Launch of Newspaper Extinction Timeline for every country in the world — from Exploration Network by Ross Dawson
Newspaper extinction timeline:
When newspapers in their current form will become insignificant
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On 11/01/2010,
in change, dangers of the status quo, disruption, future, journalism, trends,
by Daniel Christian
— Resource from:
Literacies, Semantic Web and Recommended Resources by Barry Joseph
On 10/26/2010,
in corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, leadership, strategy, training / L&D, trends, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Patterns emerge over time — from Harold Jarche
Andrew Cerniglia has an excellent article that weaves complexity, cynefin and the classroom together. It is worth the read for anyone in the teaching profession. I became interested in complexity as I moved outside the institutional/corporate walls and was able to reflect more on how our systems work. The observation that simple work is being automated and complicated work is being outsourced seems rather obvious to me now. Complex work that has increasing market value in developed countries and that is where the future lies. However, our schooling, training and job structures do not support this.
Cerniglia explains how complex the classroom can be, when we factor in the outside that touches each student daily…
Also see:
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Also see:
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Just found out about this presentation from September 2008 by the futurist Richard Watson.
Trends mentioned here include:
- Aging population
- Urbanization
- Globalization
- Personalization
- Search for/aspiration for happiness
- Sustainability
- Tribalism
- Anxiety ethics
- Resource shortages
On 10/13/2010,
in career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, IT in HE, programming, trends, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Hottest jobs and skills in cloud, mobile app development — from pcworld.com by Meridith Levinson, CIO
Want to lock in some job security in IT over the next five years? Then make sure you’re poised to move into cloud computing or mobile application development. That’s where the IT jobs are expected to be, according to 2,000 IT professionals recently surveyed by IBM.
IBM’s annual global Tech Trends survey identified cloud computing and mobile application development as the hottest tech trends and most sought-after IT skills for the next five years. An overwhelming majority of survey respondents (91 percent) expect cloud computing to overtake on-premise computing as the primary IT delivery model by 2015. More than half (55 percent) of survey respondents believe that in the same amount of time, the need to develop applications for mobile devices (such as Android, iPhone, iPad and PlayBook) will far surpass the need to develop software for traditional PCs and servers. These trends will impact IT jobs and the skills needed to do them.
On 10/12/2010,
in 24x7x365 access, adult learning, business side of he, changing business models, competency-based learning/education, consortiums, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, lifelong learning, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, staying relevant, strategy, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, using teams,
by Daniel Christian
The world changed, colleges missed it — from edreformer.com by Tom Vander Ark
A bunch of colleges are going out of business, only they don’t know it. They pretend that trimming costs and jacking tuition is a solution. They haven’t come to terms with a world where anyone can learn anything almost anywhere for free or cheap. Art Levine, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, sees three major change forces: new competition, a convergence of knowledge producers, and changing demographics.
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To Art’s list of three big change forces, add shrinking government support, the press for more accountability, and emerging technology…the next few decades will be marked by a lumpy move to competency-based learning…instant information and the ability to learn anything anywhere.
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The shift to personal digital learning is on. Some colleges get that. Others will seek bailouts until they go out of business. Working adults are getting smart on their own terms.
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From DSC:
Time will tell if Tom’s assertions are too harsh here, but personally, I think he’s right.
I have it that:
- There is a bubble in higher ed
- There also exists a perfect storm that’s been forming for years within higher ed and the waves are cresting
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- Institutions of higher education need to check themselves before they become the next Blockbuster
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- We must not discount the disruptive powers of technology nor the trends taking place today (for a list of some of these trends, see the work of Gary Marx, as well as Yankelovish’s (2005) Ferment and Change: Higher Education in 2015)
- Innovation is not an option for those who want to survive and thrive in the future.
Specifically, I have it that we should be experimenting with:
- Significantly lowering the price of getting an education (by 50%+)
- Providing greater access (worldwide)
- Offering content in as many different ways as we can afford to produce
- Seeking to provide interactive, multimedia-based content that is created by teams of specialists — for anytime, anywhere, on any-device type of learning (24x7x365) — at any pace!
- “Breaking down the walls” of the physical classroom
- Pooling resources and creating consortiums
- Reflecting on what it will mean if online-based exchanges are setup to help folks develop competencies
- Working to change our cultures to be more willing to innovate and change
- Thinking about how to become more nimble as organizations
- Turning more control over to individual learner and having them create the content
- Creating and implementing more cross-disciplinary assignments
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Unemployed find old jobs now require more skills — from ASTD.org by J. Lorens
(From the AP, WASHINGTON) The jobs crisis has brought an unwelcome discovery for many unemployed Americans: Job openings in their old fields exist. Yet they no longer qualify for them.
They’re running into a trend that took root during the recession. Companies became more productive by doing more with fewer workers. Some asked staffers to take on a broader array of duties — duties that used to be spread among multiple jobs. Now, someone who hopes to get those jobs must meet the new requirements.
As a result, some database administrators now have to manage network security.
Accountants must do financial analysis to find ways to cut costs.
Factory assembly workers need to program computers to run machinery.
The broader responsibilities mean it’s harder to fill many of the jobs that are open these days. It helps explain why many companies complain they can’t find qualified people for certain jobs, even with 4.6 unemployed Americans, on average, competing for each opening. By contrast, only 1.8 people, on average, were vying for each job opening before the recession…
On 10/09/2010,
in 21st century, career development, lifelong learning, sociology, trends, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Working in retirement: A 21st century phenomenon — from ASTD.org by Ann Pace
(From Families and Work Institute) — Working in retirement may still sound like an oxymoron, but not for long. Just as people in their twenties are now creating a new life stage of transitioning into the workforce, the generation of workers currently in their fifties and sixties is redefining the notion of “retirement.” Already today, one in five workers aged 50 and older has fully retired from his or her former career job but currently is working for pay in a new role, which we define as a “retirement job.” And this will soon become the “new normal” — fully 75% of workers aged 50 and older expect to have retirement jobs in the future, according to a groundbreaking new study by Families and Work Institute and the Sloan Center on Aging & Work.
“Working in retirement” is quickly becoming a new stage in career progression. Following the traditional path of early-, mid-, late-career employment, but prior to total withdrawal from work, this new stage is a bridge that tends to emphasize working by choice and for enjoyment.
On 10/09/2010,
in convergence, digital audio, digital video, trends, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
Key trends in the web conferencing market — from nojitter.com’s blog by Melanie Turek, Industry Director, Frost and Sullivan
(BTW, nojitter.com provides a daily analysis of the enterprise IP-telephony, unified communications and converged networking world)
What is a Learning Futurist? — from Teaching College Math by Maria Andersen
So, what is a futurist? First, a futurist does not “predict” the future, they use foresight skills to complement insight and hindsight. One foresight skill is basic forecasting (trend analysis), but this only works if the field under investigation is relatively stable. In unstable fields, futurists use scenario planning to project several possible outcomes – by examining the possibilities, an organization can plan for the most common outcomes, or at least think through some of the planning necessary for extreme possibilities (often, several extreme possibilities have some commonalities). Futurists have to think creatively about the direction and meaning of trends, not just within a field, but in the surrounding fields. You could say that Futurists have to be excellent systems thinkers.
Who does futuring?…
So, what is a Learning Futurist, in particular?…
The OUTLOOK 2011 report from THE FUTURIST magazine examines the key trends in technology, the environment, the economy, international relations, etc., in order to paint a full and credible portrait of our likely future. The magazine has released the top ten forecasts from Outlook 2011, plus more than 300 forecasts from previous reports, on the World Future Society’s Web site.
http://www.wfs.org/Forecasts_From_The_Futurist_Magazine
Here are the top ten forecasts from Outlook 2011:
1. Physicists could become the leading economic forecasters of tomorrow.
Unlike mainstream economists, who rely on averages, econophysicists study complex systems, feedback loops, cascading effects, irrational decision making, and other destabilizing influences, which may help them to foresee economic upheavals.
2. Environmentalists may embrace genetically modified crops as a carbon-reduction technology.
Like nuclear power, genetically modified crops have long been the bane of environmentalists, but Stewart Brand, author of Whole Earth Discipline, argues that there are myriad benefits to them as C02 sinks.
3. Search engines will soon include spoken results, not just text.
Television broadcasts and other recordings could be compiled and converted using programs developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis.
4. Will there be garbage wars in the future?
Trash producers in the developed world will ship much more of their debris to repositories in developing countries. This will inspire protests in the receiving lands. Beyond 2025 or so, the developing countries will close their repositories to foreign waste, forcing producers to develop more waste-to-energy and recycling technologies.
5. The notion of class time as separate from non-class time will vanish.
The Net generation uses technologies both for socializing and for working and learning, so their approach to tasks is less about competing and more about working as teams. In this way, social networking is already facilitating collaborative forms of learning outside of classrooms and beyond formal class schedules.
6. The future is crowded with PhDs.
The number of doctorate degrees awarded in the United States has risen for six straight years, reaching record 48,802 in 2008, according to the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates. One-third of these degrees (33.1%) went to temporary visa holders, up from 23.3% in 1998.
7. Cities in developed countries could learn sustainability from so-called slums in the developing world.
Dwellers of “slums,” favelas, and ghettos have learned to use and reuse resources and commodities more efficiently than their wealthier counterparts. The neighborhoods are high-density and walkable, mixing commercial and residential areas rather than segregating these functions. In many of these informal cities, participants play a role in communal commercial endeavors such as growing food or raising livestock.
8. Cooperatively owned smart cars and roads will replace dumb, individual gas guzzlers.
With 800 million cars on the planet to serve 7.8 billion people, personal transportation is a dominant force in our lives. But the emergence of car-sharing and bike-sharing schemes in urban areas in both the United States and Europe have established alternative models and markets for fractional or on-demand mobility, says MIT’s Ryan C.C. Chin. He and his fellow engineers with the MIT Media Lab have designed a car system that could serve as a model for future cities.
9. Fighting the global threat of climate change could unite countries— or inflame rivalries.
Nations with more sophisticated environmental monitoring systems could use data to their advantage, perhaps weakening an enemy by failing to warn it of an oncoming storm or other catastrophe. They could also fudge their own, or their rivals’, carbon output numbers to manipulate International legislation says forecaster Roger Howard.
10. We may not be able to move mountains with our minds, but robots will await our mental commands.
Brain-based control of conventional keyboards, allowing individuals to type without physically touching the keys, has been demonstrated at the universities of Wisconsin and Michigan. In the near future, brain e-mailing and tweeting will become far more common, say experts. A group of undergraduates at Northeastern University demonstrated in June that they could steer a robot via thought.
All of these forecasts plus dozens more were included in the report that scanned the best writing and research from THE FUTURIST magazine over the course of the previous year. The 2011 Outlook report was released as part of the November-December 2010 issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, available on October 1, 2010. If you would like to learn more about how you can join the World Future Society to receive your complimentary copy of Outlook 2011, click here.
The Society hopes this report, covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology, will assist its readers in preparing for the challenges and opportunities in the coming decade.
These are just a few of the big issues and uncommon solutions that THE FUTURIST magazine is tracking for you.
In order to continue our coverage of the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century, we need your help in 2010 and 2011. We encourage you to forward this free sample along to your friends. If you found this information useful or interesting, we hope you’ll join the World Future Society to receive THE FUTURIST magazine today.
On 09/23/2010,
in dangers of the status quo, education technology, online learning, trends,
by Daniel Christian
Surprising facts about online education — from DegreeScout.com [via dontwasteyourtime.co.uk]
Online education is quickly becoming a prominent and important piece of the education pie in the United States. The explosive growth of this segment of education, even during a recession, is nothing short of spectacular. It is becoming clear that there is a fundamental shift in how Americans are being educated after high school. The flexibility, lower cost, and variety of choice are just some of the reasons that online education is growing at its current pace. The following infographic will give you a better idea of the scope, impact, and future of online education. Enjoy!
Also see:
The Khan Academy now on iTunesU [via openculture.com]
The Khan Academy, which already has a robust presence on YouTube and the web, now opens up shop on iTunesU. This gives students yet another way to access 1800+ video tutorials that teach the ins-and-outs of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, finance, physics, economics and more. The lectures, all taped and presented by Sal Khan, a Harvard MBA and former hedge fund manager, are watched some 70,000 times per day. And, with this new distribution channel, the numbers only promise to move higher. For more on The Khan Academy, see this August CNN piece. To download iTunes, click …
Khan Academy content available for download [via M. Guhlin]
At the start of the year, a Math teacher specialist pulled me aside and asked me, “How come all these awesome videos are blocked?” As we tried to access the different videos, I finally pulled up the web site–The Khan Academy–and noticed that the majority of the content was located at …
Teacher Development: Starter Kit for Teaching Online — from Edutopia.org by Grace Rubenstein
Expert advice on shifting from brick and mortar to bytes and bits.
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Bellevue College launches program to teach educators about online learning — — [via Ray Schroeder] by the Bellevue Reporter
Bellevue College is launching a new “eLearning for Educators” professional development program for K-12 and college teachers who wish to bring the benefits of online learning to their students. “eLearning” is a broad term that includes all forms of teaching and learning that are supported or enhanced by digital technology. The new program at the college teaches educators how to integrate new instructional technology into their courses, whether they teach in a traditional “in-class” venue, a fully online setting or in a hybrid format that blends the two …
Students Are Motivated to Take Online Courses — [via Ray Schroeder] by edreformer.com via e-learning news blog
Susan Patrick, President of iNACOL writes into the Chicago Tribune to voice her support for online learning initiatives in Chicago Public Schools. She finishes off her letter with a valid point, that students actually are motivated to take online courses, because they like it, and because online better influences their learning. What’s more, students want to learn online: a national study showed 40 percent of middle and high school students want to take online courses. Despite what critics say, there is no evidence that children in online or hybrid classes are any less socially adjusted than those children who attend brick-and-mortar, traditional …
Also relevant:
- High Speed Video Adds Collaboration to Enterprise Grade Video Communications and Desktop-Telepresence Software Platform — from indianweb2.com by Vardaan