user experience (UX)

Worldwide, more consumers are interacting with technology using their voices [Laughlin at jwtintelligence.com]

On 08/01/2017, in Asia, human-computer interaction (HCI), trends, user experience (UX), vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Voice technology may be poised for a breakthrough with Chinese consumers. — from Shepherd Laughlin jwtintelligence.com

Excerpt:

Worldwide, more consumers are interacting with technology using their voices. As the Innovation Group London and Mindshare Futures found in our Speak Easy report, consumers who use voice technology think that it frees them from having to look at screens, helps them organize their lives, and is less mentally draining than traditional touch or typing devices.

Among the many markets where voice technology is catching on, China faces unique challenges and opportunities. The complex Chinese writing system means that current methods of selecting characters using keyboards can be slow and laborious, which suggests that fully functional voice technology would find an instant market. Spoken Chinese, however, has proven difficult for computers to decipher.

But voice technology is moving ahead anyway. 2015 saw the release of the LingLong DingDong, a product created through a partnership between iFlytek and JD.com, which has become known as China’s answer to the Amazon Echo. The device can understand both Mandarin and Cantonese. It plays music, gives directions, answers questions about the weather and the news, and more. The Tmall Genie, a similar product, functions using Alibaba’s voice assistant, AliGenie.

Campus Technology 2017: Virtual Reality Is More Than a New Medium — from edtechmagazine.com by Amy Burroughs
Experts weigh in on the future of VR in higher education.

Excerpts:

“It’s actually getting pretty exciting,” Georgieva said, noting that legacy companies and startups alike have projects in the works that will soon be on the market. Look for standalone, wireless VR headsets later this year from Facebook and Google.

“I think it’s going to be a universal device,” he said. “Eventually, we’ll end up with some kind of glasses where we can just dial in the level of immersion that we want.”

— Per Emery Craig, at Campus Technology 2017 Conference

…
“Doing VR for the sake of VR makes no sense whatsoever,” Craig said. “Ask when does it make sense to do this in VR? Does a sense of presence help this, or is it better suited to traditional media?”

Virtual Reality: The User Experience of Story — from blogs.adobe.com

Excerpt:

Solving the content problems in VR requires new skills that are only just starting to be developed and understood, skills that are quite different from traditional storytelling. VR is a nascent medium. One part story, one part experience. And while many of the concepts from film and theater can be used, storytelling through VR is not like making a movie or a play.

In VR, the user has to be guided through an experience of a story, which means many of the challenges in telling a VR story are closer to UX design than anything from film or theater.

Take the issue of frameless scenes. In a VR experience, there are no borders, and no guarantees where a user will look. Scenes must be designed to attract user attention, in order to guide them through the experience of a story.

Sound design, staging cues, lighting effects, and movement can all be used to draw a user’s attention.

However, it’s a fine balance between attraction to distraction.

“In VR, it’s easy to overwhelm the user. If you see a flashing light and in the background, you hear a sharp siren, and then something moves, you’ve given the user too many things to understand,” says Di Dang, User Experience Lead at POP, Seattle. “Be intentional and deliberate about how you grab audience attention.”

VR is a storytelling superpower. No other medium has the quite the same potential to create empathy and drive human connection. Because viewers are for all intents and purposes living the experience, they walk away with that history coded into their memory banks—easily accessible for future responses.

Google’s latest VR experiment is teaching people how to make coffee — from techradar.com by Parker Wilhelm
All in a quest to see how effective learning in virtual reality is

Excerpt:

Teaching with a simulation is no new concept, but Google’s Daydream Labs wants to see exactly how useful virtual reality can be for teaching people practical skills.

In a recent experiment, Google ran a simulation of an interactive espresso machine in VR. From there, it had a group of people try their virtual hand at brewing a cup of java before being tasked to make the real thing.

Addendum on 7/26/17:

A New World: VR and AR Tech Developments — from er.educause.edu by Emory Craig and Maya Georgieva

A Starter Kit for Instructional Designers — from edsurge.com by Amy Ahearn

Excerpts:

A 2016 report funded by the Gates Foundation found that in the U.S. alone, there are 13,000 instructional designers. Yet, when I graduated from college in 2008, I didn’t know this field existed. Surely a lot has changed!

Instructional design is experiencing a renaissance. As online course platforms proliferate, institutions of all shapes and sizes realize that they’ll need to translate content into digital forms. Designing online learning experiences is essential to training employees, mobilizing customers, serving students, building marketing channels, and sustaining business models.

The field has deep roots in distance education, human computer interaction, and visual design. But I’ve come to believe that contemporary instructional design sits at the intersection of three core disciplines: learning science, human-centered design, and digital marketing. It requires a deep respect for the pedagogical practices that teachers have honed for decades, balanced with fluency in today’s digital tools.
…
Below are some of the lessons and resources that I wish I knew of when I first went on the job market—a combination of the academic texts you read in school along with practical tools that have been essential to practicing instructional design in the real world. This is not a complete or evergreen list, but hopefully it’s a helpful start.

So You Want to Be an Instructional Designer? — from edsurge.com by Marguerite McNeal

Excerpt:

Good listener. People person. Lifelong learner. Sound like you? No, we’re not trying to arrange a first date. These are some common traits of people with successful careers in a booming job market: instructional design.

Colleges, K-12 schools and companies increasingly turn to instructional designers to help them improve the quality of teaching in in-person, online or blended-learning environments.

4 ways augmented reality could change corporate training forever –from by Jay Samit

Excerpt:

In the coming years, machine learning and augmented reality will likely take both educational approaches to the next level by empowering workers to have the latest, most accurate information available in context, when and where they need it most.

Here are four ways that digital reality can revolutionize corporate training…

…augmented reality (AR) is poised not only to address issues faced by our aging workforce, but to fundamentality increase productivity by changing how all employees are trained in the future.

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor [Nitta]

On 07/15/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, colleges, community colleges, computer science, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, programming, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Video: 4 FAQs about Watson as tutor — from er.educause.edu by Satya Nitta

Excerpt:

How is IBM using Watson’s intelligent tutoring system? So we are attempting to mimic the best practices of human tutoring. The gold standard will always remain one on one human to human tutoring. The whole idea here is an intelligent tutoring system as a computing system that works autonomously with learners, so there is no human intervention. It’s basically pretending to be the teacher itself and it’s working with the learner. What we’re attempting to do is we’re attempting to basically put conversational systems, systems that understand human conversation and dialogue, and we’re trying to build a system that, in a very natural way, interacts with people through conversation. The system basically has the ability to ask questions, to answer questions, to know who you are and where you are in your learning journey, what you’re struggling with, what you’re strong on and it will personalize its pedagogy to you.

…

There’s a natural language understanding system and a machine learning system that’s trying to figure out where you are in your learning journey and what the appropriate intervention is for you. The natural language system enables this interaction that’s very rich and conversation-based, where you can basically have a human-like conversation with it and, to a large extent, it will try to understand and to retrieve the right things for you. Again the most important thing is that we will set the expectations appropriately and we have appropriate exit criteria for when the system doesn’t actually understand what you’re trying to do.

More Than Just Cool? — from insidehighered.com by Nick Roll
Virtual and augmented realities make headway in courses on health care, art history and social work.

Excerpt:

When Glenn Gunhouse visits the Pantheon, you would think that the professor, who teaches art and architecture history, wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off the Roman temple’s columns, statues or dome. But there’s something else that always catches his eye: the jaws of the tourists visiting the building, and the way they all inevitably drop.

“Wow.”

There’s only one other way that Gunhouse has been able to replicate that feeling of awe for his students short of booking expensive plane tickets to Italy. Photos, videos and even three-dimensional walk-throughs on a computer screen don’t do it: It’s when his students put on virtual reality headsets loaded with images of the Pantheon.

…nursing schools are using virtual reality or augmented reality to bring three-dimensional anatomy illustrations off of two-dimensional textbook pages.

Also see:

Oculus reportedly planning $200 standalone wireless VR headset for 2018 — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

Excerpt:

Facebook is set to reveal a standalone Oculus virtual reality headset sometime later this year, Bloomberg reports, with a ship date of sometime in 2018. The headset will work without requiring a tethered PC or smartphone, according to the report, and will be branded with the Oculus name around the world, except in China, where it’ll carry Xiaomi trade dress and run some Xiaomi software as part of a partnership that extends to manufacturing plans for the device.

Facebook Inc. is taking another stab at turning its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset into a mass-market phenomenon. Later this year, the company plans to unveil a cheaper, wireless device that the company is betting will popularize VR the way Apple did the smartphone.

Source

The case for a next generation learning platform [Grush & Christian]

On 07/11/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, Blockchain, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, Michigan, microlearning, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, open courseware and systems, pace of change, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, RSS, second screen apps, simulations, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, trends, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

The case for a next generation learning platform — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush & Daniel Christian

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Grush: Then what are some of the implications you could draw from metrics like that one?

Christian: As we consider all the investment in those emerging technologies, the question many are beginning to ask is, “How will these technologies impact jobs and the makeup of our workforce in the future?”

While there are many thoughts and questions regarding the cumulative impact these technologies will have on our future workforce (e.g., “How many jobs will be displaced?”), the consensus seems to be that there will be massive change.

Whether our jobs are completely displaced or if we will be working alongside robots, chatbots, workbots, or some other forms of AI-backed personal assistants, all of us will need to become lifelong learners — to be constantly reinventing ourselves. This assertion is also made in the aforementioned study from McKinsey: “AI promises benefits, but also poses urgent challenges that cut across firms, developers, government, and workers. The workforce needs to be re-skilled to exploit AI rather than compete with it…”

A side note from DSC:
I began working on this vision prior to 2010…but I didn’t officially document it until 2012.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:

A global, powerful, next generation learning platform

What does the vision entail?

A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

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

A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determines that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and streams of content that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)
(Potentially) Integration with one-on-one tutoring services

Further details here >>

Addendum from DSC (regarding the resource mentioned below):
Note the voice recognition/control mechanisms on Westinghouse’s new product — also note the integration of Amazon’s Alexa into a “TV.”

Westinghouse’s Alexa-equipped Fire TV Edition smart TVs are now available — from theverge.com by Chaim Gartenberg

The key selling point, of course, is the built-in Amazon Fire TV, which is controlled with the bundled Voice Remote and features Amazon’s Alexa assistant.

Finally…also see:

NASA unveils a skill for Amazon’s Alexa that lets you ask questions about Mars — from geekwire.com by Kevin Lisota
Holographic storytelling — from jwtintelligence.com
The stories of Holocaust survivors are brought to life with the help of interactive 3D technologies.
New Dimensions in Testimony is a new way of preserving history for future generations. The project brings to life the stories of Holocaust survivors with 3D video, revealing raw first-hand accounts that are more interactive than learning through a history book. Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter, the first subject of the project, was filmed answering over 1000 questions, generating approximately 25 hours of footage. By incorporating natural language processing from the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), people are able to ask Gutter’s projected image questions that trigger relevant responses.

Historical VR application makes ‘time travel’ a reality [Ergürel]

On 07/10/2017, in attention, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, tools, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Historical virtual reality application makes ‘time travel’ a reality — from haptic.al by Deniz Ergürel
‘Virtual Time Binoculars’ provides a unique window into the city of Edinburgh around the time of the birth of Mary Queen of Scots.

Excerpt:

A new application called ‘Virtual Time Binoculars’, allows historians to explore the old Edinburgh city in entirely new and exciting ways.

Launched by a group of academics from the University of St. Andrews, the app brings the original views of streets, marketplaces and churches as they may have been in the 16th century.

Created by the University of St Andrews’s spinout company Smart History, Virtual Time Binoculars: Edinburgh 1544 provides a unique window into the capital around the time of the birth of Mary Queen of Scots.

Also see:
the Virtual Time Binoculars website.

Also see:

Virtual reality app highlights Penn State campus landmarks — from centredaily.com by Leon Valsechi

Excerpt:

The Penn State University Park campus is ornamented by senior class gifts that date back to the late 1800s and a team of Penn State researchers has developed a mobile virtual reality app that highlights some of the more popular landmarks.

Through the lens of a virtual reality headset, users are instantly transported to University Park, where they can visit some of the campus’s most recognizable relics. The trip is made possible by ChoroPhronesis, a research team operating within the Department of Geography that focuses on immersive virtual reality.

“ARKit: AR on 195 million iPhones & iPads by year end” plus 3 other items re: AR

On 07/06/2017, in Apple, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), computer science, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, interactivity, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

ARKit: Augmented Reality on 195 million iPhones and iPads by year end — from blog.mapbox.com by Ceci Alvarez

Excerpt:

Apple’s ARKit just made augmented reality (AR) mainstream — and together with the Maps SDK for Unity, will fundamentally change the types of location-based apps that developers can build.

Using ARKit plus Maps SDK for Unity allows you record your bike ride up to Twin Peaks in Strava and project the map of your route on your coffee table. As you plan your next vacation over dinner, you’ll be able to open your Lonely Planet app and have the Big Sur coast hovering in front of you as you browse the different camp sites. Or, when you’re at work appraising a property for flood insurance, you could just tilt up your phone and see the flood plain in front of you, and which parts of the property are susceptible to flooding. Or, when you’re teaching a geology class you project the evolution of Pangea in 3D for students to visualize instead of being limited by 2D images in textbooks.

Inside Peter Jackson’s New Augmented Reality Studio — from cartoonbrew.com by Ian Failes

Excerpt:

At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, one of the stand-out demos was from Wingnut AR, the augmented reality studio started by director Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh.

On stage, Wingnut AR’s creative director Alasdair Coull demonstrated a tabletop ar experience made using Apple’s upcoming augmented reality developer kit called ARKit and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4. The experience blended a real world environment – the tabletop – with digital objects, in this case a sci-fi location complete with attacking spaceships, while being viewed live, on an iPad.

Soon your desk will be a computer too — from wired.com by Elizabeth Stinson

More Fun Uses for Augmented Reality & Your iPhone Keep Popping Up — from ar.reality.news by Juliet Gallagher

Excerpt:

Developers are really having a field day with Apple’s ARKit, announced last month. Since it’s release to developers, videos have been appearing all over the Internet of the different ways that developers are getting creative with the ARKit using iPhones and iPads.

Here are a few videos of the cool things that are happening using the ARKit:

Addendum on 7/10/17:

Google Lens offers a snapshot of the future for augmented reality and AI — from android authority.com by Adam Sinicki

http://www.androidauthority.com/google-lens-augmented-reality-785836/

Google Lens is a tool that effectively brings search into the real world. The idea is simple: you point your phone at something around you that you want more information on and Lens will provide that information.

Augmented reality ‘is virtually unlimited’ for Apple [Griffith]

On 06/30/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Apple, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, business, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, human-computer interaction (HCI), platforms, programming, tools, trends, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Augmented reality ‘is virtually unlimited’ for Apple — from theaustralian.com.au by Chris Griffith

Excerpt:

Apple’s entry into augmented reality is gathering pace at an amazing rate, says one of its vice-presidents visiting Australia.

In an interview with The Australian yesterday, Apple vice-president of product marketing Greg “Joz” Joswiak said the enthusiasm of Apple’s development community building augmented reality (AR) applications had been “unbelievable”.

“They’ve built everything from virtual tape measures (to) ballerinas made out of wood dancing on floors. It’s absolutely incredible what people are doing in so little time.”

He said in the commercial space, AR applications would evolve for shopping, furniture placement, education, training and services.

Also see:

Five Augmented Reality Experiences That Bring Museum Exhibits to Life — from smithsonianmag.com by Jennifer Billock
AR features allow visitors to explore historical spaces and artifacts in new ways

Excerpt:
Imagine being surrounded by a world of ghosts, things that aren’t there unless you look hard enough, and in the right way. With augmented reality technology, that’s possible—and museums are using it to their advantage. With augmented reality, museums are superimposing ther virtual world right over what’s actually in front of you, bringing exhibits and artifacts to life in new ways.

These five spots are great examples of how augmented reality is enhancing the museum experience.

Also see:

University Of Michigan Deploys Augmented Reality System To Aid Testing Of Automated Vehicles — from forbes.com by Sam Abuelsamid

Augmented Reality in Education: An infographic (& more) from NJIT

On 06/28/2017, in attention, Augmented Reality (AR), computer science, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), student-related, tools, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

Augmented Reality in Education — from graduatedegrees.online.njit.edu

Excerpt:

Augmented reality has become a field with limitless possibilities. It holds huge promise for improving educational systems across the globe. In the last 2 to 3 years, augmented reality (AR) has grown into a technology that is set to revolutionize numerous sectors, most importantly education. To learn more, check out the infographic created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Computer Science program.

Four futurists weigh in on the jobs of the future — from impactlab.com by Thomas Frey

Virtual Reality Coursework Provides Rich Training Ground [Doucette]

On 06/25/2017, in career development, colleges, community colleges, computer science, emerging technologies, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, programming, tools, universities, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Virtual Reality Coursework Provides Rich Training Ground — from edtechmagazine.com by Dave Doucette
Colleges embrace VR to develop students’ technical skills and expand their experiences.

Excerpt:

IDC forecasts that global sales of VR headsets will jump to 61 million by 2020, up from 10.1 million in 2016. As adoption ramps up, demand for applications will be fast on its heels, and professionals trained in all aspects of VR will be in hot demand. Institutions across the country are stepping up to help students get ready.
…
VR also expands the realm of possibility for students interested in creativity and problem solving. Colleges are already offering courses dedicated to VR technology, in which students create films, interactive games, campus tours and even customized projects for real-world clients. As one educator has noted, VR amounts to a new art form: both a new way to tell stories and an entirely new professional field.

How Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods highlights the hybrid, ‘omnichannel’ future of higher ed — from edsurge.com by Sean Gallagher

Excerpt:

The expectation that students can integrate their learning experiences across channels is now arriving in higher education. Online education has reached a tipping point where almost 30 percent of all students in U.S. higher education are enrolled in at least one online college course. A significant number of students are already blending their experience across online and offline channels—and numerous data points speak to the evolving value of blending online delivery with physical presence, as suggested by Amazon.

In national surveys of prospective adult students that we have conducted regularly at Northeastern University over recent years, we have consistently found that 60 percent of students prefer a blended or hybrid learning experience. In other words, the majority of the higher education student market is neglected by today’s dominant approach that focuses on offering either online or in-person programs.
…
Like Amazon, the colleges and universities that are able to deliver across channels—leveraging the combination of physical presence and online algorithms—will be uniquely positioned to take advantage of the in-demand, destination nature of studying in certain cities; the local sourcing of faculty; and proximity to key employers, industries, and job opportunities.

Over the next decade, growth and competitive success in higher education will not be a function of who is able to offer online programs. Instead, the successful institutions will be those who can symbiotically integrate their placed-based educational operations and experiences with software-driven analytics, learning science, and machine learning to create a more personalized experience. A more Amazon-like experience.

From DSC:
A few side comments here:

The future won’t be kind to those institutions who haven’t built up their “street cred” in the digital/virtual space. For example, if you are working at a traditional institution of higher education that doesn’t have online-based programs — nor does it have plans to create such programs in the future — you should get your resume up-to-date and start looking…now.
.
For data/analytics to have a significant impact and inform strategic or pedagogical decisions, one needs to collect the data. This is not hard to do online. But it’s very difficult — at least at a granular level — to do in a face-to-face environment.
.
Coursera’s MeetUps around the world — where their learners are encouraged to join study and discussion groups related to their online-only courses — make me wonder about the future of learning spaces and whether your local Starbucks might morph into a learning hub.

What a future, powerful, global learning platform will look & act like [Christian]

On 06/22/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, assistive technologies, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, languages and translation, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, love of learning, machine-to-machine communications, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, robotics, RSS, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A vision for a global, powerful, next generation learning platform

By Daniel Christian

NOTE: Having recently lost my Senior Instructional Designer position due to a staff reduction program, I am looking to help build such a platform as this. So if you are working on such a platform or know of someone who is, please let me know: danielchristian55@gmail.com.

I want to help people reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively — while providing more choice, more control to lifelong learners. This will become critically important as artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, and automation continue to impact the workplace.

Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A global, powerful, next generation learning platform

What does the vision entail?

A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

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

A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)

Further details:
While basic courses will be accessible via mobile devices, the optimal learning experience will leverage two or more displays/devices. So while smaller smartphones, laptops, and/or desktop workstations will be used to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other learners, the larger displays will deliver an excellent learning environment for times when there is:

A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
The SME(s)
An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, M, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This new learning platform will also feature:

Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
Speech-to-text capabilities for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
Chatbots
- For learning how to use the system
- For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
- For asking questions within a course
As many profiles as needed per household
(Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
(Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”

In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Likely players:

Amazon – personal assistance via Alexa
Apple – personal assistance via Siri
Google – personal assistance via Google Assistant; language translation
Facebook — personal assistance via M
Microsoft – personal assistance via Cortana; language translation
IBM Watson – cognitive computing; language translation
Polycom – videoconferencing
Blackboard – videoconferencing, application sharing, chat, interactive whiteboard
T1V, Prsym, and/or Bluescape – submitting content to a digital canvas/workspace
Samsung, Sharp, LCD, and others – for large displays with integrated microphones, speakers, webcams, etc.
Feedly – RSS aggregator
_________ – for providing backchannels
_________ – for tools to create videocasts and interactive videos
_________ – for blogs, wikis, podcasts, journals
_________ – for quizzes/assessments
_________ – for discussion boards/forums
_________ – for creating AR, MR, and/or VR-based content

Learning Ecosystems

Worldwide, more consumers are interacting with technology using their voices [Laughlin at jwtintelligence.com]

3 articles that show that experimentation is needed — & is just getting started — with virtual reality

A Starter Kit for Instructional Designers [Ahearn]

4 ways augmented reality could change corporate training forever [Samit]

VR & AR make headway in courses on health care, art history, and social work [Roll] Plus…a $200 wireless VR headset from Oculus in 2018?

Historical VR application makes ‘time travel’ a reality [Ergürel]

“ARKit: AR on 195 million iPhones & iPads by year end” plus 3 other items re: AR

Augmented reality ‘is virtually unlimited’ for Apple [Griffith]

Virtual Reality Coursework Provides Rich Training Ground [Doucette]

How Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods highlights the hybrid, ‘omnichannel’ future of higher ed [Gallagher]

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