In the future, the whole world will be a classroom — from fastcoexist.com by Marina Gorbis

 

TheFutureOfEducation-Gorbis-6-28-13

. TheFutureOfEducation3-Gorbis-6-28-13.

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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streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

Also see:

 

Below are some great resources re: creating your own e-books / streams of content — with thanks to Mr. Michael Haan, Technology Integration Specialist/Purchasing at Calvin College, for these resources
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From DSC:

You might also want to check out Lynda.com for the relevant training materials.
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Let’s create our own streams of content — always up-to-date — plus we could help our students save big $$!  And, as Michael pointed out, such tools could also be used internally for training-related and communications-related purposes.

Thanks Michael!!!

What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

 

 

Why mobile learning is the future of workplace learning [infographic by UpsideLearning; as found on wiredacademic.com]

From DSC:
Here’s a portion of the infographic that I want to highlight — look at how many streams of content are flowing by (perfect for building one’s own learning ecosystem!)

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informal-learning-portion-April-2013

 

 I would add augmented reality-based apps
to the on-demand and embedded areas as well…

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What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

25PercentCompanyTrainingNoValue-Hart-April2013

 

From DSC:
This data further supports my thoughts on helping people build their own learning ecosystems — something Jane points out as well when she states that “workers find other (self-organised and self-managed) ways of learning at work far more valuable – with team collaboration being the highest rated.”

I recommend helping folks learn how to create their own blogs and learn how to subscribe to others’ blogs, access relevant wikis, use Twitter, employ Google Alerts, etc.  

Provide each employee with some relevant names/blogs/websites/etc. to get employees started (i.e. of some knowledgeable accountants, legal counsel, product designers, engineers, digital marketing experts, cloud computing strategists, programmers for mobile computing apps, etc.).  I realize this presents issues with companies’ sensitive information such as patents and/or intellectual property.   But if Harold Jarche is correct in saying that we live in a post-jobs world, what we know of the modern corporation may be very different in just a few years anyway.  (i.e. You’re on your own. You are your own corporation/business; so build your own brand and expertise. Build your own valuable network of peers/colleagues — who you can contribute to as well as to learn from.)

Admittedly, this changes some of the roles of the training department from creating e-learning modules to becoming excellent researchers, social media experts, quasi-librarians, etc.

(Come to think of it, I wonder if that might happen in higher ed as well — i.e. provide students with the relevant/key experts, important thinkers, streams of content, etc.)

 

streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

 

WatchitooClassroom-April2013

 

 

Also see:

Watchitoo, Pearson LearningStudio offer real-time HD video chat option for online courses — from thejournal.com by Caitlin Moriarity

Excerpt:

Watchitoo and Pearson eCollege have teamed up to add an integrated collaboration solution, including real-time video chat, to the Pearson LearningStudio SaaS online education platform.

imgZine-Feb2013

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From DSC:
Hmmmm…I wonder how this might apply to education? Will we move more towards personal brands vs. institutional brands?

From DSC:
Below are some reflections after seeing these items:

Image1

 

 

  • Watson supercomputer goes to college, Revenge Of The Nerds style antics imminentnot an exemplary article from geekosystem.com, but the underlying topic has enormous implications
    Excerpt:
    …the team developing Watson is sending the computer to college, where it will bone up on coursework in English and math.

    While the original Watson will be staying put at the IBM research center it calls home, the hardware to run the program is being installed at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, where researchers and grad students will be spend the next three years teaching Watson all they can while also hoping to learn more about how the software learns and make it more effective.

 

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Watson-MOOCs-NewTypesCollaboration-DChristian-2-14-13

 

From DSC:
The current set of MOOCs are very powerful, but, like a bush that needs pruning, they can become unwieldy and hard to control.  Not only do the current set of MOOCs help me to see the importance of instructional design, but trying to drink from the firehose often presents problems (i.e. wading through thousands of tweets, hundreds of blog posts, etc.).  How can we still provide openness and yet provide people with better methods/tools for setting their desired level of drinking from this firehose? Tags are helpful, but for most people, they are not doing enough to filter/curate the content at this point.

Enter the technologies being developed in IBM’s Watson, Apple’s SIRI, or in Knewton’s product lines. End-user controllable setting might include:

  • Full throttle — like current form of MOOCs — thousands of tweets, hundreds of blog posts, etc.
  • IBM Watson-enabled curation/filtering only — each individual adjusts how many items they want to see in the various portions of the interface (see above); these settings control how many items and/or streams of content get presented to you

The ideas involving learning agents, artificial intelligence, intelligent tutoring, intelligent systems and more seem to get roped in here…hmm…just thinking out loud and sharing potentially-useful ideas.

 

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:
First, what prompted the questions and reflections that are listed below?  For that, I turn to some recent items that I ran across involving the use of robotics and whether that may or may not be affecting employment:


 

The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee; for example their book Race Against the Machine

Excerpt of description:

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

 

How to freak out responsibly about the rise of the robots — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson
It’s fun to imagine an economy where machines are smarter than humans. But we don’t need  an artificial crisis over artificial intelligence.

Excerpt:

Let’s say it upfront: Technology can replace jobs and (at least temporarily) increase income inequality. From the spinning jenny to those massive mechanical arms flying wildly around car assembly lines, technology raises productivity by helping workers accomplish more in less time (i.e.: put a power drill in a human hand) and by replacing workers altogether (i.e.: build a power-drilling bot).

What ails us today isn’t a surplus of robots, but a deficit of demand. Yes, we have a manufacturing industry undergoing a sensational, but job-killing, productivity revolution — very much like the one that took farm employment from 40 percent in 1900 to less than 5 percent today. But the other nine-tenths of the economy are basically going through an old-fashioned weak-but-steady recovery, the kind that hundreds of years of financial crises would predict.

 

America has hit “peak jobs” — from techcrunch.com by Jon Evans

Excerpt:

“The middle class is being hollowed out,” says James Altucher. “Economists are shifting their attention toward a […] crisis in the United States: the significant increase in income inequality,” reports the New York Times.

Think all those job losses over the last five years were just caused by the recession? No: “Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market,” according to an AP report on how technology is killing middle-class jobs.

 

Technology and the employment challenge — from project-syndicate.org by Michael Spence

Excerpt:

MILAN – New technologies of various kinds, together with globalization, are powerfully affecting the range of employment options for individuals in advanced and developing countries alike – and at various levels of education. Technological innovations are not only reducing the number of routine jobs, but also causing changes in global supply chains and networks that result in the relocation of routine jobs – and, increasingly, non-routine jobs at multiple skill levels – in the tradable sector of many economies.

 

 

Man vs. robot — from macleans.ca by Peter Nowak

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industrial-robots

 

 

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Secondly, some reflections (from DSC)


I wonder…

  • What types of jobs are opening up now? (example here)
  • What types of jobs will be opening up soon? How about in 3-5 years from now?
  • Should these trends affect the way we educate and prepare our kids today? 
  • Should these trends affect the way we help employees grow/reinvent themselves?

Again, for me, the answer lies at least partly in helping people consistently obtain the knowledge that they need — i.e. to help them build, grow, and maintain their own learning ecosystems — throughout their lifetimes.  We need to help people dip their feet into the appropriate streams of content that are constantly flowing by.

Perhaps that’s one of the key new purposes that K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training departments out there will play in the future as they sift through the massive amounts of information coming at us to help individuals identify:
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  • What are the most effective tools — and methods — that people can use to connect with others?
    (Then allow folks to pick what works best for them. Current examples: blogging/RSS feeds, Twitter, social bookmarking.)
    .
  • Who are some of the folks within each particular discipline/line of work that others (who want to learn about those disciplines) should know about?
    .
  • What trends are coming down the pike and how should we be preparing ourselves — and/or our organizations — for those changes?
    .

 

The end of the web, search, and computer as we know it — from wired.com by David Gelernter

Excerpt:

What people really want is to tune in to information. Since many millions of separate lifestreams will exist in the cybersphere soon, our basic software will be the stream-browser: like today’s browsers, but designed to add, subtract, and navigate streams.

 

From DSC:
…which brings to mind the following graphics:

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What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

 

 

DanielSChristian-Stream-CatcherConcept-4-15-11

 

 

 

DanielSChristian-April-2011-AccessingStreamsOfContent

 

 

…and, a variant of the idea of stream catching, this one…

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New-types-of-collaboration--DChristian-2-1-13

 

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 Also see:

  • Prepare for the new ecosystem — from Chief Learning Officer by Bob Mosher
    Excerpt:
    This involves a whole different approach to design — don’t create content; intentionally guide learners to it. Disciplines such as performance support are re-emerging as constructs that can surround assets and enable them in ways we have not seen before.Another consideration is the ecosystem’s ability to support the learner’s journey through these approaches. Meaning, do our learners live in a world of self-empowerment or one of dependency? The numbers are not promising when we look at our employees’ willingness or understanding of their own engagement. In our efforts to be supportive, we have created a world of confusion and dependency.

    This would not be good parenting. We don’t need 40-year-olds who are still living at home. We need self-reliant and self-confident learners supporting themselves and each other intelligently and effectively in their ecosystem.

Keeping your toes in the streams of current that are constantly flowing by us [Christian]

 

There are numerous ways to keep current within your discipline, but  I want to highlight just two highly-effective, relevant ones here (no matter what your discipline or interest is).

 


1) Google Alerts


 

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2)  Subscribing to RSS feeds


 

Establishing Better Collaboration Between the Corporate World and Higher Education -- by Daniel Christian

 

From DSC:
The above article I wrote for evoLLLution.com (for LifeLong Learning) mentions the need for — and the opportunities to build:

  • More streams of content flowing between these two worlds
  • Web-based learner profiles
  • Tools that students can begin using in their collegiate days that they can later tap into long after they’ve graduated
  • Using teams of specialists
  • MOOCs
  • Collaboration between a corporation and an entire classroom
  • and more

 

 

 

The potential of cloud-based education marketplaces — from evoLLLution.com (LifeLong Learning) by Daniel Christian; PDF-based version here

Excerpt:

Such organizations are being impacted by a variety of emerging technologies and trends – two of which I want to highlight here are:

  • Online-based marketplaces – as hosted on “the cloud”
  • The convergence of the television, telephone, and the computer

One of the powerful things that the Internet provides is online-based marketplaces. Such exchanges connect buyers with sellers and vice versa. You see this occurring with offerings like Craig’s List, e-Bay, PaperBackSwap.com, and others.

 

Tip 60: It’s a stream, not a course… — from kineo.com

Excerpt:

Many traditional elearning instructional designers cut their teeth designing self-paced elearning programs. We create events.

However, the talk of the town these days is that learning is not an event.  People don’t plop in front of an elearning program or sit in a classroom and BAM! – they’ve got it all rock solid.  Instead, we’re talking about streams of activities that may happen over extended periods of time as individuals explore and master topic s or content areas. Instead of events, we hear about “learning experiences” and “activity streams”.

So how do traditional instructional designers stay relevant? And is that even possible? Let’s dip our paddles in the stream and explore together…

 

From DSC:
This brings to mind a graphic I periodically post…

 

What's the best way to deal with ever-changing streams of content? When information has shrinking half-lives?

Blogging for Art Educators -- Jessica Balsley's recent presentation

 

 

From DSC:
This brings to mind another graphic…

 

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