teachers

Report: Overtime, Low Wages Causing Educator Stress [Ravipati]

On 03/16/2017, in adjunct faculty, career development, colleges, community colleges, education, faculty, higher education, K-12 related, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Report: Overtime, Low Wages Causing Educator Stress — from thejournal.com by Sri Ravipati

Excerpt:

As the role of the educator continues to evolve, it is necessary to take a look at some of the challenges they face day-to-day: What contributes to educators’ stress? Have the recent changes in the federal government added to their stress at all? How can technology help? To find out the answers to these questions, online learning company Course Hero polled educators about their economic satisfaction, work-related stress, classroom technology and even how the new Trump administration impacts them.

The company recently released its inaugural “State of the Educator Survey” report, which includes findings from a 68-question survey conducted in January. Course Hero polled 412 higher ed professors and 117 high school Advanced Placement (AP) teachers who work full-time and part-time in a variety of disciplines. As it turns out, all of the aforementioned topics have contributed to increased stress felt by nearly half of the survey participants. In fact, five times as many educators reported increased rather than decreased stress, with 42 percent responding that their job became more stressful in the last year (compared to 8 percent who reported a decrease). Exactly half of respondents said their stress level stayed the same.

From DSC:
Given the exponential pace of technological change that many societies throughout the globe are now on, we need some tools to help us pulse-check what’s going on in the relevant landscapes that we are trying to scan.

Below, I would like to suggest 2 methods/tools to do this. I have used both methods for years, and I have found them to be immensely helpful in pulse-checking the landscapes. Perhaps these tools will be helpful to you — or to your students or employees — as well. I vote for these 2 tools to be a part of all of our learning ecosystems. (And besides, they also encourage micro-learning while helping us spot emerging trends.)

Google Alerts

Feedly.com

What educators can learn about effective teaching from a Harvard prof [November]

On 02/22/2017, in active learning, adjunct faculty, assessment, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, computer science, education, faculty, higher education, pedagogy, social learning / networks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

What educators can learn about effective teaching from a Harvard prof — from ecampusnews.com by Alan November

Excerpt:

Harvard professor David Malan has managed to pull off a neat trick: His Computer Science 50 course is the most popular course at both Harvard and Yale. By examining his success, we can learn some important lessons about effective teaching.

CS50 assumes no prior knowledge or skill in computer programming, yet it’s extremely demanding. Despite its rigor, CS50 regularly attracts thousands of students each year. While some aspire to become software engineers, others enroll just to experience the course.

Why is Professor Malan’s course so popular, even with students who don’t plan a career in computer science—and even though it requires a lot of work? Here are three keys to Malan’s effective teaching that I think all schools everywhere should apply, from K-12 schools to colleges and universities.

Strengthen the social side of learning.
Teach students to self-assess.
Provide a public audience to inspire students to invent.

Reflections on “HarvardX rolls out new adaptive learning feature in online course” [Lestch]

On 02/22/2017, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online tutoring, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, by Daniel Christian

HarvardX rolls out new adaptive learning feature in online course — from edscoop.com by Corinne Lestch
Students in MOOC adaptive learning experiment scored nearly 20 percent better than students using more traditional learning approaches.

Excerpt:

Online courses at Harvard University are adapting on the fly to students’ needs.

Officials at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, institution announced a new adaptive learning technology that was recently rolled out in a HarvardX online course. The feature offers tailored course material that directly correlates with student performance while the student is taking the class, as well as tailored assessment algorithms.

HarvardX is an independent university initiative that was launched in parallel with edX, the online learning platform that was created by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both HarvardX and edX run massive open online courses. The new feature has never before been used in a HarvardX course, and has only been deployed in a small number of edX courses, according to officials.

From DSC:
Given the growth of AI, this is certainly radar worthy — something that’s definitely worth pulse-checking to see where opportunities exist to leverage these types of technologies. What we now know of as adaptive learning will likely take an enormous step forward in the next decade.

IBM’s assertion rings in my mind:

I’m cautiously hopeful that these types of technologies can extend beyond K-12 and help us deal with the current need to be lifelong learners, and the need to constantly reinvent ourselves — while providing us with more choice, more control over our learning. I’m hopeful that learners will be able to pursue their passions, and enlist the help of other learners and/or the (human) subject matter experts as needed.

I don’t see these types of technologies replacing any teachers, professors, or trainers. That said, these types of technologies should be able to help do some of the heavy teaching and learning lifting in order to help someone learn about a new topic.

Again, this is one piece of the Learning from the Living [Class] Room that we see developing.

Networks for Lifelong Learning: A Tale of Two Students [November]

On 02/10/2017, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, faculty, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, multimedia, pedagogy, social learning / networks, social media, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

Networks for Lifelong Learning: A Tale of Two Students — from novemberlearning.com by Alan November

Excerpts:

Where to begin in leading this shift? There are many possible first steps. This article focuses on two broad areas of digital design that can provide the foundation for an empowered culture of learning:

Multimedia content
Online communities of social interaction with classmates and professors

I have experienced this transformative shift of expanding the boundaries of learning with my own college-age children. My daughter, Jessica, graduated from university in 2010 and my son, Dan, will graduate in 2017. They both will earn equivalent grades at two different but highly competitive universities. How they studied, how they were supported in their learning, and how they interacted with classmates and professors represent two different worlds. Both of my children are convinced that Dan, the younger sibling, will be much better prepared for the world of work because of this transformation.

…

Here are five guidelines for leaders who are planning to maximize the investment in network technologies to improve teaching and learning:

Provide all students with immediate access to subject content in all formats (full text, video, audio)
Support a community of learners who can continuously help one another
Provide educators with insights into how students are thinking in online communities
Encourage educators to teach students to “learn how to learn”
Allow students to continue to tap their campus networks as a lifelong resource

The 4 Common Characteristics of Personalized Learning — from thejournal.com by Leila Meyer
iNACOL offers ideas for implementing personalized learning in K-12 schools with the support of families and the community.

Excerpt:

According to the report, there are many different approaches to personalized learning, but most of them share these common characteristics:

Student ownership of their learning process;
Focus on the learning process rather than “big end-of-year tests”;
Competency or mastery-based student progression; and
Anytime, anywhere learning.

See also:

From DSC:
In the spirit of pulse-checking the landscapes…those of us working in higher education, take heed. These are your future students. What expectations from students might you encounter in the (not-too-distant) future? What are the ramifications for which pedagogies you decide to use?

Further out, for those of you working in the corporate learning & development world or in corporate training/universities, your time may be further out here…but you need to take heed as well. These are your future employees. They will come into your organizations with their expectations for how they prefer to learn and grow. Will you meet them where they are at?

We operate in a continuum…we’d be wise to pulse-check what’s happening in the earlier phases of this continuum.

Apple Releases Education Bundle With Video, Audio Editing Tools — from campustechnology.com

Excerpt:

Apple Friday introduced its Pro Apps Bundle for Education, available for K–12 schools and higher ed institutions.

The bundle is a collection of five apps from Apple that deliver industry-level tools for video editors and musicians:

Also see:

From DSC:
After seeing the sharp interface out at Adobe (see image below), I’ve often thought that there should exist a similar interface and a similar database for educators, trainers, and learners to use — but the database would address a far greater breadth of topics to teach and/or learn about. You could even select beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels (grade levels might work here as well).

Perhaps this is where artificial intelligence will come in…not sure.

What are the teaching & learning-related ramifications when new “skills” are constantly added to devices like Amazon’s Alexa?

On 12/01/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, bots, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, microlearning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
When I saw the article below, I couldn’t help but wonder…what are the teaching & learning-related ramifications when new “skills” are constantly being added to devices like Amazon’s Alexa?

What does it mean for:

Students / learners
Faculty members
Teachers
Trainers
Instructional Designers
Interaction Designers
User Experience Designers
Curriculum Developers
…and others?

Will the capabilities found in Alexa simply come bundled as a part of the “connected/smart TV’s” of the future? Hmm….

NASA unveils a skill for Amazon’s Alexa that lets you ask questions about Mars — from geekwire.com by Kevin Lisota

Excerpt:

Amazon’s Alexa has gained many skills over the past year, such as being able to read tweets or deliver election results and fantasy football scores. Starting on Wednesday, you’ll be able to ask Alexa about Mars.

The new skill for the voice-controlled speaker comes courtesy of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It’s the first Alexa app from the space agency.

Tom Soderstrom, the chief technology officer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was on hand at the AWS re:invent conference in Las Vegas tonight to make the announcement.

Also see:

What Is Alexa? What Is the Amazon Echo, and Should You Get One? — from thewirecutter.com by Grant Clauser

Amazon launches new artificial intelligence services for developers: Image recognition, text-to-speech, Alexa NLP — from geekwire.com by Taylor Soper

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Amazon today announced three new artificial intelligence-related toolkits for developers building apps on Amazon Web Services

At the company’s AWS re:invent conference in Las Vegas, Amazon showed how developers can use three new services — Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Rekognition — to build artificial intelligence features into apps for platforms like Slack, Facebook Messenger, ZenDesk, and others.

The idea is to let developers utilize the machine learning algorithms and technology that Amazon has already created for its own processes and services like Alexa. Instead of developing their own AI software, AWS customers can simply use an API call or the AWS Management Console to incorporate AI features into their own apps.

Amazon announces three new AI services, including a text-to-voice service, Amazon Polly — from by D.B. Hebbard

AWS Announces Three New Amazon AI Services
Amazon Lex, the technology that powers Amazon Alexa, enables any developer to build rich, conversational user experiences for web, mobile, and connected device apps; preview starts today

Amazon Polly transforms text into lifelike speech, enabling apps to talk with 47 lifelike voices in 24 languages

Amazon Rekognition makes it easy to add image analysis to applications, using powerful deep learning-based image and face recognition

Capital One, Motorola Solutions, SmugMug, American Heart Association, NASA, HubSpot, Redfin, Ohio Health, DuoLingo, Royal National Institute of Blind People, LingApps, GoAnimate, and Coursera are among the many customers using these Amazon AI Services

Excerpt:

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nov. 30, 2016– Today at AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced three Artificial Intelligence (AI) services that make it easy for any developer to build apps that can understand natural language, turn text into lifelike speech, have conversations using voice or text, analyze images, and recognize faces, objects, and scenes. Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, and Amazon Rekognition are based on the same proven, highly scalable Amazon technology built by the thousands of deep learning and machine learning experts across the company. Amazon AI services all provide high-quality, high-accuracy AI capabilities that are scalable and cost-effective. Amazon AI services are fully managed services so there are no deep learning algorithms to build, no machine learning models to train, and no up-front commitments or infrastructure investments required. This frees developers to focus on defining and building an entirely new generation of apps that can see, hear, speak, understand, and interact with the world around them.

To learn more about Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, or Amazon Rekognition, visit:
https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-ai

teachfastly.com — FAITH and SCIENCE activities for your classroom — designed by teachers for teachers

On 10/12/2016, in 21st century, ideas, K-12 related, Michigan, pedagogy, science, society, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

FAITH and SCIENCE activities for your classroom—designed by teachers for teachers

From the About Us > The FASTly Story page

Could there be a way forward, a way of exploring the intersection of faith and science that isn’t fearful but hopeful?

In early 2011, a group of high school teachers gathered in a backwoods lodge, talking about the challenges they faced as they tried to engage big questions about science and faith. Students came to them afraid of controversy; parents worried their teaching would present the wrong angle; administrators warned them not to “stir the pot.”

What does it look like, they wondered, to teach science well in a Christian context? How might they help students to trust that the Bible and science aren’t mutually exclusive? Could there be a way forward, a way of exploring the intersection of faith and science that wasn’t fearful but hopeful?

Out of this conversation—and many others like it—the FAST project was born. A broad team came together to create this resource that begins with the conviction that the classroom can be a powerful site for discipleship. Where faith and science are so often seen as a source of conflict, FAST creates a space in which teachers and students are invited to engage them as a fruitful opportunity to learn and grow. FAST explores hard questions with integrity, encouraging the very best teaching practices within the context of Christian faithfulness.

Led by The Kuyers Institute and The Colossian Forum, FAST is a collaborative endeavor, drawing on the expertise of high school teachers, scholars, writers, and web developers. It is made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

This site already includes a large collection of teaching activities, training materials, background essays, book reviews, and more. Click here to start exploring. By the end of 2017, thanks to the committed work of our project team and the ongoing support of the John Templeton Foundation, the number of Activity Maps on the site will nearly double. Sign up here for updates as teachFASTly.com continues to expand.

Affiliations:

Also see:

Teaching faith and science? This new website changes everything. — from colossianforum.org by Jennifer Vander Molen
Excerpt:
From TCF’s earliest days, our staff has worked closely with high school teachers to help students engage with difficult questions in the arena of faith and science. Young people so often feel the pinch of our culture’s inability to handle conflict well—but we’re convinced that the church can show them a better way. In order to help educators address these unique concerns, TCF has collaborated with the Kuyers Institute on the three-year FAST (Faith And Science Teaching) Project to create and launch teachFASTly.com.Designed by teachers for teachers, teachFASTly.com promotes an integrated, intentional, and creative approach to teaching and learning at the intersection of faith and science. The site offers hundreds of free, ready-to-use activities organized by subject area. It also features a robust resource section containing practical teaching strategies and conceptual resources.

Announcing the “Top 200 Tools for Learning 2016” — plus Jane’s “Best of Breed 2016” [Jane Hart]

On 10/03/2016, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, animation, blended learning, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, engagement / engaging students, flipping -- inverted learning, global / globalization, Google, graphics, hybrid learning, instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, microlearning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, productivity / tips and tricks, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, UK, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Top 200 Tools for Learning 2016: Overview — from c4lpt.co.uk by Jane Hart

Also see Jane’s:

TOP 100 TOOLS FOR PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL LEARNING (for formal/informal learning and personal productivity)
TOP 100 TOOLS FOR WORKPLACE LEARNING (for training, e-learning, performance support and social collaboration
TOP 100 TOOLS FOR EDUCATION (for use in primary and secondary (K12) schools, colleges, universities and adult education.)

Also see Jane’s “Best of Breed 2016” where she breaks things down into:

Instructional tools
Content development tools
Social tools
Personal tools

Women of Foresight: Changes in Education for Future Student Success — from leadingthought.us.com by Dr. Liz Alexander

Excerpt:

Education. A topic that remains hotly debated all over the world. Especially now, as we struggle to find our footing as our futures hurtle towards us, faster and more profoundly different than ever before.

What changes do existing schools and colleges need to make to better prepare students for the trends we already see? Together with those “weak signals” that suggest other, possible futures? In “trying to adapt education for what the American economy is evolving into,” is mandating “coding classes” part of the answer? Are we doing enough to take into account contrarian perspectives like this one? Who gets to decide what the purpose of education should be, in any case?

These are just some of the questions everyone–from policy makers to parents, academics to students themselves–need to think about.

Intrigued as to what the global futurist and foresight communities might have in mind, I posed them the following question:

If there was one thing I could change in education to better prepare students for the future of work, it would be…

The twenty women that responded to my call are either professional futurists or apply foresight in their roles as leaders in global firms and consultancies, think tanks and foundations. They’re from countries as geographically disperse as Australia, Egypt, Germany, India, New Zealand, Norway, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States.

(If you’re wondering why I only asked women, it was a deliberate move to broaden commentary on “our futures,” so people don’t think it’s the sole purview of older, white men. Also, because I believe women’s natural inclinations toward relationships and collaboration, communities and mutual support, are the future!)

One example/answer:

“…to put more emphasis on HOW students will contribute, rather than WHAT their expertise will be, by helping them answer these three questions:

How do I most want to contribute to something larger than myself, aka my ‘mission in life’?
In what work environment will I be able to make the meaningful contributions I’m capable of?
How do I interact with others? What might derail my ambitions, dreams, and wishes? What can I do about it?”

Reflections on “IBM Foundation collaborates with AFT and education leaders to use Watson to help teachers”

On 09/28/2016, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, game-changing environment, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, mathematics, microlearning, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, smart/connected TV, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

IBM Foundation collaborates with AFT and education leaders to use Watson to help teachers — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt:

ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Teachers will have access to a new, first-of-its-kind, free tool using IBM’s innovative Watson cognitive technology that has been trained by teachers and designed to strengthen teachers’ instruction and improve student achievement, the IBM Foundation and the American Federation of Teachers announced today.

Hundreds of elementary school teachers across the United States are piloting Teacher Advisor with Watson – an innovative tool by the IBM Foundation that provides teachers with a complete, personalized online resource. Teacher Advisor enables teachers to deepen their knowledge of key math concepts, access high-quality vetted math lessons and acclaimed teaching strategies and gives teachers the unique ability to tailor those lessons to meet their individual classroom needs.
…
Litow said there are plans to make Teacher Advisor available to all elementary school teachers across the U.S. before the end of the year.

In this first phase, Teacher Advisor offers hundreds of high-quality vetted lesson plans, instructional resources, and teaching techniques, which are customized to meet the needs of individual teachers and the particular needs of their students.

Also see:

Educators can also access high-quality videos on teaching techniques to master key skills and bring a lesson or teaching strategy to life into their classroom.

From DSC:
Today’s announcement involved personalization and giving customized directions, and it caused my mind to go in a slightly different direction. (IBM, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and others like Smart Sparrow are likely also thinking about this type of direction as well. Perhaps they’re already there…I’m not sure.)

But given the advancements in machine learning/cognitive computing (where example applications include optical character recognition (OCR) and computer vision), how much longer will it be before software is able to remotely or locally “see” what a third grader wrote down for a given math problem (via character and symbol recognition) and “see” what the student’s answer was while checking over the student’s work…if the answer was incorrect, the algorithms will likely know where the student went wrong. The software will be able to ascertain what the student did wrong and then show them how the problem should be solved (either via hints or by showing the entire problem to the student — per the teacher’s instructions/admin settings). Perhaps, via natural language processing, this process could be verbalized as well.

Further questions/thoughts/reflections then came to my mind:

Will we have bots that teachers can use to teach different subjects? (“Watson may even ask the teacher additional questions to refine its response, honing in on what the teacher needs to address certain challenges.)
Will we have bots that students can use to get the basics of a given subject/topic/equation?
Will instructional designers — and/or trainers in the corporate world — need to modify their skillsets to develop these types of bots?
Will teachers — as well as schools of education in universities and colleges — need to modify their toolboxes and their knowledgebases to take advantage of these sorts of developments?
How might the corporate world take advantage of these trends and technologies?
Will MOOCs begin to incorporate these sorts of technologies to aid in personalized learning?
What sorts of delivery mechanisms could be involved? Will we be tapping into learning-related bots from our living rooms or via our smartphones?

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

Also see:

Next Target for IBM’s Watson? Third-Grade Math — from nytimes.com by Elizabeth Harris
.
IBM Watson will help educators improve teaching skills — from zdnet.com by Natalie Gagliordi
The IBM Foundation has teamed with teachers and the American Federation of Teachers union to create an AI-based lesson plan tool called Teacher Advisor.

Cultures of Perpetual Learning [Richardson]

On 09/10/2016, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, career development, education, education reform, faculty, higher education, ideas, lifelong learning, reinvent, staying relevant, surviving, teachers, training / L&D, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Cultures of Perpetual Learning — by Will Richardson

Excerpts (additional emphasis by DSC):

Over the years, we’ve heard a lot of predictions about what the future of work holds for all of us, not just our kids. It’s interesting now to see some of those predictions actually playing out.

Case in point is this post in the Harvard Business Review that summarizes the Herculean change initiative now underway at AT&T. It’s a fascinating read on it’s own, but it’s even more interesting when you start to align some of the findings to the work of schools. Or maybe more daunting.

The biggest takeaway for me? Professional learning is now the responsibility of the learner. I’ve harped on that for a while now, but AT&T pushes that idea in spades.

All of this works within a “culture of perpetual learning.” AT&T employees know that their roles will change, on average, every four years. In other words, if you’re not constantly learning, you’re toast.

From DSC:
Several graphics come to mind (see below).

DanielChristian-No-longer-running-sprints--but-marathons

From the HBR article:

Rapidly Shifting Technical Demands
For the past three years, AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, has been making large strategic bets on a diverse range of wireless technologies—most recently the $63 billion acquisition of satellite television company DirecTV. Asked about the decision to venture into new businesses, John Stankey, the head of AT&T’s Entertainment Group, says, “We have no choice.” Customers are demanding constant connectivity; from 2007 to 2015, for example, data traffic on AT&T’s wireless network grew by more than 150,000%. The company forecasts that by 2020, 75% of its network will be controlled by software-defined architecture. That percentage was virtually zero in 2000. This means, says Stankey, that most of AT&T’s global employees “signed up for a deal that is entirely different from the environment in which their business operates today.”

ExponentialNotLinearSparksNHoney-Spring2013

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

Ed Tech & AI: How Education Chatbots [could] Revolutionize Personalized Learning [Walker]

On 08/22/2016, in 21st century, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, education, education technology, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, smart/connected TV, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, training / L&D, ubiquitous learning, universities, virtual tutoring, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Education Technology And Artificial Intelligence: How Education Chatbots [could] Revolutionize Personalized Learning — from parentherald.com by Kristine Walker

From DSC:
I inserted a [could] in the title, as I don’t think we’re there yet. That said, I don’t see chatbots, personal assistants, and the use of AI going away any time soon. This should be on our radars from here on out. Chatbots could easily be assigned some heavy lifting duties within K-20 education as well as in the corporate world; but even then, we’ll still need excellent teachers, professors, and trainers/subject matter experts out there. I don’t see anyone being replaced at this point.

Excerpt:

As the equity gap in American education continues, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been urging educators, investors and tech companies to be more open in investing time and money in artificial intelligence-driven education technology programs. The reason? Gates believed that these AI-based EdTech platforms could personalize and revolutionize school learning experience while eliminating the equity gap.

Also see:

Are ‘Motivation Bots’ Part of the Future of Education? — from educationworld.com

The Motivation, Revision and Announcement bots each perform respective functions that are intended to help students master exams.

The Motivation bot, for instance, “keeps students motivated with reminders, social support, and other means,” while the Revision bot “helps students to best understand ways to improve their work” and the Announcement bot “tells students how much studying they need to do based on the amount of time available.”

Somewhat related:

Deep Learning Is Still A No-Show In Gartner 2016 Hype Cycle For Emerging Technologies — from .forbes.com by Gil Press

Excerpt:

Machine learning is best defined as the transition from feeding the computer with programs containing specific instructions in the forms of step-by-step rules or algorithms to feeding the computer with algorithms that can “learn” from data and can make inferences “on their own.” The computer is “trained” by data which is labeled or classified based on previous outcomes, and its software algorithms “learn” how to predict the classification of new data that is not labeled or classified. For example, after a period of training in which the computer is presented with spam and non-spam email messages, a good machine learning program will successfully identify, (i.e., predict,) which email message is spam and which is not without human intervention. In addition to spam filtering, machine learning has been applied successfully to problems such as hand-writing recognition, machine translation, fraud detection, and product recommendations.

Learning Ecosystems

Cultures of Perpetual Learning [Richardson]

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