real-world assignments

DanielChristian-Beacons-n-educ-2015

A potential scenario

A teacher takes a group of students on a field trip to their city’s recycling center.

The city has installed sensors/beacons next to their bins. They’ve also made Wi-Fi available (but only during normal hours of operation).

Upon arriving, the city’s beacons sense that mobile devices are in its proximity — including one that’s been pre-registered as a K-12 teacher — and thus take the following steps:

A request for permission to display content is received by each mobile device
If approved, a video of the city’s mayor is sent to each of the students’ mobile devices, explaining what the city is trying to achieve with their recycling operations
This video is followed up with a graphic that relays how many tons of recycling are processed each week/month/year — as well as other relevant information
After that, a brief quiz hits the students’ devices, asking them a series of questions about what was hopefully learned from the trip
Upon submission of the quiz, the National Audubon Society has arranged with the city to transmit gift certificates worth $5.00 to each device — with an option to accept the certificate or not — and sends an interesting item to the devices from one of their sites

Meanwhile, upon returning to school:

Another quiz is sent to each student’s device, using the concept of spaced practice/repetition to again assess whether the learning objectives were reached re: that days’ field trip
Once the student clicks on the submit button for the quiz:
- their score is registered in the system and an answer key appears
- simultaneously, a notification is sent to the child’s parent/guardian that says that Billy has completed the field trip to XYZ recycling center, and encouraging the parent/guardian to ask Billy some open ended questions (in fact, 2-3 are provided to help with the conversation later on). That email could also let the parents know when the center is open and if they have any special programs going on (like Christmas tree disposal and recycling for Christmas tree lights)

Reflections on “The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED launch Master of Integrated Design, Business and Technology”

On 11/18/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, career development, changing business models, collaboration, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, design, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, IBM, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MBA, Microsoft, new business models, pace of change, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, technology (general), workplace, by Daniel Christian

Following up on yesterday’s posting, History Channel bringing online courses to higher ed, I wanted to thank Mr. Rob Kingyens, President at Qubed Education, for alerting me to some related work that Qubed Education is doing. Below is an example of that work:

The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED launch Master of Integrated Design, Business and Technology — from qubededucation.com
New Learning Model Combines Network and Access of WIRED with Academic Strength and Vision of the USC Roski School of Art and Design

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

MARIN, Calif., October 1, 2014 – The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED today announced a partnership to create a new online Master’s degree in Integrated Design, Business and Technology. The partnership creates an unprecedented learning experience, combining the expertise of the editors, writers, and designers at WIRED with the academic rigor of USC, a leading research university known for its pioneering interdisciplinary programs. The aim of the 18-24 month degree is to educate creative thinkers and technologists to better equip them to transform the world of industry and enterprise. The first cohort is scheduled to begin in the 2015-2016 academic year.

…

“The pace of technology development requires higher education to continue to respond with programs that are flexible and adaptable, and that meet the needs of future cultural and business leaders,” said Dean Muhl.

“We’ve been thinking for years about what a university curriculum with WIRED would look like, and now we have a chance to build it with a terrific partner,” said Dadich. “Taking the best from USC and WIRED, we can teach discipline and disruption, business fundamentals, and the very latest innovation models from Silicon Valley. This is going to be thrilling.”

…

USC’s program development and build out will be powered by higher education partners Synergis Education and Qubed Education.

From Qubed’s website:

Qubed is the gateway for world-class, global brands to enter the education market with top tier universities.

From DSC:
I’ve long wondered if institutions of higher education will need to pool resources and/or form more partnerships and collaborations — either with other universities/colleges or with organizations outside of higher education. This reflection grows stronger for me when I:

Think that team-based content creation and delivery is pulling ahead of the pack
Hear about the financial situations of many institutions of higher education today (example1; example2)
See the momentum building up behind Competency Based Education (CBE)
Witness the growth of alternatives like Ideo Futures, Yieldr Academy, Lessons Go Where, ClassDo, Udemy, C-Suite TV.com and others
Hear about the potential advantages of learning analytics
See the pace of change accelerating — challenging higher education to keep up

For some institution(s) of higher education out there with deep pockets and a strong reputation, I could see them partnering up with an IBM (Watson), Google (Deepmind), Apple (Siri), Amazon (Echo), or Microsoft (Cortana) to create some next generation learning platforms. In fact, this is one of the areas I see occurring as lifelong learning/self-directed learning opportunities hit our living rooms. The underlying technologies these companies are working on could be powerful allies in the way people learn in the future — doing some heavy lifting to build the foundations in a variety of disciplines, and leaving the higher-order learning and the addressing of gaps to professors, teachers, trainers, and others.

The University of Texas System makes bold move into competency-based education — from utsystem.edu

Excerpt:

AUSTIN – The University of Texas System will be the first in the nation to launch a personalized, competency-based education program system-wide aimed at learners from high school through post-graduate studies.

What sets the UT System approach apart from other competency-based programs is a focus on offering personalized and adaptive degrees and certificates that are industry-aligned and – via technology developed by the UT System – can systematically improve success, access and completion rates in areas of high employment demand.

“Competency-based programs allow students to advance through courses, certifications and degrees based on their ability to master knowledge and skills rather than time spent in a classroom,” said Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D. “All students are held to clearly defined and rigorous expectations, but each follows a customized path to success that responds and adapts based on individual learning strengths, challenges and goals. And students can earn credit for prior learning and move at their own speed.”

…

To support and power its new competency-based educational pathway, the UT System is working with education technology innovators to create a state-of-the-art, “mobile-first” stack of technologies and services called TEx, which stands for Total Educational Experience.

.

From DSC:
First of all, I noted an interesting — and much needed within higher ed — title/position: The chief innovation officer for the Institute of Transformational Learning.

Let’s break that one down a second.

In 20102, The University of Texas’ Board of Regents had a vision that learning needs to be transformed and they created an institute for it — supplying $50 million to support some key mandates:

To make a University of Texas-quality education more accessible and affordable.
To improve student learning outcomes and dramatically increase the number of Texans with a college degree and other advanced educational credentials.

So not only did this board show vision, but also boldness — they put their $$ where they mouth was to support their vision. Innovation was key to this institute, so they created a CIO position, whereby the I stood for Innovation, not Information.

Surely, the level of willingness to experiment in the U of Texas system runs higher than at many other institutions of higher education. So I congratulate them on their culture to be willing to experiment…to adapt…to change. If successful, such programs should help more people obtain the degrees they need to make a living, make a life, make a contribution.*

* A great slogan from Davenport University

Also see:

Need-to-Know-News: GradSkills Program, Competency-Based Education Gets its Own LMS, & College Rankings — from onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com by Debbie Morrison

Excerpt:

LMS for Competency Based Education
Readers may not be too interested in reading about Learning Management System news; often LMSs are considered a necessary evil to faculty and teachers of education institutions. However, news last week shared by Phil Hill over at e-literate is worthy of attention—the launch of a LMS platform geared to competency based education (CBE) programs. The new LMS launched by Helix has a different approach than traditional LMS providers. It’s not catering to an institution, but to a method of teaching and learning—CBE. Interesting.

Insight: There is, and continues to be an emphasis and support ($$$) for creation of CBE programs by the Department of Education (Fain, 2014). This new LMS approach by Helix is another indicator. I predict that we’ll be hearing a lot more about CBE in the next few months with more institutions offering CBE options for students. Why it’s significant, is because CBE is a radical departure from traditional education; it does not rely upon the credit-hour or ‘seat time’ as its often referred to, but upon mastery of units of instruction.

Several institutions are already basing their model on CBE, College for America, an offshoot of Southern New Hampshire University and Capella University for instance. Purdue University is planning on offering a competency-based degree in the near future. Other universities that incorporate CBE principles—Western Governors University and Kentucky Community and Technical College System for its 2-year degree program.

Helix: View of a LMS designed for competency-based education, Phil Hill, e-literate
Competency-Based learning or Personalized Learning, The Department of Education
Daniels awards prize for competency-based degree to Purdue Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University
Experimenting with Aid, Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

Team-based content creation/delivery is pulling ahead of the pack!

On 11/04/2014, in A/V -- audio/visual, collaboration, communications, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, higher education, immersion, innovation, interactivity, learning ecosystem, love of learning, media/film, Michigan, multimedia, online learning, participation, play, psychology, real-world assignments, relationships, religion, social learning / networks, social media, society, sociology, story, storytelling, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, transmedia, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Last week I attended the 20th Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference. While there, I was inspired by an excellent presentation entitled, “A Disruptive Innovation: MSU’s Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Are You Ready to Survive a New Way of Learning?“ The four team members from Michigan State University included:

Glenn R. Stutzky | Course Instructor
Keesa V. Muhammad | Instructional Designer
Christopher Irvin | Instructional Designer
Hailey Mooney | Course Librarian

Check out the intro clip on the website about the course:

From the description for the presentation:

This session highlights MSU’s award winning, groundbreaking online course that fuses social theory, filmmaking, social media, and viral marketing while students survive an apocalyptic event. http://zombie.msu.edu/

MSU created and used powerful digital storytelling and multimedia to overlay real, experiential, immersive learning. Important content was relayed, but in a way that drew upon your emotions, your ability to solve problems and navigate in a world where you didn’t have all of the information, your ability to work with others, and more.

“This innovative course integrates current research and science on catastrophes and human behavior together with the idea of a zombie apocalypse. In doing so, we actively engage with students as they think about the nature, scope, and impact of catastrophic events on individuals, families, societies, civilizations, and the Earth itself.”

“Our innovative approach to teaching and learning features: students as active participants, the instructor becomes the facilitator, storytelling replaces lectures, zombies become the catalyst of teaching, a “zombrarian” (librarian) drives research, and the students emerge as digital storytellers as a way of assessing their own learning.”

Others outside MUS have found out about the course and have requested access to it. As a result of this, they’ve opened it up to non-credit seeking participants and now various people from police forces, Centers for Disease Control, and others are able to take the course. To make this learning experience even more accessible, the cost has been greatly reduced: from $1600+ to just $500. (So this talented team is not only offering powerful pedagogies, but also significant monetary contributions to the university as well.)

For me, the key thing here is that this course represents what I believe is the direction that’s starting to really pull ahead of the pack and, if done well, will likely crush most of the other directions/approaches. And that is the use of teams to create, deliver, teach, and assess content – i.e., team-based learning approaches.

So many of the sessions involved professional development for professors and teachers – and much of this is appropriate. However, in the majority of cases, individual efforts aren’t enough anymore. Few people can bring to the table what a talented, experienced group of specialists are able to bring. Individual efforts aren’t able to compete with team-based content creation and delivery anymore — and this is especially true online, whereby multiple disciplines are immediately invoked once content hits the digital realm.

In this case, the team was composed of:

The professor
Two Instructional Designers
and a librarian

The team:

Developed websites
Designed their own logo
Marketed the course w/ a zombie walking around campus w/ brochures and a walking billboard
Used a Twitter stream
Used a tool called Pensu for their students’ individual journals
Made extensive use of YouTube and digital storytelling
Coined a new acronym called MOLIE – multimedia online learning immersive experience
Used game-like features, such as the development of a code that was found which revealed key information (which was optional, but was very helpful to those who figured it out). The team made it so that the course ended differently for each group, depending upon what the teams’ decisions were through the weeks
Used some 3D apps to make movies more realistic and to create new environments
Continually presented new clues for students to investigate. Each team had a Team Leader that posted their team’s decisions on YouTube.

They encouraged us to:
THINK BIG! Get as creative as you can, and only pull back if the “suits” make you! Step outside the box! Take risks! “If an idea has life, water it. Others will check it out and get involved.”

In their case, the idea originated with an innovative, risk-taking professor willing to experiment – and who started the presentation with the following soliloquy:

Syllabi are EVIL

Syllabi are EVIL and they must die!
Listen to me closely and I’ll tell you why.
Just want students to know what is known?
See what’s been seen?
Go – where we’ve been going?
Then the Syllabus is your friend,
cuz you know exactly where you’ll end.
But if you want to go somewhere new,
see colors beyond Red, Green, and Blue.
Then take out your Syllabus and tear-it-in-half,
now uncertainty has become your path.
Be not afraid because you’ll find,
the most amazing things from Creative Minds,
who have been set free to FLY,
once untethered from the Syllabi.

Glenn Stutzky
Premiered at the 2014
Online Learning Consortium International Conference
October 29, 2014

“The number of infected in Michigan has reached critical mass.” CSM Quintero #sw290 pic.twitter.com/F6m8ZaoRyG

— MSU Zombie (@MSUZombies) June 19, 2014

They started with something that wasn’t polished, but it’s been an iterative approach over the semesters…and they continue to build on it.

I congratulated the team there — and do so again here. Excellent, wonderful work!

By the way, what would a creative movie-like trailer look like for your course?

From DSC:
First of all, let me say that I’m a big fan and supporter of a liberal arts education — my degree was in economics (from Northwestern University’s College of Arts & Sciences, as the school was called at the time) and I currently work at a Christian liberal arts college.

That said, within the current higher education landscape, we’re already seeing and hearing more and more about competency-based education, credits for prior learning, and other forms of obtaining a credential in less time. I don’t have data on this, but my mental picture of these things is that such initiatives have had a limited impact, at least so far.

However, as the pace of change has increased, I wonder…what if hiring decisions move significantly more towards “Show me what you can DO…? That’s already taking place to a significant degree in many hiring situations, but my reflection revolves around questions such as:

What if it takes too long to wait for someone to get a 2 or 4-year degree? Will employers start looking more towards what competencies someone has today or can acquire much more quickly?
Will people look outside of traditional higher education to get those skills?

Again, these reflections involve the increasing pace of change.

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

Anyway, such a shift could open doors for new “providers” such as:

Then, consider some quotes from the following article, Tottering Ivory Towers:

Excerpts:

…there is growing interest in new ways of measuring the quality of a degree. The variety of scorecards now available, for instance, means students and their parents have much better and more granular measures of quality than accreditation provides. For another, employers are gradually making greater use of independent, competency-based measures and credentialed courses rather than relying on accredited degrees and credit hours (derided as “seat time” by its critics). Try getting a job in computer network management if you can’t show which Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer courses you have passed. Meanwhile, Udacity is partnering with Google, AT&T, and other technology firms in an “Open Education Alliance” to provide top-level technical skills. Nevertheless, when it comes to alternatives to accreditation, the United States is generally playing catch-up with some other countries. In Britain, for instance, students can earn employer-union certified City & Guilds qualifications while studying at almost any institution, and there are standard competency measures in a variety of professional fields.

…

In a New York Times interview, Google’s senior vice president for people operations, Laszlo Bock, admitted that transcripts, test scores, and even degrees are less useful than other data as predictors of employee success.³ In this environment, an industry-led move to create a more dependable measure of knowledge and ability than a transcript will become increasingly attractive.

…

The critical lesson from the transformation of other industries is that it is likely to be a disastrous mistake to assume you can just tweak an existing business model and be all right. That can work only for a while.

Dmitry Sheynin writes in his article, Is innovation outpacing education? “With the ever-increasing pace of innovation, traditional colleges and universities are failing to train and retrain workers quickly enough. The model of two and four-year degrees, [futurist Thomas Frey] says, is largely incompatible with an industry that gets flipped on its head every couple of quarters.” Again, according to Frey, “The main factor driving change in the labor force is new innovations rendering old jobs obsolete, but no mechanism is in place yet to help workers grow at the pace of evolving technology.”

Self-directed learning, or heutagogy, is key in this fast-paced environment. We all need to be constantly learning, growing, and reinventing ourselves. However, not everyone is comfortable with such an approach. So there are some gaps/opportunities opening up for those organizations who are innovative enough to experiment and to change.

Also see:

It’s time to ditch the ‘old academic identity’ to survive funding cuts — from theconversation.com by Fry and Schutt
Excerpt:
In short, what you do with what you create. Increasingly, the sector is being called to account on this as the world changes around us.
This article re: Southern New Hampshire’s self-paced $10,000 competency-based degree program
Udacity & the Future of Nanodegrees — from etale.org by Bernard Bull
.
A $10,560 bachelor’s degree? — from marketplace.org
Excerpt:
“We’re not going to see bachelor’s programs in English, math, history, sociology, chemistry and all of those fields that are traditional liberal arts fields,” said Constance Carroll, Chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, and a member of the California Community College Baccalaureate Degree Study Group. “What we will see are baccalaureate programs in workforce fields where there is high demand.” Fields like dental hygiene, information technology, and automotive-technology management.

Addendum on 9/17/14:

Building on Competency-Based Education — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush
A Q&A with Ruki Jayaraman

Excerpt:

Argosy University System is among the first institutions in a movement toward competency-based education, creating new models of direct assessment that promise to reduce time-to-degree and offer greater relevance for graduates in the job market. CT talked with Argosy University System’s vice chancellor for academic affairs to learn how that institution tackled competency-based education — creating the first WASC-accredited MBA in its region based on a direct assessment, competency model. Now, Argosy is developing hybrid approaches that combine direct assessment with traditional seat time-based courses.

Addendum on 10/2/14:

Michael B. Horn on Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education: How online competency based learning is changing the higher education landscape — from lambdasolutions.net by Sean Hougan

Addendum on 10/8/14:

Competency-Based Education: No More Semesters? — from npr.org by Anya Kamenetz

Addendum on 10/13/14:

A Competency-Based Educational Shift Is Underway in Higher Ed — from edtechmagazine.com by D. Frank Smith
College students are being given a growing list of options for college accreditation.

.

Reflections on “Beacons at the museum: Pacific Science Center to roll out location-based Mixby app next month” [Bishop]

On 09/03/2014, in 21st century, active learning, art, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital storytelling, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mobile learning, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), participation, platforms, real-world assignments, tablets, teaching & learning, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, user experience (UX), workplace, by Daniel Christian

Beacons at the museum: Pacific Science Center to roll out location-based Mixby app next month — from geekwire.com by Todd Bishop

Excerpt:

Seattle’s Pacific Science Center has scheduled an Oct. 4 public launch for a new system that uses Bluetooth-enabled beacons and the Mixby smartphone app to offer new experiences to museum guests — presenting them with different features and content depending on where they’re standing at any given moment.

Also see:

Pacific Science Center to Debut New Digital Experience — from pacificsciencecenter.org

From DSC:
The use of location-based apps & associated technologies (machine-to-machine (M2M) communications) should be part of all ed tech planning from here on out — and also applicable to the corporate world and training programs therein.

Not only applicable to museums, but also to art galleries, classrooms, learning spaces, campus tours, and more. Such apps could be used on plant floors in training-related programs as well.

Now mix augmented reality in with location-based technology. Come up to a piece of artwork, and a variety of apps could be launched to really bring that piece to life! Some serious engagement.

Digital storytelling. The connection of the physical world with the digital world. Digital learning. Physical learning. A new form of blended/hybrid learning. Active learning. Participation.

Addendum on 9/4/14 — also see:

Aerohive Networks Delivers World’s First iBeacon™ and AltBeacon™ – Enabled Enterprise Wi-Fi Access Points
New Partnership with Radius Networks Delivers IoT Solution to Provide Advanced Insights and Mobile Experience Personalization

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aerohive Networks® (NYSE:HIVE), a leader in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-managed mobile networking for the enterprise market today announced that it is partnering with Radius Networks, a market leader in proximity services and proximity beacons with iBeacon™ and AltBeacon™ technology, to offer retailers, educators and healthcare providers a cloud-managed Wi-Fi infrastructure enabled with proximity beacons. Together, Aerohive and Radius Networks provide complementary cloud platforms for helping these organizations meet the demands of today’s increasingly connected customers who are seeking more personalized student education, patient care and shopper experiences.

Also:

Building Proximity Applications with iBeacon — from shop.oreilly.com
Pinpoint Location Services with Bluetooth Low Energy
By Matthew Gast
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
May 2014

3 solid items on the Maker Movement in education — from edutopia.org

On 07/23/2014, in active learning, creativity, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, maker movement, project-based learning, real-world assignments, student-related, teaching & learning, tools, by Daniel Christian

The DIY World of Maker Tools and Their Uses — from edutopia.org by Vicki Davis

Excerpt:

The Maker movement is spreading through schools. You’ll see many tools becoming part of unique maker ecosystems in schools based upon teacher expertise and student interests. (For more about the Maker movement read How the Maker Movement is Moving into Classrooms.)

Let’s look at the most common tools being used in makerspaces.

Project-Based Learning Through a Maker’s Lens — from edutopia.org by Patrick Waters

Excerpt:

The rise of the Maker has been one of the most exciting educational trends of the past few years. A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her. A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner. A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product. In the classroom, the act of Making is an avenue for a teacher to unlock the learning potential of her or his students in a way that represents many of the best practices of educational pedagogy. A Makerspace classroom has the potential to create life-long learners through exciting, real-world projects.

Making holds a number of opportunities and challenges for a teacher. Making, especially to educators and administrators unfamiliar with it, can seem to lack the academic rigor needed for a full-fledged place in an educational ecosystem. However, project-based learning has already created a framework for Making in the classroom. Let’s see how Making could work when placed inside a PBL curriculum unit.

6 Strategies for Funding a Makerspace — from edutopia.org by Paloma Garcia-Lopez

Excerpt:

In this spirit, we are starting to see more and more makerspaces springing up in schools across the country. If you are a teacher experimenting with making projects in your classroom, here are some successful fundraising strategies we’ve seen educators use to fund a makerspace for their school community.

Addendum on 7/30/14:

The Student Side of Making — from edutopia.com by Gayle Allen

What an incredible piece! This young inventor from Sierra Leone shows how young people change our world!

On 06/17/2014, in engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, heutagogy, higher education, innovation, maker movement, media/film, music, passions, real-world assignments, society, sociology, student-related, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Thanks Jennifer for posting the above item! What a wonderful video! I loved watching it. Congratulations and thanks go out to MIT, David Moinina Sengeh (see here and here) and Kelvin Coe for maximizing the gifts that they’ve been given! They are changing the world!

An incredible example of heutagogy at work! In Kelvin’s story, you see passion, self-directed learning, and intrinsic motivation to make a difference — to help his community and to positively change his world.

From the video’s description:

To support Kelvin and young innovators like him, please visit https://www.crowdrise.com/InnovateSalone/fundraiser/gmin

15-Year-Oid Kelvin Doe is an engineering whiz living in Sierra Leone who scours the trash bins for spare parts, which he uses to build batteries, generators and transmitters. Completely self-taught, Kelvin has created his own radio station where he broadcasts news and plays music under the moniker, OJ Focus. Kelvin became the youngest person in history to be invited to the ‘V isiting Practitione(s Program” at MIT. THNKR had exclusive access to Kelvin and his life-changing journey – experiencing the US for the first t ime, exploring incredible opportunities, contending
with homesickness, and mapping out his future.

Here is a link to the Bobby Fala track in the video on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/karen-kilberg/kpei-ragga

PRODIGIES is a bi-weekly series showcasing the youngest and brightest as they challenge themselves to reach new heights and the stories behind them.

Created and produced by @radical. media, THNKR gives you extraordinary access to the people, stories, places and thinking that will change your mind.

Follow THNKR on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thnkr
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thnkrtv
Check out our Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/thnkr/
SUBSCRIBE! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c …

Song featured in that clip:

Excerpt (emphasis DSC — with thanks to Mr. Joe Byerwalter for this resource):

What is the future of learning? FIRST® LEGO® League teams will find the answers. In the 2014 FLL WORLD CLASS? Challenge, over 230,000 children ages 9 to 16* from over 70 countries will redesign how we gather knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Teams will teach adults about the ways that kids need and want to learn. Get ready for a whole new class – FLL WORLD CLASSSM!

FLL challenges kids to think like scientists and engineers. During FLL WORLD CLASSSM, teams will build, test, and program an autonomous robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS® to solve a set of missions in the Robot Game. They will also choose and solve a real-world question in the Project. Throughout their experience, teams will operate under FLL’s signature set of Core Values.

*9-14 in the US, Canada, and Mexico

20 forecasts for 2014-2030 from the World Future Society
Trends and breakthroughs likely to affect your work, your investments, and your family

Excerpts:

At the outset, let me say that futurists do not claim to predict precisely what will happen in the future. If we could know the future with certainty, it would mean that the future could not be changed. Yet this is the main purpose of studying the future: to look at what may happen if present trends continue, decide if this is desirable, and, if it’s not, work to change it.

The main goal of studying the future is to make it better. Trends, forecasts, and ideas about the future enable you to spot opportunities and threats early, and position yourself, your business, and your investments accordingly.

How you can succeed in the age of hyperchange
Look how quickly our world is transforming around us. Entire new industries and technologies unheard of 15 years ago are now regular parts of our lives. Technology, globalization, and the recent financial crisis have left many of us reeling. It’s increasingly difficult to keep up with new developments—much less to understand their implications.

And, if you think things are changing fast now, you haven’t seen anything yet.

In this era of accelerating change, knowledge alone is no longer the key to a prosperous life. The critical skill is foresight.

7 ways to spot tomorrow’s trends today

Scan the media to identify trends
Analyze and extrapolate trends
Develop scenarios
Ask groups of experts
Use computer modeling
Explore possibilities with simulations
Create the vision

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 1) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

The proliferation of digital and networking technologies enables us to rethink, restructure, and redefine teaching and learning. Transmedia storytelling takes advantage of the rapid convergence of media and allows teachers and learners to participate in rich virtual (and physical) environments that have been shown to foster students’ real emotional engagement with the process of learning. Transmedia learning applies storytelling techniques across multiple platforms to create immersive educational experiences that enable multiple entry and exit points for learning and teaching. By utilizing constructivist and connectivist precepts in the application of these techniques, we can create pedagogies that are transformative on many levels. Encapsulating these notions in the concept of the Transmedia LearningWorld (TLW) allows educators to combine the exciting affordances of the digital technologies with real-life experiences and truly learner-focused pedagogies to produce profoundly productive and powerful learning experiences.

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 2) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

Transmedia storytelling exemplifies learning in the twenty-first century by merging the concept of storytelling with that of the listener-learner and the resulting emotional engagement with the pervasiveness of media. We might define transmedia learning as: the application of storytelling techniques combined with the use of multiple platforms to create an immersive learning landscape which enables multivarious entry and exit points for learning and teaching.

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 3) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

None of this is easy though. Teachers must be given the support they will need to prepare for the concomitant shift in instruction; they will need help to make sense of the new kinds of content that will make their way into the classroom; they will need encouragement to change their approach to teaching and to learning accordingly; and they will need support in how to effectively weave and integrate technology into their practice. The effective use of digital learning can help school districts meet these educational challenges, including, as we have noted, implementing college and career-ready standards for all students, as outlined in the Common Core. Educators need to come to see technology as intrinsic to their instructional practices. Rather than envisaging a process in which technology is merely embedded into the curriculum, an attitude that so often relegates the technology to an afterthought or just one amongst a range of motivating techniques, it should be about the seamless integration of technology into every aspect of teaching and learning through transmedia practices. Technology tools should be so much a part of learning that the friction is removed because of educators and learners do not waste energy thinking about how it works, instead becoming an essential component of all that goes on in the classroom.

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 4) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

The paradox lies in the fact that, at the same time that political and economic forces are pushing the agenda of standardization with some determination, the social-technological environment that we now inhabit is pushing education in the opposite direction. In a real sense, learning is breaking free from the tradition model of education—with school as the central paradigm in that model—simply because the walls of the school can no longer contain all the knowledge and content and desire to learn that is now flowing freely across the ether and intermingling across borders without constraint.

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 5) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

The power of Inanimate Alice lies in the organic connection that is made between the story and the medium along with the innovative use of design and structure. The story unfolds in a game-like world that makes readers direct participants in helping the story to unfold across multiple platforms. With hours of interactive audio-visual experience built in, a gripping mesh of games, puzzles, sights, and sounds embellish and enhance the storyline. The interactivity and narrative are not distinct from one another. In the case of Inanimate Alice, the interactive elements simply cannot be separated from the story. Whether it is controlling Alice’s Baxi (her handheld gaming device) or communicating with Brad (her virtual friend on the Baxi), the embedded technology enhances the narrative and helps it to unfold in manifold directions under the reader’s impulse. It is this that makes Alice a truly unique digital reading experience.

Expanding Learning Opportunities with Transmedia Practices (part 6) — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Excerpt:

As co-creators of content, our students actively participate in and take control of their own learning. As echoed by the United States Department of Education, the rich, fictional worlds of transmedia tend to create a greater level of social interaction that can inspire children to create their own stories and media products and to share them with each other. The experience of reading is changing. In a transmedia learning experience, reading is now simultaneously an individual act and a social act. Similarly, students can be individual producers but are also able to engage on collaborative sharing, joint creativity, and proliferation of knowledge across the globe.

From DSC:
Consider Noisetrade.com (a resource graciously relayed to me by Mr. Michael Haan at Calvin College)

Using this site/service, people can download music for free and donate to the artists if they want to (and I think they should). The WIN for the artist is more visibility and the ability to create/expand a fan base.

This site/service is another example of people representing themselves…of selling what they have to offer…of people representing their own brands.

Add to this the continuing trend towards more freelancing, and I can’t help but wonder…

How should these sorts of things impact what we teach?
How can we model this for our students? (i.e. reinventing oneself, selling oneself, communicating with others, staying relevant, and more)

Also see:

The death of the office: What happens when the workspace is mobile, on-demand and all about networking — from forbes.com by Jeanne Meister

Excerpt:

As work becomes more flexible and communication more mobile, the office is turning into an increasingly complex and even abstract concept. As we look to the future, we have to ask: Will the workplace be on-site at our employer’s property, or on-demand at a collaborative space? Or will work simply be a mindset independent of place or time of day?

The answer is all three, and more.

Lecturers need research time off campus to best teach students [Tickle]

On 12/23/2013, in adjunct faculty, faculty, higher education, pedagogy, real-world assignments, student-related, teaching & learning, UK, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Lecturers need research time off campus to best teach students — from theguardian.com by Louise Tickle; with thanks to strategic foresight practitioner Marie Conway for this resource on her University Futures Update

Louise Tickle meets four university teachers whose work in the field enriches their students’ learning

John Roberts

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Roberts’ new film, Day of the Flowers, is set in Scotland and Cuba and features ballet star Carlos Acosta. The lecturer invited students on to set as both extras and assistants, and used their observations of the practical reality of film-making to spark tutorial discussions. In the current debate around higher tuition fees and what purpose universities exist to serve, he argues that providing students with a combination of practice and theory is vital in equipping them for working life.

This means, he says, that it’s “vital” for lecturers to have a professional life away from university, “and really be engaged in their own industry in order to be the best teachers they can be and offer something special to students.” The chance to gain genuine insight into working practice, particularly in highly competitive industries, is the holy grail for soon-to-be graduates desperate to stand out from the crowd. And applying academic study into practical reality can feel hard to do, so an academic who takes the trouble to involve students in their professional practice is likely to be very popular indeed.

…

Close contact with someone working on the “inside” also means that students start to grasp more about the realities of what her working life is like.

From DSC:
Trying to change higher education is sooooo tough because no one person has all of the knowledge, wisdom, time, and energy that’s required. Faculty members — like Staff and Administration — are often just trying to stay afloat. With calls for increased productivity, it’s hard to create/experience the sorts of valuable opportunities described in the above article. However, I do think that if faculty members were also practicing their trade in a professional manner, they could stay abreast of what the markets require — what skillsets are key, how the employment landscape in their fields are changing, etc.

A proposal for Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, and any other company who wants to own the future living room [Christian]

On 11/18/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, animation, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, 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, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, IBM, ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, K-12 related, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, media/film, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, pace of change, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, play, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, STEAM-related, storytelling, strategy, streams of content, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, ubiquitous learning, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

“The main obstacle to an Apple television set has been content. It has mostly failed to convince cable companies to make their programming available through an Apple device. And cable companies have sought to prevent individual networks from signing distribution deals with Apple.”

— Apple, closer to its vision for a TV set, wants
ESPN, HBO, Viacom, and others to come along
qz.com by Seward, Chon, & Delaney, 8/22/13

From DSC:
I wonder if this is because of the type of content that Apple is asking for. Instead of entertainment-oriented content, what if the content were more focused on engaging, interactive, learning materials? More on educational streams of content (whether we — as individuals — create and contribute that content or whether businesses do)?

Also see:

What the mobile “fourth wave” means for operators — from mportal.com by D.P. Venkatesh on November 12, 2013

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The communications landscape has historically taken the form of a tumultuous ocean of opportunities. Like rolling waves on a shore, these opportunities are often strong and powerful – yet ebb and flow with time.

Get ready, because the next great wave is upon us. And, like a tropical storm, it is likely to change the landscape around us.

As detailed by analyst Chetan Sharma, this particular wave is the one created by the popularity of over-the-top (OTT) solutions – apps that allow access to entertainment, communication and collaboration over the Internet from smartphones, tablets and laptops, rather than traditional telecommunications methods. Sharma has coined this the mobile “fourth wave” – the first three being voice, messaging (SMS) and data access, respectively – and it is rapidly washing over us.

Addendum on 11/25:

The Smart TV app revolution is coming: Here’s what you need to know — from businessinsider.com by Dan Frommer

“Learning in the Living [Class] Room” — as explained by Daniel Christian [Campus Technology]

On 11/05/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, analytics, animation, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, creativity, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, 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, expectations, experimentation, flipping -- inverted learning, formal learning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, IBM, ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, love of learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, media/film, Michigan, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multi-touch, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), neurodivergent/special needs, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, organizational change, pace of change, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, programming, real-world assignments, reinvent, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, STEAM-related, story, storytelling, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, television, transmedia, trends, ubiquitous learning, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learning from the Living [Class] Room — from Campus Technology by Daniel Christian and Mary Grush; with a huge thanks also going out to Mr. Steven Niedzielski (@Marketing4pt0) and to Mr. Sam Beckett (@SamJohnBeck) for their assistance and some of the graphics used in making these videos.

From DSC:
These 4 short videos explain what I’m trying to relay with a vision I’m entitling, Learning from the Living [Class] Room. I’ve been pulse checking a variety of areas for years now, and the pieces of this vision continue to come into fruition. This is what I see Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) morphing into (though there may be other directions/offshoots that they go in as well).

After watching these videos, I think you will see why I think we must move to a team–based approach.

(It looks like the production folks for Campus Technology had to scale things way back in terms of video quality to insure an overall better performance for the digitally-based magazine.)

To watch these videos in a higher resolution, please use these links:

Alternatively, these videos can be found at:

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Learning Ecosystems

20 forecasts for 2014-2030 from the World Future Society

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