Six Hot Workplace Trends for 2011 from cio.com by Shane O’Neill
Connections, Clouds, Things & Analytics –– from George Siemens
From DSC:
In looking through George’s presentation, the following graphic reminded me of a learning ecosystem. The idea of activity and content streams speaks of constant flow, change, new information. Look are the sources of where learning can come from:
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As an instructional designer, how do we incorporate all of this?
Finally, one other thought, if we are not connected to a network of bloggers (and have a series of RSS feeds keeping us constantly up-to-date) or have some other means of tapping into these streams of activities and sources of content, we will look like this:
Cutting the Pay TV Cord, Chapter 5: Unlimited Internet TV — from Phil Leigh
In short, often there is no reason why modern flat panel TV screens cannot function as giant monitors for up-do-date computers.
Thus a growing number of us are attaching computers to our TVs. The trend is especially prevalent for WiFi enabled computers because they can connect over a home network and thence to the Internet. In such configurations computers – commonly dedicated laptops – function as Internet gateways for televisions. They transform TVs into dual function devices normally controlled from a comfortable viewing distance with ordinary TV remote units.
Also see:
Gartner’s top 10 technologies for 2011 — from GlobalKnowledge.com by Larry Dignan; with special thanks to Mr. Cal Keen, Calvin College, for this resource
The future of Microsoft Windows Azure: Platform as a service — from arstechnica.com by Peter Bright
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At PDC yesterday, Microsoft unveiled its roadmap for the Windows Azure cloud computing platform. Moving beyond mere Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), the company is positioning Windows Azure as a Platform-as-a-Service offering: a comprehensive set of development tools, services, and management systems to allow developers to concentrate on creating available, scalable applications.
Over the next 12-18 months, a raft of new functionality will be rolled out to Windows Azure customers. These features will both make it easier to move existing applications into the cloud, and enhance the services available to cloud-hosted applications.
From DSC:
In reading Ray Ozzie’s views of the future (Ray is the departing high-level visionary at Microsoft), it was interesting to note that Ray points out the dangers of complexity — at least in the world of computing/software development. Quotes from both 2005 and 2010 are below:
Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration. Moving forward, within all parts of the organization, each of us should ask “What’s different?”, and explore and embrace techniques to reduce complexity.
Complexity kills. Complexity sucks the life out of users, developers and IT. Complexity makes products difficult to plan, build, test and use. Complexity introduces security challenges. Complexity causes administrator frustration.
Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010: Final list, presentation and more — from Jane Knight
Yesterday I finalised the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2010 list. Many thanks to the 545 people who shared their Top 10 Tools for Learning and contributed to the building of the list. Although this list is available online, I also created this presentation which provides the information as a slideset – embedded below.
Jane Hart, a Social Business Consultant, and founder
of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies.
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Hottest jobs and skills in cloud, mobile app development — from pcworld.com by Meridith Levinson, CIO
Want to lock in some job security in IT over the next five years? Then make sure you’re poised to move into cloud computing or mobile application development. That’s where the IT jobs are expected to be, according to 2,000 IT professionals recently surveyed by IBM.
IBM’s annual global Tech Trends survey identified cloud computing and mobile application development as the hottest tech trends and most sought-after IT skills for the next five years. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents (91 percent) expect cloud computing to overtake on-premise computing as the primary IT delivery model by 2015. More than half (55 percent) of survey respondents believe that in the same amount of time, the need to develop applications for mobile devices (such as Android, iPhone, iPad and PlayBook) will far surpass the need to develop software for traditional PCs and servers. These trends will impact IT jobs and the skills needed to do them.
New “ELI 7 Things”…Brief explores online media editing — from Educause Learning Initiative (ELI)
In the 7 Things You Should Know About Online Media Editing, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative’s (ELI) latest brief in the monthly series, find out how the use of online media editing tools encourages instructors and students to explore learning activities and assessments with new media.
Excerpt:
What is it?
Cloud-based media editing applications allow anyone with web access and a suitable computing device to touch up photographs, mix music, and edit video. These web-based services may offer a more limited tool set than full-scale software editing suites, but they are generally cross-platform, device-independent, and less expensive, particularly as most offer at least some of their services at no cost.
What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Web-based editors reduce logistical challenges for instructors by providing all students with access to media editing tools. The free or low-cost nature of these editors allows students to use them to build complex and collaborative learning projects involving rich media, something that should be inviting to faculty members who take the approach that students learn best when they are engaged in projects that result in creative output. Because these tools are inexpensive or free and do not require sophisticated user skills, they offer faculty new avenues to devise new kinds of activities that go beyond the standard term paper and, in many cases, might be more representative of authentic assessment. Moreover, because the threshold is so low to use online media services, the opportunities they present to work in new media are open to students in virtually any discipline.
