using teams

8 innovative virtual learning design tips to engage your remote teams — from elearningindustry.com by Shannon Hart
Virtual learning is an essential component in the Learning and Development toolkit, and it is widely used for training and educational purposes. It is not, however, always high quality or effective. Here are some design tips from the instructional and visual perspectives to give your virtual learning a real boost.

Excerpt:

With more employees working remotely than ever before, it is crucial that we create learning assets that really engage. Let’s talk about two aspects of design that are equally important if you want to provide virtual learning that really gets results—Instructional Design and visual design.

#visualdesign #instructionaldesign
#elearning #simulations #interaction
#corporatelearning #graphicdesign

From DSC:
Notice the variety of necessary skillsets involved in Shannon’s article! This is one of the reasons I’m for the use of team-based content creation and delivery.

From “A New Way Forward” –> Big Picture Learning: Grab the Remote!

On 09/03/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, change, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, drama/theater, education, education reform, face-to-face, future, game-changing environment, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, online learning, pedagogy, platforms, policy, political science, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, traditional / tradition, United States, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, virtual K-12 schools, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From A New Way Forward:

Also see the following “Must Reads” from A New Way Forward:

Get Real! by Carlos Moreno and Elliot Washor
(Source: Navigating Our Way)
To Reimagine the Future of Education, Innovation Isn’t Enough
by Kelly Young and Josh Schacter
(Source: The 74 Million)
An Opportunity to Disrupt Education for the Better: Lessons From Starting a School in a Pandemic by Tom Woelper
(Source: Getting Smart)
Keeping Your Child Engaged During Distance Learning by Elizabeth Yun
(Source: Altitude Learning)

From DSC:
Along these lines…in regards to digital equity, I’m reminded of this recent graphic:

Let’s do a reality check, shall we? [Christian]

On 09/01/2020, in adjunct faculty, Asia, Australia, Canada, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, engagement / engaging students, Europe, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Michigan, new business models, online learning, parents/guardians, pedagogy, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, society, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vision/possibilities, web design and production, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I’ve heard many people mention that what we did throughout K-16 in the spring of 2020 was remote teaching — an emergency response to the Coronavirus. And I would agree with that assessment and verbiage — that was/is very true. It wasn’t online-based learning as many of us have come to know it over the last 20+ years. It didn’t offer a lot of the things that organizations like the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) and Quality Matters have been trying to promote and get us to achieve for years.

But then I hear the expectation that everything has been vastly improved over the summer and suddenly, almost overnight, all teachers, professors, trainers, adjunct faculty members, etc. have become highly proficient in matters involving online-based teaching and learning. In other words, the expectations say that:

Students should expect a top-notch experience now that summer is over.
Suddenly, Rome was built in a day!

But it wasn’t, and it isn’t.

It takes time and practice to become proficient in how to teach online. That’s the truth. It also takes a great deal of time and investments in hardware, software, tools, training/education/professional development, networking and telecommunications infrastructure, and more. It takes numerous skillsets to do it well. (By the way, that’s why I like to think in terms of team-based content creation and delivery.)

Also, often times, it takes MORE time to teach online than it does to teach in a face-to-face classroom. That is certainly the case for the first time that you will be teaching online. You need to know that going into it. You have to put your course together PLUS learn how to deliver it effectively in an online-based format. You need to learn a variety of tools and related ecosystems. Not a simple, overnight kind of task, I can assure you.

So students, don’t expect your faculty members to become professional online-based teachers overnight. Again, it takes time and practice…just like anything we set out to do.

And for you student teachers and Education Departments/Programs out there, keep at it. Don’t dismiss this time as a brief period/phenomenon that will simply go away and we’ll get back to “normal.” Make the necessary adjustments to your curriculum, toolsets, “teacher placements,” and more. Let’s get prepared for the future, come what may.

For higher ed, if you want to continue to use adjunct faculty members to handle a significant amount of the teaching load out there, you will need to better address the training and the $$/reimbursements that you provide to them.

And for all of the teachers, trainers, faculty members — and now even parents and/or guardians — out there, cut yourself some slack, give yourself some grace, and keep trying. One step at a time. Don’t get discouraged.

Also relevant/see:

Build and accelerate beyond the pandemic: Consciously deliver a great online experience for lifelong learners — from evoLLLution.com by Philip Regier

Excerpt:

Today’s learners have high expectations as expert consumers in all aspects of their lives. Higher education needs to create an infrastructure that meets the needs of this tech-savvy demographic. Institutions need to recognize that the online environment is here to stay and is in need of a rebuild in order to deliver the best student experience possible, even post-pandemic. In this interview, Phil Regier discusses the today’s learners’ expectations, scaling a high-quality online environment, and how to build the right infrastructure to support learners in this new and digitized normal.

DC: For those involved in Theatre, here’s to such innnovation in the future!

On 08/21/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, attention, career development, change, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, drama/theater, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, engagement / engaging students, future, higher education, ideas, innovation, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, media/film, multimedia, music, online learning, participation, platforms, programming, project-based learning, real-world assignments, remote teaching and learning, society, storytelling, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, web design and production, web-based collaboration, writing, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From edsurge.com today:

THOROUGHLY MODERN MEDIA: This spring, a college theater course about women’s voting rights aimed to produce a new play about the suffrage struggle. When the pandemic scuttled those plans, professors devised a new way to share suffragist stories by creating an interactive, online performance set in a virtual Victorian mansion. And their students were not the only ones exploring women’s voting rights as the country marks the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment.

…which linked to:

The Pandemic Made Their Women’s Suffrage Play Impossible. But the Show Went on— Virtually — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

Then the pandemic hit. Students left Radford and Virginia Tech. Live theater was canceled.

But the class wasn’t.

“Neither of us ever said, ‘Forget it,’” Hood says. “Our students, they all wanted to know, ‘What are we doing?’ We came to them with this insane idea.”

They would create an interactive, online production staged in a virtual Victorian mansion.
…
“Stage performance is different than film or audio. If you just have audio, you only have your voice. Clarity, landing sentences, really paying attention to the structure of a sentence, becomes important,” Nelson says. “Students got a broader sense of the skills and approaches to different mediums—a crash course.”

From DSC:
Talk about opportunities for interdisciplinary learning/projects!!! Playwrights, directors, actors/actresses, set designers, graphic designers, fine artists, web designers and developers, interactivity/interface designers, audio designers, video editors, 3D animators, and more!!!

With an eye towards the future…what questions should we be asking about learning experience design (#LXD)? [Christian]

On 08/19/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, adult learning, attention, change, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, ubiquitous learning, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Some of the following questions came to my mind recently:

In this age of the Coronavirus, how can we think differently about learning experience design (#LXD)?
How can *teams* of people come together to reimagine what learning could look like in the future? Who might be some new players at the table? More students? Artists? Actors? More animators? More technicians and people from A/V? Specialists in XR? Corporate trainers coming together with Instructional Designers from higher ed and from K-12? #learningecosystems #future
How can we better tighten up the alignment between K-12, higher ed / vocational programs, and the corporate world?
How can we make self-directed learning more prevalent (which would release an enormous amount of energy & creativity)? #heutagogy

Maybe those aren’t even the right questions…

If not, what do you think? What questions should we be asking about learning these days?

#LXD #learningecosystems #future #lifelonglearning #onlinelearning #highereducation #K12 #corporatelearning #heutagogy

The main thing we need to remember is that this space no longer serves as an accessory to face-to-face teaching. It is now our main contact point with learners, so it needs to play different roles: communication channel, learning path, interaction platform and community space. Teachers therefore need a certain degree of freedom to design this space in the best way that suits their teaching style and philosophy as well as their course content and learning objectives.
…
What became obvious in the past months is that when it comes to teaching and learning fully online, the learning experience design aspect, including look, feel and logic of the platform from the users’ perspective- be it teachers or students-, are at least as important as the content.

(source)

Online, personalized learning considered the future for education in wake of pandemic — from purdue.edu

Excerpt:

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — COVID-19 has changed the outlook for education, highlighting the potential for online learning and the need for more personalized learning options for students, according to a Purdue University College of Education professor.

William Watson, associate professor of learning design and technology, said student education levels are more likely to be spread all along the spectrum this school year based on what educational support they received at home.

Using personalized approaches to online instruction allows learning to be based more on each student’s individual strengths, weaknesses, goals and motivations, he said.

“A personalized approach to learning supports student autonomy and the direction of each student’s learning process,” Watson said. “It values a student’s self-direction, motivation and engagement beyond simple knowledge acquisition.”

Solid points made by Martin Giles, Senior Editor, CIO Network for Forbes…below is the majority of his CIO newsletter for this week

Now that more and more companies are extending their work-from-home timelines, the issue of how to monitor and manage the productivity of remote workers is becoming even more pressing. Some businesses are rolling out software applications to track things such as workers’ keystrokes or watch what they are doing when they are on the internet. IT teams are central to these efforts, even if they aren’t the ones who initiate them.

Providing the technology is deployed appropriately, the use of such tools may not be illegal. But does it make sense to deploy them? Forbes CIO Network contributor Irina Raicu makes the case against doing so in a thought-provoking post.

Raicu argues that deploying intrusive tech such as keyloggers sends a signal to workers that employers don’t respect their autonomy and dignity. It also penalizes effective workers, who are being made to pay a price in terms of lost privacy so that managers can identify poor performers. Deploying intrusive tracking technologies in homes that are now doubling as workplaces also contributes to the normalization of their use more broadly across society.

Under pressure from business heads and HR departments, tech leaders may be tempted to fold rather than fight the tools’ deployment. But there’s another reason tracking tech can backfire that should resonate with anyone worried about cyber threats—which means just about every CEO and board director in America and beyond.

The sensitive, personalized data monitoring tech gathers is a tempting target for hackers and a breach could trigger a legal nightmare. Given that the bad guys have stepped up their attacks to take advantage of the chaos the pandemic has sown, this threat is even more concerning.

Excerpt from Irina’s article:

However, indiscriminate deployment of tracking tools would create a surveillance work culture that is likely to cause significant harm, while at the same time failing to deliver the results that business leaders expect.

From DSC:
I see this same type of stuff going on within K-12, higher ed, and even in law schools. Often, we establish cultures whereby students are treated with great suspicion. It’s us vs. them. The verbiage is around cheating and plagiarism and the use of tools like Turnitin, Respondus, Examity, and many others. Why isn’t the focus on being on the same team? i.e.,

“Don’t you realize Mr. or Ms. Student that I’m trying to help you become the best lawyer, judge, legislator, etc. as possible?”
“Don’t you realize that I’m trying to help teach you skills, knowledge, and ethics that will aid you in your future?”

Why is unity / being on the same team so difficult to achieve in human relationships? I don’t have the answers. It’s just very disappointing.

It’s clear that we have some major disconnects in our motivations and views of other people. We should be working as members of the same team.

With the need for speed within most organizations today, TRUST is key. Reminds me of this book by Stephen M.R. Covey:

Addendum on 8/14/20:

6 ways leaders can rebuild trust in their organizations — from fastcompany.com by Cara Brennan Allamano
A Udemy survey suggests that more than half of workers believe their employers are using COVID as an excuse to cut staff. These strategies can help dissolve their suspicions.

How ‘Learning Engineering’ Hopes to Speed Up Education — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

Excerpts:

Simon spent the latter part of his career as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, making the case for bringing in a new kind of engineer to help improve teaching. He knew it would mean a major change in how instruction of complex subjects happens, moving it from a “solo sport” of a sage on the stage to a community-based one where teams build and design learning materials and experiences — and continually refine them.

Ten years ago, only about 1,300 instructional designers worked at U.S. colleges, but that has grown to more than 10,000 today.

Even so, we’re still a long way from having a mature practice of learning engineering in place. But proponents of the approach say they are beginning to build the infrastructure necessary for their moonshot of turbo-charging the speed and the quality of learning. Some learning engineers believe they can help students reach mastery of complex subject matter as much as 10 times faster than with traditional approaches.

Microsoft Teams’ “Together Mode” reduces extraneous cognitive load in videoconferencing meetings

On 07/13/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, learning theories, Microsoft, online learning, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, United States, universities, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft Teams Rolls Out Virtual Rooms to Fight ‘Meeting Fatigue’ — from cheddar.com by Taylor Craig

From DSC:
Again, the longer the Coronavirus hangs around and we are learning and meeting like this, the more innovations like these will occur.

Addendums on 7/14/20:

Microsoft’s Together mode can help address executives’ concerns over remote work productivity — from businessinsider.com by Hirsh Chitkara

Excerpt:

Together mode offers an alternative to “grid view,” in which video call participants are displayed on-screen — instead, through AI segmentation, participants are placed in a single virtual environment such as an auditorium or coffee bar, creating the illusion that they are in the same space.

The future of work—the good, the challenging & the unknown — from microsofot.com by Jared Spataro

Excerpt:

Together mode is a new option in the Teams meeting experience that uses AI segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background. The view makes it feel like you’re sitting in the same room, which reduces background distractions, makes it easier to pick up on non-verbal cues, and makes back and forth conversation feel more natural.

Learning experience designs of the future!!! [Christian]

On 07/02/2020, in Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, Blockchain, Bring your own device (BYOD), business, business side of he, Canada, Canvas - and other Instructure-related items, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education reform, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Europe, experimentation, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, India, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, reinvent, remote teaching and learning, second screen apps, simulations, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, streams of content, student-related, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, UK, Uncategorized, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The article below got me to thinking about designing learning experiences and what our learning experiences might be like in the future — especially after we start pouring much more of our innovative thinking, creativity, funding, entrepreneurship, and new R&D into technology-supported/enabled learning experiences.

LMS vs. LXP: How and why they are different — from blog.commlabindia.com by Payal Dixit
LXPs are a rising trend in the L&D market. But will they replace LMSs soon? What do they offer more than an LMS? Learn more about LMS vs. LXP in this blog.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Building on the foundation of the LMS, the LXP curates and aggregates content, creates learning paths, and provides personalized learning resources.

Here are some of the key capabilities of LXPs. They:

Offer content in a Netflix-like interface, with suggestions and AI recommendations
Can host any form of content – blogs, videos, eLearning courses, and audio podcasts to name a few
Offer automated learning paths that lead to logical outcomes
Support true uncensored social learning opportunities

So, this is about the LXP and what it offers; let’s now delve into the characteristics that differentiate it from the good old LMS.

From DSC:
Entities throughout the learning spectrum are going through many changes right now (i.e., people and organizations throughout K-12, higher education, vocational schools, and corporate training/L&D). If the first round of the Coronavirus continues to impact us, and then a second round comes later this year/early next year, I can easily see massive investments and interest in learning-related innovations. It will be in too many peoples’ and organizations’ interests not to.

I highlighted the bulleted points above because they are some of the components/features of the Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision that I’ve been working on.

Below are some technologies, visuals, and ideas to supplement my reflections. They might stir the imagination of someone out there who, like me, desires to make a contribution — and who wants to make learning more accessible, personalized, fun, and engaging. Hopefully, future generations will be able to have more choice, more control over their learning — throughout their lifetimes — as they pursue their passions.

Team-based content creation/delivery | We need this & other paradigm shifts to help people survive & thrive [Christian]

On 06/30/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, accreditation, adjunct faculty, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, Canvas - and other Instructure-related items, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, consortiums, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, disruption, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, remote teaching and learning, research, simulations, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, television, tools, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
If the first wave of the Coronavirus continues — and is joined by a second wave later this year or early next year — I think a more permanent, game-changing situation is inevitable. As such, now’s the time to change the paradigms that we’ve been operating under.

It’s time to move to *a team-based approach.* To build up the set of skills an organization needs to pivot and adapt — regardless of what comes their way.

Let’s stop asking one faculty member to do it all! Consider this:

Would you fly in a plane that was engineered/designed/built by one person?
Would you drive a car that was engineered/designed/built by one person?
Would you go into brain surgery with only one other person in the operating room?
Are you, like me, amazed at the long list of people (and their specialties) who contributed to a major motion picture?!? The credits go on for several minutes — even when moving at a fast pace! Would you watch a major motion picture that was written, acted, produced, directed by — and had all of the music, special effects, and audio-related work done by — only one person?

With the move to online learning, one person can’t do it all anymore — at least not at the level that the newer generations are coming to expect. They have grown accustomed to amazing, team-based/built content and products.

Plus, newer generations are going to know and experience much more telehealth-related services…then much more telelegal-related services. They will come to experience/expect high-quality learning-related products and services that way as well. Going forward, there are too many skillsets required by the creation and production of high-quality, online-based learning — not to mention the continued hard work of staying up-to-date on the main subject matter expertise at hand.

So if the kind of perspective continues as found in this piece — SURVEY: Students say they shouldn’t have to pay full price for online classes — then colleges and universities would do well to invest money in new Research & Development efforts, in team-based content creation, and in reimagining what online-learning could act/be like. Same for the vendors out there. And faculty members would be wise to invest the time and energy it takes to be able to teach online as well as in a face-to-face setting. Not only are they more marketable once they’ve done this, but they are then also more prepared to find their place within an uncertain future.

All of this will likely be an expensive process. Also, greater collaboration will be needed within a department (as we can’t be building a course per professor) as well as between organizations. Perhaps the use of consortiums will increase…I’m not sure.

Perhaps a new platform will develop — similar to what’s contained in this vision. Such a platform will feature content that was designed and built by a team. Such a learning-related platform will offer streams of highly-relevant content — while providing continuous, affordable, up-to-date, convenient, and very well done means of staying marketable/employed.

For another paradigm shift, accreditation bodies/practices are going to have to also change, adapt, pivot, and help innovative ideas come to fruition. But that’s another posting for another day.

ECAR Study of the Technology Needs of Students with Disabilities, 2020 — from er.educause.edu by Dana Gierdowski and Joseph Galanek
Technology in higher education can be both an aid and a challenge for students with disabilities. Institutions and instructors can take steps to ensure that these students have equitable access, and those same measures can help all students, particularly during the era of emergency remote teaching.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

We asked students, “What is ONE thing you would like your instructors to do with technology to enhance your academic success?” In our analysis of their responses, we identified two overarching themes, as well as prominent patterns within those themes:

Online Access to Materials and Resources
- Class notes and slides
- Assignments, tests, and quizzes
- Recorded lectures
- The LMS and the user experience
Teaching with Technology
- Mobile devices in the classroom
- Training students and faculty in using technology
- Multiple methods of presenting course materials
- Engagement through the use of technology

Read full report: PDF | HTML

Access other materials: Executive Summary | Infographic

Also see:

Amazing Architectural Photography by Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda

On 05/31/2020, in architecture, art, collaboration, creativity, digital photography, photography, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Amazing Architectural Photography by Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda – Fubiz Media https://t.co/sM4IQ8iLhK

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) May 31, 2020

Great example of the use of teams at Virginia Tech!

On 04/17/2020, in art, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, data related items, design, graphics, higher education, innovation, library / librarians, teaching & learning, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), using teams, by Daniel Christian

Making complex data approachable through art and information design — from vtnews.vt.edu

Excerpt:

Michael Stamper, University Libraries at Virginia Tech’s data visualization designer, plays a unique role in the research process by transforming faculty and student clients’ complex research data into vibrant, interactive, and dynamic visualizations to better communicate their findings to a broad audience.

From DSC:
Let’s hope that Cisco Webex learns from Zoom, Blackboard Collaborate, and likely other products/vendors as well — in terms of providing easy-to-setup and use, seamless breakout rooms.

The breakout rooms in the Cisco Webex’ Training Center product are audio-only, which represents a major gap/disadvantage for numerous courses out there. (And, last I knew, there aren’t breakout rooms in the Cisco WebEx Meeting Center product.) The idea of community, presence, and collaboration is supported by providing audio and video. Video is critically important in certain courses.

Plus we are finding at WMU-Cooley that we need to create main rooms PLUS additional breakout rooms and assign students to each breakout room. But then, audio and video issues abound. Such a complex setup requires that the faculty member (i.e., the host) of such meetings needs to be pretty savvy in order to make things work well.

The transitions of going from the main meeting room to breakout rooms needs to be quick and easy. Bb Collaborate did a great job with this, and I hear Zoom does a good job with this as well. Cisco Webex does not.

Cisco — if you’re going to be in the world of higher ed and in the K-12 world, you need to fix this ASAP.

Flipping things around…Zoom, you had better learn from Cisco Webex if you want to play in the worlds of education as well. Your “Zoombombing” and security-related issues are not good.

New York City bans Zoom in schools, citing security concerns — from techcrunch.com by Zack Whittaker
San Diego ‘Zoombombing’ incident highlights need for schools to use safety controls — from sandiegouniontribune.com by Kristen Taketa
etc.
etc.

Also see:

Google bans Zoom software from employee laptops — from reuters.com

Learning Ecosystems

Note the skillsets mentioned in this item from Shannon Hart / eLearning Industry

Amazing Architectural Photography by Anna Devís and Daniel Rueda

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