From coursmos.com

  • Complete a micro-course in just one hour or less.
  • Learn just what you need or are interested in right now.
  • Expand any lesson as a separate micro-course.
  • Request a new micro-course and get it in a few days.

 

From DSC:
Would be interesting if this type of model gets integrated into Learning from the Living [Class] Room type of approach. It brings to my mind “just-in-time learning” as well as the idea of tapping into “streams of content.”

 

Also see:

 
 
 

True personalization is the next big thing in multiscreen TV [Moulding]

True personalization is the next big thing in multiscreen TV — from .v-net.tv by John Moulding

 

 

 

From DSC:
Not a far stretch to see some applications of this in the future aimed at learning objects/learning agents/and personalized streams of content.

 

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

Addendum:
(With thanks going out to Mr. Richard Byrne over at the Free Technology for Teachers blog for this item
)

 

 

SchoolsWorldTV-Sept2013

 

Bookless public library opens in Texas — from npr.org by Bill Chappell with thanks to Laura Goodrich/Don Tapscott for this resource

Excerpt:

.

An artist's rendering shows computer stations at the new BiblioTech bookless public library in Bexar County, Texas. The library is holding its grand opening Saturday.
.
From DSC:
If this is successful and takes off, can this also be achieved/made available from our living rooms…?
Addendums on 9/18/13:
 

A first look at how educators are really using Google Glass — from by Stephen Noonoo

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Per Andrew Vanden Heuvel:

What Glass does offer, Vanden Heuvel said, is a shift in perspective, particularly because teachers can use it as a tool to engage students faster and more easily than before. After returning from Geneva, Vanden Heuvel launched a YouTube channel devoted to his experiments with science–and Glass–called STEMBite. To date, in more than two dozen videos, he’s guided viewers through the physics of ball spin on the tennis court to the polarization of light through (appropriately enough) a pair of glasses.

“What I’m excited by making these videos is not only that they’re filmed with Google Glass, but they’re high engagement videos, so they’re meant to be really short and to get kids to think about how math and science is all around,” he said. “I suppose I could have done that before, but it’s just so easy now.”

Per Hanna Brown:

“I’ve had videos in my classroom before–that’s not a novel thing–but I’ve never been able to take a video from my eye perspective,” said Hannah Brown, another early Glass adopter who works as a high school art teacher at Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an all-online statewide charter school in Ohio.

 

HannahBrown-9-11-13-Art-and-Google-Glass-thejournal

 

From DSC:
Virtual field trips, mobile learning, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and other topics come to my mind when I see this.

 

 

IBM-WatsonAtWork-Sept2013

 

From DSC:
IBM Watson continues to expand into different disciplines/areas, which currently include:

  • Healthcare
  • Finance
  • Customer Service

But Watson is also entering the marketing and education/research realms.

I see a Watson-type-of-tool as being a key ingredient for future MOOCs and the best chance for MOOCs to morph into something very powerful indeed — offloading the majority of the workload to computers/software/intelligent tutoring/learning agents, while at the same time allowing students to connect with each other and/or to Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) as appropriate.

The price of education could hopefully come way down — depending upon the costs involved with licensing Watson or a similar set of technologies — as IBM could spread out their costs to multiple institutions/organizations.  This vision represents another important step towards the “Walmart of Education” that continues to develop before our eyes.

Taking this even one step further, I see this system being available to us on our mobile devices as well as in our living rooms — as the telephone, the television, and the computer continue to converge.  Blended learning on steroids.

What would make this really powerful would be to provide:

  • The ability to create narratives/stories around content
  • To feed streams of content into Watson for students to tap into
  • Methods of mining data and using that to tweak algorithms, etc. to improve the tools/learning opportunities

Such an architecture could be applied towards lifelong learning opportunities — addressing what we now know as K-12, higher education, and corporate training/development.

.

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

IBM and USTA captivate tennis fans with immersive second screen experience — from MarketWatch.com
Analytics, cloud, mobile and social computing technologies deliver US Open to fans’ fingertips

 

Excerpt:

The innovative digital US Open environment provides fans, players, broadcasters and media with access to a range of Big Data insights streaming from the courts, including stats, facts, videos, live scoring, and historical and real-time analysis of tennis data served to tablets, smartphones, PCs and other devices.

 

Also see:

USOpen-USTA-IBM-Aug2013

 

.

USOpen2-USTA-IBM-Aug2013

 

From DSC:
Questions I wonder about:

  • How might this sort of thing help us in education? What if, instead of a tennis match, it was a debate on X vs. Y…?
    .
  • Could we use it in educational gaming apps?
    .
  • If so, what sorts of apps that lean on social learning could we create?
    .
  • How could professional development/conferences use this type of immersive second screen experience? What sorts of opportunities for participation would open up?
    .
  • Could we develop things like this that help us learn things IN REAL TIME from the streams of content flowing by? (Do learning agents employ this sort of thing?)

 

 

 

Somewhat-related items:

College students bring targeted media to doctors’ waiting rooms — from entrepreneur.com by Michelle Goodman

Excerpt:

Their idea was to sell doctors’ offices prepackaged video segments containing tips on diet, exercise and other lifestyle tweaks patients could make to improve their health. A TV screen in the reception area would broadcast this programming, modeled after segments on shows such as Today, while patients waited for appointments.

To test the idea, Agarwal, Shah and classmate Derek Moeller bought TVs and DVD players, culled content from the internet and distributed the equipment and “shows” to 50 doctors in five states.

MOOCing the Liberal Arts? Technology and Relationship in Liberal Arts Education
The Thirteenth Annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts
February 13 – 15, 2014
 

How to make online courses massively personal — from scientificamerican.com by Peter Norvig
How thousands of online students can get the effect of one-on-one tutoring

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Educators have known for 30 years that students perform better when given one-on-one tutoring and mastery learning—working on a subject until it is mastered, not just until a test is scheduled. Success also requires motivation, whether from an inner drive or from parents, mentors or peers.

Will the rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) quash these success factors? Not at all. In fact, digital tools offer our best path to cost-effective, personalized learning.

I know because I have taught both ways.

Inspired by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon’s comment that “learning results from what the student does and thinks and only from what the student does and thinks,” we created a course centered on the students doing things and getting frequent feedback. Our “lectures” were short (two- to six-minute) videos designed to prime the attendees for doing the next exercise. Some problems required the application of mathematical techniques described in the videos. Others were open-ended questions that gave students a chance to think on their own and then to hash out ideas in online discussion forums.

That is why a properly designed automated intelligent tutoring system can foster learning outcomes as well as human instructors can, as Kurt van Lehn found in a 2011 meta-analysis in Educational Psychologist.

 

From DSC:
A potential learning scenario in the future:

  1. “Learning Agent, go find me a MOOC (or what the MOOC will morph into) about ________.”
    Similar to a Google Alert, the Learning Agent returns some potential choices.  I select one.
    .
  2. Once there… “System,  let’s begin.”  I begin taking the online-based course — which is stocked full of a variety of media, some interactive, that I get to choose from for each module/item based upon my personal preferences — and the intelligent tutoring system kicks in and responses at relevant points based upon my questions, answers, responses. The system uses AI, data mining, learning analytics, to see how I’m doing. It tracks this for each student.  Humans regularly review the data to begin noticing patterns and to tweak the algorithms based upon these patterns.
    .
  3. If at any time I find the responses from the automated intelligent tutoring system confusing or weak, I will:
    • Make note of why I’m confused or disagree with the response (via an online-based form entry on the page; this feedback gets instantly sent to the Team of Specialists in charge of the “course.” They will use it to tweak the course/algorithms.)
    • Ask to speak with a person, at which point I am asked to choose whether my inquiry would best be handled by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) at $___/hour/request (more expensive price) or by an entry-level tutor (at a lower $___/hour/request).  I then enter into a videoconference-based tutoring session with them, and they can access my records and even take over my screen (if I let them).  Once I get my questions answered, I return to the course and continue.

     

From DSC:
A twist on the above scenario would be if a cohorted group of people — not age-based — met in a physical place/room and were able to bounce ideas off of each other before anyone ante’d up for additional expenses by contacting a tutor and/or an SME. They could even share the expenses of the “call” (so-to-speak).

 

 

 

 

In the future, the whole world will be a classroom — from fastcoexist.com by Marina Gorbis

 

TheFutureOfEducation-Gorbis-6-28-13

. TheFutureOfEducation3-Gorbis-6-28-13.

From DSC:
What Marina is asserting is what I’m seeing as well. That is, we are between two massive but different means of obtaining an education/learning (throughout our lifetimes I might add).  What she’s saying is also captured in the following graphic:

.

streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

Also see:

 

Gazing through mud: The campus and you in 50 years — from evoLLLution.com (where LLL stands for lifelong learning) by John Ebersole, President, Excelsior College
Excerpts:

Both types of institutions will be fewer in number as consolidations and closures continue, at an accelerated pace. Those that overcome the academy’s inherent aversion to change and risk are the most likely to survive.

Let’s remember that the half-life of knowledge is falling at an astonishing rate. What is relevant today, especially in technical fields, can become obsolete within a matter of a few years, if not months. At the same time, there is an explosion in information. It has been noted that we’re now exposed to more information in one year than our grandparents were in a lifetime.

In summary, the units extending the reach of universities in the future will no longer be on the fringe. Their academic and professional development offerings will instead become central to the institution’s mission.

 

From DSC:
Some additional reflections:

1)  Curated streams of content — broken out by discipline/topic — will be key.  Lifelong learning. Keeps you relevant/informed throughout your career.  A potentially-prominent format might be learning “channels” — populated with information from bots, presented on “Smart TV’s,” with quick access available to a human Subject Matter Expert (SME) or tutor upon request.   Perhaps there will be different levels of SME’s, tutors, mentors, etc. with corresponding $$ rates. 

2)  Interactive video — such as we’re beginning to see with Touchcast — could be very powerful in online-based learning materials.

3)  Educational gaming will likely be a powerful, engaging format.

4)  We could likely be moving towards more of a team-based approach –as one person likely won’t be able to do it all anymore (at least not at a level that will successfully compete).  The higher production qualities and sophistication necessary to compete may force many institutions to pool their resources with other institutions (i.e. more consortia).

5)  The unbundling process will likely continue throughout higher ed (i.e. think of iTunes and the album/CD).

 

Introducing TouchCast: Video with the second screen built in — from forbes.com by  Jeff Bercovici

Excerpt:

Say you’re watching a news segment about Microsoft MSFT +0.74% with an embedded stock chart, and you’re wondering how its shares have been performing versus Apple AAPL -1.05%‘s. You can look it up while the segment plays on in the background.

The app enables users — including FORBES — to create their own interactive TouchCasts with the help of 16 different types of video apps, or vApps. In addition to the types mentioned above, these include apps for comments, photos, headlines and YouTube videos.

From the TouchCast iTunes Preview:

Video and the web are coming together. Experience both like never before with TouchCast: a new medium that looks like video, but feels more like the web.

Here are the early returns from media reviews:

“TouchCast lets people create and watch videos that are layered with live Web pages, YouTube clips, Twitter streams and other digital touchpoints that viewers can expand, manipulate and turn on and off with their fingers.”
—AllThingsD

“The idea is to offer a powerful video creation tool that doesn’t require all the work that video editing normally does”
—TechCrunch

“As a video creator, you can create pretty rich, professional-grade broadcasts directly from your tablet in seconds”
—The Next Web

“Compared to a typical webpage, with its dozens of clickable links and widgets, the average video might as well be trapped behind Plexiglass. That’s the problem that . . . TouchCast set out to solve”
—Forbes

“TouchCast only wants to completely reinvent the look and feel of the Internet.”
—AdWeek

TouchCasts are completely clickable. A TouchCast is a video that is fully browsable, responsive, and alive. Webpages, images, and an assembly of video Apps (vApps) can be tapped for a two-way video experience.

It’s a TV studio in your hands. Create broadcast-quality videos with a built-in teleprompter, green screen, visual filters, sound effects, and titles. Watch TouchCasts from the app or online at TouchCast.com.

Our Mission is to bring the wonder of the web to video and usher in a new age of expression. Anyone can easily create professional-quality videos that finally behave like the rest of the web.

Explore videos, express yourself and engage viewers in a whole new way.  We invite you to try TouchCast and help define this new medium.

.

From DSC:
To all of the e-learning developers, journalists, instructional designers, teachers, professors, PR and communications folks, videographers, transmedia storytellers, and many other folks out there:  Check out TouchCast on either Chrome or Safari (you can toggle the main content of your window from a video discussing a particular article on the web and back again). Very sharp.  Innovative.

From Forbes.com:
To give you a better idea of how it works, we TouchCasted  this video of our editor in chief, Randall Lane, talking about the new edition of the FORBES Celebrity 100. View it on an iPad to get the full experience. (Use Chrome or Safari.)

 

 Addendum on 7/1/13:

 

Here’s why the TV apps economy will be a $14 billion business [Wolf]

Here’s why the TV apps economy will be a $14 billion business — from forbes.com by Michael Wolf

 

.

Excerpt:

According to new research published this week, the TV apps economy is forecasted to reach $14 billion by 2017.

Take for example today’s news that Apple will begin selling video advertisements served by iAd through iTunes Radio loaded on Apple TVs. This is only the first move for Apple in this space, and others like Samsung and Google  are already investing heavily in connected TV app advertising.

 

From DSC:
Why post this? Because:

  • It lays out future directions/careers related to Programming, Computer Science, Data Mining, Analytics, Marketing, Telecommunications, User Experience Design, Digital and Transmedia Storytelling, and more
    .
  • It leads to “Learning from the Living [Class] Room”

.

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

From DSC:
And if this does take off,
$14 billion won’t begin to capture the profits from this new industry.

It will be far larger than that.

 

Relevant addendum on 6/27/13:

  • The future of cinema is on demand — from bitrebels.com by Ben Warner (From DSC: Having just paid $32 for 4 people — 3 of whom were kids — to see Monsters U, I believe it!)
    .

future-of-cinema-on-demand

Via: [The Verge] Image Credits: [Venture Beat] [Home Theater]

 

 

The New Storytelling Frontier — from huffingtonpost.ca by Katherine Brodsky

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Long gone are the days of static content. Consumers are looking for more and transmedia storytelling offers an increasingly popular approach for creating property-based universes. Transmedia content itself is also evolving. It’s becoming more dynamic, more interactive, offering greater opportunities to engage audiences with creative user-generated content that adds to the storytelling experience. It is becoming more communal.

Although traditional models allow for greater control of content, strategies that can engage fans more actively and allow them to express themselves and even contribute to the development of a show, get them more involved and, ultimately, more willing to buy in.

 

From DSC:
As the use of storytelling is a powerful tool for learning, I can’t help but wonder…

  • What might be some creative possibilities arising from the developing world of transmedia that students and/or educational organizations could develop?
  • In what ways could we build more interactivity and social networking into our “digital textbooks” and mobile-based applications?
  • Would transmedia-based content help maintain interest, engagement, attention?
  • Would it help establish longer term memories/recall?
  • How might it help build students creativity and foster more experimentation/play/participation?
  • What roles might students play? (Writer, videographer, sound designer, actress, programmer, game designer, project manager, entrepreneur, etc.)
  • What tools and skills would students need to create their own transmedia-based experiences?
  • What new forms of storytelling might evolve from these efforts?
  • Could transmedia work its way into blended learning models?
  • Are new opportunities for immersing oneself in a particular subject matter becoming more available through transmedia-based experiences?
  • Could streams of content be wrapped in transmedia-based experiences?

 

 

 

 

Heads up Jony Ive! You need to see this brilliant concept for the Apple TV! Superb work by Sam Beckett!

BrilliantTVConceptBySamBeckett-May2013

 

.

From DSC:
Now picture this from the educational standpoint — and what MOOCs could morph into.  The foundation for some serious learning power (from the living room) seems to be developing!

Streams of content/learning channels/cloud-based applications that each of us can create and make available.

Voice recognition, learning analytics, machine-to-machine communications, transmedia and more!  Wow!

 

.

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian