniel Christian
A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education — from petergray.substack.com by Peter Gray; with thanks to Dr. Kate Christian for this resource
What will replace k-12 and college?
A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education
I don’t know just how or how fast the change will happen, but I think the days of K-12 and four years of college are numbered and sanity will begin to prevail in the educational world. I envision a future with something like the following three-phase approach to education:
Phase I. Discovery: Learning about your world, your self, and how the two fit together.…
Phase II. Exploring a career path.…
Phase III. Becoming credentialed for specialized work.…
On 06/17/2024,
in Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, communications, creativity, digital audio, digital video, education, education reform, education technology, engagement / engaging students, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, ideas, innovation, instructional design, journalism, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, media/film, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, neurodivergent/special needs, play, podcasting, real-world assignments, robotics, skills, society, sociology, strategy, student-related, teachers, United States, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades,
by Daniel Christian
NYC High School Reimagines Career & Technical Education for the 21st Century — from the74million.org by Andrew Bauld
Thomas A. Edison High School is providing students with the skills to succeed in both college and career in an unusually creative way.
From DSC:
Very interesting to see the mention of an R&D department here! Very cool.
Baker said ninth graders in the R&D department designed the essential skills rubric for their grade so that regardless of what content classes students take, they all get the same immersion into critical career skills. Student voice is now so integrated into Edison’s core that teachers work with student designers to plan their units. And he said teachers are becoming comfortable with the language of career-centered learning and essential skills while students appreciate the engagement and develop a new level of confidence.
…
The R&D department has grown to include teachers from every department working with students to figure out how to integrate essential skills into core academic classes. In this way, they’re applying one of the XQ Institute’s crucial Design Principles for innovative high schools: Youth Voice and Choice.
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Student Enterprise: Invite Learners to Launch a Media Agency or Publication — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark
Key Points
- Client-connected projects have become a focal point of the Real World Learning initiative, offering students opportunities to solve real-world problems in collaboration with industry professionals.
- Organizations like CAPS, NFTE, and Journalistic Learning facilitate community connections and professional learning opportunities, making it easier to implement client projects and entrepreneurship education.
Important trend: client projects. Work-based learning has been growing with career academies and renewed interest in CTE. Six years ago, a subset of WBL called client-connected projects became a focal point of the Real World Learning initiative in Kansas City where they are defined as authentic problems that students solve in collaboration with professionals from industry, not-for-profit, and community-based organizations….and allow students to: engage directly with employers, address real-world problems, and develop essential skills.
Portrait of a Community to Empower Learning Transformation — from gettingsmart.com by Rebecca Midles and Mason Pashia
Key Points
- The Community Portrait approach encourages diverse voices to shape the future of education, ensuring it reflects the needs and aspirations of all stakeholders.
- Active, representative community engagement is essential for creating meaningful and inclusive educational environments.
The Portrait of a Graduate—a collaborative effort to define what learners should know and be able to do upon graduation—has likely generated enthusiasm in your community. However, the challenge of future-ready graduates persists: How can we turn this vision into a reality within our diverse and dynamic schools, especially amid the current national political tensions and contentious curriculum debates?
The answer lies in active, inclusive community engagement. It’s about crafting a Community Portrait that reflects the rich diversity of our neighborhoods. This approach, grounded in the same principles used to design effective learning systems, seeks to cultivate deep, reciprocal relationships within the community. When young people are actively involved, the potential for meaningful change increases exponentially.
Q&A: Why Schools Must Redesign Learning to Include All Students — from edtechmagazine.com by Taashi Rowe
Systems are broken, not children, says K–12 disability advocate Lindsay E. Jones.
Although Lindsay E. Jones came from a family of educators, she didn’t expect that going to law school would steer her back into the family business. Over the years she became a staunch advocate for children with disabilities. And as mom to a son with learning disabilities and ADHD who is in high school and doing great, her advocacy is personal.
Jones previously served as president and CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities and was senior director for policy and advocacy at the Council for Exceptional Children. Today, she is the CEO at CAST, an organization focused on creating inclusive learning environments in K–12. EdTech: Focus on K–12 spoke with Jones about how digital transformation, artificial intelligence and visionary leaders can support inclusive learning environments.
Our brains are all as different as our fingerprints, and throughout its 40-year history, CAST has been focused on one core value: People are not broken, systems are poorly designed. And those systems are creating a barrier that holds back human innovation and learning.
On 05/04/2024,
in colleges, communications, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, digital audio, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, engineering, higher education, instructional design, learning ecosystem, online learning, platforms, play, strategy, surviving, teaching & learning, United States, universities, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Are Colleges Ready For an Online-Education World Without OPMs? — from edsurge.com by Robert Ubell (Columnist)
Online Program Management companies have helped hundreds of colleges build online degree programs, but the sector is showing signs of strain.
For more than 15 years, a group of companies known as Online Program Management providers, or OPMs, have been helping colleges build online degree programs. And most of them have relied on an unusual arrangement — where the companies put up the financial backing to help colleges launch programs in exchange for a large portion of tuition revenue.
…
As a longtime administrator of online programs at colleges, I have mixed feelings about the idea of shutting down the model. And the question boils down to this: Are colleges ready for a world without OPMs?
Guy Raz on Podcasts and Passion: Audio’s Ability to Spark Learning — from michaelbhorn.substack.com by Michael B. Horn
This conversation went in a bunch of unexpected directions. And that’s what’s so fun about it. After all, podcasting is all about bringing audio back and turning learning into leisure. And the question Guy and his partner Mindy Thomas asked a while back was: Why not bring kids in on the fun? Guy shared how his studio, Tinkercast, is leveraging the medium to inspire and educate the next generation of problem solvers.
We discussed the power of audio to capture curiosities and foster imagination, how Tinkercast is doing that in and out of the classroom, and how it can help re-engage students in building needed skills at a critical time. Enjoy!
NEW: Is this America’s next big middle-class job?
28,000 more “technicians” will soon be needed to run giant machines that make tiny semiconductor chips used in phones, cars, missiles, etc.
Pay starts at ~$25/hr@kairyssdal @MHollenhorst & I went to Phoenix to see this “chips… pic.twitter.com/dFvVpttSJ9
— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) April 30, 2024
April 2024 Job Cuts Announced by US-Based Companies Fall; More Cuts Attributed to TX DEI Law, AI in April — from challengergray.com
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Education
Companies in the Education industry, which includes schools and universities, cut the second-most jobs last month with 8,092 for a total of 17,892. That is a 635% increase from the 2,435 cuts announced during the first four months of 2023.
“April is typically the time school districts are hiring and setting budgets for the next fiscal year. Certainly, there are budgetary constraints, as labor costs rise, but school systems also have a retention and recruitment issue,” said Challenger.
Lifetime college returns differ significantly by major, research finds — from highereddive.com by Lilah Burke
Engineering and computer science showed the best return out of 10 fields of study that were examined.
Dive Brief:
- The lifetime rate of return for a college education differs significantly by major, but it also varies by a student’s gender and race or ethnicity, according to new peer-reviewed research published in the American Educational Research Journal.
- A bachelor’s degree in general provides a roughly 9% rate of return for men, and nearly 10% for women, researchers concluded. The majors with the best returns were computer science and engineering.
- Black, Hispanic and Asian college graduates had slightly higher rates of return than their White counterparts, the study found.
On 03/29/2024,
in collaboration, curriculum, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, participation, pedagogy, play, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, skills, social media, storytelling, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, youth,
by Daniel Christian
3 Steps for Creating Video Projects With Elementary Students — from edutopia.org by Bill Manchester
A straightforward plan for facilitating multimedia projects helps ensure collaborative learning and a fun classroom experience.
Having elementary students make their own videos instead of consuming content made by someone else sounds like a highly engaging educational experience. But if you’ve ever tried to get 25 third graders to use a video editing software platform that they’ve never seen before, it can get really frustrating really fast. It’s easy for the lesson to become entirely centered around how to use the software without any subject-area content learning.
Through years of trial and error with K–6 students, I’ve developed three guiding concepts for elementary video projects so that teachers and students have a good experience.
Supporting Students As They Work Independently — from by Marcus Luther and The Broken Copier
4 tools that have helped me improve “independent work time”
Movement-Based Games That Help Students With Spelling — from edutopia.org by Jocelyn Greene
Games that combine spelling with physical activity can make it easier for young students to learn new words.
Like actors, students are often tasked with memorization. Although education has evolved to incorporate project-based learning and guided play, there’s no getting around the necessity of knowing the multiplication tables, capital cities, and correct spelling.
The following are movement-based games that build students’ abilities to retain spelling words specifically. Ideally, these exercises support them academically as well as socially. Research shows that learning through play promotes listening, focus, empathy, and self-awareness—benefits that build students’ social and emotional learning skills.
Quizlet Survey Reveals Students Crave Life Skills Education — from prnewswire.com by Quizlet; via GSV
The survey’s key findings included:
- Financial and life skills uncertainty: One-third of recent graduates don’t believe they have or are unsure they have the financial and core life skills needed to succeed in the world.
- Appetite for non-academic courses: 68% of recent graduates think non-academically focused courses in formal education settings would better prepare students for the real world. This belief is especially strong among respondents that attended public schools and colleges (71%).
- Automotive maintenance skills are stalled: More than any other skill, nearly one in five recent graduates say they are the least confident in handling automotive maintenance, such as changing a tire or their oil. This is followed by financial planning (17%), insurance (12%), minor home repairs (11%), cooking (11%), cleaning (8%) and organizing (8%).
- Financial planning woes: A majority (79%) of recent graduates said financial planning overwhelms them the most – and of all the life skills highlighted in the survey, 29% of respondents said it negatively impacts their mental health.
- Social media as a learning tool: Social media is helping fill the skills gap, with 33% of recent graduates turning to it for life skills knowledge.
From DSC:
Our son would agree with many of these findings. He would like to have learned things like how to do/file his taxes, learn more about healthcare insurance, and similar real-world/highly-applicable types of knowledge. Those involved with K12 curriculum decisions, please take a serious look at this feedback and make the necessary changes/additions.
How Can Educators Build Support Systems for Students Eyeing Technician Jobs? — from gettingsmart.com by Dr. Parminder Jassal
Key Points
-
Integrating technical skills into the high school curriculum can inspire and prepare students for diverse roles. This approach is key to fostering equity and inclusivity in the job market.
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By forging partnerships with community colleges and technical schools, high schools can democratize access to education and ensure students from all backgrounds have equal opportunities for success in technical fields.
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High schools can expand career possibilities by providing apprenticeships as viable and lucrative alternatives to traditional four-year degrees.
On 03/16/2024,
in art, career development, collaboration, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, design, digital audio, digital storytelling, digital video, drama/theater, educational games / serious games, media/film, multimedia, music, play, skills, story, storytelling, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Below are some items for those creatives who might be interested in telling stories, designing games, crafting audio-based experiences, composing music, developing new worlds using 3D graphics, and more.
CREATING THE SOUNDS OF LIGHTFALL — from bungie.net; via Mr. Robert Bender
The sounds of any game can make or break the experience for its players. Many of our favorite adventures come roaring back into our minds when we hear a familiar melody, or maybe it’s a special sound effect that reminds us of our time performing a particularly heroic feat… or the time we just caused some havoc with friends. With Lightfall sending Guardians to explore the new destination of Neomuna, there’s an entire universe hidden away within the sounds—both orchestral and diegetic—for Guardians to uncover and immerse themselves in. We recently assembled some of Destiny’s finest sound designers and composers to dive a little bit deeper into the stunning depths of Neomuna’s auditory experience.
Before diving into the interview with our incredible team, we wanted to make sure you have seen the Lightfall music documentary that went out shortly after the expansion’s release. This short video is a great introduction to how our team worked to create the music of Lightfall and is a must-see for audiophiles and Destiny fans alike.
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Game Dev Diaries: The Hidden World of Audio — from lianaruppert.medium.com by Liana Ruppert, via Mr. Robert Bender
Every game has a story to tell, a journey to take players through that — if done well — can inspire wonderful memories that last a lifetime. Unlike other storytelling mediums, the art of video games is an intricate interweaving of experiences, including psychological cues that are designed to entrance players and make them feel like they’re a part of the story. One way this is achieved is through the art of audio. And no, we aren’t just talking about the many incredible soundtracks out there, we’re talking about the oftentimes overlooked universe of audio design.
…
What does an audio designer do?
“Number one? We don’t work on music. That’s a thing almost everyone thinks every audio designer does,” jokes Nyte when opening up about beginning her quest into the audio world. “That, or for a game like Destiny, people just assume we only work on weapon sounds and nothing else. Which, [Juan] Uribe does, but a lot of us don’t. There is this entire gamut of other sounds that are in-game that people don’t really notice. Some do, and that’s always cool, but audio is about all sounds coming together for a ‘whole’ audio experience.”
Also relevant/see:
The New Stack of Entertainment, Tensions of the AI Age, & Navigating Cambrian Explosions — from implications.com by Scott Belsky
Let’s explore some fun albeit heretical Hollywood possibilities, face key tensions, and talk about how to stay grounded with customer needs.
On the Transformation of Entertainment
What company will be the Pixar of the AI era? What talent agency will be the CAA of the AI era? How fast can the entertainment industry evolve to natively leverage AI, and what parts will be disrupted by the industry’s own ambivalence? Or are all of these questions myopic…and should we anticipate a wave of entirely new categories of entertainment?
We are starting to see material adoption of AI tools across many industries, including media and entertainment. No doubt, these tools will transform the processes behind generating content. But what entirely new genres of content might emerge? The platform shift to AI-based workflows might give rise to entirely new types of companies that transform entertainment as we know it – from actor representation, Hollywood economics, consumption devices and experiences, to the actual mediums of entertainment themselves. Let’s explore just a few of the more edgy implications:
On 02/28/2024,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, art, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital audio, digital storytelling, digital video, drama/theater, emerging technologies, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, media/film, multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new media literacies, participation, platforms, play, productivity / tips and tricks, story, storytelling, tools, vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces,
by Daniel Christian
How a Hollywood Director Uses AI to Make Movies — from every.to by Dan Shipper
Dave Clarke shows us the future of AI filmmaking
Dave told me that he couldn’t have made Borrowing Time without AI—it’s an expensive project that traditional Hollywood studios would never bankroll. But after Dave’s short went viral, major production houses approached him to make it a full-length movie. I think this is an excellent example of how AI is changing the art of filmmaking, and I came out of this interview convinced that we are on the brink of a new creative age.
We dive deep into the world of AI tools for image and video generation, discussing how aspiring filmmakers can use them to validate their ideas, and potentially even secure funding if they get traction. Dave walks me through how he has integrated AI into his movie-making process, and as we talk, we make a short film featuring Nicolas Cage using a haunted roulette ball to resurrect his dead movie career, live on the show.
On 11/17/2023,
in Adobe, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, digital audio, education technology, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, love of learning, multimedia, new media literacies, play, podcasting, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, vendors, youth,
by Daniel Christian
9 Tips for Using AI for Learning (and Fun!) — from edutopia.org by Daniel Leonard; via Donna Norton on X/Twitter
These innovative, AI-driven activities will help you engage students across grade levels and subject areas.
Here are nine AI-based lesson ideas to try across different grade levels and subject areas.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Courtesy of Meta AI Research
A child’s drawing (left) and animations created with Animated Drawings.
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1. Bring Student Drawings to Life: Young kids love to sketch, and AI can animate their sketches—and introduce them to the power of the technology in the process.
HIGH SCHOOL
8. Speak With AI in a Foreign Language: When learning a new language, students might feel self-conscious about making mistakes and avoid practicing as much as they should.
Though not necessarily about education, also see:
How I Use AI for Productivity — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
In this Wonder Tools audio post I share a dozen of my favorite AI tools
From DSC:
I like Jeremy’s mentioning the various tools that he used in making this audio post:
- Squadcast for recording the interview. (I also like Riverside.fm for recording)
- Shure MV7 microphone
- Adobe podcast for recording and removing background noise from the opening supplemental audio clip, and Adobe Mic check to gauge microphone positioning
- Audacity for merging audio clips
- Descript for light audio editing
- Hypernatural for generating the audiograms
- Claude for identifying potentially interesting moments in the transcript
- Substack for newsletter and audio delivery
On 09/29/2023,
in art, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, digital audio, digital storytelling, education technology, Emotion, experimentation, Google, multimedia, music, platforms, play, podcasting, student-related, teachers, tools, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Google Tools and Activities for Art Education — from techlearning.com by Eric Curts
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Although there is no replacement for getting your hands dirty with finger paints, technology can offer many ways for students to be creative when making art. In addition to creativity, technology can also allow students to explore and learn about art in new and engaging ways.
Some of the best free digital art tools are those from Google that help educators and students with teaching, learning, exploring, and creating art. The wide range of tools and activities available provide nearly infinite possibilities.
Also relevant/see:
- Top Free Sites for Creating Digital Art — from techlearning.com by Diana Restifo
And speaking of tools, also see:
- Soundtrap: How To Use it to Teach — from techlearning.com by Luke Edwards
Soundtrap is the recording studio for students and teachers that could help in class and beyond
Soundtrap is a music production tool that is designed for use in education. That means a full-on mixing and sound production studio experience, but one that is accessible for students grade six and up.
Since this is relatively simple to use and is available in app as well as web formats, it is highly accessible for both in-class and personal devices.
This tool offers a way to spark creativity in students and a method to help experiment with music that can inspire those new to this world, or enable more experienced students to create complex and explorative music.
Also relevant/see:
BREAKING: YouTube announced a suite of AI tools for creators! From a dedicated video editing app and AI language dubbing to AI video generation and ideation. Here’s the TL;DR:
1. AI Video with Dream Screen – Visually transport yourself anywhere by typing a prompt. This new… pic.twitter.com/fCPSc87IKq
— Bilawal Sidhu (@bilawalsidhu) September 21, 2023