staying relevant

The skills that you need to hone to become a software engineer [English]

On 11/19/2019, in 21st century, career development, computer science, programming, staying relevant, student-related, by Daniel Christian

The skills that you need to hone to become a software engineer — from interestingengineering.com by Trevor English
Software engineering jobs are expected to increase in demand by 25% over the next decade.

Excerpt:

One of the first steps to becoming a software engineer or even just evaluating whether it’s the right career path is learning a new programming language. Programming is the bulk of what software engineers do on the day to day, so if you don’t like it or just can’t seem to get good at it, you might want to choose another path.

Breaking it down elementary style, a programming language is just a language that computers understand that can give it commands to execute certain tasks. There are hundreds of programming languages that exist, around 700, but there will be a core subset that are used commonly in the industry

Here are a few of the core languages that you might want to look into.

Java
Javascript
Python
C++
PHP

Also see:

The 10 fastest-growing programming languages, according to Microsoft-owned GitHub — from businessinsider.com by Rosalie Chan

Delivering learning across a lifetime: Higher education’s new paradigm — from evolllution.com with thanks to Mr. Amrit Ahluwalia for his work on this

Excerpt:

Higher education is no longer a single engagement in an individual’s life, or a stop-off point between high school and a career.
Today, and into the future, higher education’s role is ongoing as the demands of the future labor market will require individuals to continuously up-skill and re-skill to remain relevant. As such, while the traditional two- or four-year postsecondary model will continue to play an important role, colleges and universities must expand their repertoire to consciously deliver learning across individuals’ lifetimes.

Read on to learn how the 100 Year Life is changing the fundamental learning needs of individuals across the labor market, and to understand how postsecondary institutions can evolve to fulfil their missions within this new paradigm.

From DSC:
This important perspective/trend reminds me of the graphic below…

Also see:

60 years of higher ed --really?

The employee of the future, he added, “typically will have a new job every five years, probably for 60 to 80 years, and probably every one of those will require skills you did not learn in college.”

‘Goliath is winning’: The biggest U.S. banks are set to automate away 200,000 jobs — from gizmodo.com by Brian Merchant

Excerpt (excerpt):

Over the next decade, U.S. banks, which are investing $150 billion in technology annually, will use automation to eliminate 200,000 jobs, thus facilitating “the greatest transfer from labor to capital” in the industry’s history. The call is coming from inside the house this time, too—both the projection and the quote come from a recent Wells Fargo report, whose lead author, Mike Mayo, told the Financial Times that he expects the industry to shed 10 percent of all of its jobs.

This, Mayo said, will lay the groundwork for, and I quote, “a golden age of banking efficiency.” The job cuts are slated to hit front offices, call centers, and branches the hardest, where 20-30 percent of those roles will be on the chopping block. They will be replaced by better ATMs, automated chatbots, and software instruments that take advantage of big data and cloud computing to make investment decisions.

“The next decade should be the biggest decade for banks in technology in history,” Mayo said.

From DSC:
How does this impact entry level positions? How does this help a young graduate who is trying to get out of the Catch 22 with job experience? How are colleges and universities helping young people navigate these quickly changing landscapes?

In DC, teachers run the jail. It’s turning inmates into students. [Koenig]

On 10/04/2019, in adult learning, career development, colleges, community colleges, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs, Lifelong learning, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

In DC, teachers run the jail. It’s turning inmates into students. — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

That was before Amy Lopez showed up. In 2017, the petite Texan arrived at the jail with an armada of plans and the energy to launch them. She invited college professors to teach for-credit classes inside, in person. She purchased tablets to offer short-term learning opportunities to transient inmates. And she created a residential learning bloc named for the phoenix, the mythical bird who rises from its ashes to have a second chance at life.

“Every single person I talk to—staff members or incarcerated students—will say it was a game-changer when she arrived,” says Marc M. Howard, director of the Prisons and Justice Initiative at Georgetown University. “I’ve never seen an administration, a staff, an agency so supportive of programming for its incarcerated residents. I think they’re a model of what corrections officials around the country should be.”
…

It turns out, people in jail love TED Talks.

The videos are inspiring, informative and—perhaps most importantly—available any time on the tablets they can borrow for hours on end.

“A lot of people come to jail and just leave with nothing. They don’t know nothing but what they knew before they came,” he says. “If you had something to go out there and look forward to, there’s less chance you’ll be turned back.”

Also see:

Kansas City high schools add real-world learning — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpt:

The good news is that more young people are graduating from high school than ever. The bad news? High school is often less relevant to them and their futures than ever.

The largest effort to make high school more valuable—to young people and their communities— is underway in the six-county two-state Kansas City metro area.

About 60 schools in 15 districts from Kansas and Missouri are spending this school year investigating ways they can make high school more valuable to young people by incorporating more real-world learning.

From DSC:
I know that by the end of his junior year, our son was so tired of having information crammed down his throat. He viewed so much of the content of his courses as irrelevant and unimportant. This year, he is immersed in what he wants to do — acting. And now he is soooooo much more motivated to learn and to grow now that he is able to pursue his passion.

Reflections on “DIY Mindset Reshaping Education” [Schaffhauser]

On 09/17/2019, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, algorithms, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, consortiums, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, 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, internet, Law Schools, leadership, learning, Learning Agents, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, learning hubs, learning preferences, learning spaces, learning theories, Lifelong learning, marketplaces, Microlearning, Mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more choice more control, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, by Daniel Christian

DIY Mindset Reshaping Education — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

A do-it-yourself mindset is changing the face of education worldwide, according to new survey results. Learners are “patching together” their education from a “menu of options,” including self-teaching, short courses and bootcamps, and they believe that self-service instruction will become even more prevalent for lifelong learning. In the United Sates specifically, 84 percent of people said learning would become even more self-service the older they get.

Among those who have needed to reskill in the last two years to continue doing their jobs, 42 percent found information online and taught themselves and 41 percent took a course or training offered by their employers, a professional association or bootcamp, compared to just 28 percent who pursued a professional certification program, 25 percent who enrolled in a university-level degree program or 12 percent who did nothing.

If people had to learn something new for their career quickly, they said they would be more likely turn to a short training program (47 percent), followed by access to a free resource such as YouTube, Lynda.com or Khan Academy (33 percent). A smaller share (20 percent) would head to an accredited university or college.

From DSC:
This is why the prediction from Thomas Frey carries weight and why I’ve been tracking a new learning platform for the 21st century. Given:

The exponential pace of technological change occurring in many societies throughout the globe

That emerging technologies are game-changers in many industries
That people will need to learn about those emerging technologies and how to leverage/use them <– if they want to remain marketable/employed
That people need to reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively
That many people can’t afford the time nor the funding necessary these days to acquire a four-year higher ed degree
That running new courses, programs, etc. through committees, faculty senates, etc. takes a great deal of time…and time is something we no longer have (given this new pace of change)

…there needs to be a new, up-to-date, highly responsive, inexpensive learning-related platform for the 21st century. I call this learning platform of the future, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.” And while it requires subject matter experts / humans in significant ways, AI and other technologies will be embedded throughout such a platform.

“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.

— source

Addendum on 9/18/19:

Education Startup Launches Online Courses for College Credit — from campustechnology.com by Sara Friedman

For $400 per course, students will be able to gain access to course videos that are cinematically filmed and taught by “some of the brightest minds in academia.” Outlier.org students will also have access to problem sets, one-on-one tutoring and assessments proctored through artificial intelligence.

Technology as Part of the Culture for Legal Professionals [Grush & Christian]

On 09/09/2019, in 21st century, adult learning, algorithms, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning, Blockchain, bots, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, cognitive computing, collaboration, communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education, emerging technologies, engineering, future, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, intelligent systems, Law Schools, leadership, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Lifelong learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), online learning, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, Technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of technology, tools, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Technology as Part of the Culture for Legal Professionals A Q&A with Daniel Christian — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Daniel Christian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Mary Grush: Why should new technologies be part of a legal education?

Daniel Christian: I think it’s a critical point because our society, at least in the United States — and many other countries as well — is being faced with a dramatic influx of emerging technologies. Whether we are talking about artificial intelligence, blockchain, Bitcoin, chatbots, facial recognition, natural language processing, big data, the Internet of Things, advanced robotics — any of dozens of new technologies — this is the environment that we are increasingly living in, and being impacted by, day to day.

It is so important for our nation that legal professionals — lawyers, judges, attorney generals, state representatives, and legislators among them — be up to speed as much as possible on the technologies that surround us: What are the issues their clients and constituents face? It’s important that legal professionals regularly pulse check the relevant landscapes to be sure that they are aware of the technologies that are coming down the pike. To help facilitate this habit, technology should be part of the culture for those who choose a career in law. (And what better time to help people start to build that habit than within the law schools of our nation?)

There is a real need for the legal realm to catch up with some of these emerging technologies, because right now, there aren’t many options for people to pursue. If the lawyers, and the legislators, and the judges don’t get up to speed, the “wild wests” out there will continue until they do.

A Financial Crisis — Student Loan Debt — from freedomdebtrelief.com by Micahel Micheletti; with thanks to Aimée Bennett (APR, Principal, Fagan Business Communications, Inc.) for this resource

Key findings

1) Impact of student loan debt on stress, day-to-day life (college attendees/grads)

67% of respondents said the cost of their college education has caused them to feel overwhelmed.
47% said their college education cost has contributed to mental or emotional health issues (e.g., anxiety, depression).
38% said the cost has caused them to lose sleep at night.
49% said the cost of their college education has impacted their choice of where to live.
42% said it impacted their choice of careers or jobs.

2) Impact of student loan debt on finances (college attendees/grads)

59% respondents said they can’t save any money because of the cost of their college education.
45% said they can’t go on vacation because of college costs.
32% said they are carrying credit card debt because of college costs.
48% said they have been unable to pay off (or down), or have delayed paying off (or down), other types of debt because of the cost of college.
47% have been unable to, or have delayed contributing to, saving for emergencies.
43% believe their college education cost has impacted their retirement age.

3) Willing to make sacrifices to eliminate student loan debt (college attendees/grads)

52% of respondents said they would take a job with a salary less than what they expected if the company paid off their student debt.
27% said they would be willing to commit a maximum of five years to a company if they paid off their student loans; 28% said they would be willing to commit more than five years.

4) Impact of child’s student loan debt on parents

20% of parents said their child’s college education cost has contributed to mental or emotional health issues (e.g., anxiety, depression) of their own.
20% of parents said their child’s college education cost has caused them to lose sleep at night.
40% of parents believe their child’s college education cost has impacted their retirement age; 41% said the cost has impacted their overall retirement plan.
42% said they had given up saving for retirement; 42% gave up going on vacation.

Additional survey findings

1) Student loan debt reforms

54% of students said they feel that student loan debt should be forgiven by the federal government.
63% of students, and 52% of parents, said they would support expanding student loan forgiveness for those in public service (e.g., teachers, government employees, first responders, military service).
54% of students, and 42% of parents, said they would support free or subsidized tuition for low-income households.
53% of students, and 50% of parents, said they would support tax breaks for companies that offer student-loan repayment programs.

2) Expected length of time to pay off student loan debt

3) Lack of knowledge of loan terms, types – among both college attendees/grads and parents

Dallas County Community College District Students Receive “GreenLight”? Toward Ownership, Lifelong Access of Academic Records — from linkedin.com by Timothy Marshall; with thanks to Mike Mathews for this resource out on LinkedIn

Excerpt:

(DALLAS) — Gone are the days of a lengthy and sometimes costly process to request educational records for job or college applications. Through its investments in groundbreaking technology, DCCCD is allowing students unprecedented access to their educational transcripts. This places students in the unique position to maintain lifelong digital ownership of their complete academic credentials, with the flexibility to use those records to propel them toward academic and career success.

DCCCD is pleased to announce a new partnership with Dallas-based GreenLight Credentials, a new secure digital locker. With GreenLight, DCCCD students will have wide-ranging access to their academic records anytime, anyplace, by simply clicking a button.

A New Way Forward: CAEL Association Update (August 2019) –from evolllution.com by Marie Cini | President, CAEL
As the labor market continues to evolve, CAEL will play a critical role in establishing a collaborative ecosystem linking learners, employers and postsecondary institutions.

Excerpt:

I’m delighted to announce a new partnership between CAEL and The EvoLLLution to deliver timely information on the latest advances related to serving adult working learners. When you consider the rapidly changing nature of the work our members face, it’s hard to imagine a more aptly named organization to collaborate with!

This partnership will provide CAEL members with fresh thinking twice a month in the form of a brief digital newsletter. The focus will be on lifelong learning and transforming traditional structures to better meet the needs of today’s working learners in communities, across industries, inside all postsecondary institutions.

DC: Can you hear/feel the culture clash here?

On 07/31/2019, in career development, change, colleges, cost of getting a degree, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, learning, learning ecosystem, learning from the living [class] room, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, Walmart of Education --> New Amazon.com of Higher Education, by Daniel Christian

To End Student Debt, Tie Tuition to Post-Graduation Salaries — from wired.com by Austen Allred
Opinion: If colleges only get paid when their graduates do, they’re incentivized to provide a service that actually gets students hired.

Excerpt:

But unlike student loans, if regulated responsibly, ISAs power a risk-averse path to higher education. Responsible ISAs—which typically require zero upfront cost, repayment only if and when the graduate lands a job earning a sizable income, and an ethical repayment cap, such as $30,000 total—eliminate cost as a barrier to entry. But it’s the way that ISAs align the incentives of school and student that makes the model paradigm-changing.
…
The financial tool serves a diversity of students. People who can’t afford the cost of a traditional on-campus degree, or who don’t have access to federal- or state-based aid programs, can pursue a postsecondary education at no upfront cost. Additionally, those who are transitioning back into the workforce or changing careers can retrain in in-demand fields.

There’s no one-size-fits-all path to higher education. But Income Share Agreements prove that shouldering enormous risk doesn’t have to be a prerequisite for students. ISAs imagine a future in which graduates aren’t burdened by growing debt, and where opportunity is as evenly distributed as talent.

From DSC:
Can you hear and feel the culture clash that’s embedded here? I can.

On one side of the coin, there exists many faculty members, deans, provosts, and college/university presidents as well as other members of administration who maintain a more liberal arts perspective — that college is meant for learning and preparing students for many jobs…not just their first jobs.

On the other side of the coin are students who are paying ever increasing amounts of money to obtain their degrees. They want good jobs, and aren’t necessarily at school for the noble cause of learning. Many of these folks have different perspectives about what higher education is for…what it’s purpose is meant to be.

As the price of higher ed has increased, the former ways of viewing what a college education is supposed to be about — i.e., learning and a broad-based liberal arts type of education — are being increasingly shoved out the door. This is now by necessity I might add.

Along these lines, I can hear one of my former colleagues — an academic dean from years ago –adamantly insisting that higher education is not a business and that our students are not customers.

Since that time, it’s become very clear to me that higher education is most definitely a business. Not focusing on the multi-million dollar TV contracts or what many football coaches get paid…or not focusing on the revenue that research universities make on patents…let’s just focus on charging someone the price of a nice home for a 4-year degree. That alone makes it a business in my mind. The rising price of education has created customers.

(By the way, this development occurred on the watch of many of those same faculty members, provosts, presidents and other members of administration, etc. that claim a more noble goal of higher education.)

Students today can’t afford to attend school the way boomers did. As the article states:

When I went to college, nobody talked about student debt. Nobody talked about trade-offs. Everybody lived by one credo: Go to the best school you can, study the thing that you love, and it will work out on the other side. Frankly, for Boomers, that’s what happened. If you got a degree, you could expect to land a decent job with a decent salary. Even if you did accrue debt during college, payments were often manageable and short-lived.

That is certainly not the case anymore, as the article points out:

Bottom line:

Change has to occur. It can’t keep going on like this. We are at the precipice of massive change. It has to change or we are in massive trouble as a nation. The ramifications of this kind of student debt last for decades!

This is why a next generation, online-based learning platform will be the answer for many people. Surely such a delivery method and learning experience will not work for everyone — as the face-to-face (F2f) experience is still excellent and preferred by many people. But the F2F experience is arguably becoming the Maserati….and increasingly out of reach…and it’s burying people in debt for decades to come.

5 Years Since Starbucks Offered to Help Baristas Attend College, How Many Have Graduated? — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

…nearly 3,000 Starbucks employees who have earned bachelor’s degrees online through the company-university partnership program.

The arrangement was possible logistically because Humberstone took her courses in business and environmental sustainability entirely online. And it was feasible financially because Starbucks and Arizona State University covered most of her tuition bill.

The future of work in America — from mckinsey.com by Jacques Bughin, James Manyika. and Jonathan Woetzel | July 2019

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Local economies across the country have been on diverging trajectories for years, and ***they are entering the automation age from different starting points.*** Our view incorporates the current state of local labor markets as well as the jobs that could be lost and gained in the decade ahead.

The US labor market looks markedly different today than it did two decades ago. It has been reshaped by dramatic events like the Great Recession but also by a quieter ongoing evolution in the mix and location of jobs. In the decade ahead, the next wave of technology may accelerate the pace of change. Millions of jobs could be phased out even as new ones are created. More broadly, the day-to-day nature of work could change for nearly everyone as intelligent machines become fixtures in the American workplace.
…
The labor market could become even more polarized. Workers with a high school degree or less are four times as likely as those with a bachelor’s degree to be displaced by automation. Reflecting more limited access to education, Hispanic workers are most at risk of displacement, followed by African Americans. Jobs held by nearly 15 million workers ages 18–34 may be automated, so young people will need new career paths to gain an initial foothold in the working world. Roughly 11.5 million workers over age 50 could also be displaced and face the challenge of making late-career moves. The hollowing out of middle wage work could continue.
…
The future of work is not just about how many jobs could be lost and gained. Technology is altering the day-to-day mix of activities associated with more and more jobs over time. The occupational mix of the economy is changing, and the demand for skills is changing along with it. Employers will need to manage large-scale workforce transformations that could involve redefining business processes and workforce needs, retraining and moving some people into new roles, and creating programs for continuous learning. This could be an opportunity to upgrade jobs and make them more rewarding. The choices that employers make will ripple through the communities in which they operate.

The need for a next gen learning platform is quickly approaching us!
Either that, or colleges and universities better get FAR more
responsive/nimble, and focus FAR more on lifelong learning.
This is not a joke.
This is not just text on a web page.
This is a future that’s barreling at us at amazingly fast speeds.
A new chapter is coming at us quickly.

DC: Again, the need for a next gen learning platform is quickly approaching us: "A central challenge in the automation age will be connecting millions of displaced workers to new, growing jobs." #lifelonglearning #reinvent #learning #platforms https://t.co/QDPZtG2jFk

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) July 16, 2019

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code [Matsakis]

On 07/11/2019, in Amazon, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data mining, pace of change, platforms, programming, reinvent, robotics, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code — from wired.com by Louise Matsakis

Excerpt:

Amazon announced Thursday that it will spend up to $700 million over the next six years retraining 100,000 of its US employees, mostly in technical skills like software engineering and IT support. Amazon is already one of the largest employers in the country, with almost 300,000 workers (and many more contractors) and it’s particularly hungry for more new talent. The company currently has more than 20,000 vacant US roles, over half of which are at its headquarters in Seattle. Meanwhile, the US economy is booming, and there are now more open jobs than there are unemployed people who can fill them, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Against that backdrop, Amazon’s jobs skills efforts provide some reassurance that—in theory at least—you could be retrained into a new role when the robots arrive.

From the announcement:

Based on a review of its workforce and analysis of U.S. hiring, Amazon’s fastest growing highly skilled jobs over the last five years include data mapping specialist, data scientist, solutions architect and business analyst, as well as logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist within our customer fulfillment network.

Also see:

Amazon to Invest $700M to Retrain 100,000 Workers for New Jobs — from pcmag.com by Michael Kan Icon
‘There is a greater need for technical skills in the workplace than ever before. Amazon is no exception,’ the company said. The goal is to ‘upskill’ one third of Amazon’s total work force by 2025 through free retraining programs.

Learning Ecosystems

Technology as Part of the Culture for Legal Professionals [Grush & Christian]

The future of work in America [McKinsey]

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code [Matsakis]

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