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Reflections on “Schools struggle to balance digital innovation, academic accountability” [Davis]

On 07/07/2011, in 21st century, assessment, change, digital learning, disruption, education technology, engagement / engaging students, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, pace of change, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian
Schools struggle to balance digital innovation, academic accountability — from Education Week’s Digital Directions by Michelle Davis
Using educational technology in new and different ways to improve student learning is often at odds with standardized testing and other traditional measures of achievement.
Excerpt:

But how do you move forward with such an innovation, when there isn’t definitive proof that it will work? That is the key question educators and policymakers are grappling with.

Under the education priorities of President George W. Bush’s administration, the catchphrase “research base” was drilled into educators” heads when it came to new programs and initiatives. If it wasn’t research-based, it wasn’t worth adopting.

But technology innovations occur so rapidly that it’s often impossible to do scientifically based trials proving effectiveness before schools embrace new approaches. Think of social-networking tools, iPads, and e-readers. And what other new digital-learning tools might also emerge well before scientifically based research can justify their use in classrooms?

Also see:

From DSC:

From my 20+ years of experience with working with a variety of technologies, while there is an element of risk taking to implementing technologies, there are also enormous payoffs if organizations implement the appropriate technologies.

But how can we select and implement the most effective technologies? This is where we need to rely on our technologists out there and keep them growing in the knowledge of “the business”, not just the technologies.  Tell them what you are trying to achieve, and they can greatly assist.  No one can hit 100% — but good technologists can get you into the right game and into the right ballpark (if not exactly lining up the exact right players, which may change or take some tweaking).

NOTE:
Don’t rely on technologists who only see their jobs as keeping the systems running. Though we need technologists who keep the infrastructures up and running, at this juncture what organizations really need are visionaries who are knowledgeable about the needs of the business (as well as the technologies), and those who are willing to explore, experiment, and take some risks…i.e. to lead….to be instrumental in forming strategies and visions. The areas outside IT need to be aware of how critical technologies are becoming in their core strategies and plans. It’s not the same ball-game as it was. Those who use technologies strategically will survive and thrive.

It should be noted that there have been risks inherent in maintaining the status quo — a 20%-30% dropout rate (in K-12) across the United States is pretty risky too, at least in my mind.

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Infographic: Paying off student loans has become more difficult [Lawlor]

On 07/06/2011, in budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, leadership, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, student-related, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Paying Off Student Loans Has Become More Difficult

 

Also see:

 

The sky has not fallen — but pieces of it could soon be hitting a campus near you.

That is one way of summing up the findings of Inside Higher Ed’s first-ever Survey of College and University Business Officers, released today in advance of the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. (A copy of the survey report can be found here.)

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This is why futuring is so important

On 07/01/2011, in business, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, expectations, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, reinvent, strategy, surviving, trends, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
A reflection on:

Excerpt (with emphasis from DSC):

The secret to visionary companies’ continued success was explained best what NHL great Wayne Gretzky stated: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” What Apple and Facebook know and more specifically their founders/CEOs’ Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have in common is aspirational clarity. They appear to be able to see where the puck will be and into the future of what their market will not just want, but go ga-ga over and then they deliver it. Some may refer to that as their being market makers, but what enables them to make their market is that they can anticipate what will delight their customers and members that those people don’t even know will delight them.

From DSC:
This is why futuring, taking pulse checks on current trends, being in touch with your customers’ expectations (and future customers in the case of students), and scenario building are so important these days.

With the pace of technological change continuing to pick up, a healthy organization will constantly be looking to maintain its relevancy — to innnovate, to reinvent itself.

If you are not constantly reinventing yourself — as an individual or more collectively as an organization — your chances of staying relevant and marketable will likely decrease in the future.

 

We need to constantly be monitoring trends

 

Image by Daniel Christian

 

 

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Reflections on “An Innovation Perfect Storm?” [Kelley]

On 06/29/2011, in A/V -- audio/visual, Apple, collaboration, convergence, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, emerging technologies, future, ideas, innovation, learning spaces, mirroring and/or multiple devices, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, technology (general), trends, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Reflections from DSC (additional emphasis by DSC):

I ran across Braden Kelley’s posting over at Blogging Innovation that’s entitled, “An Innovation Perfect Storm? In that posting, Braden lays out a powerful vision that he’s had for at least 2 years:

I believed two years ago and still believe that what the world needs is not more smart devices, but more flexible and plentiful dumb devices that are driven by the one smart device to rule them all – an extensible smart phone that can not only drive multiple display and input devices wirelessly, but also augment its processing and storage capabilities via wireless devices or the cloud.

Besides mentioning Motorola’s Atrix, RIM’s Blackberry Playbook , and Nintendo’s WiiU, Braden focuses on Apple’s product line. But later on in his posting, he provides a link to Teq’s WiD410 product — a conference room flat panel solution:

 

TEQ AV/IT June-2011 -- might be a part of the future smart classroom

 

Braden’s vision caused me to piggyback on my vision for what I’d like to see in our Smart Classrooms — the ability for students to quickly and easily project/”play” their content for others in the class to see — without interrupting the flow of the class.

This concept holds true for corporate conference rooms & training centers as well.

 

Addendum/see also:

 


 

 

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A technology broadside against school leadership preparation programs [McLeod]

On 06/15/2011, in change, education, education reform, education technology, K-12 related, leadership, pedagogy, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, surviving, United States, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

A technology broadside against school leadership preparation programs — from BigThink.com by Scott McLeod

Excerpt:

If every other information-oriented societal sector is finding that transformative reinvention is the cost of survival in our current climate, schools and universities shouldn’t expect that they somehow will be immune from the same changes that are radically altering their institutional peers. We shouldn’t pretend that these revolutions aren’t going to affect us too, in compelling and often as yet unknown ways. And, yet, for some reason we do.

As long-existing barriers to learning, communicating, and collaborating disappear – and as what it means to be a productive learner, citizen, and employee shifts dramatically – it’s worth asking how we as educational leadership faculty and programs are responding. Are we doing what we should? To date the evidence is pretty clear that most of us are not.

…

Can we as educational leadership faculty do better? Given the scale and scope of the transformations occurring around us – and their power and potential for student learning – we MUST do better. It’s embarrassing to consider how little we’ve done to stay relevant. A learning revolution has occurred and – given the attention we’ve paid it – it’s as if many of us didn’t care.

 

From DSC — also see:

 

Frustrated Educators Aim to Build Grassroots Movement

 

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Excellent use of motion graphics to drive home the message; the power of team-created content

On 06/10/2011, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), business, communications, corporate / business world, design, economics, engagement / engaging students, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, internet, leadership, MBA, online learning, online media, strategy, trends, using teams, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment — by Gary Hamel; from the University of Phoenix Distinguished Guest Video Lecture Series.

From DSC:
No matter whether you agree with what Gary is saying or not, can you imagine if every lecture contained this type of team-based assistance in creating the motion graphics, recording the video, editing the video, executing proper sound design principles, etc.? Most likely such an endeavor would be more achievable/successful when producing content in a controlled, studio type of environment — and then presenting it online (vs. trying to do this in front of a live classroom/audience/face-to-face.)

Anyway, very powerful communication channels here! Excellent use of motion graphics to backup his message. A transcript with bolded headings and colored main points would be great too. By the way, wouldn’t it be cool for “call outs” to appear — somewhat in an augmented reality sort of way — when a main point was just made?!


Gary Hamel -- Reinventing Managment for the 21st Century

Description of video:
Watch Gary Hamel, celebrated management thinker and author and co-founder of the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX), make the case for reinventing management for the 21st century. In this fast-paced, idea-packed, 15-minute video essay, Hamel paints a vivid picture of what it means to build organizations that are fundamentally fit for the future—and genuinely fit for human beings. It’s time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and organize resources to productive ends. Here’s how we start.

This video is an excerpt from the University of Phoenix Distinguished Guest Video Lecture Series.

 

Sample screen shots:


 

 

 

 

 

From DSC:
Again, can you imagine the bump in engagement/attention spans if a faculty member could be backed up by these types of motion graphics!?

 

From DSC:
I realize that many of the for-profits are already using teams of specialists…but many others are not.

 

–Originally saw this at the
Higher Education Management blog by Keith Hampson

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College? There’s an app for that: How USC built a 21st century classroom [Thompson]

On 06/06/2011, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, digital learning, education technology, leadership, mobile learning, multimedia, online learning, online media, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

College? There’s an app for that: How USC built a 21st century classroom — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson | May 27 2011
“Everything about this program pushes definitions about what is a semester, what is the university, what is a classroom, and where do the faculty belong?”

Excerpt:

usc5.png

 

In the spring of 2008, John Katzman, the founder of the Princeton Review, approached the Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at at the University of Southern California with a revolutionary idea. USC could increase its graduates by a factor of ten without building another room.

Every year, California adds 10,000 new teachers. And every year until 2008, USC graduated about 100. The school felt “invisible.” How could it build influence without new buildings? Katzman said his new project, 2tor, Inc, an education technology company, promised a solution. Forget the brick and mortar, and go online, he said. USC was skeptical. Surely, no Web program could possibly deliver an in-classroom quality of instruction.

Katzman disagreed. I have something to show you, he said.

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Is Higher Education Ready for “The Education Bubble”? [Batson]

On 06/01/2011, in accreditation, budgets, business side of he, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, instructional design, leadership, learning theories, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, open courseware and systems, pedagogy, reinvent, staying relevant, teaching & learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Is Higher Education Ready for “The Education Bubble”? — from CampusTechnology.com by Trent Batson

Excerpts:

American higher education–the jewel in the global crown of universal education, with nearly a quarter of the total number of higher education institutions in the world, and including graduate programs that are the envy of the world–is facing the prospect of being the next bubble to burst. Technology is both a culprit and a promising ally.

The spread of information technology, and its infusion into our culture, has opened the world to learning opportunities–raising expectations for college graduates and changing the terms of success.

Is American higher education ready to either prevent the bubble from bursting or to weather the storm when it does burst? And what is the bubble?

…

The bubble, as we can see by all the dimensions just described, is, in fact, a potential “perfect storm.”

…

But this effort must also result from a presidential-level decree: “The learning theory that fit so well in our culture and with the dominant technology pre-1995 (print-based and paper-based technologies), now is not working very well for any of us, so we have to change. Each of you on campus has sincerely and devotedly committed yourselves fully to learning, but now we know that our learning epistemology is less and less appropriate. This is not your fault; it is simply a time of incredible human growth; it is a time of rapid evolution in our culture; a time of re-shaping our economy. We must transform or become irrelevant.”

 

From DSC:
Good to see I have some company in these perspectives; thanks for the article Trent. Also see:

  • The Forthcoming Walmart of Education
  • The below graphics that I created a while back reflecting on whether there was a bubble building within higher ed (2/16/09) as well some of the elements of “The Perfect Storm in Higher Education” (9/10/10).
  • The point is we need a response to these trends — we don’t want to be broadsided.

 

The perfect storm in higher ed -- by Daniel S. Christian

Is higher ed the next bubble?

 

Daniel S. Christian: My concerns with just maintaining the status quo (from 2009).

From 5/21/09

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Developing vision for teaching with technology [Bates]

On 05/30/2011, in Canada, change, creativity, education technology, innovation, IT in HE, pedagogy, teaching & learning, technology (general), vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Developing vision for teaching with technology — from Tony Bates

Addendum on 5/31/11:

 

 

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Taking next-gen classrooms beyond the pilot [Demski]

On 05/25/2011, in A/V -- audio/visual, education technology, learning spaces, smart classrooms, strategy, teaching & learning, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Taking next-gen classrooms beyond the pilot — from campustechnology.com by Jennifer Demski
How the University of Minnesota moved its Active Learning Classroom concept to prime time

 

Active Learning Classrooms at the University of Minnesota are used for courses covering a wide range of subjects, including engineering, humanities, and social sciences.

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Heh! Is anyone listening in Washington, D.C.!? Will you please re-allocate the funding for a few F-35s towards online learning content development?

On 05/20/2011, in budgets, content development, aggregation, repositories, cost of getting a degree, leadership, online learning, using teams, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Cost of buying and operating 2443 F35s is estimated to be $1.3 trillion — from Next Big Future

 

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (Stealth multirole fighter) program is now projected to cost $1.3 trillion dollars to operate and maintain over its 30-year lifetime

Ashton Carter, under-secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said that the new $133 million price per aircraft was not affordable.

Lawmakers Want Backup Plan After Carter Calls JSF Costs ‘Unaffordable’

The Pentagon’s top arms buyer this week called current cost projections for the Joint Strike Fighter “unaffordable,” triggering a bipartisan group of senators to demand a Defense Department contingency plan for how tactical air forces would be modernized should the F-35 program collapse under the weight of its forecasted $1.3 trillion price tag.

From DSC:
Can you image what several teams worth of specialists could do with $1.3 trillion dollars!? Man, you could meet President Obama’s higher-ed related goals in a heartbeat!

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[Concept from DSC] The new “textbook”: A multi-layered approach

On 05/17/2011, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, Augmented Reality (AR), Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, digital textbooks, education technology, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, innovation, instructional design, learning ecosystem, learning theories, metacognition / metacognitive skills, new business models, publishing, social learning / networks, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, textbooks, using teams, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

[Concept] The new “textbook”: A multi-layered approach — from Daniel S. Christian
I’ve been thinking recently about new approaches to relaying — and engaging with — content in a “textbook”.


For a physical textbook

When opening up a physical textbook to a particular page, QR-like codes would be printed on the physical pages of the textbook.  With the advent of augmented reality, such a mechanism would open up some new possibilities to interact with content for that page. For example, some overall characteristics about this new, layered approach:

  • Augmented reality could reveal multiple layers of information:
    • From the author/subject matter expert as well as the publisher’s instructional design team
      • Main points highlighted
      • Pointers that may help with metacognition, such as potential mnemonics that might be helpful in moving something into long-term memory
      • Studying strategies
    • A layer that the professor or teacher could edit
      • Main points highlighted
      • Pointers that may help with metacognition, such as potential mnemonics that might be helpful in moving something into long-term memory
      • Studying strategies
    • A layer for the students to comment on/annotate that page
    • A layer for other students’ comments

 

 

For an electronic-based textbook

  • The interface would allow for such layers to be visible or not — much like Google’s Body Browser application
  • For example, in this graphic, comments from the SME and/or ID are highlighted on top of the normal text:

 

 

 

 

Advantages of this concept/model:

  • Ties physical into virtual world
  • We could economically update information (i.e. opens up streams of content)
  • Integrates social learning
  • Allows SMEs, IDs, faculty members to further comment/add to content as new information becomes available
  • Instructors could highlight the key points they want to stress
  • Many of the layers could offer items that might help with students’ meta-cognitive processes (i.e. to help them learn the content and move the content into long-term memory)
  • One could envision the textbook being converted into something more akin to an app in an online-based store — with notifications of updates that could be constantly pushed out

 

Addendum (5/26):

 

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Key education issues dividing public, college presidents, study finds [Pew; WSJ]

On 05/16/2011, in accreditation, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, education reform, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, society, traditional / tradition, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Key education issues dividing public, college presidents, study finds — from the WSJ by Kevin Helliker

The general public and university presidents disagree about the purpose of college, who ought to pay for it and whether today’s students are getting their money’s worth.

But university presidents and the average American agree that the cost of higher education now exceeds the reach of most people.

Those are broad findings from a pair of surveys released late Sunday from the nonprofit Pew Research Center. The surveys took place this March and April, one posing college-related questions to 2,142 American adults, the other to 1,055 presidents of colleges large, small, public, private and for-profit. The two surveys contained some identical questions and some peculiar to each group.

Excerpt of report:

As is the case with all Center reports, our research is not designed to promote any cause, ideology or policy proposal. Our only goal is to inform the public on important topics that shape their lives and their society.

Higher education is one such topic. The debate about its value and mission has been triggered not just by rising costs, but also by hard economic times; by changing demands on the nation’s workforce; by rising global competition; by growing pressures to reduce education funding; and by the ambitious goal set by President Obama for the United States to lead the world by 2020 in the share of young adults who have a college degree.

 

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What happens when sixth sense meets an iPad? [Comment from DSC: Great way to visualize a new concept!!!]

On 05/11/2011, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, creativity, digital learning, digital video, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, media/film, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

What happens when sixth sense meets an iPad?–– from labnol.org

Excerpt:
Zach King, a film student from LA, has created this neat video where the iPad screen is projected in the form of a hologram and users can interact with the various apps using natural hand gestures. Futuristic but not impossible.

 

ipad hologram

 

From DSC:
What a creative way to help people visualize your concept and to help bring your vision to a format that others can understand and work with! Great work on the digital video editing Zach!

 

 

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Innovation: In the not too distant future [concept animation from AT&T Tech Channel]

On 05/07/2011, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, animation, emerging technologies, future, global / globalization, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, multi-touch, technologies for your home, technology (general), television, trends, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

In the not too distant future -- concept animation from AT&T

 

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