Learning Ecosystems

Creating Assessments for Micro-Credentials in Higher Education Organizations. [Reed & Abramovich]

On 12/29/2024, in assessment, colleges, community colleges, credentialing, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, liberal arts, microlearning, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

Build-your-own media literacy calendar — Introducing the 2025 Calendar from Wonder Media [Sue Ellen Christian & Students]

On 12/29/2024, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, business, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, curriculum, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, experimentation, faculty/staff, global / globalization, graphics, higher education, ideas, internet, journalism, K-12 related, liberal arts, library / librarians, media/film, Michigan, multimedia, music, new media literacies, online media, parents/guardians, platforms, podcasting, political science, reading, skills, social learning / networks, social media, society, sociology, story, student-related, teachers, technologies for your home, TVs, United States, universities, vendors, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

Introducing the 2025 Wonder Media Calendar for tweens, teens, and their families/households. Designed by Sue Ellen Christian and her students in her Global Media Literacy class (in the fall 2024 semester at Western Michigan University), the calendar’s purpose is to help people create a new year filled with skills and smart decisions about their media use. This calendar is part of the ongoing Wonder Media Library.com project that includes videos, lesson plans, games, songs and more. The website is funded by a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in partnership with Western Michigan University and the Library of Michigan.

Incredible cut and layered paper plus other artistic and creative items

On 12/29/2024, in art, creativity, by Daniel Christian

This woman Is the new Bob Ross ?

?paintwithkatmuggpic.twitter.com/vT4Fiq2YBJ

— Interesting things (@awkwardgoogle) December 8, 2024

pic.twitter.com/qwNWS69YbN

— Art world (@Artsworlld) December 13, 2024

Magic and Mystery Illuminate Hari & Deepti’s Paper-Cut Dioramas — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert and Hari & Deepti

Christina Blacklaws: “We’re on the cusp of meaningful A2J change” — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill

As 2024 draws to a close, we took a look at the past year and the year ahead with Christina Blacklaws, the former president of the Law Society of England and Wales who, after leaving office, has developed a career supporting businesses as a non-executive director, consultant and strategic advisor. One of those advisory roles is chair of LawtechUK, an initiative to “turbocharge” the UK’s lawtech sector, delivered by CodeBase and LegalGeek and funded by the Ministry of Justice.

For Blacklaws, one of the huge areas of potential for GenAI technology is in helping to solve the access to justice crisis and she talks through some of the exciting work being done in this space and why we’re on the cusp of meaningful change.

2024 In Legal Ops: AI, Adaptation, And What’s Next — from abovethelaw.com by The Uplevel Ops Advisory Team
Reflections on the wild ride that was 2024 and bold predictions for the new year.

The Legal Operations landscape is evolving faster than ever, and UpLevel Ops is at the forefront of this transformation. With advancements like generative AI subscriptions, custom GPT services, and value-based pricing shaking up traditional approaches, legal departments are navigating uncharted territory.
…
From revolutionary uses of AI to new strategies in outside counsel management, their insights provide a roadmap for legal teams ready to embrace the next wave of innovation.

Judges Are Using Virtual Reality Headsets in the Courtroom — from vice.com by Luis Prada

A judge in Florida has just set a precedent that might forever change the US legal system—and maybe even the global legal system—forever.
…
But now the technology has advanced to the point where the judge and jury can be almost literally in his client’s shoes.

This allows the judge to not just understand the words of his testimony, but the physical conditions of it in a much more tactile way. Whether or not this will make his case more convincing is up to the jury.

The Evolution of a Virtual Court System — from law.com by Sondra Mendelson-Toscano (behind a paywall)
“It is my prediction that the future of the court system includes a hybrid employment model for the bench.”

Shortly thereafter, the New York Office of Court Administration designed and executed a plan whereby judges were able to handle their assigned matters electronically. Such seemed like a natural progression under the circumstances, given that prior to the advent of the Coronavirus, electronic testimony was successfully utilized in many different types of proceedings in various ways (e.g. vulnerable child witnesses, interstate custody and child support, elderly material witnesses, medically disabled defendants, and incarcerated individuals).

A virtual court online resource center was created for judges, staff, and the public for information related to remote operations. Despite some initial resistance by attorneys (who argued violations of the right to confrontation, that virtual is less effective and not as persuasive, computer illiteracy, and so forth), the Unified Court System pushed forward.

OCA’s course of action proved to be effective and, eventually, attorneys and litigants enjoyed the option of appearing virtually. Lawyers could handle multiple matters from their home offices in less time than it would have taken them to drive back and forth between courthouses, thus maximizing their work day.

Parties appreciated the flexibility of appearing from home and those who were essential workers valued joining proceedings on breaks while at work. Being in court remotely alleviated the stress of having to ask for, and take off, time from work, or making arrangements to address child care issues, elder care issues, and the like. Litigants with physical disabilities and other hardships, such as lack of transportation, received an automatic accommodation without having to request one.

Microsoft partners with ABA on new pilot project to help asylum-seekers — from abajournal.com by Amanda Robert

“In an ideal world, we would get everyone an in-person attorney to represent them for the full length of their case,” says Baez, the Commission on Immigration’s director of pro bono. “But in the reality we live in, where that’s really not possible, we are trying to be thoughtful and innovative on how we engage the most volunteers to help the most people who would otherwise not be able to access any legal assistance.”

In June, the Commission on Immigration partnered with Microsoft to launch a new virtual clinic to help pro se asylum-seekers complete their asylum applications. During this clinic, which included four sessions, nearly 30 volunteers from Microsoft worked with asylum-seekers to gather necessary information and prepare their applications for submission.

Merry Christmas to you and to yours!

On 12/22/2024, in faith, future, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, history, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

Merry Christmas all!

Isaiah 7:14

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Galatians 4:4-5

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

Luke 1:46-47, 49

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

Matthew 1:20-21

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Luke 2:6-7

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Luke 2:16-20

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Tech Trends 2025 [Deloitte Insights]

On 12/21/2024, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, IT in HE, society, technology (general), trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Tech Trends 2025 — from deloitte.com by Deloitte Insights
In Deloitte’s 16th annual Tech Trends report, AI is the common thread of nearly every trend. Moving forward, it will be part of the substructure of everything we do.

We propose that the future of technology isn’t so much about more AI as it is about ubiquitous AI. We expect that, going forward, AI will become so fundamentally woven into the fabric of our lives that it’s everywhere, and so foundational that we stop noticing it.

AI will eventually follow a similar path, becoming so ubiquitous that it will be a part of the unseen substructure of everything we do, and we eventually won’t even know it’s there. It will quietly hum along in the background, optimizing traffic in our cities, personalizing our health care, and creating adaptative and accessible learning paths in education. We won’t “use” AI. We’ll just experience a world where things work smarter, faster, and more intuitively—like magic, but grounded in algorithms. We expect that it will provide a foundation for business and personal growth while also adapting and sustaining itself over time.

Nowhere is this AI-infused future more evident than in this year’s Tech Trends report, which each year explores emerging trends across the six macro forces of information technology (figure 1). Half of the trends that we’ve chronicled are elevating forces—interaction, information, and computation—that underpin innovation and growth. The other half—the grounding forces of the business of technology, cyber and trust, and core modernization—help enterprises seamlessly operate while they grow.

“An AI tutor for every student” + numerous other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 12/21/2024, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Open AI, personalized/customized learning, strategy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, United States, vendors, virtual tutoring, youth, by Daniel Christian

60 Minutes Overtime
Sal Khan wants an AI tutor for every student: here’s how it’s working at an Indiana high school — from cbsnews.com by Anderson Cooper, Aliza Chasan, Denise Schrier Cetta, and Katie Brennan

“I mean, that’s what I’ll always want for my own children and, frankly, for anyone’s children,” Khan said. “And the hope here is that we can use artificial intelligence and other technologies to amplify what a teacher can do so they can spend more time standing next to a student, figuring them out, having a person-to-person connection.”
…
“After a week you start to realize, like, how you can use it,” Brockman said. “That’s been one of the really important things about working with Sal and his team, to really figure out what’s the right way to sort of bring this to parents and to teachers and to classrooms and to do that in a way…so that the students really learn and aren’t just, you know, asking for the answers and that the parents can have oversight and the teachers can be involved in that process.”

Nectir lets teachers tailor AI chatbots to provide their students with 24/7 educational support — from techcrunch.com by Lauren Forristal

More than 100 colleges and high schools are turning to a new AI tool called Nectir, allowing teachers to create a personalized learning partner that’s trained on their syllabi, textbooks, and assignments to help students with anything from questions related to their coursework to essay writing assistance and even future career guidance.
…
With Nectir, teachers can create an AI assistant tailored to their specific needs, whether for a single class, a department, or the entire campus. There are various personalization options available, enabling teachers to establish clear boundaries for the AI’s interactions, such as programming the assistant to assist only with certain subjects or responding in a way that aligns with their teaching style.

“It’ll really be that customized learning partner. Every single conversation that a student has with any of their assistants will then be fed into that student profile for them to be able to see based on what the AI thinks, what should I be doing next, not only in my educational journey, but in my career journey,” Ghai said.

How Will AI Influence Higher Ed in 2025? — from insidehighered.com by Kathryn Palmer
No one knows for sure, but Inside Higher Ed asked seven experts for their predictions.

As the technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, no one knows for sure how AI will influence higher education in 2025. But several experts offered Inside Higher Ed their predictions—and some guidance—for how colleges and universities will have to navigate AI’s potential in the new year.

How A.I. Can Revive a Love of Learning — from nytimes.com by Anant Agarwal
Modern technology offers new possibilities for transforming teaching.

In the short term, A.I. will help teachers create lesson plans, find illustrative examples and generate quizzes tailored to each student. Customized problem sets will serve as tools to combat cheating while A.I. provides instant feedback.
…
In the longer term, it’s possible to imagine a world where A.I. can ingest rich learner data and create personalized learning paths for students, all within a curriculum established by the teacher. Teachers can continue to be deeply involved in fostering student discussions, guiding group projects and engaging their students, while A.I. handles grading and uses the Socratic method to help students discover answers on their own. Teachers provide encouragement and one-on-one support when needed, using their newfound availability to give students some extra care.

Let’s be clear: A.I. will never replace the human touch that is so vital to education. No algorithm can replicate the empathy, creativity and passion a teacher brings to the classroom. But A.I. can certainly amplify those qualities. It can be our co-pilot, our chief of staff helping us extend our reach and improve our effectiveness.

Dancing with the Devil We Know: OpenAI and the Future of Education — from nickpotkalitsky.substack.com by Nick Potkalitsky
Analyzing OpenAI’s Student Writing Guide and Latest AI Tools

Today, I want to reflect on two recent OpenAI developments that highlight this evolution: their belated publication of advice for students on integrating AI into writing workflows, and last week’s launch of the full GPTo1 Pro version. When OpenAI released their student writing guide, there were plenty of snarky comments about how this guidance arrives almost a year after they thoroughly disrupted the educational landscape. Fair enough – I took my own side swipes initially. But let’s look at what they’re actually advising, because the details matter more than the timing.

Tutor CoPilot: A Human-AI Approach for Scaling Real-Time Expertise — from studentsupportaccelerator.org by Rose E.Wang, Ana T. Ribeiro, Carly D. Robinson, Susanna Loeb, and Dora Demszky

Pandemic, Politics, Pre-K & More: 12 Charts That Defined Education in 2024 — from the74million.org
From the spread of AI to the limits of federal COVID aid, these research findings captured the world of education this year.

Tutoring programs exploded in the last five years as states and school districts searched for ways to counter plummeting achievement during COVID. But the cost of providing supplemental instruction to tens of millions of students can be eye-watering, even as the results seem to taper off as programs serve more students.

That’s where artificial intelligence could prove a decisive advantage. A report circulated in October by the National Student Support Accelerator found that an AI-powered tutoring assistant significantly improved the performance of hundreds of tutors by prompting them with new ways to explain concepts to students. With the help of the tool, dubbed Tutor CoPilot, students assigned to the weakest tutors began posting academic results nearly equal to those assigned to the strongest. And the cost to run the program was just $20 per pupil.

On Capacity, Sustainability, And Attention — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins

Faculty must have the time and support necessary to come to terms with this new technology and that requires us to change how we view professional development in higher education and K-12. We cannot treat generative AI as a one-off problem that can be solved by a workshop, an invited talk, or a course policy discussion. Generative AI in education has to be viewed as a continuum. Faculty need a myriad of support options each semester:

Course buyouts
Fellowships
Learning communities
Reading groups
AI Institutes and workshops
Funding to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning around generative AI

New in 2025 and What Edleaders Should Do About It — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark and Mason Pashia

Key Points

Education leaders should focus on integrating AI literacy, civic education, and work-based learning to equip students for future challenges and opportunities.
Building social capital and personalized learning environments will be crucial for student success in a world increasingly influenced by AI and decentralized power structures.

1-800-CHAT-GPT—12 Days of OpenAI: Day 10

Per The Rundown: OpenAI just launched a surprising new way to access ChatGPT — through an old-school 1-800 number & also rolled out a new WhatsApp integration for global users during Day 10 of the company’s livestream event.

How Agentic AI is Revolutionizing Customer Service — from customerthink.com by Devashish Mamgain

Agentic AI represents a significant evolution in artificial intelligence, offering enhanced autonomy and decision-making capabilities beyond traditional AI systems. Unlike conventional AI, which requires human instructions, agentic AI can independently perform complex tasks, adapt to changing environments, and pursue goals with minimal human intervention.

This makes it a powerful tool across various industries, especially in the customer service function. To understand it better, let’s compare AI Agents with non-AI agents.
…
Characteristics of Agentic AI

- Autonomy: Achieves complex objectives without requiring human collaboration.
- Language Comprehension: Understands nuanced human speech and text effectively.
- Rationality: Makes informed, contextual decisions using advanced reasoning engines.
- Adaptation: Adjusts plans and goals in dynamic situations.
- Workflow Optimization: Streamlines and organizes business workflows with minimal oversight.

Clio: A system for privacy-preserving insights into real-world AI use — from anthropic.com

How, then, can we research and observe how our systems are used while rigorously maintaining user privacy?

Claude insights and observations, or “Clio,” is our attempt to answer this question. Clio is an automated analysis tool that enables privacy-preserving analysis of real-world language model use. It gives us insights into the day-to-day uses of claude.ai in a way that’s analogous to tools like Google Trends. It’s also already helping us improve our safety measures. In this post—which accompanies a full research paper—we describe Clio and some of its initial results.

Evolving tools redefine AI video — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Google’s Veo 2, Kling 1.6, Pika 2.0 & more

AI video continues to surpass expectations
The AI video generation space has evolved dramatically in recent weeks, with several major players introducing groundbreaking tools.

Here’s a comprehensive look at the current landscape:

Veo 2…
Pika 2.0…
Runway’s Gen-3…
Luma AI Dream Machine…
Hailuo’s MiniMax…
OpenAI’s Sora…
Hunyuan Video by Tencent…

There are several other video models and platforms, including …

A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education — from petergray.substack.com by Peter Gray; with thanks to Dr. Kate Christian for this resource
What will replace k-12 and college?

A Three-Phase, Rational System of Education
I don’t know just how or how fast the change will happen, but I think the days of K-12 and four years of college are numbered and sanity will begin to prevail in the educational world. I envision a future with something like the following three-phase approach to education:

Phase I. Discovery: Learning about your world, your self, and how the two fit together.…
Phase II. Exploring a career path.…
Phase III. Becoming credentialed for specialized work.…

College operating costs rose 3.4% in fiscal 2024 [Unglesbee]

On 12/21/2024, in business side of he, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, higher education, learning ecosystem, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

College operating costs rose 3.4% in fiscal 2024 — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
Commonfund Institute’s latest Higher Education Price Index shows that cost spikes slowed — but that doesn’t make them any less painful.

Dive Brief:

Costs for operating a college rose 3.4% in fiscal 2024, according to the latest Higher Education Price Index from the Commonfund Institute.
The price increases outpaced Commonfund’s preliminary projections this spring of 3% for the year. However, the HEPI showed that inflation has slowed more than half a percentage point from fiscal 2023 and is down nearly 2 percentage points from 2022’s 5.2% inflation rate.
Utility prices and those for supplies and materials slowed the most significantly, after recent years of volatility in those areas. While costs for institutions are cooling, “there is an ongoing trend of inflation rates remaining elevated compared with the previous decade,” Commonfund said.

Speaking of higher education, also see:

25 Stats for 2025 — from insidehighered.com by Ashley Mowreader
Inside Higher Ed compiled two dozen–plus data points to help guide strategic decision-making and student success initiatives on college campuses.

Jeremy Caplan: 12 of my favorite tools this year

On 12/21/2024, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, design, digital audio, digital video, experimentation, graphics, productivity / tips and tricks, programming, tools, United States, vendors, videoconferencing, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Best of 2024 — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
12 of my favorites this year

I tested hundreds of new tools this year. Many were duplicative. A few stuck with me because they’re so useful. The dozen noted below are helping me mine insights from notes, summarize meetings, design visuals— even code a little, without being a developer. You can start using any of these in minutes — no big budget or prompt engineering PhD required.

Side Hustles for Educators [Hobson]

On 12/21/2024, in adjunct faculty, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, elearning, faculty/staff, ideas, instructional design, Learning Experience Design, teachers, by Daniel Christian

Side Hustles for Educators — from drlukehobson.com by Luke Hobson

Anyway, let’s say you work in education, and you want to start a side hustle. What are your options? I’ve seen folks take a few different approaches with this so, let’s go over a few options:

Adjunct Positions…
Presentations and Workshops…
Consulting and Client Work…
Digital Courses and Coaching…

Incorporating Financial Literacy into Your Classroom Curriculum [edcircuit.com]

On 12/21/2024, in content development, aggregation, repositories, curriculum, education, education technology, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, student-related, surviving, teachers, youth, by Daniel Christian

Incorporating Financial Literacy into Your Classroom Curriculum — from edcircuit.com by EdCircuit Staff
Teaching Beyond the Textbook

Table of Contents

The Importance of Teaching Financial Literacy
Incorporating Financial Literacy into Your CurriculumUse Real-Life Examples
Integrate it into Other Subjects
Use Technology
Make it Interactive
Start Early
Conclusion

How many students do microschools serve? [Soifer]

On 12/17/2024, in education, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, by Daniel Christian

How many students do microschools serve? — from microschoolingcenter.org by Ashley Soifer

Our 2024 Sector Analysis shows the median average for number of children served by a microschool at launch is 9, at the end of the first year is 12 and currently serving is 16.

What this doesn’t show is all of the ups and downs in between.

It’s not uncommon for first year microschooling founders to see a dip in enrolled students between the start of the year and the end of the year. October and November can be two of the most stressful months for new microschool founders as numbers either dip or don’t grow as anticipated. There are a few things that can be helpful for microschool founders during this time:

“Your Map To The Future lays out tools and techniques futurists have been using for decades” [Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD]

On 12/17/2024, in Daniel S. Christian, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, health, productivity / tips and tricks, by Daniel Christian

Your Map to the Future: New Book! — from medicalfuturist.com by Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD
Your Map To The Future lays out tools and techniques futurists have been using for decades so you can start using them immediately to shape your personal and professional futures.

Futures thinking shouldn’t be reserved for experts. Whether you’re a leader, a professional, or simply someone striving to make sense of a complex world, this book is for you.
…
The futures methods I’ve used as The Medical Futurist for decades in analyzing the future of medicine and healthcare have, for some reason, not become widely accessible.

However, everyone can obtain these methods to approach the future with confidence, clarity, and control.

While the future is believed to be a fixed, singular path, in fact, multiple futures exist, and Your Map To The Future gives you the science-based tools to explore and prepare for them. With fresh perspectives, I illustrate why looking forward is crucial in addressing today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to artificial intelligence.

From DSC:
I haven’t read this book and I hesitate to post this…as it leans heavily into an advertisement for this particular book. But I DO post it because I also believe that future thinking shouldn’t be reserved for experts. In fact, I assert that all K-12 students — and college/vocational students as well — should have some exposure to futures thinking. We need to be looking up and around and pulse-checking the trends. We need to posit future scenarios and our plans to address those potential scenarios.

Also, I have read Dr. Mesko’s postings for years and he’s solid.