From DSC:
Yesterday, I had posted an item re: interactive video. As I looked at the credits for the piece out at the Wall Street Journal, it made me reflect upon this thought:
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This will be true whether we’re talking about K-12, higher ed, and/or the corporate training/L&D world.
In the future, the whole world will be a classroom — from fastcoexist.com by Marina Gorbis
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From DSC:
What Marina is asserting is what I’m seeing as well. That is, we are between two massive but different means of obtaining an education/learning (throughout our lifetimes I might add). What she’s saying is also captured in the following graphic:
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Also see:
Then globalization and the Internet changed everything. Customers suddenly had real choices, access to instant reliable information and the ability to communicate with each other. Power in the marketplace shifted from seller to buyer. Customers started insisting on ‘better, cheaper, quicker and smaller,’ along with ‘more convenient, reliable and personalized.’ Continuous, even transformational, innovation have become requirements for survival.”
Steve Denning, “The Management Revolution That’s Already Happening,”
Forbes Magazine, May 30, 2013.
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From DSC:
1) To start out this posting, I want to pose some questions about “The Common Core” — in the form of a short video. <— NOTE: Please be sure your speakers are on or you have some headphones with you — the signal is “hot” so you may need to turn down the volume a bit! 🙂
With a special thanks going out to
Mr. Bill Vriesema for sharing
some of his excellent gifts/work.
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Having asked those questions, I understand that there is great value in having students obtain a base level of knowledge — in reading, writing, and basic math. (Should we add keyboarding? Programming? Other? Perhaps my comments are therefore more appropriate for high school students…not sure.)
Anyway, I would be much more comfortable with moving forward with the Common Core IF:
* I walked into random schools and found out which teachers the students really enjoyed learning from and whom had a real impact on the learning of the students. Once I identified that group of teachers, if 7-8 out of 10 of them gave the Common Core a thumbs up, so would I.
* The Common Core covered more areas — such as fine arts, music, drama, woodworking, videography, photography, etc. (Just because STEM might drive the economic engines doesn’t mean everyone enjoys plugging into a STEM-related field — or is gifted in those areas.)
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2) Secondly, here are just a few recent items re: the Common Core:
Good Read: Who’s Minding the Schools? — from blogs.kqed.org by Tina Barseghian
Excerpt: (emphasis DSC)
For those uninitiated to the Common Core State Standards, this New York Times article raises some important questions:
“By definition, America has never had a national education policy; this has indeed contributed to our country’s ambivalence on the subject… The anxiety that drives this criticism comes from the fact that a radical curriculum — one that has the potential to affect more than 50 million children and their parents — was introduced with hardly any public discussion. Americans know more about the events in Benghazi than they do about the Common Core.”
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Editorial: Make the Common Core standards work before making them count — from eschoolnews.com by Randi Weingarten
AFT President Randi Weingarten calls for a moratorium on the high-stakes implications of Common Core testing until the standards have been properly implemented.
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How to train students’ brains for the Common Core — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Excerpt:
According to Margaret Glick, a neuroscience expert and educational consultant at the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), the Common Core State Standards and the accompanying assessments will cognitively require more than past standards. “They will require a deep understanding of content, complex performances, real-world application, habits of mind to persevere, higher levels of cognition and cognitive flexibility,” Glick said during “The Common Core State Standards and the Brain,” a webinar sponsored by the Learning Enhancement Corporation.
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Common Core testing will require digital literacy skills — from ecampusnews.com by Dennis Pierce
Excerpt:
It also will require students to demonstrate certain digital literacy skills that go beyond the core curriculum, observers say. These include technology operational skills such as keyboarding and spreadsheets, as well as higher-order skills such as finding and evaluating information online. And many observers have serious concerns about whether students will be ready to take the online exams by the 2014-15 school year.
Minn. moves ahead with some Common Core education standards — from minnesota.publicradio.org by Tim Post
Carry the Common Core in Your Pocket! — from appolearning.com by Monica Burns
Excerpt:
Whether you are a parent or educator, you have likely heard the buzz around the Common Core Learning Standards. Here’s the deal.
Across the United States schools are adopting these national standards to prepare students for college and careers by introducing rigorous content to children in all subject areas. The standards cover students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core Standards app by MasteryConnect organizes the CCLS for students, parents and teachers with mobile devices.
Addendum on 6/19/13:
Addendum on 6/27/13:
From DSC:
Well…how about using one of these devices in order to do so!
New video collaboration robot: TelePresence gets moving — from cisco.com by Dave Evans
Excerpt:
That is why Cisco’s new joint effort with iRobot—demonstrated publicly this week for the first time—is so exciting: We’ve created a mobile Cisco TelePresence unit that brings collaboration to you—or, conversely, brings you to wherever you need to collaborate. Called iRobot Ava 500, this high-definition video collaboration robot combines Cisco TelePresence with iRobot’s mobility and self-navigation capabilities, enabling freedom of movement and spontaneous interactions with people thousands of miles away.
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iRobot Ava™ 500 Video Collaboration Robot — published on Jun 10, 2013
iRobot and Cisco have teamed to bring the Ava 500 video collaboration robot to market. The robot blends iRobot’s autonomous navigation with Cisco’s TelePresence to enable people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where movement and location spontaneity are important. The new robot is also designed to enable mobile visual access to manufacturing facilities, laboratories, customer experience centers and other remote facilities.
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From Attack of the Telepresence Robots! — from BYTE by Rick Lehrbaum
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| MantaroBot “TeleMe” | VGo Communications “VGo” | Anybots “QB” | Suitable Technologies “Beam” |
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TV apps: A dive into fragmentation — from appmarket.tv by
Excerpt:
Suppose you wanted to build an app for TV, where would you start? Admittedly, there is an enormous number of variables to consider for an app developer on where they might start the journey, even before that journey starts. These include areas like skill sets, funding, previous development, and relationships. This article is the first in a series that aims to shed some light on the current state of TV app development, as well as the exciting ecosystem that is forming around the connected TV. If you’ve identified an opportunity where developing a TV app makes sense, read on!
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At this point, suppose you want to cover the market and develop for all devices and middleware platforms. That’s at least 72 middleware/OS, 122 devices, and 3 screen resolutions, which equates to managing over 26,352 experiences. A little overwhelming, right? Luckily, the picture isn’t quite this grim and in practice, no developer has gone to these lengths (we hope!). The next article in this series will go into how some of this fragmentation is being dealt with and some best practices that we’ve discovered along the way.
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![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
The New ‘New Normal’ — by Kevin Kiley
Excerpt:
Mandatory tuition and fees at the University of California system have about doubled since 2007, but this year, if the state’s governor has his way, they will stay flat.
And the University of California is far from alone. Purdue University is freezing tuition for the first time since 1976. Iowa’s three universities will also probably hold tuition prices constant for the first time in more than 30 years.
From DSC:
Institutions of higher education seem to have been priding themselves on smaller tuition increases these last few years — while I’ve been disappointed that they rose at all! In fact it should have gone in the other direction — i.e. price decreases. Time will tell whether it’s too little too late; but tuition freezes may not prevent the alternatives from taking over now.
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SAP launches MOOC style online courseware — from technorati.com by Adi Gaskell
Excerpt:
Last year I looked at the impact of Massive Online Open Courses and other forms of online learning were having on learning in the workplace.
So it’s interesting to read that software giant SAP are to launch their own MOOC style platform.
The site, called Open.SAP.com, aims to offer employees and other people interested in the SAP environment, a range of courses on topics that the company believe are key to success in the SAP world.
For instance, the first module available is an introduction to software development on SAP HANA. SAP recommend that people spend around 5 hours per week for six weeks on the course, which has thus far attracted around 20,000 students.
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Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Discover new ways to navigate the world around you with Google Maps and Google Earth.
Improve your use of new and existing features of Google’s mapping tools.
Choose your own path. Complete a project using Google Maps, Google Earth, or both, and earn a certificate of completion.
IBM Watson at your service: New Watson breakthrough transforms how brands engage today’s connected consumers — from IBM.com
Delivered from the cloud and into the hands of mobile consumers, Watson provides faster, personalized service for smarter commerce; top brands tap Watson’s ability to crunch big data and provide fast, personalized advice for empowered consumers
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Also see:
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IBM’s Watson tries to learn…everything — from spectrum.ieee.org by Steven Cherry
What happens when Watson learns a million databases? RPI students and faculty hope to find out.
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Excerpt:
As the nation struggles to find new ways to increase college access and completion rates while lowering costs, a handful of “Next Generation Universities” are embracing key strategies that make them models for national reform. The report The Next Generation University comes at a time when too many public universities are failing to respond to the nation’s higher education crisis. Rather than expanding enrollment and focusing limited dollars on the neediest of students, many institutions are instead restricting enrollments and encouraging the use of student-aid dollars on merit awards. But, according to the report, some schools are breaking the mold by boldly restructuring operating costs and creating clear, accelerated pathways for students.
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Download the full report here.
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In addition to the report, see:
Also see:
