professional wordpress themes

Future of the Campus in a Digital World [Haggans]

On 12/17/2014, in 21st century, blended learning, business side of he, change, changing business models, digital learning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, hybrid learning, leadership, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, library / librarians, online learning, smart classrooms, strategy, trends, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Future of the Campus in a Digital World — from campusmatters.net by Michael Haggans | November 2014

Excerpts from PDF (emphasis DSC):

In the digitally driven future of higher education, three-dimensional classroom spaces still will be needed. They won’t be used in the traditional manner and they won’t be the traditional kind. They will be bigger, flatter, faster and there will need to be fewer classrooms for the same number of students.

Classes that meet on campus will need additional area per student to accommodate interactive configurations, such as those allowing group work in the flow of the traditional class period. Typically these will be flat floors allowing easy configuration changes. At the same time, these rooms must be faster, with access to robust bandwidth.

Both physical and administrative adaptations will be required. While there will be more floor area per student when in class, the number of classroom hours per degree will drop, and all the while the expectation for digital transmission capability will continue to rise. To justify the required investment, institutions will have to rethink the administration of classroom scheduling to maximize effectiveness for students and faculty, and to achieve increased utilization. These are not new or easily managed issues for higher education. The accelerating move to online instruction will expose existing weaknesses of current systems and the benefits of more strategic investments and scheduling.
…
Digital Visible
From an institutional perspective, many of the implications of digital transformation are difficult to see, lost in a thicket of business issues presenting themselves with increasing urgency. Moreover, the changes induced by digital transformation are difficult to address through traditional facilities development and capital funding processes. These transformations are not about the need for a single new – or better – building, a campus student recreation center or teaching laboratory. 

This is about adjusting the performance of the whole campus to support a digitally transformed pedagogy and academic community.

…
Libraries have never been about books. They have always been about access to and use of information.
…
Make campus matter
With so much of higher education available in digital and largely asynchronous forms, the justification for a campus must derive from something more than “we have always done it this way.” Even at the most traditional institutions “on-campus time per degree” will decrease. This change in convention will make the support of increasingly limited face-to-face time of
strategic value, rather than an assumed byproduct of traditional campus life.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

“The New Leadership Challenge” & “The Architects of Online Learning…” [EDUCAUSE]

On 12/10/2014, in 21st century, business side of he, collaboration, education technology, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, online learning, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The New Leadership Challenge — from educause.edu by Michael Kubit

Excerpt:

These are not traditional IT leadership challenges: IT leaders must develop a new set of skills. Emotional and social intelligence, the ability to provide leadership through ambiguity, managing behavior as performance, and effective engagement of stakeholders are the critical skills for IT managers today.

…

Historically, the use of information technology focused largely on infrastructure and enterprise business applications. Today, IT organizations need to find ways to align more closely with the teaching, learning, and research missions of their respective institutions. Three of the EDUCAUSE Top Ten IT Issues for 2014 emphasize the support of technology in the teaching and learning mission. The remaining issues involve positioning information technology as a strategic asset to leverage as a vehicle for innovation.

…

The speed at which things change fundamentally, both within information technology and higher education, makes it clear that traditional approaches will not take us where we need to go. We need to develop organizations that are more networked and interconnected, that are flatter, flexible, and focused on outcomes. We need to develop learning organizations that can respond to both challenge and opportunity without managers playing the role of parent.

A great deal of evidence collected over several decades and significant research have identified the qualities and characteristics of effective leadership. As technologists, do we pay enough attention to the science of organizational development? Effective leadership is the key to solving the challenges and opportunities before us. No longer are the principles of emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness reserved for senior leaders. These skills and competencies must become part of the core requirements for anyone in a leadership position. As an industry, we need to find ways to offer professional development for the most critical aspect of a manager’s tool kit — leading people.

 

The Architects of Online Learning: A Strategic Partnership for the Sustainability of Higher Education — from educause.edu by Robert Hansen

Excerpt:

The transformational impact of online education has profound implications for the sustainability of many traditional higher education institutions. As we all know, nontraditional students became the new majority well before the turn of the past century. More than 75 percent of today’s higher education students are nontraditional. As enrollments at many tuition-dependent institutions have declined, colleges and universities have turned to the adult market to stabilize their budgets. This means that having a clear vision for online education—the preferred format for so many working adults—has become a strategic imperative.

And yet, even though many college and university leaders acknowledge the value of serving adult and nontraditional students, it’s fair to say that serving these students continues, more often than not, to be marginal to the mission—a noble afterthought to the core enterprise of serving first-time, full-time residential students. In other words, today’s colleges and universities are still designed to serve yesterday’s students.
…
Whether or not higher education is the next bubble, it is clear that online education is creating winners and losers. In order to thrive—or, in some cases, to survive—many institutions (especially regional colleges and universities) must use online education as the foremost opportunity to reach new markets.
…
We propose a renewed partnership between those who are innovative with technology (IT professionals) and those who are innovative in creating new academic programs and ways of reaching new audiences (continuing and online educators). This partnership has become a strategic imperative: the technical has become entrepreneurial, and the entrepreneurial has become technical.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Reflections on “Changing role of the CLO” [Singh]

On 12/09/2014, in adult learning, business, career development, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, heutagogy, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, pace of change, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, training / L&D, trends, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Changing role of the CLO — from business-standard.com by Gurprriet Singh

Excerpt:

The ownership for keeping skills and competencies sharpened will move to the employee. With the emergence of MOOCs, social media enabled knowledge and connections, which facilitate you to identify and appoint mentors across dimensions and distance, the role of L&D as the provider of knowledge and provider of resource is soon becoming extinct. Individuals need to own their own development and leverage the resources available in social media. Just recently, IBM cut salaries by 10 per cent, of employees who had not kept their skills updated.

…

As Jack Welch said, “If the rate of change inside your organisation is slower than the rate of change outside, the end is near”. In such a scenario, the thinking and orientation must shift from being able to manage change TO being able to change on a dime which means Dynamism. The role of L&D thus becomes key in influencing the above cultural pillars. And to do so, is to select for the relevant traits, focus on interventions that help hone those traits. Traits and skills are honed by Experience. And that brings me to the 70:20:10.

 

From DSC:
I think Gurprriet is right when he says that there’s a shift in the ownership of our learning.  We as individuals need to own our own development and leverage social media, MOOCs, online and/or F2F-based courses, other informal/on-the-job resources, our personal learning networks, and our Communities of Practice.  Given the pace of change, each of us needs to be constantly building/expanding our own learning ecosystems.  We need to be self-directed, lifelong learners (for me, this is where learning hubs and learning from our living rooms will also play a role in the future). One approach might be for those in L&D/corporate training-related functions to help employees know what’s out there — introduce them to the streams of content that are constantly flowing by. Encourage them to participate, teach them how to contribute, outline some of the elements of a solid learning ecosystem, create smaller learning hubs within a company.


If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Believe the IoT Hype or Perish: Equipping Today’s Graduates for Tomorrow’s Tech [Hirst]

On 11/21/2014, in business, career development, change, engineering, future, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, internet, leadership, strategy, student-related, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Believe the IoT Hype or Perish: Equipping Today’s Graduates for Tomorrow’s Tech — from wired.com by Peter Hirst

Excerpt:

Meeting the IoT Higher Education Challenge
People who come to MIT Sloan or other MIT Schools to further their professional education tend to have strong technical and engineering backgrounds. The pace of evolution and disruption of business models in their industries is accelerating continuously. We need to equip our graduates with tools that enable them to learn, re-learn, and un-learn many times over throughout their careers to remain successful. And we need to become more efficient, affordable, relevant and timely in the delivery of our programs.

…

Closing the Talent Gap
As Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Services pointed out recently in her post-conference blog post, “there are over 11 million unemployed people in the U.S. today, yet 45 percent of employers cannot find qualified candidates for open jobs.” At the Forum, she presented startling findings from Cisco’s 2014 Annual Security Report. The report incorporates data from CareerBuilder, IBSG and Bureau of Labor and Statistics and projects a one-million shortage of qualified workers in the Internet security industry in the next five years and two million jobs needed in the information technology and communications in the next ten. What can top higher-education institutions and leading technology companies do to help fix this disparity?

 

 

Also see:

The Internet of Things World Forum Unites Industry Leaders in Chicago to Accelerate the Adoption of IoT Business Models — from newsroom.cisco.com
Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) leaders announce new IoT Reference Model and IoTWF Talent Consortium

Excerpt:

Cisco and other key players are creating an Industry Talent Consortium to address this major skills gap, with the objective of having all of the key players work together to identify skill gaps, find talent with the right background to up-skill or re-skill, create and implement the necessary training and certification programs, and hire that talent for the jobs that will power the Internet of Everything.

Key founding partners supporting the program include:

  • Academia: The New York Academy of Sciences, MIT, Stanford
  • Human Capital Solution Providers: Careerbuilder
  • Employers: Rockwell Automation, Davra Networks, GE, Cisco
  • Change Agents: Cisco, Xerox, Rockwell Automation, Udacity, Pearson, Knod
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

New items from Educause including “Finding New Business Models in Unsettled Times” [LeBlanc]

On 11/12/2014, in 21st century, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, competency-based learning/education, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, new business models, online learning, reinvent, strategy, surviving, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Finding New Business Models in Unsettled Times — from Educause.com by Paul J. LeBlanc
If the core crisis in higher education is one of sustainability, being focused on the job to be done and having a grasp of the forces shaping higher education gives institutional leaders a new way to think about recasting their future.

Excerpts:

“What to do?” is the question that so many college and university presidents struggle with right now. We seem to be sitting at the heart of a perfect storm where a lot of things are happening faster than our ability to predict and strategize. We can respond to this stormy weather as medieval farmers did to the next day’s weather: by simply waiting to see what arrives and then taking action, often inadequately. Or we can recognize that we actually have the tools, the technology, and the know-how to reinvent U.S. higher education in ways that will address its current failings.

…

Those established entities that survive are able to harness the innovations and rethink their business models to better serve their customers. Those that eventually disappear typically adopted one of two strategies: (1) hunker down and hope to ride out the storm by doing more of the same; or (2) try a little of everything. Neither strategy works very well, and as a result, once-great and seemingly unassailable companies have disappeared or, at best, survived as mere shadows of themselves. That’s the scenario that many current critics of traditional higher education posit and even welcome, often pointing to other industries that have seen enormous disruption—music, publishing, journalism, and retailing—to presage the impending doom for traditional higher education.

…

But there is no one higher education to reinvent, and colleges and universities do no one job. Higher education encompasses the following purposes:

  • A coming-of-age higher education that meets the needs of recent high school graduates, usually providing a purposeful living/learning community that provides ample opportunities for self-discovery and growing up
  • A workforce-development higher education that focuses on working adults and that provides job and career opportunities while creating a talent pipeline for employers in a local economy
  • A research higher education that seeks to add to the store of human knowledge, creating breakthrough, innovative solutions to a wide range of problems
  • A status higher education that provides a value-added network of peers, as well as access to and maintenance of privilege and social status
  • A civic-good higher education that works to produce a more just and responsible society
  • A cultural-improvement higher education that creates and/or supports the arts and humanities and instills in its graduates the taste and refinement to support and appreciate the arts

…

The need to reinvent underlying business models is increasingly urgent.

.

Other items from Educause:

Flexible Option: A Direct-Assessment Competency-Based Education Model
The University of Wisconsin Flexible Option CBE model focuses on assessment rather than credit hours, letting students undertake academic work at their own pace and prove mastery of required knowledge and skills through rigorous assessments.

 

 

A Tuition-Free College Degree (EDUCAUSE Review) — by Shai Reshef

Excerpt:

First, brick-and-mortar institutions have expenses that virtual universities do not. So we don’t need to pass these expenses on to our students. We also don’t need to worry about capacity. There are no limits on the number of seats in a virtual university: nobody needs to stand at the back of the lecture hall. In addition, through the use of open educational resources and through the generosity of professors who are willing to make their materials accessible and available for free, our students do not need to buy textbooks. Even professors, the most expensive line in any university balance sheet, come free to our students. More than 3,000 higher education professionals—including presidents, vice chancellors, and academic advisors from top colleges and universities such as NYU, Yale, Berkeley, and Oxford—are on-board to help our students. Finally, we believe in peer-to-peer learning. We use this sound pedagogical model to encourage our students from all over the world to interact and to study together and also to reduce the time required from professors for class assignments.

…

Five years ago, University of the People was a vision. Today, it is a reality. In February 2014, we were awarded the ultimate academic endorsement of our model: University of the People is now fully accredited. With this accreditation, it is time for us to scale up. We have demonstrated that our model works. I now invite colleges and universities and, even more important, the governments of developing countries to replicate this model to ensure that the gates to higher education will open ever more widely. A new era is coming—an era that will witness the disruption of the current model of higher education, changing the model from one that is a privilege for the few to one that is a basic right, affordable and accessible for all.

See:

https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/online-bachelor-degree-programs/

 

 

Beyond the MOOC Model: Changing Educational Paradigms — by James G. Mazoue
Four trends – MOOC-based degrees, competency-based education, the formalization of learning, and regulatory reform – are shifting educational practice away from core tenets of traditional education, indicating not a transient phenomenon but rather a fundamental change to the status quo.

Excerpt:

According to Georgia Tech’s recent survey, initial reviews from the first cohort of OMS CS students are positive: 93 percent recommend the program to others and nearly two-thirds said their experience exceeds their expectations. If data from the OMS CS show that MOOC-based degrees are viable, others will follow with an array of offerings that will compete directly with on-campus programs.

Some may quibble that the $6,600 OMS CS is not modeled on real MOOCs because of its price tag. However, this misses the larger point: namely, that a quality online degree offered at scale for a nominal or greatly reduced cost is a more attractive alternative for many students than an on-campus degree. In deference to purists who might balk at calling a degree program that charges tuition a MOOC, we can call it a MOD (for Massive Online Degree). Whatever we call it, it will be bad news for on-campus degree programs. With competition, we can expect a MOD’s cost to go down; it is not unreasonable to think that it might go down to a negligible amount if cost recovery shifts from charging students for the acquisition of knowledge to a model based on learning assessment and credentialing. In the end, students — if we let them — will be the ones who decide whether a MOD’s value outweighs the additional cost of an on-campus degree.

…

Far from fading into oblivion, data show that MOOCs are in fact increasing in global popularity.  The case for dismissing MOOCs as an educational alternative, therefore, has yet to be made.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Reflections on “Synthesis, capabilities, & overlooked insights: Next frontiers for strategists” [Gluck, Jacobides, Simpson]

On 11/11/2014, in business, corporate / business world, future, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Synthesis, capabilities, and overlooked insights: Next frontiers for strategists — from mckinsey.com by Fred Gluck, Michael Jacobides, & Dan Simpson
The founder of McKinsey’s Strategy Practice, a London Business School professor, and a chief strategist turned professor describe pain points and possibilities for strategists on the leading edge.

Excerpts:

I think of strategic planning as the job of collecting and analyzing the enormous amounts of data that characterize the modern world and monitoring changes in markets and the competitive environment. This process, which requires frameworks and concepts, is where academics can contribute most in the way of ideas, and strategic-planning groups can add the most value. Strategic planning, defined in this way, provides the raw material and factual basis for strategic thinking and opportunistic decision making.
…
This is the essence of strategic thinking and strategic management: it’s where creativity is paramount and insights take place, and it’s not something that should be limited to an annual strategic-planning process.
…
Personally, I think this concern is overdone. The real danger is “gray rhinos”: while hard to miss in the zoo, they are surprisingly difficult to spot in the South African bush, obscured as they are by the vegetation. By the time they’re visible, they are already storming toward you, leaving little chance to react. As academics, our job is to help managers tune into the rustling leaves or cracking twigs of an approaching challenge—or opportunity—before it’s upon them. To do that, we must focus on the parts of the environment that matter most and make sure the tools we carry are fit for the purpose.
…
In all of these areas, what really excites me is the prospect of a stronger link between practitioners and academics, so we can leverage the research we’ve done and shape the research we need to do. Together, we can simplify reality without distorting it and uncover the social laws that we don’t yet understand but shape our world.
…
What, in retrospect, is ascribed to poor execution instead has its roots in an unexpectedly large gap between a company’s capabilities and the ones needed to deliver the strategy successfully.

 

From DSC:
In reading the above article, I couldn’t help but think of some of the similarities between futurism/futures studies and strategic planning/thinking.  To me, they both involve — at least in part — some pulse checking. Pulse checking various landscapes.  Looking out to see what’s coming down the pike, and if those developments might be useful to one’s organization.  Helping others hear “the rustling leaves or cracking twigs of an approaching challenge—or opportunity—before it’s upon them.”  I try to do this for higher education.  But the windows of opportunity don’t stay open forever.  Vision and action are required.

Also, I appreciated McKinsey’s work here because they are open to — and trying to — better integrate the work of academics with the business world; they shouldn’t be separate in my mind.

 

Also see:

 

 

 

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Reflections on “The University of Texas System makes bold move into competency-based education”

On 11/10/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, change, changing business models, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, experimentation, higher education, innovation, mobile learning, new business models, personalized/customized learning, real-world assignments, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The University of Texas System makes bold move into competency-based education — from utsystem.edu

 Excerpt:

AUSTIN – The University of Texas System will be the first in the nation to launch a personalized, competency-based education program system-wide aimed at learners from high school through post-graduate studies.

What sets the UT System approach apart from other competency-based programs is a focus on offering personalized and adaptive degrees and certificates that are industry-aligned and – via technology developed by the UT System – can systematically improve success, access and completion rates in areas of high employment demand.

“Competency-based programs allow students to advance through courses, certifications and degrees based on their ability to master knowledge and skills rather than time spent in a classroom,” said Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D. “All students are held to clearly defined and rigorous expectations, but each follows a customized path to success that responds and adapts based on individual learning strengths, challenges and goals. And students can earn credit for prior learning and move at their own speed.”

…

To support and power its new competency-based educational pathway, the UT System is working with education technology innovators to create a state-of-the-art, “mobile-first” stack of technologies and services called TEx, which stands for Total Educational Experience.

 

.

From DSC:
First of all, I noted an interesting — and much needed within higher ed — title/position:  The chief innovation officer for the Institute of Transformational Learning.

Let’s break that one down a second.

In 20102, The University of Texas’ Board of Regents had a vision that learning needs to be transformed and they created an institute for it — supplying $50 million to support some key mandates:

  • To make a University of Texas-quality education more accessible and affordable.
  • To improve student learning outcomes and dramatically increase the number of Texans with a college degree and other advanced educational credentials.

So not only did this board show vision, but also boldness — they put their $$ where they mouth was to support their vision.  Innovation was key to this institute, so they created a CIO position, whereby the I stood for Innovation, not Information.

Surely, the level of willingness to experiment in the U of Texas system runs higher than at many other institutions of higher education.  So I congratulate them on their culture to be willing to experiment…to adapt…to change. If successful, such programs should help more people obtain the degrees they need to make a living, make a life, make a contribution.*

 

* A great slogan from Davenport University

Also see:

Excerpt:

LMS for Competency Based Education
Readers may not be too interested in reading about Learning Management System news; often LMSs are considered a necessary evil to faculty and teachers of education institutions. However, news last week shared by Phil Hill over at e-literate  is worthy of attention—the launch of a LMS platform geared to  competency based education (CBE) programs. The new LMS launched by Helix has a different approach than traditional LMS providers.  It’s not catering to an institution, but to a method of teaching and learning—CBE.  Interesting.

Insight: There is, and continues to be an emphasis and support ($$$) for creation of CBE programs by the Department of Education (Fain, 2014). This new LMS approach by Helix is another indicator. I predict that we’ll be hearing a lot more about CBE in the next few months with more institutions offering CBE options for students.  Why it’s significant, is because CBE is a radical departure from traditional education; it does not rely upon the credit-hour or ‘seat time’ as its often referred to, but upon mastery of units of instruction.

comp_assessment_examples

Several institutions are already basing their model on CBE, College for America, an offshoot of Southern New Hampshire University and Capella University for instance. Purdue University is planning on offering a competency-based degree in the near future. Other universities that incorporate CBE principles—Western Governors University and Kentucky Community and Technical College System for its 2-year degree program.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Impacts of MOOCs on Higher Education [Dulin Salisbury]

On 10/23/2014, in business side of he, change, changing business models, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, new business models, organizational change, pedagogy, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian
Impacts of MOOCs on Higher Education — from insidehighered.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury

Excerpt:

An international group of higher education institutions—including UT Arlington, Stanford University, Hong Kong University and Davidson College—convened by learning researcher and theorist George Siemens gathered last week to explore the impacts of MOOCs on higher education (full list of participating institutions below).

The takeaway? Higher education is going digital, responding to the architecture of knowledge in a digital age, and MOOCs, while heavily criticized, have proven a much-needed catalyst for the development of progressive programs that respond to the changing world.

After sharing challenges, key innovations and general impacts, we were collectively awed by our similarities. Sure, Harvard and Stanford have larger budgets and teams, and the Texas system is, well, a system, while Davidson College enrolls a little under 2,000 students; yet, these fundamentally different institutions voiced similar challenges in their transitions to digital environments.

During a wide-ranging, engaging conversation, participants focused on themes that have to do with organizational change, the state of higher education, and what it is we want our purpose to be—collectively—over the coming years.

Here are a few of the effects MOOCs have had on our colleges or universities:

 

From DSC:
Thanks George for your continued work and assistance in helping higher education adapt, change, and improve our outcomes (as well as adding your expertise towards teaching and learning, tools, and/or pedagogies).

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

‘World of Comenius’ demonstrates powerful educational interaction w/ Leap Motion & Oculus Rift [James & Mariancik]

On 10/21/2014, in 21st century, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, Augmented Reality (AR), creativity, education technology, Europe, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, tools, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, wearables, by Daniel Christian

World-of-Comenius-Oct2014

 

‘World of Comenius’ demonstrates powerful educational interaction w/ Leap Motion & Oculus Rift — from roadtovr.com by Paul James and Tomas “Frooxius” Mariancik

Excerpt:

We recently covered a (at that point unnamed) VR project by developer Tomáš “Frooxius” Marian?ík, the mind behind the stunning ‘Sightline’ VR series of demos. The project fused Leap Motion skeletal hand tracking with Oculus Rift DK2 positional tracking to produce an impressively intuitive VR interface. Now, a new video of the interface  shows impressive progress. We catch up with Tomáš to find out some more about this mysterious VR project.

Enter the ‘World of Comenius’
The virtual reality resurgence that is currently underway, necessarily and predictably concentrates on bringing people new ways to consume and experience media and games. This is where virtual reality has the best chance of breaking through as a viable technology, one that will appeal to consumers worldwide. But virtual reality’s greatest impact, at least in terms of historical worth to society, could and probably will come in the form of non-entertainment based fields.

 

 

Also see:

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

The next generation of learning technologies [via Stephen Downes]

On 09/26/2014, in Canada, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, Europe, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, informal learning, innovation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, lifelong learning, online learning, social learning / networks, student-related, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Stephen Downes: ‘This is the next era of learning’ — from online-educa.com

Excerpts:

This year we are building on work we have undertaken over the last few years to develop and deploy the next generation of learning technologies, which we are calling ‘learning and performance support systems’. This is the outcome of an internal prototype called Plearn – ‘Personal Learning Environment and Research Network’ – and develops the idea of learning support based on personal and individual needs. This is not simply ‘personalised’ learning, it is a step beyond that. Rather than offering a customised version of some generic offering, we propose to enable each learner to develop their own custom programme from the ground up.

Our application, which launches in a limited beta September 30, provides individual learners with the tools and support necessary to access learning from any number of providers – not just educational institutions, but also their friends and mentors, their current and future employers, community and social programmes, and much more. Built on current and evolving learning technology standards, it provides access to MOOCs, to traditional learning management systems, to stand-alone courses and software, and even to the world of the Internet of things.

At the core of LPSS is a system we call the ‘personal learning record’ (PLR). A person’s LPSS system keeps track of everything related to learning – exercises followed, tests taken, games and simulations attempted, work read – and stores that all in a single location. In this way, unlike a learning management system, it combines data from the learning environment, the work environment and even the social environment, thus enabling adaptive learning software to close the loop between learning and performance. The PLR is also combined with a learner’s personal library and their personal e-portfolio, and links to credentials offered by and stored by learning institutions, employers, and social network activities, such as badges.

 

Also see:

 

LPSS-Sept2014

 

With a shout out to
Ana Cristina Pratas for her Scoop on this

 

Also see:

online-educa-berlin-2014

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Two postings re: the unbundling and rebundling of higher education [Horn, Siemens]

On 09/12/2014, in change, changing business models, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, MBA, new business models, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Ed-Tech advances poised to revolutionize higher ed from all angles — from evolllution.com by Michael Horn

Excerpt:

There’s a flip side to unbundling, however, that receives far less attention. As a service’s architecture becomes modular, its performance becomes determined by the raw performance of its subcomponents, which consequently become interdependent — or re-bundled — as the entities making these subcomponents need to wring every ounce of performance out of them. In other words, as one stage becomes modular, an adjacent stage becomes interdependent.

In education, as elements such as content become unbundled, there will exist a need for subcomponents that bundle together — coaching, mentoring, communities, personal learning plans and employer connections, for example, as these areas are critical for student success, but the ways in which they fit together are not yet well enough understood such that there can be clear standards at their various interfaces. Standalone, modular solutions in these areas will struggle to succeed. Creating standards at their interfaces before we know what the standards should be will similarly suffer.
..
Similarly, too few are thinking about how to help students make sense of and navigate this emerging, unbundled world and integrate the modular pieces together in ways that help them carve out a coherent and sensible life path. This is critical because it appears that in a personalized learning future, every single learner will have a custom-fit educational pathway.

 

Bundling and Re-bundling — from elearnspace.com by George Siemens

Excerpt:

There are a few things wrong with the idea of unbundling in education:

1. Unbundling is different in social systems than it is in a content only system. An album can be unbundled without much loss. Sure, albums like The Wall don’t unbundle well, but those are exceptions. Unbundling a social system has ripple effects that cannot always be anticipated. The parts of a social system are less than the whole of a social system. Unbundling, while possible in higher education, is not a zero sum game. The pieces on the board that get rearranged will have a real impact on learners, society, and universities.

2. When unbundling happens, it is only temporary. Unbundling leads to rebundling. And digital rebundling results in less players and less competition. What unbundling represents then is a power shift. Universities are today an integrated network of products and services. Many universities have started to work with partners like Pearson (ASU is among the most prominent) to expand capacity that is not evident in their existing system.
.
Rebundling is what happens when the pieces that are created as a sector moves online become reintegrated into a new network model. It is most fundamentally a power shift. The current integrated higher education system is being pulled apart by a range of companies and startups. Currently the university is in the drivers seat. Eventually, the unbundled pieces will be integrated into a new network model that has a new power structure. For entrepreneurs, the goal appears to be to become part of a small number of big winners like Netflix or Google. When Sebastian Thrun stated that Udacity would be one of only 10 universities in the future, he was exhibiting the mentality that has existed in other sectors that have unbundled. Unbundling is not the real story: the real issue is the rebundling and how power structures are re-architected. Going forward, rebundling will remove the university from the drivers seat and place the control into the re-integrated networks.

 

 

————

Addendums:

 

 

unbundledMBA-CNBC-Sept2014

 

Addendum on 9/17/14:
Ed tech’s next wave rolls into view — from by Roger Novak

Excerpt:

If the second wave was about the unbundling of colleges and providing learning as a service, the third wave of companies will be involved in reassembling educational component pieces from various sources to help make students’ learning portfolios more meaningful to both individuals and employers. While we are starting to see colleges taking similar steps to become more student-centered, private-sector companies can act nimbly to fill gaps and create new technologies to help accomplish these goals.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

What if things move *significantly* towards “Show me what you can *do*”…?

On 09/09/2014, in 21st century, business side of he, career development, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, innovation, new business models, pace of change, real-world assignments, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, trends, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
First of all, let me say that I’m a big fan and supporter of a liberal arts education — my degree was in economics (from Northwestern University’s College of Arts & Sciences, as the school was called at the time) and I currently work at a Christian liberal arts college. 

That said, within the current higher education landscape, we’re already seeing and hearing more and more about competency-based education, credits for prior learning, and other forms of obtaining a credential in less time.  I don’t have data on this, but my mental picture of these things is that such initiatives have had a limited impact, at least so far. 

However, as the pace of change has increased, I wonder…what if hiring decisions move significantly more towards “Show me what you can DO…?  That’s already taking place to a significant degree in many hiring situations, but my reflection revolves around questions such as:

  • What if it takes too long to wait for someone to get a 2 or 4-year degree? Will employers start looking more towards what competencies someone has today or can acquire much more quickly? 
  • Will people look outside of traditional higher education to get those skills?

Again, these reflections involve the increasing pace of change.

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

 

Anyway, such a shift could open doors for new “providers” such as:  

 

LessonsGoWhere

 

 

ClassDo

 

iUniv-August2014

 

 

udemy

 

Then, consider some quotes from the following article, Tottering Ivory Towers:

 

TotteringTowers-August112014

Excerpts:

…there is growing interest in new ways of measuring the quality of a degree. The variety of scorecards now available, for instance, means students and their parents have much better and more granular measures of quality than accreditation provides. For another, employers are gradually making greater use of independent, competency-based measures and credentialed courses rather than relying on accredited degrees and credit hours (derided as “seat time” by its critics). Try getting a job in computer network management if you can’t show which Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer courses you have passed. Meanwhile, Udacity is partnering with Google, AT&T, and other technology firms in an “Open Education Alliance” to provide top-level technical skills. Nevertheless, when it comes to alternatives to accreditation, the United States is generally playing catch-up with some other countries. In Britain, for instance, students can earn employer-union certified City & Guilds qualifications while studying at almost any institution, and there are standard competency measures in a variety of professional fields.

…

In a New York Times interview, Google’s senior vice president for people operations, Laszlo Bock, admitted that transcripts, test scores, and even degrees are less useful than other data as predictors of employee success.3 In this environment, an industry-led move to create a more dependable measure of knowledge and ability than a transcript will become increasingly attractive.

…

The critical lesson from the transformation of other industries is that it is likely to be a disastrous mistake to assume you can just tweak an existing business model and be all right. That can work only for a while.

 

Dmitry Sheynin writes in his article, Is innovation outpacing education? “With the ever-increasing pace of innovation, traditional colleges and universities are failing to train and retrain workers quickly enough. The model of two and four-year degrees, [futurist Thomas Frey] says, is largely incompatible with an industry that gets flipped on its head every couple of quarters.”  Again, according to Frey, “The main factor driving change in the labor force is new innovations rendering old jobs obsolete, but no mechanism is in place yet to help workers grow at the pace of evolving technology.”

Self-directed learning, or heutagogy, is key in this fast-paced environment. We all need to be constantly learning, growing, and reinventing ourselves.  However, not everyone is comfortable with such an approach.  So there are some gaps/opportunities opening up for those organizations who are innovative enough to experiment and to change.

 

Also see:

 

Addendum on 9/17/14:

Excerpt:

Argosy University System is among the first institutions in a movement toward competency-based education, creating new models of direct assessment that promise to reduce time-to-degree and offer greater relevance for graduates in the job market. CT talked with Argosy University System’s vice chancellor for academic affairs to learn how that institution tackled competency-based education — creating the first WASC-accredited MBA in its region based on a direct assessment, competency model. Now, Argosy is developing hybrid approaches that combine direct assessment with traditional seat time-based courses.

Addendum on 10/2/14:

 

Addendum on 10/8/14:

 

Addendum on 10/13/14:

.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Some innovative ideas in this concept video of the future classroom

On 08/25/2014, in 21st century, blended learning, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, learning spaces, smart classrooms, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

TechInEducation-FutureClassroom-Jan2014NemroffPictures

 

From DSC:
With thanks to Mr. Jeff Finder at
Faculty Row for this resource!

Also, take note of how
interdisciplinary this piece is,
encompassing Daniel Nemroff’skills
in filmmaking, visual effects,
photography, & graphic design — but also
his visionary thinking and his awareness
of what might be effective uses of
educational technologies.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

A room where executives go to get help from IBM’s Watson [Simonite; MIT Technology Review]

On 08/06/2014, in business, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, research, strategy, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

WatsonInBoardRoomMeetingsMIT-Aug2014

 

Excerpt:

First, Watson was brought up to speed by being directed, verbally, to read over an internal memo summarizing the company’s strategy for artificial intelligence. It was then asked by one of the researchers to use that knowledge to generate a long list of candidate companies. “Watson, show me companies between $15 million and $60 million in revenue relevant to that strategy,” he said.

After the humans in the room talked over the results Watson displayed on screen, they called out a shorter list for Watson to put in a table with columns for key characteristics. After mulling some more, one of them said: “Watson, make a suggestion.” The system ran a set of decision-making algorithms and bluntly delivered its verdict: “I recommend eliminating Kawasaki Robotics.” When Watson was asked to explain, it simply added. “It is inferior to Cognilytics in every way.”

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 

Some of the coverage of The World Future Society’s WorldFuture 2014 Conference: What If

On 08/05/2014, in 21st century, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, ideas, society, trends, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Some coverage of The World Future Society’s WorldFuture 2014 Conference: What If

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!

 
Previous Entries Next Entries
© 2024 | Daniel Christian