Last updated on 7/23/20

Learning from the Living [Class] Room

A powerful, global, next generation learning platform -- meant to help people
reinvent themselves quickly, safely, cost-effectively, conveniently, & consistently.

What will this new world look like? It’s likely, for one thing, to be more consolidated, with smaller
numbers of colleges creating the content that can now be delivered, at scale, online. It’s likely that
to be increasingly un-bundled, with the once-standard package (four years, on campus, with education
plus everything else) broken into a myriad of more discrete and specific offerings. It’s likely to
be distributed over a large segment of a learner’s life.
(Debora Spar , Sr. Associate Dean of Harvard Business School Online, 9/10/20)

YouTube retains the #1 position that it is has held *for the 5th year running.* (emphasis DSC)
Jane Hart, 9/1/20, Top 200 Tools for Learning

AI changes everything. It changes how we work, shop, travel, entertain ourselves,
socialize, deal with finance and healthcare. When online, AI mediates almost everything – Google,
Google Scholar, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, Netflix.
It would be bizarre to imagine that AI will have no role to play in learning – it already has. Both informally
and formally, AI is now embedded in many of the tools real learners use for online learning...
-- So what is the book about? (Donald Clark, September 2020); which discusses his book entitled,
Artificial Intelligence for Learning: How to use AI to Support Employee Development

Information technology transforms industries by making scarce resources plentiful,
forcing customers to rethink the value of established products.
-- Are universities going the way of CDs and cable TV? (June 2020)

“Many—perhaps millions—will need quick, job-focused upskilling and reskilling." -- Opportunity America (June 2020)

The problem lies in an imperfect, incomplete market that does not provide comprehensive
information over an individual’s lifetime to encourage a broader awareness of careers. Nor
do we help individuals understand that career development is a process and not a
destination, while showing them how to develop their lifelong approach
to making a living. -- A New Model for Career Exploration in a VUCA World (July 2020)

"...it is abundantly apparent that universities must leverage technology to
increase educational quality and access. The rapid shift to delivering an education
that complies with social distancing guidelines speaks volumes about the adaptability
of higher education institutions, but this transition has also posed unique difficulties
for colleges and universities that had been slow to adopt digital education. The last decade
has shown that online education, implemented effectively, can meet or even surpass the
quality of in-person instruction. Digital instruction, broadly defined, leverages
online capabilities and integrates adaptive learning methodologies, predictive analytics,
and innovations in instructional design to enable increased student engagement,
personalized learning experiences, and improved learning outcomes. The ability of
these technologies to transcend geographic barriers and to shrink the marginal
cost of educating additional students makes them essential for delivering
education at scale." -- Dr. Micheal Crow, Pres. ASU, 6/25/20

"The Coronavirus has brought forth the Dawn of the Age of Digital Learning — a time
for builders to create the platforms, tools, and technology to propel society forward." -- source, dated 5/6/20

"As previously noted, in the next 10 years, the number of higher ed students will double from
207M to over 414M. In Before Coronavirus (B.C.), we had expected a lot of this growth to happen
online. In After Disease (A.D.), all of this growth will occur online, and many of the
students formerly on campuses will also be taking courses online. -- source, dated 5/6/20

"Millions of working adults must turn to digital degrees to improve their employability in a post-
industrial economy that demands higher-level skills than on the assembly line." -- source, dated 3/5/20

"Technology-enhanced learning can help us keep up with demand and offer pathways for the
existing workforce to gain new skills. AI-based learning tools developed in the past decade
have incredible potential to personalise education, enhance college readiness and access, and
improve educational outcomes." -- source, dated 1/21/20

"Voice is the most accessible form you can think of when you think about any interface.
In education, it’s already started to take off."  -- source, dated 3/2/20


Consider the graphic below.

In the future, we won't just be able to find movies or shows, but rather, we will also be able to quickly locate
up-to-date, relevant learning-related content and participate in highly-practical, learning-related experiences.

 

Also, consider the type of service/value being offered in the graphic below...

...and that such a service/offering/value will likely be constantly available
on a next-gen learning platform — i.e., scanning open job descriptions
and presenting the top/"hottest" occupations/skills/employers...and then
offering the relevant courses, modules, webinars, local learning hubs,
discussion forums, etc. that will teach you the necessary skills to land those jobs
(similar to what is shown in the above grapic involving justwatch.com or
suppose.tv and what those vendors are providing for the entertainment industry).

 

 

Some learning-related sites/services are already heading this way...

 

 

 

 

Learning from the Living Class Room

 

See also:

 

What does the vision entail?

  • A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24x7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:
    • "I've been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven't heard of yet," Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.
  • A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
  • A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
  • Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determine that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner as to whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
  • A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
  • An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
  • A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
  • A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
  • A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course
    • (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
  • Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
  • An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
  • Direct access to popular job search sites
  • Direct access to resources that describe what jobs are out there and what other companies do/provide; ideally, resources would provide accurate descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)
  • Integration with one-on-one tutoring services

 

Ideally, the learner is using two displays simultaneously:

While basic courses will be accessible via mobile devices, the optimal learning experience will leverage two or more displays/devices. So while smaller smartphones, laptops, and/or desktop workstations will be used to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other learners, the larger displays will deliver an excellent learning environment for times when there is:
  • A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
  • A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
    • The SME(s)
    • An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
    • Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
    • The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
    • Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
    • Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
    • An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

     

This new learning platform will also feature:
  • Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
  • Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
  • Speech-to-text capabilities to provide real-time closed captioning and transcriptions -- as well as for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
  • Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
  • Chatbots
    • For learning how to use the system
    • For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
    • For asking questions within a course to obtain information -- such as asking questions of a historical figure
    • As many profiles as needed per household
  • Similar to asking questions of a chatbot, we will be able to use holographic storytelling where learners can ask questions of a hologram (examples here and here)
  • The ability to use the learner's webcam to take pictures of equations in order to get instant feedback and/or links to other resources
  • Polling
  • (Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
  • (Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
  • (Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
  • (Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
  • The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
  • A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
  • Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”
  • A twist on the flipped classroom approach, whereby students can check out videos of equations, problems, etc. and put in their "markers" with accompanying comments throughout the videos, alerting the SMEs where they have questions, comments, and/or issues
In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Videos*:

* These videos were made in October 2013. I would like to especially thank Mr. Steven Niedzielski (@Marketing4pt) and Mr. Sam Beckett (@SamJohnBeck) for their assistance and some of the graphics used in making these videos.



Additional thoughts & notes:

 

 

 

 

© 2020 | Daniel Christian | However, the idea goes back even further than this:

Learning from The Living [Class] Room