trends

How higher education can adapt to the future of work [Jahanian]

On 03/06/2020, in analytics, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, biology, business, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, curriculum, data related items, design, digital learning, economics, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, personalized/customized learning, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

How higher education can adapt to the future of work — from weforum.org by Farnam Jahanian, President, Carnegie Mellon University; with thanks to Evan Kirstel for sharing this here

Excerpts:

Embrace the T-shaped approach to knowledge
The broad set of skills needed by tomorrow’s workforce also affects our approach to educational structure. At Carnegie Mellon University—like many other institutions—we have been making disciplinary boundaries much more porous and have launched programmes at the edges and intersections of traditional fields, such as behavioral economics, computational biology, and the nexus of design, arts, and technology. We believe this approach prepares our students for a future where thinking and working across boundaries will be vital. The value of combining both breadth and depth in higher education has also led to many universities embracing “T-shaped” teaching and learning philosophies, in which vertical (deep disciplinary) expertise is combined with horizontal (cross-cutting) knowledge.
…
Invest in personalised, technology-enhanced learning
The demand for more highly skilled workers continues to grow. Recent analysis of U.S. data by The Wall Street Journal found that more than 40% of manufacturing workers now have a college degree. By 2022, manufacturers are projected to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less. Technology-enhanced learning can help us keep up with demand and offer pathways for the existing workforce to gain new skills. AI-based learning tools developed in the past decade have incredible potential to personalise education, enhance college readiness and access, and improve educational outcomes. And perhaps most importantly, technology-enhanced learning has the compelling potential to narrow socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps among students.

The rapid pace of today’s advances requires a more comprehensive workforce and education strategy across a spectrum of measures, including policy, access, programmes and outreach. The private sector, government, educators and policy-makers must work together to deliver multiple pathways to opportunity for young people looking for their first foothold in the job market, as well as to re-skill and up-skill workers striving to maintain their place in the workforce.

How innovations in voice technology are reshaping education [Lee]

On 03/06/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, internet, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, productivity / tips and tricks, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, trends, United States, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

How innovations in voice technology are reshaping education — from edsurge.com by Diana Lee
Voice is the most accessible form you can think of when you think about any interface. In education, it’s already started to take off.

It could be basic questions about, “Am I taking a class to become X?” or “How strong are my skills relative to other people?” An assistant can help with that. It could potentially be a coach, something that follows you the rest of your life for education. I’m excited about that. People that can’t normally get access to this kind of information will get access to it. That’s the future.

From DSC:
The use of voice will likely be a piece of a next-generation learning platform.

2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report™ | Teaching and Learning Edition

On 03/03/2020, in change, colleges, community colleges, education technology, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, higher education, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, tools, trends, universities, by Daniel Christian

2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report™ | Teaching and Learning Edition — from library.educause.edu

Excerpt:

This report profiles key trends and emerging technologies and practices shaping the future of teaching and learning and envisions a number of scenarios and implications for that future. It is based on the perspectives and expertise of a global panel of leaders from across the higher education landscape.

This year’s report paints brief but evocative portraits of four possible future scenarios for postsecondary teaching and learning.

From DSC:
The items below are meant for those involved with digital transformation, developing strategy, and keeping one’s organization thriving into the future.

Strategy in the Digital Revolution with Ryan McManus — from dukece.com; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource out on Twitter

Description of webinar:
Today, every business is focused on digital transformation, yet most organizations are struggling to realize value from their efforts and investments. Less than 20% of business leaders believe their digital transformation efforts have been successful. With unprecedented access to data and technology, how is it that firms and their leaders are experiencing such disappointing results?

At the root of the problem is the disconnect between how leaders understand strategy and the new rules of the digital revolution. Most leaders haven’t been taught how to think about a world that is very different from the one which gave rise to popular strategic concepts, and as a result, they apply outdated strategy models and thinking to the new world, trying to squeeze the competitive realities of the digital revolution into linear, analog strategic planning concepts.

In this complimentary on-demand webinar, Ryan McManus, lecturer at Columbia University Business School and Duke Corporate Education, discusses the New Strategy Playbook, including:

The current state and evolution of the digital revolution, and what’s next
The four levels of digital strategy: how you can adapt your approach to win
Why traditional approaches to strategy have reached their limits
Implications for leadership development

Example slides:

Also see:

More companies are using automated job screening systems to vet candidates, forcing jobseekers to learn new and absurd tricks to have their résumés seen by a human.

On 02/22/2020, in analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, corporate / business world, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Cost cutting algorithms are making your job search a living hell — from vice.com by Nick Keppler
More companies are using automated job screening systems to vet candidates, forcing jobseekers to learn new and absurd tricks to have their résumés seen by a human.

Excerpts:

Companies are increasingly using automated systems to select who gets ahead and who gets eliminated from pools of applicants. For jobseekers, this can mean a series of bizarre, time-consuming tasks demanded by companies who have not shown any meaningful consideration of them.
…
Maneuvering around algorithmic gatekeepers to reach an actual person with a say in hiring has become a crucial skill, even if the tasks involved feel duplicitous and absurd. ATS software can also enable a company to discriminate, possibly unwittingly, based on bias-informed data and culling of certain psychological traits.

Until he started as a legal writer for FreeAdvice.com last month, Johnson, 36, said he was at potential employers’ whims. “I can’t imagine I’d move to the next round if I didn’t do what they said,” he told Motherboard.

For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies

On 02/22/2020, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, attention, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, face-to-face, faculty, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, platforms, smart classrooms, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC — and with a shout out to Brad Sousa for this resource:
For those involved with creating/enhancing learning spaces as they relate to pedagogies:

How Has Technology Impacted Higher Education?
In part one of this three-part series, AVI Systems CTO Brad Sousa talks with Jeff Day, Founder of North of 10 Advisors, to discuss the key ways education and, specifically, pedagogy differs from 10, 5, even 3 years ago.

Discussion Topics

The impact of active learning and the introduction of the internet of things (IoT) in the classroom
Recommendations for deploying modern learning environments with technology partners
Classroom systems design, then and now

Some timestamps (roughly speaking)

5:15 — changes in pedagogy
7:15 or so — active learning
15:30 design needs around active learning
17:15 DE rooms and active learning — software-controlled platform
21:30 — advice; look to outcomes & expectations that want to achieve/meet; uses cases

Media controller w/ intuitive interface to mimic the way someone teaches / way a classroom goes:

“Class start” — chaotic; mics on everywhere
“Lecture” — gates /mics closed and focus shifts to the professor
“Class interaction” — presents roster of who’s there (20:00 mark roughly)

Also see this introductory posting re: the implications of active learning in the higher ed market.

6 Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2020 [Kelly, Burns, Frazee, & Perez]

On 02/13/2020, in accessibility / UDL, adjunct faculty, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, data related items, digital learning, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future of higher education, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, Mixed Reality (MR), tools, trends, United States, universities, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

6 Ed Tech Trends to Watch in 2020 — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly with:

Bridget Burns, Executive Director, University Innovation Alliance
James Frazee, Chief Academic Technology Officer and Associate VP, Instructional Technology Services, San Diego State University
Ernie Perez
Director, Educational Technology, Digital Learning & Innovation, Boston University

This year’s top issues in education technology reflect the bigger picture of a student’s pathway from individual courses all the way to graduation and career.

Topics include:

1) Workforce Readiness
2) Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots
3) Extended Reality (XR)
4) Video and Accessibility
5) Predictive Analytics and Advising
6) Industry Partnerships

Higher Education’s 2020 Trend Watch & Top 10 Strategic Technologies — from library.educause.edu

Excerpt:

Most Influential Trends
Six trends are influential at 61% or more of colleges and universities (listed below from highest to lowest level of influence):

Growing complexity of security threats
Student success focus/imperatives
Data-informed decision-making
Privacy
Enterprise risk management
Institution-wide data management and integrations

From DSC:
By not listening/taking action nearly enough through the last several decades, the backlash continues to build against colleges and universities — institutions of traditional higher education who didn’t take the rise in tuition seriously. Students graduated and left campus, and the invisible gorillas of debt being placed on students’ backs weren’t acknowledged — nor were they fought against — nearly enough. Instead, the gorillas just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Year after year, I tried to fight this trend and raise awareness of it…only to see the majority of institutions of traditional higher education do absolutely nothing. Then, as the backlash started to build, the boards and the administrations across the country began priding themselves on how their percentage increases were amongst the smallest in the area/state/nation. They should have found ways to decrease their tuition, but they didn’t. Instead, they resorted to playing games with discounts while their “retail values” kept going up and up.

The time’s coming when they will pay the piper for having done this. Just like what happened to the oil companies and to the car/truck manufactures who made megabucks (for the time being) when their vehicles kept getting bigger and bigger and when the price of oil was high. What happened? The end result was that they shot themselves in the foot. These days, Tesla — with their electric cars — is now the most valuable car company in America.

Within the realm of education…when effective, cheaper alternatives come along that still get people hired, you better look out traditional institutions of higher education. You didn’t listen. It happened on your watch. And speaking of watches, the next major one could be you watching more of your institutions close while watching your students walk out the door to pursue other, far less expensive alternatives.

Follow up comments:
I realize this is a broad swath and isn’t true for several institutions who have been fighting the fight. For example, my current employer — the WMU-Cooley Law School is reducing their tuition by 21% this fall and other institutions have reduced their tuition as well or found ways to honor “Promise” types of programs. Other institutions have done the market research and are offering more relevant, up-to-date curricula. (Don’t worry those of you who work within the liberal arts, I still support and believe in you. But we didn’t do a good enough balancing act between offering liberal arts programs and developing the needed skillsets to help students pay off those ever-growing gorillas of debt.)

The fact was that too often, those invisible gorillas of debt went unnoticed by many within higher education. And it wasn’t just the boards, administrators, presidents, and provosts out there. In fact, the full-time, tenured faculty members taught what they wanted to teach and were furious at those who dared assert that higher education was a business. (Watch a college football game on the major networks last fall? Have you seen the size of research institutions’ intellectual property-based revenues? We could go on and on.)

Anyway, what tenured faculty members offered didn’t align with what the market needed and was calling for. They offered what was in their best interests, not the students’ best interests.

Student debt is over $1.6 trillion and hardly anyone is paying down their loans [Cox]

On 01/31/2020, in 21st century, colleges, cost of getting a degree, higher education, parents/guardians, society, student-related, trends, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

Student debt is over $1.6 trillion and hardly anyone is paying down their loans — from cnbc.comby Jeff Cox; with a shout out to Ryan Craig’s Gap Letter for this resource and the resource mentioned below

Excerpts:

Student loan debt totals more than $1.6 trillion and is not shrinking as few borrowers have reduced their balances, according to Moody’s.
High student loan balances are having multiple negative economic effects, such as restricting household formation, Moody’s said.
Outstanding loans total more than $1.6 trillion, more than doubling over the last decade and tripling since 2006.
In the meantime, the burden of student loans continues to be felt with an 11% default rate that is the highest of any debt category. Education also is now second only to mortgages as the highest form of debt for all Americans.

Also see:

Survey: Student loan debt is a key factor for Gen Z when making career decisions — from prnewswire.com
Gen Z’s concern over student loan debt drives them to prioritize finances over passion when making career choices

Things I Learned at Project Voice — from thejournal.com by Bradley Metrock, who produces the Project Voice conference, hosts This Week in Voice
Could 2020 be the year of the voice? These voice experts think so.

Excerpt:

Voice experience of the year for education, with these finalists:

Sermo Labs’ 1-2-3 Math;
Bamboo Math;
Voicelets, to help students learn by listening;
Highlights Storybooks from Bamboo; and
Novel Effect, a voice-driven storytelling app for families.

Highlights took this category.

And voice developer of the year, with these finalists:

Pretzel Labs, a voice design studio
Sermo Labs
Voicelets
Bamboo Learning
Novel Effect

Bamboo Learning won this award.

Also see:

12 Education Predictions for 2020 — by Dian Schaffhauser
The learning and innovation in education never stops. Here’s what 12 education technology experts and observers expect for the new year in K-12.

Why you should care about what’s happening with law schools and the legal realm in general!

On 01/23/2020, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, collaboration, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, ethics, faith, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, online learning, pace of change, platforms, policy, political science, professional development, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, Uncategorized, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
As some of you may know, I’m now working for the WMU-Thomas M. Cooley Law School. My faith gets involved here, but I believe that the LORD wanted me to get involved with:

Using technology to increase access to justice (#A2J)
Contributing to leveraging the science of learning for the long-term benefit of our students, faculty, and staff
Raising awareness regarding the potential pros and cons of today’s emerging technologies
Increase the understanding that the legal realm has a looooong way to go to try to get (even somewhat) caught up with the impacts that such emerging technologies can/might have on us.
Contributing and collaborating with others to help develop a positive future, not a negative one.

Along these lines…in regards to what’s been happening with law schools over the last few years, I wanted to share a couple of things:

1) An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Benjamin Barton:

2) A response from our President and Dean, James McGrath:

From DSC:
I also wanted to personally say that I arrived at WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018, and have been learning a lot there (which I love about my job!). Cooley employees are very warm, welcoming, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. Everyone there is mission-driven. My boss, Chris Church, is multi-talented and excellent. Cooley has a great administrative/management team as well.

There have been many exciting, new things happening there. But that said, it will take time before we see the results of these changes. Perseverance and innovation will be key ingredients to crafting a modern legal education — especially in an industry that is just now beginning to offer online-based courses at the Juris Doctor (J.D.) level (i.e., 20 years behind when this began occurring within undergraduate higher education).

My point in posting this is to say that we should ALL care about what’s happening within the legal realm! We are all impacted by it, whether we realize it or not. We are all in this together and no one is an island — not as individuals, and not as organizations.

We need:

Far more diversity within the legal field
More technical expertise within the legal realm — not only with lawyers, but with legislators, senators, representatives, judges, others
Greater use of teams of specialists within the legal field
To offer more courses regarding emerging technologies — and not only for the legal practices themselves but also for society at large.
To be far more vigilant in crafting a positive world to be handed down to our kids and grandkids — a dream, not a nightmare. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

Still not convinced that you should care? Here are some things on the CURRENT landscapes:

You go to drop something off at your neighbor’s house. They have a camera that gets activated. What facial recognition database are you now on? Did you give your consent to that? No, you didn’t.
Because you posted your photo on Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and/or on millions of other websites, your face could be in ClearView AI’s database. Did you give your consent to that occurring? No, you didn’t.
You’re at the airport and facial recognition is used instead of a passport. Whose database was that from and what gets shared? Did you give your consent to that occurring? Probably not, and it’s not easy to opt-out either.
Numerous types of drones, delivery bots, and more are already coming onto the scene. What will the sidewalks, streets, and skies look like — and sound like — in your neighborhood in the near future? Is that how you want it? Did you give your consent to that happening? No, you didn’t.
…and on and on it goes.

Addendum — speaking of islands!

Palantir CEO: Silicon Valley can’t be on ‘Palo Alto island’ — Big Tech must play by the rules — from cnbc.com by Jessica Bursztynsky

Excerpt:

Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp said Thursday the core problem in Silicon Valley is the attitude among tech executives that they want to be separate from United States regulation.

“You cannot create an island called Palo Alto Island,” said Karp, who suggested tech leaders would rather govern themselves. “What Silicon Valley really wants is the canton of Palo Alto. We have the United States of America, not the ‘United States of Canton,’ one of which is Palo Alto. That must change.”

“Consumer tech companies, not Apple, but the other ones, have basically decided we’re living on an island and the island is so far removed from what’s called the United States in every way, culturally, linguistically and in normative ways,” Karp added.

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business [Kahn]

On 01/21/2020, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, Natural Language Processing (NLP), tools, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

A.I. breakthroughs in natural-language processing are big for business — from fortune.com by Jeremy Kahn

Excerpt:

Over the past 18 months, though, computer scientists have made huge strides in creating algorithms with unprecedented abilities at a variety of language tasks. What’s more, these new algorithms are making the leap from the lab and into real products at a breakneck pace—already changing the way tech’s biggest players, and many other businesses, operate. The Natural Language Processing (NLP) revolution promises better search engines and smarter chatbots and digital assistants. It could lead to systems that automatically analyze—and maybe even compose— legal documents and medical records. But some believe the NLP revolution will do far more.

Learning Ecosystems

2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report™ | Teaching and Learning Edition

Strategy in the Digital Revolution with Ryan McManus [Duke Corporate Education]

Categories

Tags