Personal Learning Networks (PLNs)

OPINION: The odds are still stacked against low-income college students; here are some ways to expand the possibilities — from hechingerreport-org by Aimee Eubanks-Davis; with thanks to Joseline Hardrick at the WMU-Cooley Law School for posting this on LinkedIn

Excerpts:

Unfortunately, the odds for low-income students are still stacked against them. In fact, only one in four will graduate with a strong first job or enter graduate school. There is no safety net for these students. In fact, for their families, they are the safety net. They’ll start college expecting to leave with good-paying jobs with benefits that allow them to pay back loans, help their parents or other family members financially, and lead a self-sustaining life. Instead, the jobs that college graduates from low-income backgrounds do eventually land set them on an incongruent path to earn 66 cents on the dollar compared to their more affluent peers.

When we help provide low-income and first-generation college students the tools to overcome gaps in skills, assist them in getting a foot in the door at a top internship and connect them with professionals in the field, they will blow us away every time. I, for one, am excited to see a world in which extraordinary diverse leaders can emerge truly from anywhere and everywhere.

Educators (plus many others): You will benefit greatly from building your PLN on Twitter! [Christian]

On 04/09/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, adult learning, career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education, education technology, faculty, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, informal learning, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, microlearning, new media literacies, online learning, online media, participation, pedagogy, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, relationships, social learning / networks, social media, society, special needs, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, ubiquitous learning, universities, using teams, vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I ran into the posting below on my Twitter feed. I especially want to share it with all of those students out there who are majoring in Education. You will find excellent opportunities to build your Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter.

But this idea/concept/opportunity also applies to current teachers, professors, trainers, special educators, principals, superintendents, school board members, coaches, and many, many others.

You will not only learn a great deal by tapping into those streams of content, but you will be able to share your own expertise, insights, resources, reflections, etc. Don’t underestimate the networking and learning potential of Twitter. It’s one of the top learning tools in the world.

One last thought before you move onto the graphics below…K-12 educators are doing a super job of networking and sharing resources with each other. I hope that more faculty members who are working within higher education can learn from the examples being set forth by K-12 educators.

Also see:

Check out the numerous blogs on LawProfessorBlogs.com!

On 03/29/2019, in 24x7x365 access, blogs / blogging / vlogging, ideas, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), RSS, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
There are all kinds of topics/legal areas represented in this network. Check it out!

For a next gen learning platform: A Netflix-like interface to check out potential functionalities / educationally-related “apps” [Christian]

On 02/12/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, love of learning, MBA, media/film, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), television, tools, training / L&D, transmedia, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
In a next generation learning system, it would be sharp/beneficial to have a Netflix-like interface to check out potential functionalities that you could turn on and off (at will) — as one component of your learning ecosystem that could feature a setup located in your living room or office.

For example, put a Netflix-like interface to the apps out at eduappcenter.com (i.e., using a rolling interface at first, then going to a static page/listing of apps…again…similar to Netflix).

From DSC:
Below is a graphic from an article by Jane Hart that’s entitled, “A seamless working and learning environment“- to me, it’s another good example/graphic of a learning ecosystem. This one happens to belong to an organization, but each of us has our own learning ecosystem as well.

LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) [Young]

On 11/09/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education technology, elearning, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online tutoring, pace of change, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) — from edsurge by Jeff Young

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A few years ago, in a move toward professional learning, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, adding the well-known library of video-based courses to its professional social network. Today LinkedIn officials announced that they plan to open up their platform to let in educational videos from other providers as well—but with a catch or two.

The plan, announced Friday, is to let companies or colleges who already subscribe to LinkedIn Learning add content from a select group of other providers. The company or college will still have to subscribe to those other services separately, so it’s essentially an integration—but it does mark a change in approach.

For LinkedIn, the goal is to become the front door for employees as they look for micro-courses for professional development.

LinkedIn also announced another service for its LinkedIn Learning platform called Q&A, which will give subscribers the ability to pose a question they have about the video lessons they’re taking. The question will first be sent to bots, but if that doesn’t yield an answer the query will be sent on to other learners, and in some cases the instructor who created the videos.

Also see:

LinkedIn becomes a serious open learning experience platform — from clomedia.com by Josh Bersin
LinkedIn is becoming a dominant learning solution with some pretty interesting competitive advantages, according to one learning analyst.

Excerpt:

LinkedIn has become quite a juggernaut in the corporate learning market. Last time I checked the company had more than 17 million users, 14,000 corporate customers, more than 3,000 courses and was growing at high double-digit rates. And all this in only about two years.

And the company just threw down the gauntlet; it’s now announcing it has completely opened up its learning platform to external content partners. This is the company’s formal announcement that LinkedIn Learning is not just an amazing array of content, it is a corporate learning platform. The company wants to become a single place for all organizational learning content.

LinkedIn now offers skills-based learning recommendations to any user through its machine learning algorithms.

Is there demand for staying relevant? For learning new skills? For reinventing oneself?

Well…let’s see.

From DSC:
So…look out higher ed and traditional forms of accreditation — your window of opportunity may be starting to close. Alternatives to traditional higher ed continue to appear on the scene and gain momentum. LinkedIn — and/or similar organizations in the future — along with blockchain and big data backed efforts may gain traction in the future and start taking away some major market share. If employers get solid performance from their employees who have gone this route…higher ed better look out.

Microsoft/LinkedIn/Lynda.com are nicely positioned to be a major player who can offer society a next generation learning platform at an incredible price — offering up-to-date, microlearning along with new forms of credentialing. It’s what I’ve been calling the Amazon.com of higher ed (previously the Walmart of Education) for ~10 years. It will take place in a strategy/platform similar to this one.

Also, this is what a guerilla on the back looks like:

Also see:

Meet the 83-Year-Old App Developer Who Says Edtech Should Better Support Seniors — from edsurge.com by Sydney Johnson
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Now at age 83, Wakamiya beams with excitement when she recounts her journey, which has been featured in news outlets and even at Apple’s developer conference last year. But through learning how to code, she believes that experience offers an even more important lesson to today’s education and technology companies: don’t forget about senior citizens.Today’s education technology products overwhelmingly target young people. And while there’s a growing industry around serving adult learners in higher education, companies largely neglect to consider the needs of the elderly.

Social media as a learning tool: Five suggested uses for the classroom [frontierinternet.com]

On 11/08/2018, in 21st century, active learning, adjunct faculty, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, creativity, digital learning, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, faculty, higher education, ideas, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, journalism, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, online learning, participation, pedagogy, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, universities, vendors, web-based collaboration, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

Social media as a learning tool: Five suggested sses for the classroom — from frontierinternet.com; with thanks to Laura Tscholl, Communications Specialist | The Gateway for this resource

Reflections on “Inside Amazon’s artificial intelligence flywheel” [Levy]

On 10/19/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, career development, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, microlearning, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, second screen apps, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Inside Amazon’s artificial intelligence flywheel — from wired.com by Steven Levy
How deep learning came to power Alexa, Amazon Web Services, and nearly every other division of the company.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Amazon loves to use the word flywheel to describe how various parts of its massive business work as a single perpetual motion machine. It now has a powerful AI flywheel, where machine-learning innovations in one part of the company fuel the efforts of other teams, who in turn can build products or offer services to affect other groups, or even the company at large. Offering its machine-learning platforms to outsiders as a paid service makes the effort itself profitable—and in certain cases scoops up yet more data to level up the technology even more.

It took a lot of six-pagers to transform Amazon from a deep-learning wannabe into a formidable power. The results of this transformation can be seen throughout the company—including in a recommendations system that now runs on a totally new machine-learning infrastructure. Amazon is smarter in suggesting what you should read next, what items you should add to your shopping list, and what movie you might want to watch tonight. And this year Thirumalai started a new job, heading Amazon search, where he intends to use deep learning in every aspect of the service.

“If you asked me seven or eight years ago how big a force Amazon was in AI, I would have said, ‘They aren’t,’” says Pedro Domingos, a top computer science professor at the University of Washington. “But they have really come on aggressively. Now they are becoming a force.”

Maybe the force.

From DSC:
When will we begin to see more mainstream recommendation engines for learning-based materials? With the demand for people to reinvent themselves, such a next generation learning platform can’t come soon enough!

Turning over control to learners to create/enhance their own web-based learner profiles; and allowing people to say who can access their learning profiles.
AI-based recommendation engines to help people identify curated, effective digital playlists for what they want to learn about.
Voice-driven interfaces.
Matching employees to employers.
Matching one’s learning preferences (not styles) with the content being presented as one piece of a personalized learning experience.
From cradle to grave. Lifelong learning.
Multimedia-based, interactive content.
Asynchronously and synchronously connecting with others learning about the same content.
Online-based tutoring/assistance; remote assistance.
Reinvent. Staying relevant. Surviving.
Competency-based learning.

We’re about to embark on a period in American history where career reinvention will be critical, perhaps more so than it’s ever been before. In the next decade, as many as 50 million American workers—a third of the total—will need to change careers, according to McKinsey Global Institute. Automation, in the form of AI (artificial intelligence) and RPA (robotic process automation), is the primary driver. McKinsey observes: “There are few precedents in which societies have successfully retrained such large numbers of people.”

Bill Triant and Ryan Craig

Also relevant/see:

Online education’s expansion continues in higher ed with a focus on tech skills — from educationdive.com by James Paterson

Dive Brief:

Online learning continues to expand in higher ed with the addition of several online master’s degrees and a new for-profit college that offers a hybrid of vocational training and liberal arts curriculum online.
Inside Higher Ed reported the nonprofit learning provider edX is offering nine master’s degrees through five U.S. universities — the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, Arizona State University and the University of California, San Diego. The programs include cybersecurity, data science, analytics, computer science and marketing, and they cost from around $10,000 to $22,000. Most offer stackable certificates, helping students who change their educational trajectory.
Former Harvard University Dean of Social Science Stephen Kosslyn, meanwhile, will open Foundry College in January. The for-profit, two-year program targets adult learners who want to upskill, and it includes training in soft skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. Students will pay about $1,000 per course, though the college is waiving tuition for its first cohort.

What does the Top Tools for Learning 2018 list tell us about the future direction of L&D? — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

But for me 3 key things jump out:

More and more people are learning for themselves – in whatever way that suits them best – whether it is finding resources or online courses on the Web or interacting with their professional network. And they do all this for a variety of reasons: to solve problems, self-improve and prepare themselves for the future, etc.
Learning at work is becoming more personal and continuous in that it is a key part of many professional’s working day. And what’s more people are not only organising their own learning activities, they are also indeed managing their own development too – either with (informal) digital notebooks, or with (formal) personal learning platforms.
But it is in team collaboration where most of their daily learning takes place, and many now recognise and value the social collaboration platforms that underpin their daily interactions with colleagues as part of their daily work.

In other words, many people now see workplace learning as not just something that happens irregularly in corporate training, but as a continuous and on demand activity.

From DSC:
Reminds me of tapping into — and contributing towards — streams of content. All the time. Continuous, lifelong learning.

NEW: The Top Tools for Learning 2018 [Jane Hart]

On 09/29/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.

I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.

3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.

5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.

From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?

To higher ed: When the race track is going 180mph, you can’t walk or jog onto the track. [Christian]

On 09/25/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Mixed Reality (MR), more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, organizational change, pace of change, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, robotics, science, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
When the race track is going 180mph, you can’t walk or jog onto the track. What do I mean by that?

Consider this quote from an article that Jeanne Meister wrote out at Forbes entitled, “The Future of Work: Three New HR Roles in the Age of Artificial Intelligence:”*

This emphasis on learning new skills in the age of AI is reinforced by the most recent report on the future of work from McKinsey which suggests that as many as 375 million workers around the world may need to switch occupational categories and learn new skills because approximately 60% of jobs will have least one-third of their work activities able to be automated.

Go scan the job openings and you will likely see many that have to do with technology, and increasingly, with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, big data, cloud-based services, robotics, automation, bots, algorithm development, blockchain, and more.

From Robert Half’s 2019 Technology Salary Guide

How many of us have those kinds of skills? Did we get that training in the community colleges, colleges, and universities that we went to? Highly unlikely — even if you graduated from one of those institutions only 5-10 years ago. And many of those institutions are often moving at the pace of a nice leisurely walk, with some moving at a jog, even fewer are sprinting. But all of them are now being asked to enter a race track that’s moving at 180mph. Higher ed — and society at large — are not used to moving at this pace.

This is why I think that higher education and its regional accrediting organizations are going to either need to up their game hugely — and go through a paradigm shift in the required thinking/programming/curricula/level of responsiveness — or watch while alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education increasingly attract their learners away from them.

This is also, why I think we’ll see an online-based, next generation learning platform take place. It will be much more nimble — able to offer up-to-the minute, in-demand skills and competencies.

The below graphic is from:
Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages

* Three New HR Roles To Create Compelling Employee Experiences
These new HR roles include:

IBM: Vice President, Data, AI & Offering Strategy, HR
Kraft Heinz Senior Vice President Global HR, Performance and IT
SunTrust Senior Vice President Employee Wellbeing & Benefits

What do these three roles have in common? All have been created in the last three years and acknowledge the growing importance of a company’s commitment to create a compelling employee experience by using data, research, and predictive analytics to better serve the needs of employees. In each case, the employee assuming the new role also brought a new set of skills and capabilities into HR. And importantly, the new roles created in HR address a common vision: create a compelling employee experience that mirrors a company’s customer experience.

An excerpt from McKinsey Global Institute | Notes from the Frontier | Modeling the Impact of AI on the World Economy

Workers.
A widening gap may also unfold at the level of individual workers. Demand for jobs could shift away from repetitive tasks toward those that are socially and cognitively driven and others that involve activities that are hard to automate and require more digital skills.12 Job profiles characterized by repetitive tasks and activities that require low digital skills may experience the largest decline as a share of total employment, from some 40 percent to near 30 percent by 2030. The largest gain in share may be in nonrepetitive activities and those that require high digital skills, rising from some 40 percent to more than 50 percent. These shifts in employment would have an impact on wages. We simulate that around 13 percent of the total wage bill could shift to categories requiring nonrepetitive and high digital skills, where incomes could rise, while workers in the repetitive and low digital skills categories may potentially experience stagnation or even a cut in their wages. The share of the total wage bill of the latter group could decline from 33 to 20 percent.13 Direct consequences of this widening gap in employment and wages would be an intensifying war for people, particularly those skilled in developing and utilizing AI tools, and structural excess supply for a still relatively high portion of people lacking the digital and cognitive skills necessary to work with machines.

How professionals learn for work — from jarche.com by Harold Jarche

Excerpt:

On the image below the methods are colour-coded to Experience (70%), Exposure (20%), and Education (10%). The size of text indicates the importance as ranked by the survey respondents. Note that some of these methods cross boundaries, such as team knowledge sharing & conferences.

Also see:

Skills development: it’s time to revamp learning culture — from personneltoday.com by Jean-Marc Tassetto

Training strategies should consider the reality of how people learn; content should always be available remotely – increasingly via mobile – and at the learner’s convenience in bite-sized chunks, making use of video, gamification and collaboration.

50 Twitter accounts lawyers should follow — from postali.com

Excerpt:

Running a successful law practice is about much more than being an excellent attorney. A law firm is a business, and those who stay informed on trends in legal marketing, business development and technology are primed to run their practice more efficiently.

Law firms are a competitive business. In order to stay successful, you need to stay informed. The industry trends can often move at lightning speed, and you want to be ahead of them.

Twitter is a great place for busy attorneys to stay informed. Many thought leaders in the legal industry are eager and willing to share their knowledge in digestible, 280-character tweets that lawyers on-the-go can follow.

We’ve rounded up some of the best Twitter accounts for lawyers (in no particular order.) To save you even more time, we’ve also added all of these account to a Twitter List that you can follow with one click. (You can use some of the time you’ll save to follow Postali on Twitter as well.)

Click here to view the Twitter List of Legal Influencers.

From DSC:
I find Twitter to be an excellent source of learning, and it is one of the key parts of my own learning ecosystem. I’m not the only one. Check out these areas of Jane Hart’s annual top tools for learning.

Also see/relevant:

Prudenti: Law schools facing new demands for innovative education— from libn.com
Excerpt:
Law schools have always taught the law and the practice thereof, but in the 21st century that is not nearly enough to provide students with the tools to succeed. Clients, particularly business clients, are not only looking for an “attorney” in the customary sense, but a strategic partner equipped to deal with everything from project management to metrics to process enhancement. Those demands present law schools with both an opportunity for and expectation of innovation in legal education.

[Re: MOOCs] Can we design online learning platforms that feel more intimate than massive? [Ahearn]

On 07/25/2018, in ideas, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), platforms, social learning / networks, teaching & learning, tools, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Can we design online learning platforms that feel more intimate than massive? — from edsurge.com by Amy Ahearn

Excerpt:

This presents a challenge and an opportunity: How can we design online learning environments that achieve scale and intimacy? How do we make digital platforms feel as inviting as well-designed physical classrooms?

The answer may be that we need to balance massiveness with miniaturization. If the first wave of MOOCs was about granting unprecedented numbers of students access to high-quality teaching and learning materials, Wave 2 needs to focus on creating a sense of intimacy within that massiveness.

We need to be building platforms that look less like a cavernous stadium and more like a honeycomb. This means giving people small chambers of engagement where they can interact with a smaller, more manageable and yet still diverse groups. We can’t meaningfully listen to the deafening roar of the internet. But we can learn from a collection of people with perspectives different than ours.

What will it take to get MOOC platforms to begin to offer learning spaces that feel more inviting and intimate? Perhaps there’s a new role that needs to emerge in the online learning ecosystem: a “learning architect” who sits between the engineers and the instructional designers.

What is a learning ecosystem? And how does it support corporate strategy? [Eudy]

On 07/24/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adjunct faculty, blended learning, business, career development, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, face-to-face, faculty, flipping -- inverted learning, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, hybrid learning, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, project-based learning, relationships, RSS, simulations, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, universities, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

What is a learning ecosystem? And how does it support corporate strategy? — from ej4.com by Ryan Eudy

Excerpt:

A learning ecosystem is a system of people, content, technology, culture, and strategy, existing both within and outside of an organization, all of which has an impact on both the formal and informal learning that goes on in that organization.

The word “ecosystem” is worth paying attention to here. It’s not just there to make the term sound fancy or scientific. A learning ecosystem is the L&D equivalent of an ecosystem out in the wild. Just as a living ecosystem has many interacting species, environments, and the complex relationships among them, a learning ecosystem has many people and pieces of content, in different roles and learning contexts, and complex relationships.

Just like a living ecosystem, a learning ecosystem can be healthy or sick, nurtured or threatened, self-sustaining or endangered. Achieving your development goals, then, requires an organization to be aware of its own ecosystem, including its parts and the internal and external forces that shape them.

From DSC:
Yes, to me, the concept/idea of a learning ecosystem IS important. Very important. So much so, I named this blog after it.

Each of us as individuals have a learning ecosystem, whether we officially recognize it or not. So do the organizations that we work for. And, like an ecosystem out in nature, a learning ecosystem is constantly morphing, constantly changing.

We each have people in our lives that help us learn and grow, and the people that were in our learning ecosystems 10 years ago may or may not still be in our current learning ecosystems. Many of us use technologies and tools to help us learn and grow. Then there are the spaces where we learn — both physical and virtual spaces. Then there are the processes and procedures we follow, formally and/or informally. Any content that helps us learn and grow is a part of that ecosystem. Where we get that content can change, but obtaining up-to-date content is a part of our learning ecosystems. I really appreciate streams of content in this regard — and tapping into blogs/websites, especially via RSS feeds and Feedly (an RSS aggregator that took off when Google Reader left the scene).

The article brings up a good point when it states that a learning ecosystem can be “healthy or sick, nurtured or threatened, self-sustaining or endangered.” That’s why I urge folks to be intentional about maintaining and, better yet, consistently enhancing their learning ecosystems. In this day and age where lifelong learning is now a requirement to remain in the workforce, each of us needs to be intentional in this regard.

Learning Ecosystems

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