Apple's iTunes U may be leading a global revolution in higher education

 

From DSC:

Apple has been putting together a solid ecosystem of hardware and software that allows for the creation and distribution of content.  “Easy is hard” I like to say and Apple’s done a great job of creating easy-to-use devices and apps. They have a long way to go before iTunes U has all the built-in functionality needed to replace a Blackboard Learn or a Moodle type of CMS/LMS.  But given their solid history of creating highly-usable hardware and software, they could deal a smashing blow to what’s happening in the CMS/LMS world today. 

Plus, with Apple TV, Airplay mirroring, the growth of second screen-based apps, and machine-to-machine communications, Apple is poised to get into this game…big time. If my thoughts re: “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” come to fruition, Apple would be positioned for some serious worldwide impact on lifelong learning; especially when combined with the developments such as the use of MOOCs, AI and HCI-related innovations, learning agents, web-based learner profiles, and potential/upcoming changes to accreditation.

Too far fetched do you think? Hmmm….well considering that online learning has already been proven to be at least as affective as f2f learning — and in some studies has produced even greater learning outcomes/results — I wonder how things will look in mid-2015…? (That is, where is the innovation occurring?)


 Addendum:

  • Connected TV penetration to top 50% by 2017 — from worldscreen.com by Mansha Daswani
    Excerpt:
    SCOTTSDALE: ABI Research forecasts that more than 50 percent of television homes in North America and Western Europe will have Internet-connected TV sets by 2017, up from just 10 percent last year, while Blu-ray player penetration is expected to rise to more than 76 percent from about 25 percent. The report notes that the popularity of connected TV is not limited to developed markets—there have been increasing shipments to China, ABI notes.
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  • Advertisers need to pay attention to connected TV [INFOGRAPHIC] — from Mashable.com
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  • The future of TV is two screens, one held firmly in your hands — from FastCompany.com by Kit Eaton
    Excerpt:

    The connected TV, sometimes called the smart TV (and even branded as such by Samsung) is a growing phenomenon: TV makers are adding limited apps, Net connectivity, and even streaming media powers to their newer TVs in the hope they’ll persuade you to upgrade your newish LCD for a flatter, smarter unit. They’re desperate to, given how flat this market is. But according to new research from Pew, the future of TV may actually be a little more closely aligned with the notion of a “connected TV viewer,” an important distinction. Pew spoke to over 2,200 U.S. adults a couple of months ago and discovered that 52% of all adult cell phone owners now “incorporate their mobile devices into their television watching experiences.”

 

http://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/

Avid divests consumer businesses and streamlines operations — my thanks to Mr. Michael Haan at Calvin College for this resource

Excerpts from BURLINGTON, MA, 2012-07-02 announcement:

Avid has agreed to sell its consumer audio and video product lines. The company’s consumer audio products are being sold to inMusic, the parent company of Akai Professional, Alesis and Numark, among others.

Separately, the company’s consumer video editing line is being sold to Corel Corporation, a consumer software company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. The products involved in this transaction include Avid Studio, Pinnacle Studio, and the Avid Studio App for the Apple iPad®, as well as other legacy video capture products.

Avid also plans to reduce the number of its employees as it streamlines operations, with approximately 20% of its permanent employee base impacted by the divestitures and headcount reduction plans.

 

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A piece of the Next Generation Smart Classroom -- Daniel Christian -- June 2012

 

From DSC:
I wonder:

  • If the video wall  pictured above could be a Smart/connected TV and if it can share files as well as play files?
  • If such a setup will involve machine-to-machine communications (NFC, other)?
  • If it will be like banking setups whereby the student’s device must obtain a constantly rotating password to access a resource that expires in ___ seconds — and they must be in that room to get it?
  • If it will be hardware or software based…or both?

 

As used by Khan Academy…

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Also see:

 

Premium Captioning & Transcription Services

 

 Addendum on 6/20/12:

  • Why and how to caption? — from Luis Perez
    The Collaborative for Communication Access via Captioning has created an excellent video showing how real people are impacted by the lack of captioning. The title of the video says it all: “Don’t Leave Me Out”.

 Addendums on 6/21/12:

Addendum on 7/2/12:

 

 

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What’s New in Educational A/V?– from CampusTechnology.com by Bridget McCrea

Excerpt:

Audiovisual technologies—including LCD displays, flat-panel monitors, video walls, studios, and A/V devices and applications—are gaining presence in today’s learning spaces as educators increasingly rely on these technologies to reach and engage students.

“A/V is not just supplemental,” said Bill Thrisk, vice president of information technology/CIO at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY. “It helps students learn when other instructional and retention methods leave off.”

The proposition is difficult to ignore, as evidenced by the growing volume of A/V equipment, tools, and applications currently being used by the educational sector. Here are five A/V technologies that are showing up in more classrooms in 2012…

Also see:

YouTube Video of  Marc Whitten, VP Xbox LIVE

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SmartGlass -- from Microsoft -- June 4, 2012

 

Microsoft Unveils ‘SmartGlass’ to Connect Xbox and Windows — from the Wall Street Journal

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Xbox Marc Whitten, corporate vice president of Xbox LIVE, announces
Xbox SmartGlass onstage at the Xbox 360 E3 media briefing Monday.

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Also see:

Addendum 6/6/12:

5 ways to clean YouTube Videos - June 2012

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Also see 9 ways to assess without standardized tests — by Lisa Nielsen

 

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Top 100 Schools for Animation, Gaming, and Design - May 2012

 

Excerpt:

The animation education industy has never been so competitive, with schools competing for students and students competing for a small number of available industry jobs. The job rate and student employability has dropped to the lowest in years, so a top-notch animation education has never been so critical.

All this has made choosing the right animation school extremely difficult. To help students navigate through the world of animation schools, we’ve put together the Top 100 most highly-regarded and sought after animation schools on the planet. This list of the Top 100 Schools in Animation, Gaming and Design was compiled via a mixture of school reviews, industry-reviewed lists like the Princeton Review, and via a survey of the animation industry professionals and recruiters from companies like Pixar, J.J. Sedelmaier and DreamWorks who were featured in our Interview Series. And without further ado, here are your Top 100 Schools in Animation, Gaming and Design:

 

http://k12videos.mit.edu/

 

About:

American school children need better educational opportunities and more compelling forms of exposure to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)—and to the people who work in these fields. Less than 5% of all university degrees awarded in the U.S. are in engineering (compared to 45% in China and 12% in Europe); only 0.8% of these degrees are being earned by women and 0.6% by underrepresented minorities. Further, 69% of U.S. public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics: 93% are taught physical sciences by a teacher without a degree or certificate in the physical sciences. This crisis in STEM education is colliding with, and being compounded by, grim economic realities in most U.S. states. As a country, we are poised to expend fewer resources on one of our most pressing long-term educational and economic challenges. The National Academies have likened this crisis to a rapidly approaching, category-5 hurricane.

MIT has a unique relationship to these issues. We don’t have a STEM problem. As a world leader in engineering and science education and research we continue to attract a strong, diverse, and technically superb applicant pool. Half our undergraduate students choose to major in engineering; half are women; and a quarter are under-represented minorities. Moreover, because of our need-blind admissions policy, 19% of undergraduates in our most recent class come from families with incomes less than $50,000 per year, 37% come from families with incomes less than $100,000 per year, and 14% are the first generation of their family to attend college. However, our unique position also presents us with an opportunity to participate in the solution for the broader problem. These are challenges for our fields, our country, and our collective future. Finding solutions is not merely an opportunity of leadership—it is an obligation.

 

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The Future of TV  - special from CNBC which airs tonight - May 7, 2012

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Also see:

and…

 

Addendums on 5/8/12:

Double vision: TV gets interactive — from thetowntalk.com by Fraizer Moore

Piers Fawkes: The future of TV — from psfk.com by Piers Fawkes

A solid Q&A with such questions as:

  • The old hierarchical vertical order of: channel – series – episode, seems to be in danger, letting the horizontal disorder take its place. What do you think broadcasters can do to serve people during this shift?
  • The TV channel is being challenged, first by VOD and now by internet based services. How do you think the TV channels’ role will evolve in the next 5 years? Will the traditional push-based model maintain its centrality or will users be looking for search-only and pull-based alternatives?
  • A new form of TV means new revenue models. Who do you think will finance the next successful TV show in 10 years and how? Will the new channels’ role generate new business models? How you imagine them?
  • To protect our brain from information overload we need to filter and recommendations are a form of filtering. How do you think people’s recommendations will shape the future role of TV channels in the next years to come?
  • Artificial Intelligence, Smart Agents and algorithms are directing us into a world of Adaptive User Interfaces capable of recognizing different users and provide them with an anticipated, personalized experience. How do you think the future TV will shape around people’s habits and tastes?

Adobe announces Creative Suite 6 and Adobe Creative Cloud on 4-23-12

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Adobe announces Creative Suite 6 and Adobe Creative Cloud on 4-23-12

 

.Also see:

From DSC:

  • This last piece from David Nagel addresses my fears and concerns with our current emphasis on standardized tests, common core standards, etc.  The emphasis is on STEM and can lead to a one-size-fits-all type of education that doesn’t allow each student to identify and pursue their own passions enough.

 

Addendum on 5/2/12:

 

 

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Three new ways to re-think digital literature — from criticalmargins.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

I am not the only writer out there thinking about the e-book’s new potential. Today, I’d like to highlight three examples of writers who take on this challenge. These three approaches are nothing alike, and none of them do what is typical of the e-book today, which is to take a standard, printed novel and put it on a screen (sort of boring). What all three of these approaches have going for them is that they take standard literary modes (the novel, the poem, the art book) and force them to interact with new digital modes (the Web page, the mix tape, the webcam). Both old and new are needed in order for the reader to gain a full experience. This is significant because with most commercially available digital reading, there is not much attempt to play with form.

Considerations for deploying the AppleTV in your school or enterprise — from williamstites.net by William Stites

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

We are begin­ning to look at using the AppleTV in our school as part of our iPad deploy­ment but much like the iPads them­selves we are in the posi­tion of try­ing to fig­ure out how to deploy and man­age a con­sumer device in the enter­prise (schools to all of you).

The rea­son for con­sid­er­ing the use of the AppleTV in the class­room has every­thing to do (for us) with Air­Play. The abil­ity to give any stu­dent the oppor­tu­nity to share what they are doing on their device with the class and demon­strate their learn­ing is amaz­ing — – can you say bye-bye Smartboards!

But as I play with this idea and dis­cuss it with my col­leagues there are some man­age­ment issues and ques­tions that I have…

Also see:

AirPlay Mirroring & Apple TV — from Steve Zalot

From DSC:

  1. Steve has a nice list of related resources and some helpful items re: deployment considerations such as the network, security, and audio/video considerations.
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  2. This topic directly relates to one of my dreams for our “Smart Classrooms” and learning spaces (and why Steelcase’ MediaScape product is exciting and gaining traction)—  to enable students to “play” media from many types of devices (laptops, smart phones, tablets, etc.) without disrupting the flow of the classroom!
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  3. Apple must address the network, security, and A/V-related issues for this to really take off in our learning spaces — but if and when they get by these hurdles, amazing results will soon follow!

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Also see:

Addendums

 

 

NTT videoconferencing system transplants faces onto mobile telepresence screens

 

From DSC:

  • Another innovation that aids web-based collaboration.
  • Make that one more movement up the disruptive innovation curve (of online learning).

 

 

As an addendum on 3/4, check out:

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