From DSC:
First of, when I saw the article:
Lynda.com acquires online video training rival Video2brain to boost its international expansion — from thenextweb.com

…it reminded me of taking a class with Lynda Weinman years ago out at SFSU’s Multimedia Studies Program.  She relayed a lot of very valuable information in a short time.  She knows how to explain things well — using helpful techniques and understandable vocabulary.  She struck me as not only a creative person with a heart for teaching and learning, but she surrounds herself with people who also can effectively teach others.  Our institution gives a thumbs up to this solid resource and I wish Lynda & all of the other entrepreneurs at Lynda.com all the best.

 

College branding: The tipping point — from forbes.com by Roger Dooley

Excerpt:

Change is coming to this market. While there are multiple issues of increasing importance to schools, two stand out as major game-changers.

 


From DSC:
Important notes for the boards throughout higher education to consider:


Your institution can’t increase tuition by one dime next year. If you do, you will become more and more vulnerable to being disrupted. Instead, work very hard to go in the exact opposite direction. Find ways to discount tuition by 50% or more — that is, if you want to stay in business.

Sounds like the scene in Apollo 13, doesn’t it? It is. (i.e. as Tom Hanks character is trying to get back to Earth and has very little to do it with. The engineers back in the United States are called upon to “do the impossible.”)

Some possibilities:

  • Pick your business partners and begin pooling resources and forming stronger consortia. Aim to reduce operating expenses, share the production of high-quality/interactive online courses, and create new streams of income. Experimentation will be key.
  • Work with IBM, Apple, Knewton and the like to create/integrate artificial intelligence into your LMS/CMS in order to handle 80% of the questions/learning issues. (Most likely, the future of MOOCs involves this very sort of thing.)
  • Find ways to create shorter courses/modules and offer them via online-based exchanges/marketplaces.  But something’s bothering me with this one..perhaps we won’t have the time to develop high-quality, interactive, multimedia-based courses…are things moving too fast?
  • Find ways to develop and offer subscription-based streams of content


 

From DSC:
In this series of periodic postings re: experimentation (see here and here), this week’s Consumers Electronics Show prompts me to think about different types of experiments, prompting such questions as:
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  • When will we see more educationally-related second screen apps?
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  • How might this type of setup dovetail with MOOCs provided by institutions of higher education? With MOOCs offered by the corporate world?
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  • What sorts of technologies will weave their way into what could be offered here?
    (The following possibilities come to my mind: Artificial Intelligence (AI), learning agents, recommendation engines, course or topic playlists, web-based learner profiles, data mining/analytics, videoconferencing, educational gaming, virtual tutoring, BYOD, and/or cloud-based computing. Other…?)
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  • Will Internet-enabled marketplaces and exchanges — between learners and teachers — become commonplace?
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  • Will technologies involved with endeavors like IBM’s Watson or with Knewton be deployed in this kind of convergent environment? If so, what sorts of doors/job opportunities/new skillsets would that open up or require?
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The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

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Some relevant items on this include:

Flingo reveals Samba, a first of its kind dual interactive TV and second screen platform — from pandodaily.com byasdf

Excerpt:

This week at CES in Las Vegas (the Consumer Electronics Show), San Francisco-based Flingo will release the latest version of its platform, dubbed Samba, aimed at changing this. Samba will make four-year-old Flingo one of the first to offer a combined Interactive TV and Second Screen experience.

“We saw a surge of Smart TV and tablet adoption in 2012, but realized that a seamless TV experience across all screens was missing,” says Flingo co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin, formerly of BitTorrent. “Samba will blur the lines between linear television and the Web.”

Flingo is unique in that it uses video, not audio to identify what content is being viewed…

Samba offers viewers the ability to actively engage with programming in real-time through their primary screen. This can take the form of polls, social conversations, recommendations, or consumption of related media. In the case of Second Screens, aka internet-connected laptops, tablets, and smartphones used simultaneously while watching TV, the company can offer an even wider array of complementary content and engagement, such as aggregated social feeds relating to live programming or an ability to watch past episodes of a live show. This can all be delivered across multiple screens, in concert.

 

Also see:

Smart TV Alliance adds Panasonic and IBM to its fold, lays bare new SDK features -- Sean Buckley

 

Also see:

 

samsung smart tv ces 2013

 

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

 

More tangentially, but still relevant:

  • McGraw-Hill to debut adaptive e-book for students — from blogs.wsj.com by Shalini Ramachandran
    Excerpt:

    The SmartBook…works like this: All readers essentially see the same textbook as they read for the first five minutes. But as a reader answers review questions placed throughout the chapter, different passages become highlighted to point the reader to where he or she should focus attention.

 

The education giant adapts — from MIT Technology Review by Jessica Leber
Pearson is the world’s largest book publisher. Now it wants to be a one-stop shop for digital education.

Excerpt:

Pearson pulled this off with a decade-long string of acquisitions that helped it shift its emphasis from selling books to selling education services. The London-based company styles itself as the “world’s leading learning company,” even if that learning isn’t delivered through traditional books. These days, Pearson is more like an IT department for classrooms and schools. It sells technology infrastructure, software, and consulting services to schools—services that in turn help deliver the vast stock of textbook content Pearson owns. The company says its revenue from online content and services will surpass those of the traditional publishing business this year.

From DSC:
I congratulate Pearson on reinventing itself.  The words of Steve Jobs ring in my mind…something about cannibalizing one’s business before someone else does it for you.  Several other words and phrases come to my mind after seeing the above article — that regular readers of this blog and my archived website will instantly recognize:

  • Dangers of the status quo
  • Staying relevant
  • Survival
  • Disruption/change
  • New business models
  • Game-changing environment
  • Using teams of specialists

Also relevant here/see:

 

From DSC:
I understand that Mr. George Lucas is going to express his generosity in donating the $4.05 billion from the sale of Lucasfilm to education.

Here’s a question/idea that I’d like to put forth to Mr. Lucas (or to the United States Department of Education, or to another interested/committed party):

Would you consider using the $4+ billion gift to build an “Online Learning Dream Team?”

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Daniel Christian -- The Online Learning Dream Team - as of November 2012

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 Original image credit (before purchased/edited by DSC)
yobro10 / 123RF Stock Photo

 

 

From DSC:
What do you think? What other “players” — technologies, vendors, skillsets, etc. — should be on this team?

  • Perhaps videography?
  • Online tutoring?
  • Student academic services?
  • Animation?
  • Digital photography?

 

Today: Find me a weather channel. Tomorrow: Find me a channel on how to learn algrebra. By Daniel Christian

 

Excerpt:

The voice control functions of the Easy Remote app are powered by the AT&T Watson? speech recognition technology using AT&T’s Speech API, which uses advanced natural language processing to recognize and understand spoken words. Also developed in AT&T Labs, AT&T Watson? speech recognition technology has been powering advanced speech services in the marketplace for many years and is now available for third-party developers to use in their own apps.

Also see:

 

 

Beyond Smart TV: ‘Surfaces’ prototype reveals the television of tomorrow — from wired.com by Christina Bonnington

Excerpt:

“In a few years’ time, you’ll be able to buy a TV that covers an entire wall, acting like wallpaper,” NDS chief marketing officer Nigel Smith told Wired. In this way, the TV could take the form of a gigantic canvas, providing layers of additional information, as well as different levels of immersion.

Because wall-sized TVs are hard to come by, NDS created a $30,000 setup comprised of six LCDs arranged in a rectangular array. The onscreen system is coded in HTML5 and runs on Chrome. A second screen experience, also coded in HTML5, provides remote control functionality in the browser of an iPad.

 Xbox 360 hailed as a game-changer for Connected TV — from v-net.tv by John Moulding

Excerpt:

The Xbox 360 will be a game-changing device in the Connected TV market now that Microsoft has decided to transform it from a games console into a general entertainment hub. That is the view of Christian Bombrun, Deputy General Manager, Web, at M6, the French broadcaster that last December became the first free French channel to be available via a games console. “The difference between the Xbox and connected TVs is that this device is very well connected. Most people that buy a connected TV do not even know they are getting one and they do not plug it into the Internet,” he argues. “Xbox 360 users have already connected the device to enhance the gaming experience.”

 

The evolving definition of television  — from readwriteweb.com by John Paul Titlow

Excerpt:

What will be interesting to watch is what evolves around that big screen – everything from the little screens and the apps they contain to the way that real-time communication and other data from the Web are integrated into the experience.

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Keynote: Changing the user-experience: How will we watch TV in the future? –– keynote by Stefan Jenzowsky, Head of Multimedia, Siemens CMT — at the Connected TV Summit 2012

 

 

Ikea’s Uppleva TV will be a smart TV, have video streaming apps — from SlashGear.com by  Mark Raby

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When Smart TV gets smart — from uievolution.com by Pete Schwab, Senior Director, at UIEvolution.

Two-thirds of Americans watch at least one online video per day — from VideoMind.com by Greg Franzese

PANEL: Next steps for Connected TV –– from net.tv

 

Addendums on 5/17/12:

Tagged with:  

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.

 

Tagged with:  

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?

Oxford and Vatican libraries to digitize 1.5 million pages of ancient texts — from theverge.com by Dante D’Orazio

Excerpt:

Two of the oldest libraries in Europe — the Vatican Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford — are about to make parts of their collections available on the internet in a big way. The two libraries have announced that they are going to scan 1.5 million pages of ancient texts and make them available freely online. The massive undertaking isn’t the first such initiative to open up the collections from famous libraries to the whole world — both Cambridge University and the National Library of Israel recently released a trove of material from Isaac Newton and others online — but this new partnership is much greater in scope.

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50 best sources of free STEM education online — from onlineuniversities.com

From DSC:
A solid listing covering universities, lectures, tutorials, educational media, free courses, and reading materials.

Tagged with:  

From DSC:
Arguably, Sal Kahn has become the most famous, influential educator on the planet today — his videos are watched millions of times a day now.  The question — which Eric Schmidt answers in the piece — I couldn’t help but ask was, “Why didn’t this type of innovation come from someone who was working in education at the time of their innovation?”

My thanks to Dr. Kate Byerwalter and her colleagues for passing along this resource.
The tags/associated categories for this posting point out the relevant areas covered.

 

Khan Academy: The future of education?

Also see:

  • Khan Academy: The future of education?
    (CBS News) Sal Khan is a math, science, and history teacher to millions of students, yet none have ever seen his face. Khan is the voice and brains behind Khan Academy, a free online tutoring site that may have gotten your kid out of an algebra bind with its educational how-to videos. Now Khan Academy is going global. Backed by Google, Gates, and other Internet powerhouses, Sal Khan wants to change education worldwide, and his approach is already being tested in some American schools. Sanjay Gupta reports.

From DSC:
A relevant graphic comes to mind with what Sal is trying to achieve with analytics:

i.e. Highly-effective diagnostic tools for the educators and trainers out there!

 

 

From DSC:
Here are some items related to what I call “Learning from the Living Room” — a trend that continues to develop that involves:

  • Using high-end, personalized, multimedia-based, interactive, team-created content — packed with new reporting tools for better diagnostics/learning analytics — available via a cloud-based “education store”/marketplace/exchange
  • Web-accessible content that’s available 24x7x365
  • The power of social networks/learning
  • Riding the wave of the massive convergence of the computer, the telephone, and the television.

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Smarter TV: Living room as digital hub from Samsung and Microsoft to Apple and Google — from wired.com by Tim Carmody
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
  • In the future, the living room will replace the home office as most households’ home for the stationary personal computer. Instead of printers and mice and other corded accessories, networked appliances and post-PC machines share data with one another and with the cloud. Play and productivity both become decentered; gaming and entertainment might be on a tablet or a television, with recipes at the refrigerator, a shopping list for the smartphone, and an instructional video on the television set. All of these experiences will be coherent, continuous and contextual. And like the personal computer at the height of Pax Wintel, the living room will be a platform characterized by triumphant pluralism.“The thing about the living room is that it’s universal; everyone in the household uses it,” Samsung VP Eric Anderson told me at today’s event. “We know that we’re not going to capture every single member of the household. In my family, my wife and my daughter are Apple, me and my sons are Android,” he noted, pointing out that the majority of devices introduced today can interact with either mobile platform.

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The modern mechanics of app stores: today, tomorrow and connected TV — from guardian.co.uk by Dean Johnson

Excerpt:

What’s next for app stores?
It’s time for each platform to up its game – smart TVs are coming. The small and medium screen experience will shortly be translated to the bigger screen as connectivity and discoverability takes on even greater importance.

Google and Apple will further interweave themselves into our daily lives as iOS and Android seamlessly combine our smartphones and tablets with our new smartTVs. Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) and the programmes themselves will suggest related content, from apps to music to film to books. This must all be presented in an approachable, then browsable manner to encourage additional discovery.

The quest for the perfect meta-data will become increasingly important and voice commands will need to deliver the best search results with the minimum of fuss. This time next year, the battle of the app stores will be fought on the move, on the desktop and on the living room wall.

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Samsung Launches Smart TVs With Gestures, Voice Control — from by Douglas Perry

Excerpt:

A Kinect-like feature is made possible via camera and microphone integration that comes standard with the LED ES7500, LED ES8000 and Plasma E8000 models. According to Samsung, consumers can launch apps such as Facebook or YouTube, or search the web via voice commands. Waving the hand will move the cursor and select links. The TVs integrate a Samsung dual-core processor as well as a new Webkit-based web browser to improve overall performance. The high-end 7500 and 8000 TVs ship with a remote with an integrated touchscreen. A wireless keyboard that is compatible with Samsung’s TVs as well as the Galaxy Tab tablet is sold as an option.

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New TV experiences through companion apps — from moxie pulse

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Excerpt fromWhat is PBS Kids Lab?

PBS KIDS is always working on something new—and usually several “somethings” at once! Whether it’s new apps focusing on math or an augmented reality game using camera phones, you’ll be able to find the latest and greatest right here at PBS KIDS Lab. This is where we debut our newest games—including some that are in development in beta testing mode—and show early research results, behind-the-scenes features, and more. Be among the very first to see what’s new with beloved characters like Curious George, the Cat in the Hat, Buddy from Dinosaur Train, Sid the Science Kid and more.

PBS KIDS Lab is built on the belief that every new technology is an opportunity for learning. We work closely with researchers and advisers every step of the way, from building curriculum frameworks to ensure that all of our content aligns to state and national standards, to testing early prototypes with kids. We also spend a lot of time with parents and educators, learning more about the devices that are available at homes and in schools, what supplemental resources work best, and how we can make learning fun for the whole family.

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