Learning Ecosystems

What’s Stopping You from Reinventing Your Career? [Cairns-Lee & Fischer]

On 11/05/2022, in business, career development, corporate / business world, Design Thinking, leadership, MBA, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

What’s Stopping You from Reinventing Your Career? — from hbr.org by Heather Cairns-Lee and Bill Fischer; with thanks to Mr. Roberto Ferraro for this resource

Summary (emphasis DSC):

In the authors’ work teaching and coaching thousands of managers, they have identified four traps – self-sufficiency, overthinking, procrastination and searching for the answer – that prevent leaders from taking the first steps necessary for considering and exploring possible new versions of themselves for the future. The authors have found ways to help leaders recognize which traps they are falling into and start imagining a way out — largely inspired by design thinking principles such as rapid prototyping, making ideas visual, and getting quick feedback.

Why Now Is The Time To Overhaul K-12 Education — from forbes.com by Phyllis Lockett and Michael Horn

Excerpts:

If you take a team approach, then one adult works with students on their social-emotional learning and how they connect to their learning. And another leverages data to create small group opportunities based on the learning objective. And another connects learning to real world projects and helps students build social capital in the community, which also creates a more permeable classroom that’s open to the outside world. Or there could be other ways the teams are structured to best support the student.

For all the plans in the past to “reinvent” K-12 education, none have questioned the fundamentals of time-based instruction. It’s no surprise then that the system produces the outcomes it does. Not every child needs exactly 180 days to master the knowledge and skills required for a third grader. Conversely, some kids need more time. It’s an arbitrary system that cuts off learning for children based on a calendar, yet doesn’t provide a different pathway forward for them that’s productive. In our current system, time is fixed and learning is variable, then students are labeled and sorted accordingly.

Michael Horn

From DSC:
This quote…

The answer is for district leaders to create independent teams of educators in which they are shielded from traditional day to day pressures and have the explicit license to do things differently. They can give these new “schools within schools” the resources they need without encumbering them by the old ways of doing things.

…makes me think of a graphic I did a while back about the need for more Trim Tabs within our learning ecosystems:

Washington State U Student Workers Vote to Unionize [Flaherty]

On 11/05/2022, in adjunct faculty, career development, faculty/staff, higher education, teaching & learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Washington State U Student Workers Vote to Unionize — from insidehighered.com by Colleen Flaherty

Excerpt:

Graduate and undergraduate teaching and research assistants at Washington State University voted to form a union affiliated with the United Auto Workers, they announced Thursday.

From DSC:
I virtually attended the Law 2030 Conference (Nov 3-4, 2022). Jennifer Leonard and staff from the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School put together a super conference! It highlighted the need for change within the legal industry. A major shout out to Jennifer Leonard, Theodore Ruger (Law School Dean), and others!

I really appreciate Jen’s vision here, because she recognizes that the legal industry needs to involve more disciplines, more specialists, and others who don’t have a JD Degree and/or who haven’t passed the Bar. On Day 1 of the conference (in the afternoon), Jen enlisted the help of several others to use Design Thinking to start to get at possible solutions to our entrenched issues.

America, our legal system is being tightly controlled and protected — by lawyers. They are out to protect their turf — no matter the ramifications/consequences of doing so. This is a bad move on many lawyers part. It’s a bad move on many Bar Associations part. Lawyers already have some major PR work to do — but when America finds out what they’ve been doing, their PR problems are going to be that much larger. I’d recommend that they change their ways and really start innovating to address the major access to justice issues that we have in the United States.

One of the highlights for me was listening to the powerful, well-thought-out presentation from Michigan’s Chief Justice Bridget McCormack — it was one of the best I’ve ever heard at a conference! She mentioned the various stakeholders that need to come to the table — which includes law schools/legal education. I also appreciated Jordan Furlong’s efforts to deliver a 15-minute presentation (virtual), which it sounded like he worked on most of the night when he found out he couldn’t be there in person! He nicely outlined the experimentation that’s going on in Canada.

Here’s the recording from Day 1:

Jeff Selingo’s comments this week reminded me that those of us who have worked in higher education for much of our careers also have a lot of work to do as well.

Addendum on 11/8/22:

“Unleash all this creativity”: Google AI’s breathtaking potential [Kingson]

On 11/03/2022, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, Canada, emerging technologies, ethics, future, Google, health, innovation, languages and translation, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, by Daniel Christian

“Unleash all this creativity”: Google AI’s breathtaking potential — from axios.com by Jennifer Kingson

Excerpt:

Google’s research arm on Wednesday showed off a whiz-bang assortment of artificial intelligence (AI) projects it’s incubating, aimed at everything from mitigating climate change to helping novelists craft prose.

Why it matters: AI has breathtaking potential to improve and enrich our lives — and comes with hugely worrisome risks of misuse, intrusion and malfeasance, if not developed and deployed responsibly.

Driving the news: The dozen-or-so AI projects that Google Research unfurled at a Manhattan media event are in various stages of development, with goals ranging from societal improvement (such as better health diagnoses) to pure creativity and fun (text-to-image generation that can help you build a 3D image of a skirt-clad monster made of marzipan).
…
The “1,000 Languages Initiative”: Google is building an AI model that will work with the world’s 1,000 most-spoken languages.

AI “can have immense social benefits” and “unleash all this creativity,” said Marian Croak, head of Google Research’s center of expertise on responsible AI.

“But because it has such a broad impact on people, the risk involved can also be very huge. And if we don’t get that right … it can be very destructive.”
…
And as Axios’ Scott Rosenberg has written, society is only just beginning to grapple with the legal and ethical questions raised by AI’s new capacity to generate text and images.

“Using Virtual Reality for Career Training” + “AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking”

On 11/03/2022, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, animation, Canada, career development, communications, education, education technology, Europe, human-computer interaction (HCI), immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, multimedia, participation, pedagogy, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, simulations, skills, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, vocational / trades, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

Using Virtual Reality for Career Training — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana have had success using virtual reality simulations to teach students about career opportunities.

a Woman with a virtual reality set on occupies one half of the screen. The other shows virtual tools that she is controlling.

Excerpts:

Virtual reality can help boost CTE programs and teach students about potential careers in fields they may know nothing about, says Lana Taylor from the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
…
One of those other resources has been a partnership with Transfer VR to provide students access to headsets to participate in career simulations that can give them a tactile sense of what working in certain careers might be like.

“Not all kids are meant to go to college, not all kids want to do it,” Taylor says. “So it’s important to give them some exposure to different careers and workforce paths that maybe they hadn’t thought of before.”

AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking — from inavateonthenet.net

80% of professors at Ph.D.-granting universities attended the same handful of colleges [Spitalniak]

On 11/03/2022, in faculty/staff, higher education, learning ecosystem, society, sociology, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

80% of professors at Ph.D.-granting universities attended the same handful of colleges — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak

Dive Brief:

Just 20.4% of U.S. institutions account for 80% of tenured and tenure-track faculty at Ph.D.-granting universities, giving prestigious colleges disproportionate influence over the spread of ideas, academic norms and culture.
That’s according to new research published in Nature, a peer-reviewed journal. It concluded that academia “is characterized by universally extreme inequality in faculty production.”
Just over one in eight domestically trained faculty were educated at five doctoral institutions: the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University. The same five universities trained more faculty than all non-U.S. universities combined.

Wharton, Berkeley, NYU Offering Online M.B.A.s for the First Time [Ellis]

On 11/03/2022, in business side of he, higher education, MBA, new business models, online learning, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Wharton, Berkeley, NYU Offering Online M.B.A.s for the First Time — from wsj.com by Lindsay Ellis; with thanks to the GSV N2K Daily Newsletter for this resource
More elite business schools try virtual degrees to lure graduate students

Online M.B.A. students at Boston University watch live broadcasts
of professors and talk on a virtual forum.
PHOTO: CARLIN STIEHL FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

From DSC, along the lines of online-based learning:

Udemy Reports Third Quarter 2022 Results — with thanks to the GSV N2K Daily Newsletter for this resource
Udacity Lays Off 55 Employees, CEO Departs, and Sebastian Thrun Returns (Again) — from classcentral.com
Dalporto has left and Thrun is back at the helm, as Udacity undertakes its fifth round of layoffs.

Are Microcredentials Finally Gaining Traction? — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kim

Excerpt:

This month, the London School of Economics expanded its degree partnership with 2U to launch a series of edX microcredentials that provide learners with a flexible, stackable pathway towards pursuing a fully online undergraduate education. Wim Van der Stede, LSE’s new academic dean for extended education, graciously agreed to answer my questions about these new programs.

In that time, we’ve seen the power that online learning has to meet learners’ needs at every stage of their lives and careers.
…
The world around us is changing, rapidly, and we need to support professionals, alumni and students in refreshing and adapting their knowledge and skills, as and when they need, through evolving lives and careers. This is at the heart of LSE’s mission as a global social science hub of research and education, and plays a key role in achieving our mission to educate for impact by empowering students to develop the skills to solve society’s most pressing issues in an ever-changing world.

A side thought from DSC:
Speaking of Economics, I wonder if and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will impact the field of Economics?

A Brilliant MIT Professor Shared 10 Simple Rules That Will Teach You How to Give a Great Speech [Bariso]

On 11/02/2022, in adjunct faculty, attention, communications, engagement / engaging students, faculty/staff, ideas, passions, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, story, storytelling, teachers, teaching & learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A Brilliant MIT Professor Shared 10 Simple Rules That Will Teach You How to Give a Great Speech — from inc.com by Justin Bariso

Excerpts:

How much would your life change if people valued all of your ideas?

In a recorded lecture that’s been viewed over 13 million times, MIT professor Patrick Winston takes a deep dive into how to be a better speaker. He explains that your success in life depends on your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas — in that order.

His point? No matter how amazing your ideas are, no one cares unless you can convey them in a clear, compelling manner — and with emotional intelligence.

Use an empowerment promise to explain to your listeners exactly what you can teach them, how they will benefit, and why it’s important.

It’s time to redesign organized learning [Albertini]

On 11/02/2022, in business, career development, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, culture, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, more voice more choice more control, skills, social learning / networks, training / L&D, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

It’s time to redesign organized learning — from chieflearningofficer.com by Eric Albertini

Excerpt:

Organizations will need to think about three layers of learning content and access methods:

Thoughtfully curated by the organization for business fit.
Semi-curated with the learner having some control of what they learn.
Open for all, where the learner makes all the choices of what and how they learn.

Employee-centric learning approach. There must be a match of learning to organizational objectives as well. Non-curated, open content on platforms is great for focused and deeply aware employees but may not work for everyone, especially in cultures where self-direction is not very strong. Moreover, too much open, non-curated content, driven by non-contextual algorithms, is as detrimental to choice-making for the learner as is too little quality content.

To enable effective learning, technology must be part of a more systemic learning eco-system that includes things such as rewards (the “what’s in it for me”), building blocks from one intervention to the next and post-learning support.

Also from chieflearningofficer.com, see:

Three steps every new L&D leader should take: A tactical guide — by Megan Dillon

Coursera is Evolving into a Third-Wave EdTech Company [Feldstein]

On 11/02/2022, in Alternatives, business, business side of he, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, education technology, global / globalization, higher education, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, new business models, online learning, pace of change, platforms, training / L&D, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Coursera is Evolving into a Third-Wave EdTech Company — from eliterate.us by Michael Feldstein

Excerpts:

This is the vision of Coursera’s three-sided platform at scale, connecting learners, educators and institutions in a global learning ecosystem designed to keep pace with our rapidly changing world.

Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda

Coursera's diversified model with 3 segments -- consumer, enterprise, and degrees

The point of this slide is to show the diversification of Coursera’s business. Degree programs may be down, but enterprise licenses and direct-to-consumer certificates are up. But it also indicates Coursera’s ability to diversify revenue streams for its university content providers. The enterprise business provides a distribution channel between universities and employers. From what I can tell, it’s a Guild competitor, even though the two companies look very different on the surface. The consumer segment started as the MOOC business and has expanded into the “tweener” space between courses and degrees: certificates, microdegrees, whatever.

2023 Top 10 IT Issues: Foundation Models — from educause.edu

Excerpt:

Recent times have brought about a Great Rethink that is upending previous models of management and working. Higher education is no exception. In 2023, institutional and technology leaders are ready for a new approach.

The EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues help describe the foundation models that colleges and universities will develop next year and beyond, acting on what was learned in the pandemic and framed by the three building blocks of leadership, data, and work and learning.

See where things are headed in 2023 and beyond.
.

.

From DSC:
At this point in time, I’d find your visionary, innovative, tech-savvy leaders out there — and not just for IT-related positions but for Presidents, Provosts, CFO’s, Heads of HR, and similar levels of positions (and ideally on the Boards as well.) Such people need to be at the table when strategies are hammered out.

For example, if your institution didn’t get seriously into online learning long before Covid19 hit, I’d clear house and go back to the drawing board on your leadership.

Also, data won’t save higher ed. New directions/pathways might. But I’m doubtful that new sources of data will — no matter how they are sliced and diced. That sort of thing is too much at the fringe of things — and not at the heart of what’s being offered. The marketplace will eventually dictate to higher ed which directions institutions of traditional higher education need to go in. Or perhaps I should say that this is already starting to occur.

If alternatives to institutions of traditional higher education continue to grow in acceptance and usage — and don’t involve current institutions of higher ed — those sorts of institutions may already be too late. If more corporations fully develop their own training programs, pathways, and credentials, there may be even fewer students to go around.

A final thought: Cheaper forms of online-based learning for the liberal arts may be what actually saves the liberal arts in the long run.

Also relevant/see:

Teaching and Learning Perspectives on the EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues — from er.educause.edu
by Kim Arnold, Christopher Francique, Crystal Gasell, Allan Gyorke, Phil Ventimiglia and Kathe Pelletier
CIO and Senior Technology Leaders’ Perspectives on the EDUCAUSE 2023 Top 10 IT Issues — from er.educause.edu by Jennifer Burns, John Dunning, Jane Livingston, Jackie Malcolm, Dave Robinson and Betsy Reinitz

Reflections on Proverbs 11:1

On 11/02/2022, in business, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, Michigan, morals/values, parents/guardians, relationships, society, trends, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

11 The Lord detests dishonest scales,
but accurate weights find favor with him.

From DSC:
I thought about this verse the other day as I opened up a brand-new box of cereal. The box made it look like I was getting a lot of cereal — making it look like a decent value for the price. But when I opened it up, it was about half full (I realize some of this occurs by pushing out the box as the contents settle, but come on!). In fairness, I realize that the amount of the cereal is written on the box, but the manufacture likely kept the size of the box the same but decreased the amount that they put within it. They kept the price the same, but changed the quantity sold.

This shrinkification of items seems to be happening more these days — as companies don’t want to change their prices, so they’ll change the amounts of their products that you get.

It just strikes me as yet another deception.
We BS each other too much.
We rip each other off too much.
We bury stuff in the fine print.
Our advertising is not always truthful — words are easy to say, and much harder to back up.
We treat people as though they just exist to make money off of. It’s like Philip Morris did to people for years, and it still occurs today with other companies.
In today’s perspective, people are to be competed against but not to be in relationships with.

I hope that we can all build and offer solid products and services — while putting some serious quality into those things. Let’s make those things and offer those services as if we were making them for ourselves and/or our families. Let’s use “accurate weights.” And while we’re trying to do the right things, let’s aim to be in caring relationships with others.

“Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet” + several other items re: AI

On 11/02/2022, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, change, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, data related items, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, languages and translation, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Natural Language Processing (NLP), NVIDIA, platforms, programming, skills, social learning / networks, society, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Get Ready to Relearn How to Use the Internet — from bloomberg.com by Tyle Cowen; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource
Everyone knows that an AI revolution is coming, but no one seems to realize how profoundly it will change their day-to-day life.

Excerpts:

This year has brought a lot of innovation in artificial intelligence, which I have tried to keep up with, but too many people still do not appreciate the import of what is to come. I commonly hear comments such as, “Those are cool images, graphic designers will work with that,” or, “GPT-3 is cool, it will be easier to cheat on term papers.” And then they end by saying: “But it won’t change my life.”

This view is likely to be proven wrong — and soon, as AI is about to revolutionize our entire information architecture. You will have to learn how to use the internet all over again.
…
Change is coming. Consider Twitter, which I use each morning to gather information about the world. Less than two years from now, maybe I will speak into my computer, outline my topics of interest, and somebody’s version of AI will spit back to me a kind of Twitter remix, in a readable format and tailored to my needs.

The AI also will be not only responsive but active. Maybe it will tell me, “Today you really do need to read about Russia and changes in the UK government.” Or I might say, “More serendipity today, please,” and that wish would be granted.

Of course all this is just one man’s opinion. If you disagree, in a few years you will be able to ask the new AI engines what they think.

Some other recent items from Sam DeBrule include:

Natural Language Assessment: A New Framework to Promote Education — from ai.googleblog.com by Kedem Snir and Gal Elidan

Excerpt:

In this blog, we introduce an important natural language understanding (NLU) capability called Natural Language Assessment (NLA), and discuss how it can be helpful in the context of education. While typical NLU tasks focus on the user’s intent, NLA allows for the assessment of an answer from multiple perspectives. In situations where a user wants to know how good their answer is, NLA can offer an analysis of how close the answer is to what is expected. In situations where there may not be a “correct” answer, NLA can offer subtle insights that include topicality, relevance, verbosity, and beyond. We formulate the scope of NLA, present a practical model for carrying out topicality NLA, and showcase how NLA has been used to help job seekers practice answering interview questions with Google’s new interview prep tool, Interview Warmup.

How AI could help translate extreme weather alerts — from axios.com by Ayurella Horn-Muller

Excerpt:

A startup that provides AI-powered translation is working with the National Weather Service to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the U.S.

Using GPT-3 to augment human intelligence — from escapingflatland.substack.com by Henrik Karlsson

Excerpt:

When I’ve been doing this with GPT-3, a 175 billion parameter language model, it has been uncanny how much it reminds me of blogging. When I’m writing this, from March through August 2022, large language models are not yet as good at responding to my prompts as the readers of my blog. But their capacity is improving fast and the prices are dropping.

Soon everyone can have an alien intelligence in their inbox.

Learning Ecosystems

What’s Stopping You from Reinventing Your Career? [Cairns-Lee & Fischer]

Washington State U Student Workers Vote to Unionize [Flaherty]

Lawyers already have some major PR work to do — but when America finds out what they’ve been doing, their PR problems are going to be that much larger. [Christian]

80% of professors at Ph.D.-granting universities attended the same handful of colleges [Spitalniak]

Wharton, Berkeley, NYU Offering Online M.B.A.s for the First Time [Ellis]

Are Microcredentials Finally Gaining Traction? [Kim]

A Brilliant MIT Professor Shared 10 Simple Rules That Will Teach You How to Give a Great Speech [Bariso]

Coursera is Evolving into a Third-Wave EdTech Company [Feldstein]

Reflections on Proverbs 11:1

Greetings!

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