Long ago, someone coined the adage, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ Illustrators and teachers have grasped that simple truism throughout thousands of years of human history – It’s a fact that many, if not most of us, are visual learners. That’s especially true when it comes to things mechanical. That said, it’s 2015, and certainly time for a twenty first century iteration of this venerable learning principle to manifest. And in fact, it has – Consider Explain 3D – An interactive encyclopedia of 3D simulations and visualizations that helps kids, teachers or parents to explain and understand how things work. Explain 3D is a great tool to help youngsters develop the skills of logical thinking and imagination, while poking around in some very cool modern technologies and technical stuff.
I NEVER imagined I would get hooked on reading comic books on a TV screen. That changed last week after I picked up a new Apple TV.
The new device, which is similar to a set-top box and brings video and music from the Internet to a television, now has an app store. So I downloaded Madefire, one of the first apps available for the new device. Madefire adds a twist to digital comics with sound effects, music and motion, bringing the panels to life on the big screen. Within minutes, I was bingeing on a series about Superman turning into a corrupt dictator.
Playing with apps is just one new feature of the revamped Apple TV, which will ship this week. It’s that plethora of innovations and apps that leads me to conclude that the upgraded $149 box is now the best TV streaming device you can get for your money.
(Reuters) – Apple’s loyal army of software developers is joining the tech giant in its bid to conquer the living room with a new version of Apple TV, creating apps for the big screen that they hope will attract users and unlock a rich source of revenue.
A long-awaited update to Apple TV, which launched in 2007, will start shipping in 80 countries on Friday.
Apple views apps as the future of television. An App Store is the centerpiece of the new device, and hundreds of apps will be ready at launch, including gaming, shopping and photography.
Although developers have already been able to make apps for smart TV rivals, Apple’s vast base of developers will set the device apart, analysts say. And developers say they relish the opportunity to reach users in a more intimate setting.
Pre-orders for the new Apple TVhave begun. Well, technically, the new Apple TVs; the latest model comes in two sizes. Oh, and the previous version remains available too. For the first time in Apple TV history, you’ve got options. Now it’s time to figure out which one’s right for you.
The company put out the call for app submissions on Wednesday for tvOS. The Apple TV App Store will debut as Apple TV units are shipped out next week.
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The main attraction of Apple TV is a remote with a glass touch surface and a Siri button that allows users to search by voice. Apple tvOS is capable of running apps ranging from Airbnb to Zillow and games like Crossy Road. Another major perk of Apple TV will be universal search, which allows users to scan for movies and television shows and see results from multiple sources, instead of having to conduct the same search within multiple apps.
Apple CEO Tim Cook hopes the device will simplify how viewers consume content.
From DSC: The days of developing for a “TV”-based OS are now upon us: tvOS is here. I put “TV” in quotes because what we know of the television in the year 2015 may look entirely different 5-10 years from now.
Once developed, things like lifelong learning, web-based learner profiles, badges and/or certifications, communities of practice, learning hubs, smart classrooms, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips, AI-based digital learning playlists, and more will never be the same again.
Addendum on 10/26/15: The article below discusses one piece of the bundle of technologies that I’m trying to get at via my Learning from the Living [Class] Room Vision:
No More Pencils, No More Books — from by Will Oremus Artificially intelligent software is replacing the textbook—and reshaping American education.
Excerpt: ALEKS starts everyone at the same point. But from the moment students begin to answer the practice questions that it automatically generates for them, ALEKS’ machine-learning algorithms are analyzing their responses to figure out which concepts they understand and which they don’t. A few wrong answers to a given type of question, and the program may prompt them to read some background materials, watch a short video lecture, or view some hints on what they might be doing wrong. But if they’re breezing through a set of questions on, say, linear inequalities, it may whisk them on to polynomials and factoring. Master that, and ALEKS will ask if they’re ready to take a test. Pass, and they’re on to exponents—unless they’d prefer to take a detour into a different topic, like data analysis and probability. So long as they’ve mastered the prerequisites, which topic comes next is up to them.
On their way to this month’s 70th United Nation’s General Assembly, the organization’s annual high-level meeting in New York, diplomats and world leaders will pass by a makeshift glass structure—both a glossy multi-media hub, and a gateway to an entirely different world.
The hub uses virtual reality to allow the UN attendees to see Jordan’s Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees through the eyes of a little girl. And, by using an immersive video portal, which will launch later this week, they will have the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with residents of the camp.
The effort aims to put a human face on the high-level deliberations about the refugee crisis, which will likely dominate many conversations at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called on the meeting to be “one of compassion, prevention and, above all, action.”
From DSC: VR-based apps have a great deal of potential to develop and practice greater empathy. See these related postings:
When it comes to virtual reality, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County is going for full immersion.
Armed with funding from the National Science Foundation, the university is set to build a virtual reality “environment” that’s designed to help researchers from different fields. It’s called PI2.
In the 15-by-20-foot room, stepping into virtual reality won’t necessarily require goggles.
A visualization wall at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Electronic Visualization Lab.
UMBC officials say their project will be similar to this.(Photo courtesy of Planar)
Now you’re ready to turn your class into an immersive game, and everything you need is right here. With the help of these resources, you can develop your own gameful class, cook up a transmedia project, design a pervasive game or create your very own [Augmented Reality Game] ARG. Games aside, these links are useful for all types of creative learning projects. In most cases, what is on offer is free and/or web based, so only your imagination will be taxed.
If augmented reality could be a shared experience, it could change the way we will use the technology.
Something along these lines is currently in development at a Microsoft laboratory run by Jaron Lanier, one of the pioneers of VR since the 1980s through his company VPL Research. The project, called Comradre, allows multiple users to share virtual- and augmented-reality experiences, reports MIT Technology Review.
Because virtual reality takes place in a fully digital environment, it is not hugely difficult to put multiple users into the same virtual instance at the same time, wirelessly synced across multiple headsets.
vrfavs.com— some serious VR-related resources for you. Note: There are some NSFW items on there; so this is not for kids.
Together, virtual reality and augmented reality are expected to generate about $150 billion in revenue by the year 2020.
Of that staggering sum, according to data released today by Manatt Digital Media, $120 billion is likely to come from sales of augmented reality—with the lion’s share comprised of hardware, commerce, data, voice services, and film and TV projects—and $30 billion from virtual reality, mainly from games and hardware.
The report suggests that the major VR and AR areas that will be generating revenue fall into one of three categories: Content (gaming, film and TV, health care, education, and social); hardware and distribution (headsets, input devices like handheld controllers, graphics cards, video capture technologies, and online marketplaces); and software platforms and delivery services (content creation tools, capture, production, and delivery software, video game engines, analytics, file hosting and compression tools, and B2B and enterprise uses).
Talking about augmented reality technology in teaching and learning the first thing that comes to mind is this wonderful app called Aurasma. Since its release a few years ago, Aurasma gained so much in popularity and several teachers have already embraced it within their classrooms. For those of you who are not yet familiar with how Aurasma works and how to use in it in your class, this handy guide from Apple in Education is a great resource to start with.
The Oculus Touch virtual reality (VR) controllers finally have their first full videogames. A handful of titles were confirmed to support the kit back at the Oculus Connect 2 developer conference in September. But still one of the most impressive showcases of what these position-tracked devices can do exists in Oculus VR’s original tech demo, Toybox. [On 10/13/15], Oculus VR itself has released a new video that shows off what players are able to do within the software.
Much like sketching the first few lines on a blank canvas, the earliest prototypes of a VR project is an exciting time for fun and experimentation. Concepts evolve, interactions are created and discarded, and the demo begins to take shape.Competing with other 3D Jammers around the globe, Swedish game studio Pancake Storm has shared their #3DJam progress on Twitter, with some interesting twists and turns along the way. Pancake Storm started as a secondary school project for Samuel Andresen and Gabriel Löfqvist, who want to break into the world of VR development with their project, tentatively dubbed Wheel Smith and the Willchair.
Recently I learned about a new feature called Virtual Field Trips. In a partnership with 360 Cities, NearPod now gives teachers and students the opportunity to view pristine locations like the Taj Mahal, the Golden Gate Bridge, and The Great Wall of China. You can view famous architecture, famous artifacts, and even different planets! Virtual Field Trips are a great addition to any classroom.
Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, Calif., has opened a first-of-its-kind virtual reality learning center that’s been designed to allow students from every program—dentistry, osteopathic medicine, veterinary medicine, physical therapy, and nursing—to learn through VR.
The Virtual Reality Learning Center currently houses four different VR technologies: the two zSpace displays, the Anatomage Virtual Dissection Table, the Oculus Rift, and Stanford anatomical models on iPad.
Robert W. Hasel, D.D.S., associate dean of simulation, immersion & digital learning at Western, says VR gives anatomical science teachers the ability to view and interact with anatomy in a way never before experienced. The virtual dissection table allows students to rotate the human body in 360 degrees, take it apart, identify specific structures, study individual systems, look at multiple views at the same time, take a trip inside the body, and look at holograms.
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Addendum on 10/20/15:
Can Virtual Reality Replace the Cadaver Lab?— from centerdigitaled.com by Justine Brown Colleges are starting to use virtual reality platforms to augment or replace cadaver labs, saving universities hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The multi-device world is certainly evolving. Existing devices are evolving in size while new devices are being added to the mix. All of this is resulting in evolving behavior patterns.
The smart thing to do is to get started with multi-device learning without waiting for the world to settle down. You might make a few mistakes, but will learn along the way and would still be better off as compared to those who never got started.
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“…the boundaries between tablets and smartphones are blurring…”
Dazzle It is a cool new augmented reality app that lets you remix artwork from artists including the Sir Peter Blake, Godfather of Pop Art – best known for designing the 1967 Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.
Developed by digital design agency, Corporation Pop, it combines the latest augmented reality techniques with design to bring history to life. And notably, unlike most augmented reality apps, you don’t need a pre-supplied marker to view what you create in a real-world scene.
A FOREST park in Angus is to host the UK’s first live theatrical performance featuring augmented reality (AR) technology.
By downloading an app, audiences will be able to spot magical creatures through their smartphones and capture them on camera, before sharing the images with friends and family on social media.
DragonQuest, which will be performed in Monikie Country Park, allows visitors to wander around a forest using their smartphone to create images of fantastical creatures in addition to real-life characters and events on the set.
Various Application of Augmented Reality in Learning Different Subjects
Astronomy: AR can be used to make student understand about the relationship between the Sun and the Earth. Here AR technology can be used with 3D rendered sun and earth shapes.
Chemistry: Teachers can demonstrate what a molecule and atoms consist of using AR technology.
Biology: Teachers can use Augmented Reality to showcase their student’s body structure or anatomy. Teachers can show their students different types of organ and how they look in a 3D atmosphere. Students can even study human body structure on their own by using devices with AR embedded technology in it.
Physics: Physics is one of the subjects where AR technology can be used perfectly. Various kinematics properties can be easily understood by using AR technology.
Virtual Reality (VR) may be the type of educational breakthrough that comes along once in a generation, heralding a tectonic shift toward immersive content for teaching and instruction.
By presenting a complete view of the world in which it is situated, VR offers a new opportunity to close some of the pedagogical gaps that have appeared in 21st century classroom learning. These gaps stem from the fact that curriculum and content in education have not caught up with rapid technology advancements.
Below I introduce three of these gaps and how they might be addressed by virtual reality content soon to be produced and distributed commercially.
The Lawrence school district recently purchased 20 Google Cardboards, which beginning this school year are available for teachers to check out for use in their classrooms, said Joe Smysor, the district’s technology integration specialist. Cardboard works in conjunction with a smartphone app to deliver a 3-D, 360-degree navigable image. Students can use apps with Cardboard to virtually visit museums, landmarks or cities around the world.
“It’s going to allow teachers to take their class on field trips where school buses couldn’t otherwise go,” Smysor said. “That could be back 100 years in the past, or underwater.”
While college students are settling into their dorms, it’s already time for next year’s class of high school students to narrow down their potential school choices and schedule campus visits. Or maybe they can just stay home and start the journey virtually.
A site called YouVisit has a surprisingly large set of virtual-reality college tours available. All the major Texas colleges are represented, and one of them, Trinity University, has been making a big push to get cheap sets of cardboard VR goggles out to families at recruiting events such as college fairs. Trinity sent me a pair of the cardboard glasses. The virtual visit to the campus certainly wasn’t the same as being there, but to get at least a visual sense of what the campus looks like and to be generally wowed by the 3-D/360-degree effect, it was worth the trip.
FARMINGTON, Conn. & DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Regis University today unveiled a unique new way for prospective students to tour and experience the school’s scenic 100-acre campus. Through an interactive, immersive experience created by independent agency Primacy, students are able to put on an Oculus Rift virtual reality (VR) headset and immediately be transformed to the campus where they can get a full, 360-degree tour as if they were on site – including viewing daybreak runs at Red Rocks, being immersed in Regis’ experiential nursing skills lab and visiting the campus pub to watch a live Jenga game.
Odyssey is the first camera rig built specifically for Google’s Jump platform, which was also announced at this year’s I/O conference. Jump is an entire virtual reality ecosystem that, in theory, will make it easier to both create and consume VR content. With Jump, Google created open plans that companies can use to build their own 16-camera rig (GoPro just happened to be the first), as well as assemble software that can recreate the scene being captured in much higher quality than most existing image stitching software can. Eventually, Jump videos will be hosted in YouTube; think of it as the next logical step following YouTube’s inclusion of 360-degree videos earlier this year.
Are you a classical music fan? It’s a question most people would probably say no to, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic knows that.
“People are intimidated by classical music,” said Amy Seidenwurm, the Philharmonic’s director of digital initiatives. “They don’t come to concerts because they feel it might not be for them.”
But to change those minds, the LA Phil is turning to virtual reality. For the next month, it will be driving around the Los Angeles area to parks, festivals and museums, in a van outfitted with real carpeting and seats from the Walt Disney Concert Hall — and six Samsung Gear VR headsets, which have been loaded with a special video performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. (You know the one: Dun-dun-dun DUNNNN.)
That’s why there’s more to AR than just wearable devices.
In this piece, I’ll explain the benefits and challenges of designing for augmented reality, then dive into why we must start thinking of products as connected services instead of standalone items.
Harvard Business School‘s HBX digital learning initiative today launched a virtual classroom designed to reproduce the intimacy and synchronous interaction of the case method in a digital environment. With HBX Live, students from around the world can log in concurrently to participate in an interactive discussion in real time, guided by an HBS professor.
Built to mimic the amphitheater-style seating of an HBS classroom, the HBX Live Studio features a high-resolution video wall that can display up to 60 participants. Additional students can audit sessions via an observer model. An array of stationary and roaming cameras capture the action, allowing viewers to see both the professor and fellow students.
HBX Live’s virtual amphitheater (PRNewsFoto/Harvard Business School)
Convenience. I don’t have to travel to another city, state, country. That type of convenience and flexibility is the basis of why many learners take online-based courses in the first place.
Global — learning from people of different cultures, races, backgrounds, life experiences.
The opportunities are there to increase one‘s cultural awareness.
HBX Live is innovative; in fact, Harvard is upping it’s innovation game yet again — showing a firm grasp/display of understanding that they realize that the landscape of higher education is changing and that institutions of traditional higher education need to adapt.
Harvard is willing to experiment and to identify new ways to leverage technologies — taking advantage of the affordances that various technologies offer.
Anand, meantime, faces the images of 60 students portrayed on a curved screen in front of him, a high-resolution video wall composed of more than 6.2 million pixels that mimics the amphitheater-style seating of a class HBS tiered classroom
From DSC: I’d recommend that historians, geographers, geologists, archeologists — and many others as well — keep a sharp and steady eye on what’s happening with Virtual Reality (VR) — as the affordances that VR could bring seem very promising. Establishing collaborations with teams of specialists could open up some amazing learning experiences for learners in the future.
Virtual reality has been increasingly making its way into the museum experience. At London’s National History Museum, visitors can currently experience First Life, a 15-minute VR experience also using the Samsung Gear VR headsets, in which David Attenborough narrates a 3D journey depicting sea creatures from 500 million years ago.
Only a few major museums have hosted their own VR experiences, but several projects are working on bringing the museum experience to the masses using the technology.
Google recently launched its Expeditions project, allowing students equipped with a Cardboard headset and a smartphone to view materials from major institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History.
British Museum visitors will now be able to experience the past in a more vivid way. Apart from seeing the historical artifacts, you will be taken to the Bronze Age with the help of virtual reality headsets. You can don a Samsung Gear VR headset and explore a customary roundhouse from the Bronze Age. The exploration will consist of 3D scans of objects that are present in the museum. The museum is launching a VR weekend where this experience can be obtained.
… Recreation of Three Bronze Age Objects
Three Bronze Age objects have been digitally recreated and will be shown to the visitors through virtual reality headsets.
One is a gold object which was recently discovered and is still caked with mud. The second object is a splendid bronze Beaune Dirk, which is a princely dagger. However, its shape suggests that it was not meant to be used, as the blade was never sharpened and the end was also not attached to a wooden hilt. The third object is a twist of bronze which looks simple but is most enigmatic. Over 50 such loops have been found within 18 miles of Brighton. They were not found anywhere else in Europe. What they were actually, is still a mystery. Users will be invited to try a replica and provide their opinions.
Tech start up Alchemy Learning is using virtual reality as a tool for education.
“The ability to have a truly experiential learning moment has not been possible in traditional online education. Whereas with virtual reality you can see the students really are in a different world. They’re able to truly experience what’s around them,” Alchemy Learning co-founder Win Smith said.
“As an educator with 20+ years’ experience integrating technology into curriculum, it is exciting for me to see a technology that so quickly captures the attention of the students, motivates them to make the effort to learn the procedures, and then opens them up to the relevant content.“
-Larry Fallon,
Instructional Technology Coordinator,
Arlington County Public Schools
Translating physical spaces into digital experiences — from create-hub.com by Sorcha Daly Cultural institutions have a big challenge on their hands in a digital age. How does the experience of a physical space, of visiting a building housing priceless objects, one-of-a-kind artefacts and engaging exhibitions, translate digitally?
Excerpts:
We’re seeing a huge increase in digital engagement with cultural institutions, with online visitor numbers far outweighing the number of people who make it through the doors. The British Museum, for example, received a whopping 35.3 million online visitors in 2014, compared with an in itself record-breaking 6.8 million physical visitors, the most of any UK museum or gallery. Add to this an impressive social media haul and that’s a lot of people who are engaging with the institution away from the building. This pattern is common to cultural institutions across the board.
So how exactly is digital changing the way people experience cultural institutions and how can they start using these changes as ways to better engage with audiences?
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Several galleries have been using iPhone apps as enhanced alternatives to the audio tour guides, complete with additional interviews and comments from curators and personalities. Tate Modern’s London’s guide to last year’s Matisse Cut-Outs exhibition was particularly good, featuring additional images and an audio biography of the artist’s life. The Art Gallery of NSW also introduced a Chinese language guide app after noticing that there were many Chinese visitors to the gallery who would benefit from additional content.
These apps could be really powerful if extended across the entire visit to unlock stories throughout the building. Imagine walking past an unremarkable-seeming sculpture, for instance, and a tap notification appearing on your Apple Watch displaying a fascinating fact about the significance of the object. This could be powered with simple iBeacons technology.
From DSC: Might some of these same ideas and concepts be applied within our libraries? Our art galleries? Other locations?
As faculty at colleges and universities are all too aware, it’s hard to do two jobs at the same time. Since the advent of the modern research university over a century ago, faculty have effectively held down two jobs: conducting (and publishing) research and teaching students.
Arguments for the dual-role professor seem logical. Knowledge production should make one a better instructor. Students should benefit from teachers producing the latest knowledge. But there’s precious little data to support that adding the research job to the instruction job improves student outcomes.
The downside is that both jobs require significant expertise and commitment to do well.
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There is an emerging consensus as to what works best for onground instruction. It’s called the Dynamic Classroom, and it looks like this:
Flip classroom so “transfer of information” occurs ahead of class
Incorporate technology in the classroom (handheld clickers or smartphone apps) to quickly ascertain whether students have understood key concepts
Integrate active learning techniques to improve understanding of key concepts, including peer learning, group problem solving, project-based learning and experiential learning via studios and workshops
Include “perspective transformation” exercises wherein students change their frames of reference by critically reflecting on their assumptions
From DSC: First of all, I second the idea of splitting up the responsibilities of researching and teaching. Both roles are full-time jobs and require different skillsets. With students paying ever higher tuition bills, students deserve to take their courses from professors who know how to teach (not an easy job by the way!).
But the unbundling doesn’t — and shouldn’t — stop with the splitting up of the teaching and research roles.
Let’s look at another of the instructional shifts that Ryan considers — and that is the move towards the use of smartphones and apps:
In this environment, we can imagine one app for Economics 101 and another for Psychology 110. They are also the ideal platform for simulations and gamified learning and can tailor the user experience further by incorporating real-world inputs (e.g., location of the student) into the material. But, like the dynamic classroom, apps require an unparalleled level of development and instructional expertise—a full-time job for faculty who will be teaching online.
I think there’s some serious potential with this approach, especially given the trend towards more mobile computing and the affordances that come with using mobile technologies.
However, when we start delivering teaching and learning experiences that involve the digital/virtual realm like this, we’re instantly catapulted into a world that requires additional skills. As such, I highly doubt that the majority of faculty members have the time, interests, passions, or the abilities/gifts to code such apps. They would have to simultaneously be (or become) a programmer/developer, an instructional designer, a graphic designer, a copyright expert, an expert in accessibility, instantly knowledgeable in user interface and user experience design, as well as continue to serve as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) — and I could list other roles as well. That is why we need TEAMS of specialists. If the trends towards moving more of our teaching and learning experiences online and/or into such digital realms continue, then our current models simply won’t cut it anymore, at least in the majority of cases.
I appreciate Ryan’s article and second the main idea of splitting up the teaching and researching responsibilities. But again, when we’re talking developing apps, we had better be talking employing the use of teams — or the students will likely not be better off.
At some colleges, media teams sit down with professors ahead of time and lay out long-term strategies to determine how video may enhance the learning experience of students in their courses.
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The media team offers instructors a number of planning worksheets to encourage them to think more about the purpose of videos in their courses.
This posting can also be seen out at evoLLLution.com(where LLL stands for lifelong learning):
From DSC:
What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025?
In the future, learning “channels” will offer more choice, more control. They will be far more sophisticated than what we have today.
That said, what the most important aspects of online course design end up being 10 years from now depends upon what types of “channels” I think there will be and what might be offered via those channels. By channels, I mean forms, methods, and avenues of learning that a person could pursue and use. In 2015, some example channels might be:
Attending a community college, a college or a university to obtain a degree
Obtaining informal learning during an internship
Using social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn
Reading blogs, books, periodicals, etc.
In 2025, there will likely be new and powerful channels for learning that will be enabled by innovative forms of communications along with new software, hardware, technologies, and other advancements. For examples, one could easily imagine:
That the trajectory of deep learning and artificial intelligence will continue, opening up new methods of how we might learn in the future
That augmented and virtual reality will allow for mobile learning to the Nth degree
That the trend of Competency Based Education (CBE) and microcredentials may be catapulted into the mainstream via the use of big data-related affordances
Due to time and space limitations, I’ll focus here on the more formal learning channels that will likely be available online in 2025. In that environment, I think we’ll continue to see different needs and demands – thus we’ll still need a menu of options. However, the learning menu of 2025 will be more personalized, powerful, responsive, sophisticated, flexible, granular, modularized, and mobile.
Highly responsive, career-focused track
One part of the menu of options will focus on addressing the demand for more career-focused information and learning that is available online (24×7). Even in 2015, with the U.S. government saying that 40% of today’s workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs and others saying that percentage will continue climbing to 50% or more, people will be forced to learn quickly in order to stay marketable. Also, the 1/2 lives of information may not last very long, especially if we continue on our current trajectory of exponential change (vs. linear change).
However, keeping up with that pace of change is currently proving to be out of reach for most institutions of higher education, especially given the current state of accreditation and governance structures throughout higher education as well as how our current teaching and learning environment is set up (i.e., the use of credit hours, 4 year degrees, etc.). By 2025, accreditation will have been forced to change to allow for alternative forms of learning and for methods of obtaining credentials. Organizations that offer channels with a more vocational bent to them will need to be extremely responsive, as they attempt to offer up-to-date, highly-relevant information that will immediately help people be more employable and marketable. Being nimble will be the name of the game in this arena. Streams of content will be especially important here. There may not be enough time to merit creating formal, sophisticated courses on many career-focused topics.
With streams of content, the key value provided by institutions will be to curate the most relevant, effective, reliable, up-to-date content…so one doesn’t have to drink from the Internet’s firehose of information. Such streams of content will also offer constant potential, game-changing scenarios and will provide a pulse check on a variety of trends that could affect an industry. Social-based learning will be key here, as learners contribute to each other’s learning. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will need to be knowledgeable facilitators of learning; but given the pace of change, true experts will be rare indeed.
Microcredentials, nanodegrees, competency-based education, and learning from one’s living room will be standard channels in 2025. Each person may have a web-based learner profile by then and the use of big data will keep that profile up-to-date regarding what any given individual has been learning about and what skills they have mastered.
For example, even currently in 2015, a company called StackUp creates their StackUp Report to add to one’s resume or grades, asserting that their services can give “employers and schools new metrics to evaluate your passion, interests, and intellectual curiosity.” Stackup captures, categorizes, and scores everything you read and study online. So they can track your engagement on a given website, for example, and then score the time spent doing so. This type of information can then provide insights into the time you spend learning.
Project teams and employers could create digital playlists that prospective employees or contractors will have to advance through; and such teams and employers will be watching to see how the learners perform in proving their competencies.
However, not all learning will be in the fast lane and many people won’t want all of their learning to be constantly in the high gears.In fact, the same learner could be pursuing avenues in multiple tracks, traveling through their learning-related journeys at multiple speeds.
The more traditional liberal arts track
To address these varied learning preferences, another part of the menu will focus on channels that don’t need to change as frequently. The focus here won’t be on quickly-moving streams of content, but the course designers in this track can take a bit more time to offer far more sophisticated options and activities that people will enjoy going through.
Along these lines, some areas of the liberal arts* will fit in nicely here.
*Speaking of the liberal arts, a brief but important tangent needs to be addressed, for strategic purposes. While the following statement will likely be highly controversial, I’m going to say it anyway. Online learning could be the very thing that saves the liberal arts.
Why do I say this? Because as the price of higher education continues to increase, the dynamics and expectations of learners continue to change. As the prices continue to increase, so do peoples’ expectations and perspectives. So it may turn out that people are willing to pay a dollar range that ends up being a fraction of today’s prices. But such greatly reduced prices won’t likely be available in face-to-face environments, as offering these types of learning environment is expensive. However, such discounted prices can and could be offered via online-based environments. So, much to the chagrin of many in academia, online learning could be the very thing that provides the type of learning, growth, and some of the experiences that liberal arts programs have been about for centuries. Online learning can offer a lifelong supply of the liberal arts.
But I digress…
By 2025, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be able to offer excellent, engaging courses chocked full of the use of:
Engaging story/narrative
Powerful collaboration and communication tools
Sophisticated tracking and reporting
Personalized learning, tech-enabled scaffolding, and digital learning playlists
Game elements or even, in some cases, multiplayer games
Highly interactive digital videos with built-in learning activities
Transmedia-based outlets and channels
Mobile-based learning using AR, VR, real-world assignments, objects, and events
…and more.
However, such courses won’t be able to be created by one person. Their sophistication will require a team of specialists – and likely a list of vendors, algorithms, and/or open source-based tools – to design and deliver this type of learning track.
Final reflections
The marketplaces involving education-related content and technologies will likely look different. There could be marketplaces for algorithms as well as for very granular learning modules. In fact, it could be that modularization will be huge by 2025, allowing digital learning playlists to be built by an SME, a Provost, and/or a Dean (in addition to the aforementioned employer or project team). Any assistance that may be required by a learner will be provided either via technology (likely via an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled resource) and/or via a SME.
We will likely either have moved away from using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or those LMSs will allow for access to far larger, integrated learning ecosystems.
Functionality wise, collaboration tools will still be important, but they might be mind-blowing to us living in 2015. For example, holographic-based communications could easily be commonplace by 2025. Where tools like IBM’s Watson, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Deepmind, and Apple’s Siri end up in our future learning ecosystems is hard to tell, but will likely be there. New forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will likely be mainstream by 2025.
While the exact menu of learning options is unclear, what is clear is that change is here today and will likely be here tomorrow. Those willing to experiment, to adapt, and to change have a far greater likelihood of surviving and thriving in our future learning ecosystems.
[For VR] The key buzzword here is presence, shorthand for technology and content that can trick the brain into believing it is somewhere it’s not.
The key term for AR is utility…AR takes your view of the real world and adds digital information and/or data on top of it.
The key term for mixed reality, or MR, is flexibility…It tries to combine the best aspects of both VR and AR…In theory, mixed reality lets the user see the real world (like AR) while also seeing believable, virtual objects (like VR). And then it anchors those virtual objects to a point in real space, making it possible to treat them as “real,” at least from the perspective of the person who can see the MR experience.
So, to borrow an example from Microsoft’s presentation at the gaming trade show E3, you might be looking at an ordinary table, but see an interactive virtual world from the video game Minecraft sitting on top of it. As you walk around, the virtual landscape holds its position, and when you lean in close, it gets closer in the way a real object would.
Students are coming out of school expected to solve 21st-century problems and enter into occupations that haven’t even been imagined yet. Schooling is not designed in this manner, so we wanted to give students an opportunity to solve problems in authentic contexts, using 21st-century skills and collaboration techniques. We wanted to break down walls between classrooms and have students use interdisciplinary skills to solve problems with teams of their peers, with mentors, and with industry professionals.
Why a Hackathon?
Hackathons have become a new way of doing business, creating products, advancing healthcare, and innovation. The energy is high, and so are the stakes. Can you turn an idea into a product over the course of a weekend? But let’s move beyond that. Let’s look at the teaching and learning within a hackathon. Hackathons are really the ultimate classroom.
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It is within hackathons that students are utilizing their skills and knowledge to solve problems. It’s project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and STEM all wrapped up into one activity! It’s about design thinking and truly a 21st-century learning opportunity. Students are working collaboratively within mixed-ability groups to examine problems and come up with solutions.
… Benefits For Students
A huge learning factor is failure. Often, school protects students from failure, and students always manage to mix A with B to get C. The hackathon, though, enables a support system where, once an obstacle or failure throws a wrench in students’ plans, they work as a team to get around it.
From DSC: Swivl allows faculty members, teachers, trainers, and other Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to make recordings where the recording device swivels to follow the SME (who is holding/wearing a remote). Recordings can be automatically sent to the cloud for further processing/distribution.
My request to you is: Can you extend the Swivl app to not only provide recordings, but to provide rough draft transcripts of those recordings as well?
This could be very helpful for accessibility reasons, but also to provide students/learners with a type of media that they prefer (video, audio, and/or text).
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
