staying relevant

What price will society pay if higher education cannot revolutionize college as we know it and evolve a sustainable economic model?

The Ivory Tower — description from Wikipedia.org

Excerpt:

Ivory Tower is a 2014 American documentary film written, directed and produced by Andrew Rossi. The film premiered in competition category of U.S. Documentary Competition program at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014.

After its premiere at Sundance Film Festival, Participant Media, Paramount Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Films acquired distribution rights of the film. The film is scheduled to have a theatrical release in June 2014 in United Sates by Samuel Goldwyn Films. Paramount Pictures will handle the international release of the film, while Participant Media will handle the campaign for film’s theatrical release.

Class, Cost and College — from nyt.com by Frank Bruni

Excerpt:

Scheduled for theatrical release next month, “Ivory Tower” does an astonishingly thorough tour of the university landscape in a brisk 90 minutes, touching on the major changes and challenges, each of which could sustain its own documentary.

But as I watched it, one theme in particular kept capturing my attention. One set of questions kept coming to mind. How does our current system of higher education square with our concerns about social mobility? What place do the nation’s universities have in our intensifying debate about income inequality? What promise do they hold for lessening it?

The answers in “Ivory Tower” and beyond it aren’t reassuring. Indeed, the greatest crisis may be that while college supposedly represents one of the surest ladders to, and up through, the middle class, it’s not functioning that way, at least not very well.

From DSC:
I graduated with a liberal arts degree. I work at a Christian liberal arts college. I believe in the liberal arts. However, I see our current business models as broken. I, along with many others, see issues and problems that need to be dealt with — whereas many within higher education see no need to change at all. “What’s the problem?” they ask rhetorically…not wanting their great ride of the last 20-30 years to end.

But such individuals aren’t seeing the invisible devastation that’s taking place, such as the mounting/crushing debt on our students’ backs that stays with them for YEARS after they graduate. Such debt loads affect graduates’ ability to purchase a home or to save for retirement (then there’s those who didn’t graduate but spent a great deal of $$ in the attempt to get a degree). I’m also hearing that it’s delaying marriage in some cases. And unlike a car or a house, you can’t realistically refinance many student loans. (Although Elizabeth Warren is seeking to change that situation, thankfully.)

So while I strongly believe in obtaining a college education, we have to get the price down! We have to recognize that there’s an issue. Change must occur.

Technology is leaving too many of us behind [McAfee & Brynjolfsson]

On 05/16/2014, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, education reform, innovation, reinvent, robotics, society, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Technology is leaving too many of us behind — from cnn.com by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson

Excerpts:

Technology is racing ahead so quickly, in fact, that it’s leaving a lot of our institutions, organizations, policies and practices behind. It’s in these latter areas where we must increase the pace of innovation. The solution is not to slow technology down but instead to speed up the invention of new jobs. That requires unleashing entrepreneurs’ creativity. It also requires a host of other conditions.

…

Will our primary education system decrease its current emphasis on rote learning and standardized testing and start teaching skills computers don’t have, such as creativity and problem-solving?

…

The greatest flaw with our current path is the fact that a large group is being left out in every important sense. Too many people aren’t getting the skills and support they need in order to participate in a rapidly changing economy and don’t feel that they have any stake in a society that’s being created around them and without them. As a result, many are dropping out — of education, of the work force, out of their communities and out of family life.

From the WSJ’s Morning Ledger:

The online MBA comes of age.
You’d think that of all the academic pursuits, business school would remain most immune to online learning. Beyond studies, MBA programs offer up-and-coming C-suiters access to the graduate-level schmoozing that could come in handy later on. Nevertheless, the online MBA program is growing, Delta Sky Magazine’s Kevin Featherly reports. What they lack in post-exam cordials with the professor, they make up for in a more diverse, more experienced student body, say advocates. “In ground-based programs, you’re connected to a more local audience,” the dean of the University of Bridgeport’s Ernest C. Trefz School of Business tells Delta. “In the online program, you’re interacting with business professionals from around the world.” But not everything is so encouraging. A professor at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina tells Mr. Featherly how surprised he was “when a course designer suggested he use a cartoon character to illustrate a hard-core economics principle.”

Also see:

From DSC:
Consider this. Steve Jobs lived by the philosophy of cannibalizing Apple’s own business, as he held that Apple needed to cannibalize itself or someone else would do it for them. And here’s the key thing to consider: Apple is the largest company in the world, based on market cap (505.92B as of this morning) and market value.

The point is, we in higher ed can’t be afraid of change. We must change. It’s time for more Trimtab Groups within higher education.

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

10 ways to teach innovation [Markham]

On 04/24/2014, in creativity, innovation, K-12 related, pedagogy, project-based learning, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

10 ways to teach innovation — from blogs.kqed.org/mindshift by Thom Markham

Excerpt:

One overriding challenge is now coming to the fore in public consciousness: We need to reinvent just about everything. Whether scientific advances, technology breakthroughs, new political and economic structures, environmental solutions, or an updated code of ethics for 21st century life, everything is in flux—and everything demands innovative, out of the box thinking.

The burden of reinvention, of course, falls on today’s generation of students. So it follows that education should focus on fostering innovation by putting curiosity, critical thinking, deep understanding, the rules and tools of inquiry, and creative brainstorming at the center of the curriculum.

This is hardly the case, as we know. In fact, innovation and the current classroom model most often operate as antagonists. The system is evolving, but not quickly enough to get young people ready for the new world. But there are a number of ways that teachers can bypass the system and offer students the tools and experiences that spur an innovative mindset. Here are ten ideas:

Excerpt:

‘Intelligent machines’ are increasingly interconnecting. The Internet of Things is imminent, with sensor networks and mobile devices connecting everyone and everything everywhere in the near future., Singularity’ – the moment of when machines become as capable as humans – is quickly becoming a buzzword that rivals Social Media. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is certain to play a role everywhere, and robots are dropping in price dramatically while gaining quickly in functionality and skills. Exponential technological progress is evident everywhere – but how will we – as linear beings – cope with this increasing empowerment of software and machines, the tremendous gain in the flow of real-time information, and the far-reaching implications that these developments will have? How will we keep up with thousands of real-time datafeeds, the ever-increasing volume, variety and depth of input, the tsunami of incoming communications and the rapidly improving smartness – and increasingly deep intelligence – of software, devices and machines? Will humans need to be ‘augmented’, soon, in order to keep up, and if so, where will this take us? What will happen to our ethics in a world of ultra-smart intelligent agents, artificial intelligence and the coming ‘trans-humanism’?

Reflections on “MOOCs: Coursera moves towards massive revenues on certification” by Donald Clark

On 04/14/2014, in 24x7x365 access, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, entrepreneurship, experimentation, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, reinvent, smart/connected TV, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs: Coursera moves towards massive revenues on certification — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk by Donald Clark

Excerpt:

Real revenues
Coursera took one year to hit $1 million on revenues from certification, 3 months to hit $2 million (Feb 14) and now report $4 million (Apr 14), that’s $2 million in the following two months. Impressive compound growth. This has been achieved through their Coursera certificate track, which, at $30-$100 per course, has seen an average 1.2% conversion rate double up to the current average of 2.4%, giving them $4 mlllion, driven by demand from employers. Note this last observation – ‘driven by employers’.

From DSC:
Donald is right on the mark here: MOOCs continue to experiment, morph, innovate. They appear to have found a solid source of revenue with their certifications. Also, as Donald emphasizes, this growth is driven by employers. I’d encourage you to read his posting, as he points out several other innovations in what Coursera is doing.

It makes me wonder…

Are institutions of traditional higher education experimenting, morphing, innovating enough?
.
Are we modeling for our students what they will need to do — at least at points — in their careers? (i.e. pivoting, failing/trying again, adapting, experimenting, innovating)

We can’t always hit home runs. We need to be able to fail/try again and create a culture that rewards innovation.

Last thought here:
When connected/smart TV’s get worked out,
MOOCs could add/leverage that type of
platform for some powerful, global
learning (24 x 7 x 365)…helping people reinvent
themselves at extremely attractive prices.

In defense of a liberal arts degree [Benett]

On 04/10/2014, in art, career development, corporate / business world, creativity, higher education, history, liberal arts, psychology, reinvent, staying relevant, STEAM-related, student-related, surviving, writing, by Daniel Christian

In defense of a liberal arts degree — from fastcompany.com by Andrew Benett
They might be getting overshadowed by STEM degrees in the news, but liberal arts degrees have a lot to offer their students.

Excerpt:

I know a lot of liberal arts graduates. I have hired a bunch of them. And I am one myself, having studied both psychology and art history. What I have found is that people with degrees in subjects such as history and literature–and, yes, even philosophy–tend to possess many of the qualities, skill sets, and aptitudes that are in highest demand in my own industry (marketing communications) and in others that rely on creative thinking and foresight.

In my experience, these are the areas in which liberal arts graduates really stand apart:

— Agility and adaptability
— Storytelling and persuasion
— Historical consciousness

What educationally-related affordances might we enjoy from these TV-related developments?

On 04/09/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bring your own device (BYOD), communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, e-books, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, flipping -- inverted learning, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, lifelong learning, media/film, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, Near Field Communication (NFC), online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

CONTENTS

Content discovery and synchronization
With access to rich data about their subscribers and what they do, operators can improve recommendation, encourage social TV and exploit second screen synchronization.
Recordings get more personal
One of the next big steps in multiscreen TV is giving people access to their personal recordings on every screen. This is the moment for nPVR to finally make its entrance.
Evolving the User Experience
As service providers go beyond household level and address individuals, the role of log-ins or context will become important. There is a place for social TV and big data.
The role of audio in personalization
Audio has a huge impact on how much we enjoy video services. Now it can help to personalize them. ‘Allegiance’ based audio choices are one possibility.
Making advertising more targeted
Addressable advertising is in its infancy but has a bright future, helping to fund the growth of on-demand and multiscreen viewing.

Some excerpts from this report:

Good content should be matched by good content discovery , including recommendations. The current state-of -the-art is defined by Netflix.

…

Today’s TV experience is worlds apart from the one we were talking about even five years ago. We’ve witnessed exponential growth in services such as HD and have moved from a model in which one screen is watched by many, to many screens (and devices) being available to the individual viewer, what is today called TV Everywhere. Having multiscreen access to content is driving the demand for a more personalised experience, in which the viewer can expect to see what they want, where, and when. While video on-demand (VOD) has been a great method for delivering compelling content to viewers, it is not always a truly seamless TV-like experience, and traditionally has been limited to the living room. The growing demand for the personalised experience is driving seismic change within the TV industry, and we’ve seen great strides made already, with time-shifted TV and nPVR as just two examples of how we in the industry can deliver content in the ways viewers want to watch. The next step is to move towards more advanced content discovery, effectively creating a personalised channel or playlist for the individual user.

…

As the tools become available to deliver personalized experiences to consumers, content owners can better create experiences that leverage their content. For example, for sports with multiple points of action, like motor racing, multiple camera angles and audio feeds will allow fans to follow the action that is relevant to their favourite racing team. And for movies, access to additional elements such as director’s commentaries, which have been available on Blu-ray discs for some time, can be made available over broadcast networks.

From DSC:
Some words and phrases that come to my mind:

Personalization.
Data driven.
Content discovery and recommendation engines (which could easily relate to educational playlists)
Training on demand
Learning agents
Web-based learner profiles
Learning hubs
What MOOCs morph into
More choice. More control.
Virtual tutoring
Interactivity and participation
Learning preferences
Lifelong learning
Reinventing oneself
Streams of content
Learning from The Living [Class] Room

From DSC:
Sometimes, the advice of the old economy no longer applies.

Growing up, our family had a wonderful neighbor named Dr. John Evans. He had worked for a large, successful company called Upjohn (in the pharmaceutical industry) for most, if not all, of his career. I used to mow his lawn. I remember him giving me some lemonade or pop on those hot summer days here in Michigan. On one such occasion, I recall him saying to me, “Danny…you just need to find a good company and hop on board. You can ride that train for a long time.”

That strategy worked very well for him. He had been with Upjohn for many years before retiring from that corporation. So that advice was spot on — for the economy and job market that he had known and participated in.

So, upon graduating from college, I tried to implement that strategy. My first job out of college was with a company called Baxter Healthcare (a large corporation that had just merged with American Hospital Supply and began laying off numerous people, as many jobs were then duplicated). Anyway, that employment lasted all of 4 years before all employees in our division of Baxter had to move to Florida or New York or lose their jobs. As I didn’t want to move at the time, I was forced to find another job. (I’m quite sure many people out there who were working in the U.S. in the 80’s and 90’s — the decades of some serious merger and acquisition activity — can relate to such experiences.)

Anyway, these memories came back to me when I recently read a sentence from Sarah Kendzior’s Nov 2013 piece entitled Surviving the post-employment economy. That sentence said, “If you are 35 or younger – and quite often, older – the advice of the old economy does not apply to you.”

Wow. That rang true with me. It surely resonated with my experience.

So, as the growth of contingent workers continues, I’d like to join many others in putting some new advice out there. My advice to folks — especially to you younger people — would be to take courses, subscribe to the RSS feeds of relevant blogs, follow people on Twitter, and build your personal learning network (at least in part) around the topics of:

Entrepreneurship
Running your own business
Creativity
Being able to adapt, pivot
Experimentation
Freelancing
Disruption
Learning how to learn
Lifelong learning
Identifying and following your passions
Futurism — and learning how to pulse check a variety of landscapes

That’s my 2 cents for now.

The gradients of life and learning [Christian]

On 03/22/2014, in adult learning, change, Daniel S. Christian, education reform, graphics, heutagogy, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I was thinking about how we might help move people from situations whereby their learning is directed by others, to situations where they are owning and directing their own learning. It made me think of a process…a journey…implementing gradual changes over time.

As I like to work with graphics, it made me think of a gradient. A gradient, in the graphic design world, is a gradual change of colors. For example:

DanielChristianExampleOfAGradient-March2014

But then, I thought about how there are gradients of life. Such as:

DanielChristianFromBirthTo-K

DanielChristianFromK-8

DanielChristianFromHS-Student-to-Working-Adult-March2014

DanielChristianFromBegWorking-Adult-AdvancedYrsWorkingAdult

(This image from early years to later years was one that I hesitated to even put on here…
as a smooth gradient is not the case for many of us in our “careers.” But roll with me here.)

So, how can we implement the type of gradient in life whereby we help move people from learning that is directed by others to learning that is self-directed?

DanielChristianFromTo-SelfDirLearning

The reason this is important is that we all need to continually tend to our learning ecosystems. We need to be constantly reinventing ourselves to stay relevant. As such, we all need to be lifelong learners. We all need to own and direct our own learning now. That is, no longer is it the case that a person can go to college for 4-8 years and then be set for life.

How can we best provide the people, content, processes, and tools that provide the scaffolding to help these gradual changes take place?

Major questions need to be asked — and addressed — due to these shifts [Christian]

On 03/17/2014, in 21st century, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, informal learning, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, new business models, pace of change, professional development, reinvent, robotics, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpts:

If Daniel Nadler is right, a generation of college graduates with well-paid positions as junior researchers and analysts in the banking industry should be worried about their jobs. Very worried.

Mr Nadler’s start-up, staffed with ex-Google engineers and backed partly by money from Google’s venture capital arm, is trying to put them out of work.

…

The threat to jobs stretches beyond the white-collar world. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) also make possible more versatile robots capable of taking over many types of manual work. “It’s going to decimate jobs at the low end,” predicts Jerry Kaplan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who teaches a class about AI at Stanford University. Like others working in the field, he says he is surprised by the speed at which the new technologies are moving out of the research labs.

From DSC:
After reading the above article — and seeing presentations about these trends (example) — I have some major questions to ask:

What changes do those of us working within higher education need to make due to these shifts? How should we modify our curricula? Which skills need to be reinforced/developed?
What changes do Learning & Development groups and Training Departments need to make within the corporate world?
How should we be developing our K-12 students to deal with such a volatile workplace?
What changes do adult learners need to make to stay marketable/employable? How can they reinvent themselves (and know what that reinvention should look like)?
How can each of us know if our job is next on the chopping block and if it is, what should we do about it?
What kind of future do we want?

These changes are for real. The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee further addresses some of these trends and changes. See:

Addendum:

Also see:

Bill Gates: Yes, robots really are about to take your jobs — from bgr.com by Brad Reed

Bill Gates Interview Robots

Excerpt:

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates isn’t going to sugarcoat things: The increasing power of automation technology is going to put a lot of people out of work. Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots.

Also see:

Make Work More Human — from Harold Jarche

Beyond the Course: The Learning Flow – a new framework for the social learning era [Hart]

On 03/01/2014, in 21st century, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, reinvent, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, streams of content, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Beyond the Course: The Learning Flow – a new framework for the social learning era — from janeknight.typepad.com by Jane Hart

Excerpts:

But in the age of Facebook and Twitter, and now Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs) like Yammer and Jive – where at the heart lies an activity stream that is used for a continuous stream of knowledge exchange, there is a place for a new learning framework – one that lies between the formal, instructionally designed course and the unstructured knowledge sharing of teams, groups and communities. We call this a Learning Flow.

A Learning Flow is a continuous steady stream of social micro-learning activities – accessible from the web and mobile devices

Let’s look at each of the elements of that sentence, that describe a Learning Flow

continuous – ongoing (ie no end date)
steady – daily (or probably more likely, weekdaily)
micro-learning – short – ie taking no longer than 15-20 minutes to undertake
activities – that involve reading (watching or listening to) something and doing something
social – that invite and encourage active participation and contribution
stream – that are organised and structured in the Flow in weekly themes
accessible from web and mobile devices – to ensure that learning can take place anywhere and at anytime

From DSC:
Jane’s posting gets at what I’ve been trying to get at with the graphic below; and that is, we need to be consistently dipping our feet into streams of relevant content (i.e. relevant to our own learning ecosystems and what each of us needs to know to get and stay marketable).

Technology and jobs: Coming to an office near you
The effect of today’s technology on tomorrow’s jobs will be immense—and no country is ready for it — from economist.com by

Excerpts:

INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.

…

No time to be timid
If this analysis is halfway correct, the social effects will be huge. Many of the jobs most at risk are lower down the ladder (logistics, haulage), whereas the skills that are least vulnerable to automation (creativity, managerial expertise) tend to be higher up, so median wages are likely to remain stagnant for some time and income gaps are likely to widen.

Anger about rising inequality is bound to grow, but politicians will find it hard to address the problem. Shunning progress would be as futile now as the Luddites’ protests against mechanised looms were in the 1810s, because any country that tried to stop would be left behind by competitors eager to embrace new technology. The freedom to raise taxes on the rich to punitive levels will be similarly constrained by the mobility of capital and highly skilled labour.

The main way in which governments can help their people through this dislocation is through education systems. One of the reasons for the improvement in workers’ fortunes in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution was because schools were built to educate them—a dramatic change at the time. Now those schools themselves need to be changed, to foster the creativity that humans will need to set them apart from computers. There should be less rote-learning and more critical thinking. Technology itself will help, whether through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or even video games that simulate the skills needed for work.

Need a job? Invent it [Friedman]

On 02/15/2014, in 21st century, business, career development, corporate / business world, economics, passions, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Need a job? Invent it — from nytimes.com by Thomas Friedman

Excerpt:

When Tony Wagner, the Harvard education specialist, describes his job today, he says he’s “a translator between two hostile tribes” — the education world and the business world, the people who teach our kids and the people who give them jobs. Wagner’s argument in his book “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World” is that our K-12 and college tracks are not consistently “adding the value and teaching the skills that matter most in the marketplace.”

This is dangerous at a time when there is increasingly no such thing as a high-wage, middle-skilled job — the thing that sustained the middle class in the last generation. Now there is only a high-wage, high-skilled job.

Learning Ecosystems

The Online MBA comes of age [WSJ]

20 forecasts for 2014-2030 from the World Future Society

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