India -- The next university superpower? -- from BBC News in March 2011

kuggaa.com

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What is Kuggaa?
Kuggaa is a global mobile ecosystem. Kuggaa’s revolutionary ‘cloud’ based service allows its subscribers the ability to socialize, share, sync, create, edit, play, and enjoy access to their favorite content across many different mobile ecosystems at anytime from anywhere.

What Problem does Kuggaa Solve?
Device eco systems do not interoperate with competing eco systems, depriving the user of a truly global computing experience across a wide range of devices. Eco systems today are defined as device and platform specific environments that cannot be shared with other competing mobile eco systems. Smartphone and tablet owners’ are beginning to demand new ‘experiences’ in eco system functionality. Mobile computing must enable cross eco system compatibility as users buy more competing mobile devices.

What is the Solution to the Problem?
Kuggaa creates cross device integrated ‘experiences’ for consumers in a new product category dubbed ‘Global Mobile eco system.’ Kuggaa defines a global mobile ecosystem as a platform that integrates into diverse mobile devices unique shared experiences, services, relevant content, user generated media, fun apps, as well as inclusion of legacy computing platforms like the at anytime from anywhere. Kuggaa users can share, create, watch, listen, and communicate on different Tablets, smart phones, internet TV’s, and PC’s without losing the current eco systems they have adopted on their captive mobile devices.

Company Information:
Kuggaa is an Nevada Company based in Las Vegas.

Disrupting College: How disruptive innovation can deliver quality and affordability to postsecondary education— from americanprogress.org by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael B. Horn, Louis Soares, Louis Caldera

This emerging disruptive innovation—online education—also presents an opportunity to rethink many of the age-old assumptions about higher education.

Excerpt:

The theory of disruptive innovation has significant explanatory power in thinking through the challenges and changes confronting higher education. Disruptive innovation is the process by which a sector that has previously served only a limited few because its products and services were complicated, expensive, and inaccessible, is transformed into one whose products and services are simple, affordable, and convenient and serves many no matter their wealth or expertise. The new innovation does so by redefining quality in a simple and often disparaged application at first and then gradually improves such that it takes more and more market share over time as it becomes able to tackle more complicated problems.

Also see:

Disruption, Delivery and Degrees — from InsideHigherEd.com

WASHINGTON — Many college professors and administrators shudder at comparisons between what they do and what, say, computer or automobile makers do. (And just watch how they bristle if you dare call higher education an “industry.”) But in a new report, the man who examined how technology has “disrupted” and reshaped those and other manufacturing industries has turned his gaze to higher education, arguing that it faces peril if it does not change to meet the challenge. The report, “Disrupting College,” was also the subject of a panel discussion Tuesday at the Center for American Progress, which released the report along with the Innosight Institute. (A video recording of the event is available here.)

‘Social teaching’ company bets buy-in from Capella Education — from The Chronicle by Josh Fischman

The basic idea behind Sophia is to identify the best teachers for any concept, put their instruction for that concept online, and students all over the world can use these “learning packets”  free of charge. For example, a professor who has a really great lesson on how to factor polynomials can package that lesson—complete with video and any other materials—on Sophia, and search engines like Google will let students find it and use it.

From DSC:
Will the Forthcoming Walmart of Education turn out to be that we teach each other, free of charge? Online marketplaces and exchanges continue to appear; the game-changing environment — filled with disruption and change — continues to develop.

But know this, teaching is tough. It’s not easy, and it’s not an exact science; it’s also an art.

Our minds — and the ways in which we learn — are unbelievably complex. After decades of trying, scholars still do not agree on how we learn. There are numerous learning theories out there (still) and though we’ve come a long way, there are no silver bullets of the teaching and learning world.

So if you decide to be a teacher, you better get ready to spend some serious time honing your craft…otherwise, your ratings on these types of sites will plummet and few will see your modules/contributions. conversely, if you are an effective teacher, your ratings will reflect that and your contributions will be seen/linked to quite frequently — from people all over the world.

Also see:

Sophia -- a new online-based learning exchange


Teetering between eras: higher education in a global, knowledge networked world — from emeraldinsight.com by Gail O. Mellow and Diana D. Woolis, (2010)

Findings – There are three fundamental and monumental changes that will profoundly alter the field of higher education in the next several decades: the globalization of higher education; the impact of technology on changing definitions of students, faculty and knowledge; and the impact of the marketplace on the basic “business model” of higher education. The paper describes how each of these three forces will reshape higher education, while identifying factors that may accelerate or inhibit the impact of these influences.

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Gail O. Mellow, Diana D. Woolis, (2010) “Teetering between eras: higher education in a global, knowledge networked world”, On the Horizon, Vol. 18 Iss: 4, pp.308 – 319

Egyptians gathering for protests in Cairo, via @mccarthyryanj on Twitter

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From DSC:
As I was briefly reviewing the following links…

…I began reflecting on the predicament that online-based learners would have if suddenly their government pulled the plug on the Net.  As we become more connected, what are the costs/dangers of being disconnected? Of being connected? If there was some serious cyberwarfare going on, would a government be forced to pull the plug?

NOTE:
I don’t mean to make any judgments concerning these events — rather, I mean to ask the above questions from a teaching and learning standpoint only.

Addendum on 2/4/11:

Millions of TV’s (as completely converged/Internet-connected devices) = millions of learners?!?

From DSC:

The other day, I created/posted the top graphic below. Take the concepts below — hook them up to engines that use cloud-based learner profiles — and you have some serious potential for powerful, global, ubiquitous learning! A touch-sensitive panel might be interesting here as well.

Come to think of it, add social networking, videoconferencing, and web-based collaboration tools — the power to learn would be quite impressive.  Multimedia to the nth degree.

Then add to that online marketplaces for teaching and learning — where you can be both a teacher and a learner at the same time — hmmm…

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From DSC:
Then today, I saw Cisco’s piece on their Videoscape product line! Check it out!

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From DSC:
A global push continues to be evident in some of the things that Pearson has been up to in the last year:

Realtime voice translation moves closer — from Education Stormfront blog

Excerpt:

There are some industries, such as education that have been shielded from globalization so far because of the language barrier.  This is about to fall.

Tagged with:  

Connecting classrooms globally — from prometheanplanet.com

The Visions of Students Today – Call for Submissions — from Professor Michael Wesch
Excerpt:

We’re working on a new video, tentatively titled “The Visions of Students Today.” We are hoping that a few students all over the world will be willing to show us how they see their world and how they learn. If you are a student, or even better: a professor or teacher trying to come up with a great way to start off the semester, we hope you will consider submitting a 2 minute video showing us scenes of what you see in your everyday life during your most critical learning moments. Importantly, these critical learning moments may not be in the classroom. They might be with friends, online, watching TV, playing videogames, or playing other games. They can be anywhere with anybody. For students, this is your chance to really show us how you learn. And of course, feel free to show us how you don’t learn as well. Critique us. Show us what doesn’t work. And most importantly, try to find clever ways to show it.

A classroom without walls – Google Teacher Academy Application — from murcha.wordpress.com

Educators in Australia are being given an opportunity to be certified as Google Teachers in an Academy that is coming to Sydney in March. Part of this process is to make a 1 minute video showing on either “Motivation and Learning” or “Classroom Innovation.”

I wish to thank @edsaid for telling me how to add videos to my wordpress blog. It is to much appreciated and I will now be able to add more engaging features to my posts with this knowledge.

Here is my movie reflecting some of the connections, global interactions and collaboration that has taken place beyond our classroom walls. It is very difficult to summarize in 1 minute some of the amazing activities that we have been involved in, but it gives the viewer a glimpse and hopefully a taste for more. If you are interested in applying, check out the Google Academy. Thank you to my wonderful personal learning network and global colleagues.

Time for education innovation— from edReformer.com by Tom Vander Ark (emphasis DSC)

The growth of media and communications technology, the rise of a new generation of students and teachers equipped to use technology, and the shifts within schools and educational systems themselves create new fertile ground for education innovation.  Taken all together these major changes can be understood as The Big Shifts in education.

The Big Shifts are comprised of the Technology Shift, the Global Shift, and the Learning Shift.

© 2024 | Daniel Christian