From DSC:

  • What if you want to allow some remote students to come on into your face-to-face classroom?
    .
  • What if you want to allow those remote students to be seen and communicated with at eye level?
    .
  • What if you want Remote Student A to join Group 1, and Remote Student B to join Group 2?
    .

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-june-10-2013
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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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Double Robotics Double

http://www.doublerobotics.com/img/use-office.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot™ TeleMe

 

 

 

From Attack of the Telepresence Robots! — from BYTE  by Rick Lehrbaum

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Kubi

http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/reviews/2013-Jan/robotic-telepresence/kubi.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot “TeleMe” VGo Communications “VGo” Anybots “QB” Suitable Technologies “Beam”

 

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RP-7i ROBOT

RP-7i Remote Presence Robot

 

Also see:

 

MOOC Monitor: European Union unveils its own MOOC Consortium…OpenUpEd — from wiredacademic.com

Excerpt:

As we reported a year ago, the European Union wants to get in to the MOOC game and is doing so now with a dozen partners at colleges throughout Europe in its new OpenUpEd MOOC platform. Partners in 11 different countries (France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey and Israel) joined forces to launch the first pan-European MOOCs initiative with the European Commission backing it. This is a great development for MOOCs globally.

The EU is busy at work, creating transferability and standardization at universities throughout the 27 member countries as part of the Bologna Process. It’s a smart move for the EU to include universities in Turkey and Israel in this consortium as it shows a broader reach to bring European neighbors, friends and NATO members to the table.

State systems go MOOC — from insidehighered.com by Ry Rivard

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Universities from New Mexico to New York will join Coursera in a sprawling expansion of the Silicon Valley startup’s efforts to take online education to the masses.

Together, state systems and flagship universities in nine states will help the company test new business models and teaching methods and potentially put Coursera in competition with some of the ed tech industry’s most established players.

 

Also see:

  • A Q&A on the launch of Penn State’s first MOOC — from by psu.edu
    Anna Divinsky and Keith Bailey talk about the launch of the first of the University’s five massive open online courses.
    Excerpt:
    UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State launched its first massive open online course (MOOC), Introduction to Art: Concepts and Techniques, yesterday — an effort that has been three months in the making. Anna Divinsky, lead faculty member of the Digital Arts Certificate Program at Penn State, has been instrumental in creating the first of the five courses that Penn State is offering this year on the leading MOOC platform, Coursera.

EdX Expands xConsortium to Asia and doubles in size with addition of 15 new global institutions — from prnewswire.com

From MOOC platform edX announces 15 new university partners (from educationdive.com)

These are the new partner institutions:

  • The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKUx)
  • Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong (HKUSTx)
  • Kyoto University, Japan (KyotoUx)
  • Peking University, Beijing, China (PekingX)
  • Seoul National University, South Korea (SNUx)
  • Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (TsinghuaX)
  • The University of Queensland in Australia (UQx)
  • Karolinska Institutet, Sweden (KIx)
  • Universite catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (LouvainX)
  • Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany (TUMx)
  • Berklee College of Music, Boston, Mass. (BerkleeX)
  • Boston University, Boston, Mass. (BUx)
  • Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. (CornellX)
  • Davidson College, Davidson, N.C. (DavidsonX)
  • University of Washington, Seattle (UWashingtonX)

From DSC: re: Adobe’s Project Context:
This is the type of hardware/software combination that I’ve been hoping for and envisioning! Excellent!

It appears to be the type of setup whereby students could quickly and easily collaborate with one another — in a face-to-face setting (and ideally in remote locations as well) — by not just displaying files but also being able to share files with one another.  Files can be sent up to the interactive, multi-touch displays as well as to an interactive table. So it’s not just displaying files, but actually sharing files and being able to collaboratively work on a project.

Eventually, I see this being able to be done in your living room.  What if MOOCs could integrate this type of web-based collaboration into their projects?

But for now, this is a HUGE step forward in this vision. Great work Adobe! This is innovative! Very helpful!

Example screenshots:

 

AdobeProjectContext-May2013

 

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AdobeProjectContext-1

 

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AdobeProjectContext-2

 

..

 

Also see:

  • Adobe’s hardware experiments are more than just hobbies: Hands-on with Project Context – from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois
    Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
    At its MAX conference in Los Angeles [on 5/6/13], Adobe showed  quite a few products that will soon be available to its customers, but it also highlighted a number of hardware experiments, including Project Context, a totally re-imagined way for creating magazine layouts, as well as an advanced stylus and a ruler for touchscreens.

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project_context_screen_1

WhyLeanStartUpChangesEverything-SteveBlank-May2013

 

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But recently an important countervailing force has emerged, one that can make the process of starting a company less risky. It’s a methodology called the “lean start-up,” and it favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional “big design up front” development. Although the methodology is just a few years old, its concepts—such as “minimum viable product” and “pivoting”—have quickly taken root in the start-up world, and business schools have already begun adapting their curricula to teach them.

From DSC:
This fits into my thinking/recommendation that each institution of higher education should create a much smaller, more nimble group within itself — whose goal is to experiment, pivot, adapt, etc. — in order to find out what’s working and what’s not working.  It’s why I have categories and tags for words like “experimentation,” “staying relevant,” “reinvent,” “innovation,” “surviving,” and “disruption.”

The trick is/will be how NOT to be a commodity –what’s going to differentiate your college or university?

 

 

 

 

Doodle 3D printer accessory enables 3D printing of drawings — from bitrebels.com by Richard Darell

 

doodle-3d-printer-accessory

doodle-3d-printer-accessory

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Online education for the pros: Udemy launches corporate training tools — from venturebeat.com by Christina Farr

Excerpt:

Online course providers typically target students, but Udemy is going after an underserved group: professionals.

 


Also, from Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie – April 18, 2013
#768 – Updates on Learning, Business & Technology
55,949 Readers – www.masie.com – twitter: emasie – The MASIE Center.
Host: TeleWork 2013 – A National Forum – www.telework2013.com

1. MOOC’s & Corporate Learning?
There is a great media interest in MOOC’s – the innovations for Massive Open Online Courses – where one instructor runs a course for thousands or tens of thousands of learners.  I have been a student in three MOOC’s and a teacher/facilitator in three.  Now, we are hearing from many learning colleagues about the applicability of the MOOC to workplace learning.

I would urge TRENDS readers to approach MOOC’s as important beta/lab experiments – where important and cool innovations are emerging in the construction, delivery and economics of educational “packages”.  My experience as a MOOC learner has been exciting and mixed.  While there were over 70,000 learners in one program – very few made it to the end of the program – and fewer were fully successful from a competency point of view.  It was exciting to see how learners could be co-designers of the program and many resources were developed and disseminated from the learners.  Finally, there were mixed models of how well the social/collaborative side of the MOOC’s worked.

As a teacher – I struggled with the format shifts reflected by MOOC’s. Were the assignments suggestions or could I predict a level of engagement of the learners.  Was the content that was posted by learners legal – some added video that wasn’t within their IP ownership.  And, the issue of fees were also interesting. A free MOOC will get high starts but perhaps high drop offs.  When fees were added, did that take away the “open” label.  It is also interesting to see colleges and universities that have never made a profit on classroom offerings think they will generate good margins by adding MOOC’s to their offerings.

It is early and really too early to predict how MOOC’s might evolve within the corporate world.  I have been advocating that we take each of the letters as distinct areas for innovation:

– M: Massive dissemination of content
– O: Open content and content reuse along with curation by learners.
– O: Online resources added to both 1 mode and mixed/blended mode delivery.
– C: Course? Perhaps the MOOC might become a MOOP (Program) or MOOA (Assets)

And, is there a Competency check assumed in a MOOC – as well as certification or even college credit?

MOOC’s are important innovations.  Now, we need to label them as Lab or Beta tests – and gather evidence as we experiment with the use of all or some of MOOC’s elements in corporate settings.  We will be experimenting with the MOOC as a corporate model in an upcoming Learning LAB of our Learning CONSORTIUM.  Interested in hearing from TRENDS readers exploring MOOC’s in our world.

 


The College of 2020
If #HigherEd stays way it is, w/ 19th century style lectures, w/in 10 years Google U. and Walt Disney U. to take it over – Wim Westera


 

Addendum on 4/19/13:

Bridging the Skills Gap — from trainingmag.com by Lorri Freifeld
Employers want certain skills. Employees don’t have them. Why? And what can organizations and Training, employees, and the educational system do to eliminate the disconnect?

Excerpt:

With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering around 8 percent and millions of people desperately looking for jobs, why are many employers claiming they can’t fill their vacant positions?

The answer: A skills gap that threatens the sustainability of businesses around the world. And while a big part of the skills gap is a shortage of people skilled in the STEM (science, technology, education, and math) industries, there also is a gap in soft skills such as communication and advanced leadership skills.

What is causing these skills gaps? What can—and should—employers and their Training departments, employees, and the education system be doing differently? This first article in a five-part series will address these questions. Subsequent articles will explore how corporate partnerships with colleges and universities can help bridge the divide (May/June), how to motivate employees to take advantage of skills gap training and eliminate any sense of promotion entitlement (July/August), how technology can help (September/October), and additional potential solutions and strategies for success (November/December).

 

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From DSC:
We had better start talking STEAM not STEM from here on out (i.e. add the ARTS!).  You can’t get creative thinkers without fostering some creativity.

 

NovoED-StanfordApril2013

 

About

NovoEd is the only online learning platform that provides a connected, effective and engaging learning environment for students using a combination of techniques in crowd sourcing, design and analysis of reputation systems, and algorithm design.

NovoEd’s philosophy is to advance the online learning experience by making online courses more experiential, interactive, and collaborative. On our platform, students not only have access to lectures by thought leaders and professors from top universities, but they are also able to form teams with people around the world and work on class projects.

NovoEd uses online learning to deliver learning opportunities at massive scale. We offer courses and programs by thought leaders in a wide range of fields and in partnership with universities. By fostering online collaboration, team work and project-based learning, we nurture problem solving, collaboration, and leadership while addressing specific topics and business opportunities.

The professors who make the MOOCs — from The Chronicle by Steve Kolowich

Excerpt:

Like many professors at top-ranked institutions, Mr. Sedgewick was very skeptical about online education. But he was intrigued by the notion of bringing his small Princeton course on algorithms, which he had taught for five years, to a global audience. So after Princeton signed a deal with an upstart company called Coursera to offer MOOCs, he volunteered for the front lines.

 

Photo illustration

Dave Chidley for The Chronicle

 

 

Beyond the buzz, where are MOOCs really going? — from wired.com by Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen

Excerpt:

MOOCs can be much more than marketing and edutainment. We believe they are likely to evolve into a “scale business”: one that relies on the technology and data backbone of the medium to optimize and individualize learning opportunities for millions of students.

This is very different than simply putting a video of a professor lecturing online.

From DSC:
Some very frustrated reflections after reading:

Excerpt:

Right now, boys are falling out of the kindergarten through 12th grade educational pipeline in ways that we can hardly imagine.

 

This situation continues to remind me of the oil spill in the Gulf (2010), where valuable resources spilled into the water untapped — later causing some serious issues:
.

From DSC:
What are we doing?!!! We’ve watched the dropout rates grow — it doesn’t seem we’ve changed our strategies nearly enough! But the point that gets lost in this is that we will all pay for these broken strategies — and for generations to come!  It’s time to seriously move towards identifying and implementing some new goals.

What should the new goals look like? Here’s my take on at least a portion of a new vision for K-12 — and collegiate — education:

  • Help students identify their God-given gifts and then help them build up their own learning ecosystems to support the development of those gifts. Hook them up with resources that will develop students’ abilities and passions.
    .
  • Part of their learning ecosystems could be to help them enter into — and build up — communities of practice around subjects that they enjoy learning about. Those communities could be local, national, or international. (Also consider the creation of personalized learning agents, as these become more prevalent/powerful.)
    .
  • Do everything we can to make learning enjoyable and foster a love of learning — as we need lifelong learners these days.
    (It doesn’t help society much if students are dropping out of K-12 or if people struggle to make it through graduation — only to then harbor ill feelings towards learning/education in general for years to come.  Let’s greatly reduce the presence/usage of standardized tests — they’re killing us!  They don’t seem to be producing long-term positive results. I congratulate the recent group of teachers who refused to give their students such tests; and I greatly admire them for getting rid of a losing strategy.)

    .
  • Give students more choice, more control over what their learning looks like; let them take their own paths as much as possible (provide different ways to meet the same learning objective is one approach…but perhaps we need to think beyond/bigger than that. The concern/fear arises…but how will we manage this? That’s where a good share of our thinking should be focused; generating creative answers to that question.)
    .
  • Foster curiosity and wonder
    .
  • Provide cross-disciplinary assignments/opportunities
    .
  • Let students work on/try to resolve real issues in their communities
    .
  • Build up students’ appreciation of faith, hope, love, empathy, and a desire to make the world a better place. Provide ways that they can contribute.
    .
  • Let students experiment more — encourage failure.
    .

 

From DSC:
While I think MOOCs have a ways to go, I continue to support them because they are forcing higher ed to innovate and experiment more.  But the conversation continues to move away from traditional higher ed, as the changes — especially the prices — aren’t changing fast enough.

Besides President Obama’s repeated promptings for higher to respond and to become more cost effective — as well as his mentioning that the U.S. Government will be pursuing new methods of accreditation if the current institutions of higher ed don’t respond more significantly — here is yet another example of the conversation moving away from traditional higher ed.

I wonder…
How small/large is the window of time before traditional higher ed is moved into the “Have you driven a Ford lately?” mode…? 
It seems that it’s much harder to get customers to come back once they’ve lost their trust/patience/belief/support/etc. in an organization or institution.  As Ford has shown, it can be done, but my point is that there is danger in the status quo and broken business relationships can take a long time to heal — while opening up opportunities for others to step in (such as Toyota, Honda, and others in the case of the automotive industry).

Again, we see whether in higher ed, K-12, or in the corporate world, the key thing is to learn how to build one’s own learning ecosystem.

 

 

With thanks to Stephen Downes for mentioning the item below in his presentation here.

 

MyEducationPath-Feb2013

 

MyEducationPath2-Feb2013

 

MyEducationPathDSC-Feb2013

 

 

Other examples of the conversation moving away from traditional higher ed:

  • Educating the Future: The End of Mediocrity –by Rob Bencini
    Students facing uncertain future opportunities (but very certain debt loads) may increasingly turn away from private colleges and universities that offer little more than a diploma. Instead, they’ll seek more-affordable alternatives for higher education, both real and virtual.
  • The Half-Life of a College Education — from futuristspeaker.com by Thomas Frey
    Excerpt:
    6.) Expanding number of long tails courses – In much the same way “hit” television shows attract millions of viewers while niche TV shows are proliferating, far more niche courses will be developed as traditional college gatekeepers get circumvented.

 

BBCWhatIf-Feb2013

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