K-12 2018 Readers’ Choice Awards — from The Journal’s October/November edition
Also see:
On 09/29/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart
Excerpt:
[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.
I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:
- Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
- Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
- Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.
3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.
5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.
From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?
On 09/11/2018,
in Adobe, creativity, digital photography, education technology, photography, tools, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Adobe supercharges Photoshop’s content-aware fill so you have more options, fewer AI fails — from techcrunch.com by Devin Coldewey
Excerpt:
The most important difference is certainly the ability to choose which parts of the image the filling agent samples when it’s looking for stuff to put inside your lassoed area.
…
No need to be exact — the algorithm is smart enough to work without the handful of pixels that are casualties of overeager mousing. The improved algorithm also lets you tell the algo that it should be liberal with rotation and scaling of the elements it uses, or that it should mirror-image the content it finds to make it fit better.
On 08/28/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Augmented Reality (AR), corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, media/film, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), platforms, robotics, society, tools, training / L&D, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, XR - extended reality,
by Daniel Christian
Adobe Announces the 2019 Release of Adobe Captivate, Introducing Virtual Reality for eLearning Design — from theblog.adobe.com
Excerpt:
- Immersive learning with VR experiences: Design learning scenarios that your learners can experience in Virtual Reality using VR headsets. Import 360° media assets and add hotspots, quizzes and other interactive elements to engage your learners with near real-life scenarios
- Interactive videos: Liven up demos and training videos by making them interactive with the new Adobe Captivate. Create your own or bring in existing YouTube videos, add questions at specific points and conduct knowledge checks to aid learner remediation
- Fluid Boxes 2.0: Explore the building blocks of Smart eLearning design with intelligent containers that use white space optimally. Objects placed in Fluid Boxes get aligned automatically so that learners always get fully responsive experience regardless of their device or browser.
- 360° learning experiences: Augment the learning landscape with 360° images and videos and convert them into interactive eLearning material with customizable overlay items such as information blurbs, audio content & quizzes.
Blippar unveils indoor visual positioning system to anchor AR — from martechtoday.com by Barry Levine
Employing machine vision to recognize mapped objects, the company says it can determine which way a user is looking and can calculate positioning down to a centimeter.
The Storyteller’s Guide to the Virtual Reality Audience — from medium.com by Katy Newton
Excerpt:
To even scratch the surface of these questions, we need to better understand the audience’s experience in VR — not just their experience of the technology, but the way that they understand story and their role within it.
Hospital introducing HoloLens augmented reality into the operating room — from medgadget.com
Excerpt:
HoloLens technology is being paired with Microsoft’s Surface Hub, a kind of digital whiteboard. The idea is that the surgical team can gather together around a Surface Hub to review patient information, discuss the details of a procedure, and select what information should be readily accessible during surgery. During the procedure, a surgeon wearing a HoloLens would be able to review a CT or MRI scan, access other data in the electronic medical records, and to be able to manipulate these so as to get a clear picture of what is being worked on and what needs to be done.
Raleigh Fire Department invests in virtual reality to enrich training — from vrfocus.com by Nikholai Koolon
New system allows department personnel to learn new skills through immersive experiences.
Excerpt:
The VR solution allows emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to dive into a rich and detailed environment which allows them to pinpoint portions of the body to dissect. This then allows them then see each part of the body in great detail along with viewing it from any angle. The goal is to allow for users to gain the experience to diagnose injuries from a variety of vantage points all where working within an virtual environment capable of displaying countless scenarios.
For another emerging technology, see:
Someday this tiny spider bot could perform surgery inside your body — from fastcompany.com by Jesus Diaz
The experimental robots could also fix airplane engines and find disaster victims.
Excerpt:
A team of Harvard University researchers recently achieved a major breakthrough in robotics, engineering a tiny spider robot using tech that could one day work inside your body to repair tissues or destroy tumors. Their work could not only change medicine–by eliminating invasive surgeries–but could also have an impact on everything from how industrial machines are maintained to how disaster victims are rescued.
Until now, most advanced, small-scale robots followed a certain model: They tend to be built at the centimeter scale and have only one degree of freedom, which means they can only perform one movement. Not so with this new ‘bot, developed by scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Boston University. It’s built at the millimeter scale, and because it’s made of flexible materials–easily moved by pneumatic and hydraulic power–the critter has an unprecedented 18 degrees of freedom.
Plus some items from a few weeks ago
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
I liked that it gave a new perspective to the video clip I’d watched: It threw the actual game up on the wall alongside the kind of information a basketball fan would want, including 3-D renderings and stats. Today, you might turn to your phone for that information. With Magic Leap, you wouldn’t have to.
…
Abovitz also said that intelligent assistants will play a big role in Magic Leap’s future. I didn’t get to test one, but Abovitz says he’s working with a team in Los Angeles that’s developing high-definition people that will appear to Magic Leap users and assist with tasks. Think Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, but instead of speaking to your phone, you’d be speaking to a realistic-looking human through Magic Leap. Or you might be speaking to an avatar of someone real.
“You might need a doctor who can come to you,” Abovitz said. “AI that appears in front of you can give you eye contact and empathy.”
And I loved the idea of being able to place a digital TV screen anywhere I wanted.
Magic Leap One Available For Purchase, Starting At $2,295 — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick
Excerpt:
December of last year U.S. startup Magic Leap unveiled its long-awaited mixed reality headset, a secretive device five years and $2.44B USD in the making.
This morning that same headset, now referred to as the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, became available for purchase in the U.S. On sale to creators at a hefty starting price of $2,275, the computer spatial device utilizes synthetic lightfields to capture natural lightwaves and superimpose interactive, 3D content over the real-world.
Magic Leap One First Hands-On Impressions for HoloLens Developers — from magic-leap.reality.news
Excerpt:
After spending about an hour with the headset running through set up and poking around its UI and a couple of the launch day apps, I thought it would be helpful to share a quick list of some of my first impressions as someone who’s spent a lot of time with a HoloLens over the past couple years and try to start answering many of the burning questions I’ve had about the device.
World Campus researches effectiveness of VR headsets and video in online classes — from news.psu.edu
Excerpt:
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State instructional designers are researching whether using virtual reality and 360-degree video can help students in online classes learn more effectively.
Designers worked with professors in the College of Nursing to incorporate 360-degree video into Nursing 352, a class on Advanced Health Assessment. Students in the class, offered online through Penn State World Campus, were offered free VR headsets to use with their smartphones to create a more immersive experience while watching the video, which shows safety and health hazards in a patient’s home.
Bill Egan, the lead designer for the Penn State World Campus RN to BSN nursing program, said students in the class were surveyed as part of a study approved by the Institutional Review Board and overwhelmingly said that they enjoyed the videos and thought they provided educational value. Eighty percent of the students said they would like to see more immersive content such as 360-degree videos in their online courses, he said.
7 Practical Problems with VR for eLearning — from learnupon.com
Excerpt:
In this post, we run through some practical stumbling blocks that prevent VR training from being feasible for most.
…
There are quite a number of practical considerations which prevent VR from totally overhauling the corporate training world. Some are obvious, whilst others only become apparent after using the technology a number of times. It’s important to be made aware of these limitations so that a large investment isn’t made in tech that isn’t really practical for corporate training.
Augmented reality – the next big thing for HR? — from hrdconnect.com
Augmented reality (AR) could have a huge impact on HR, transforming long-established processes into engaging and exciting something. What will this look like? How can we shape this into our everyday working lives?
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
AR also has the potential to revolutionise our work lives, changing the way we think about office spaces and equipment forever.
Most of us still commute to an office every day, which can be a time-consuming and stressful experience. AR has the potential to turn any space into your own customisable workspace, complete with digital notes, folders and files – even a digital photo of your loved ones. This would give you access to all the information and tools that you would typically find in an office, but wherever and whenever you need them.
And instead of working on a flat, stationary, two-dimensional screen, your workspace would be a customisable three-dimensional space, where objects and information are manipulated with gestures rather than hardware. All you would need is an AR headset.
AR could also transform the way we advertise brands and share information. Imagine if your organisation had an AR stand at a conference – how engaging would that be for potential customers? How much more interesting and fun would meetings be if we used AR to present information instead of slides on a projector?
AR could transform the on-boarding experience into something fun and interactive – imagine taking an AR tour of your office, where information about key places, company history or your new colleagues pops into view as you go from place to place.
RETINA Are Bringing Augmented Reality To Air Traffic Control Towers — from vrfocus.com by Nikholai Koolonavi
Excerpt:
A new project is aiming to make it easier for staff in airport control towers to visualize information to help make their job easier by leveraging augmented reality (AR) technology. The project, dubbed RETINA, is looking to modernise Europe’s air traffic management for safer, smarter and even smoother air travel.
On 06/06/2018,
in A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Apple, architecture, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), business, corporate / business world, design, Facebook / Meta Platforms, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), learning spaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, technologies for your home, tools, UK, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, workplace, XR - extended reality,
by Daniel Christian
Seek launches world’s first mobile Augmented Reality (AR) creation studio — from globenewswire.com
All Mobile Phone Users Can Now Create, Publish and Discover AR Experiences
Excerpt:
Lehi, UT, May 29, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today, fast-growing augmented reality startup, Seek, is launching Seek Studio, the world’s first mobile augmented reality studio, allowing anybody with a phone and no coding expertise required, to create their own AR experiences and publish them for the world to see. With mobile AR now made more readily available, average consumers are beginning to discover the magic that AR can bring to the palm of their hand, and Seek Studio turns everyone into a creator.
To make the process incredibly easy, Seek provides templates for users to create their first AR experiences. As an example, a user can select a photo on their phone, outline the portion of the image they want turned into a 3D object and then publish it to Seek. They will then be able to share it with their friends through popular social networks or text. A brand could additionally upload a 3D model of their product and publish it to Seek, providing an experience for their customers to easily view that content in their own home. Seek Studio will launch with 6 templates and will release new ones every few days over the coming months to constantly improve the complexity and types of experiences possible to create within the platform.
Apple unveils new AR file format and ARKit 2.0 — from enturebeat.com by Stephanie Chan
Excerpt:
Apple unveiled its new augmented reality file format, as well as ARKit 2.0, at its annual WWDC developer conference today. Both will be available to users later this year with iOS 12.
The tech company partnered with Pixar to develop the AR file format Universal Scene Description (USDZ) to streamline the process of sharing and accessing augmented reality files. USDZ will be compatible with tools like Adobe, Autodesk, Sketchfab, PTC, and Quixel. Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis spoke briefly on stage about how the file format will have native Adobe Creative Cloud support, and described it as the first time “you’ll be able to have what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) editing” for AR objects.
HTC’s New Vive Focus Headset Locker Aims to Put VR at the Forefront of Education in China — from oadtovr.com by Scott Hayden
With a starting focus on University-level education and vocational schools in sectors such as mechanical engineering, VivEdu branched out to K-12 education in 2018, boasting a comprehensive VR approach to learning science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and art for kids.
Apple takes augmented-reality gaming to the ‘next level’ with Lego and slingshot apps — from businessinsider.com by Isobel Asher Hamilton
Excerpt:
- Apple hopes to take augmented-reality gaming to the “next level” with multiplayer apps.
- The company used its developer’s conference to showcase Lego and slingshot games, built using its new and improved AR building software ARKit 2.
- The Lego game allows you to create virtual worlds around your real-life Lego builds.
Apple Swift Shot hands-on — augmented reality goes multiplayer with ARKit 2.0 — from venturebeat.com by Dean Takahasjo
Apple’s new AR features are proof that wearables are coming — from wired.com by Peter Rubin
Excerpt:
That roadmap, of course, is just beginning. Which is where the developers—and those arm’s-length iPads—come in. “They’re pushing AR onto phones to make sure they’re a winner when the headsets come around,” Miesnieks says of Apple. “You can’t wait for headsets and then quickly do 10 years’ worth of R&D on the software.”
Adobe’s Project Aero will let designers easily create AR content using existing Creative Cloud tools — from 9to5mac.comby Michael Steeber
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
To fully realize the potential will require a broad ecosystem. Adobe is partnering with technology leaders to standardize interaction models and file formats in the rapidly growing AR ecosystem. We’re also working with leading platform vendors, open standards efforts like usdz and glTF as well as media companies and the creative community to deliver a comprehensive AR offering. usdz is now supported by Apple, Adobe, Pixar and many others while glTF is supported by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe and other industry leaders.
Create Floor Plans With IStaging VR Maker — from vrfocus.com by Rebecca Hills-Duty
Virtual tour app utilises ARKit technology to easily create floor plans.
Excerpt:
There are a number of professionals who would find the ability to quickly and easily create floor plans to be extremely useful. Estate agents, interior designers and event organisers would all no doubt find such a capability to be extremely valuable. For those users, the new feature added to iStaging’s VR Maker app might be of considerable interest.
The new VR Maker feature utilises Apple’s ARKit toolset to recognise spaces, such as walls and floors and can provide accurate measurements. By scanning each wall of a space, a floor plan can be produced quickly and easily.
Where is VR headed? Investors share insights on the industry’s trajectory — fromventurebeat.com by Michael Park
Excerpt:
I’ve interviewed nine investors who have provided their insights on where the VR industry has come, as well as the risks and opportunities that exist in 2018 and beyond. We’ve asked them what opportunities are available in the space — and what tips they have for startups.
Can this explosion-proof AR headset change how industries do business? — from digitaltrends.com by Christian de Looper
Excerpt:
Augmented reality (AR) hasn’t truly permeated the mainstream consciousness yet, but the technology is swiftly being adopted by global industries. It’ll soon be unsurprising to find a pair of AR glasses strapped to a helmet sitting on the heads of service workers, and RealWear, a company at the forefront on developing these headsets, thinks it’s on the edge of something big.
…
VOICE ACTIVATION
What’s most impressive about the RealWear HMT-1Z1 is how you control it. There’s no touch-sensitive gestures you need to learn — it’s all managed with voice, and better yet, there’s no need for a hotword like “Hey Google.” The headset listens for certain commands. For example, from the home screen just say “show my files” to see files downloaded to the device, and you can go back to the home screen by saying “navigate home.” When you’re looking at documents — like schematics — you can say “zoom in” or “zoom out” to change focus. It worked almost flawlessly, even in a noisy environment like the AWE show floor.
How Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) Can Benefit the Aviation Industry — from eonreality.com
Excerpt:
David Scowsill‘s experience in the aviation industry spans over 30 years. He has worked for British Airways, American Airlines, Easy Jet, Manchester Airport, and most recently the World Travel and Tourism Council, giving him a unique perspective on how Augmented and Virtual Reality (AVR) can impact the aviation industry.
These technologies have the power to transform the entire aviation industry, providing benefits to companies and consumers. From check-in, baggage drop, ramp operations and maintenance, to pilots and flight attendants, AVR can accelerate training, improve safety, and increase efficiency.
This VR project shows us how animals see the world — from thenextweb.com by Ailsa Sherrington
Excerpt:
London-based design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast is using VR to let us reconnect with nature. With headsets, you can see a forest through the eyes of different animals and experience the sensations they feel. Creative Director Ersinhan Ersin took the stage at TNW Conference last week to show us how and why they created the project, titled In the Eyes of the Animal.
The Future of AR/VR Headset Design is Hybrid — from medium.com by Christine Hart
Excerpt:
Have you already taken a side when it comes to XR wearables? Whether you prefer AR glasses or VR headsets likely depends on the application you need. But wouldn’t it be great to have a device that could perform as both? As XR tech advances, we think crossovers will start popping up around the world.
A Beijing startup called AntVR recently rocketed past its Kickstarter goal for an AR/VR visor. Their product, the Mix, uses tinted lenses to toggle between real world overlay and full immersion. It’s an exciting prospect. But rather than digging into the tech (or the controversy surrounding their name, their marketing, and a certain Marvel character) we’re looking at what this means for how XR devices are developed and sold.
Google Expeditions app now offers augmented reality tours — from techcrunch.com by Lucas Matney
Excerpt:
Google is bringing AR tech to its Expeditions app with a new update going live today. Last year, the company introduced its GoogleExpeditions AR Pioneer Program, which brought the app into classrooms across the country; with this launch the functionality is available to all.
Expeditions will have more than 100 AR tours in addition to the 800 VR tours already available. Examples include experiences that let users explore Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions and ones that let you interact with the human skeletal system.
VR Wave Breaking Outside The Home — from forbes.com by Charlie Fink
Excerpt:
At four recent VR conferences and events there was a palpable sense that despite new home VR devices getting the majority of marketing and media attention this year, the immediate promise and momentum is in the location-based VR (LBVR) attractions industry. The VR Arcade Conference (April 29th and 30th), VRLA (May 4th and 5th), the Digital Entertainment Group’s May meeting (May 1), and FoIL (Future of Immersive Leisure, May 16th and 17th) all highlighted a topic that suddenly no one can stop talking about: location-based VR (LBVR). With hungry landlords giving great deals for empty retail locations, VRcades, which are inexpensive to open (like Internet Cafes), are popping up all over the country. As a result, VRcade royalties for developers are on the rise, so they are shifting their attention accordingly to shorter experiences optimized for LBVR, which is much less expensive than building a VR app for the home.
On 02/16/2018,
in Adobe, career development, change, creativity, design, digital storytelling, graphics, human-computer interaction (HCI), story, storytelling, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web design and production,
by Daniel Christian
The Future of Design, Part II — from 99u.adobe.com by Madeleine Morley; with thanks to Keesa V. Johnson for posting this on Twitter
For the second straight year, we asked 10 creatives to predict what is coming up in the world of design and how they will prepare for it. This year’s installment includes designing for voice-controlled tech, holograms, and the rise of the hybrid designer.
Design is always changing, and wider changes are often spearheaded by design itself. Now with tech and the creative industry increasingly aligning, we’re on the precipice of a truly momentous period in the history of design, something unprecedented that is difficult to predict and prepare for.
Excerpts:
With quickly evolving tools, tumultuous shifts in the economy, the relentless growth of the gig and freelance lifestyle, and global networks, the working landscape for young designers is a tremendously uncertain one. There’s no model to follow: The known and well-trodden career path of previous generations is overgrown.
…
It’s an uncertain time for design, but in its difficulty and complexity, it is an inspiring and crucial one: Those with the skills will help decide the way that innovations in tech not only look but function, too, and influence our daily lives.
Although we can’t predict the future, we can speak to those with experience who think about what’s in store. We asked each participant to give us their advice: What does their future of design look like? What will it do to the very idea of design. And how can we prepare for it?
Design will be for ears and not eyes.
We’re always getting our heads around designing for the latest technology, methodology, application, media, or format. It’s a fascinating time to be a designer. There will always be space for experts, for those who specialize in the things they are really, really good at, but for others there is the need to diversify.
We won’t tell stories; we’ll live them.
On 10/06/2017,
in 21st century, Adobe, adult learning, Asia, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, business, Canada, CMS/LMS, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, India, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, Microsoft, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, online learning, online media, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, wearables, web design and production,
by Daniel Christian
Excerpt:
The Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017 (11th Annual Survey) has been compiled by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies from the votes of 2,174 learning professionals worldwide, together with 3 sub-lists
- Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning (PPL)
- Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL)
- Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU)
Excerpt from the Analysis page (emphasis DSC):
Here is a brief analysis of what’s on the list and what it tells us about the current state of personal learning, workplace learning and education.
Some facts
- The top 2 tools are the same as in 2016: YouTube and Google Search
- PowerPoint moves up to #3, Word moves up to #6, Excel up 29 to #17
- Twitter moves down to #5
- 66 tools moved up the list. Top 3 risers are Unsplash (up 71 places), Grammarly (up 70 places) and Snapchat (up 64 places
- Messaging apps and team tools are particularly on the rise: Slack is now up 8 places to #12, Trello is up 21 places to #22, Microsoft Teams is another new tool in at #79
- 4 tools are BACK on the list: Google Alerts, IFTTT, Backpack and Hootsuite
- 52 NEW tools appear on the list this year – the highest entry is Typeform in at #55.
- 2 interesting new tools for augmented and virtual reality join the list – Aurasma, ENTiTi – as well as a chatbot system – Ultra Hal Assistant.
Some observations on what the Top Tools list tells us personal and professional learning
As in previous years, individuals continue to using a wide variety of:
- networks, services and platforms for professional networking, communication and collaboration
- web resources and courses for self-improvement and self-development
- tools for personal productivity
All of which shows that many individuals have become highly independent, continuous modern professional learners – making their own decisions about what they need to learn and how to do it.
On 08/04/2017,
in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, career development, CMS/LMS, computer science, economics, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, marketing/social marketing, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, programming, tools, trends, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
VR Is the Fastest-Growing Skill for Online Freelancers — from bloomberg.com by Isabel Gottlieb
Workers who specialize in artificial intelligence also saw big jumps in demand for their expertise.
Excerpt:
Overall, tech-related skills accounted for nearly two-thirds of Upwork’s list of the 20 fastest-growing skills.
Also see:
How to Prepare Preschoolers for an Automated Economy — from nytimes.com by Claire Miller and Jess Bidgood
Excerpt
MEDFORD, Mass. — Amory Kahan, 7, wanted to know when it would be snack time. Harvey Borisy, 5, complained about a scrape on his elbow. And Declan Lewis, 8, was wondering why the two-wheeled wooden robot he was programming to do the Hokey Pokey wasn’t working. He sighed, “Forward, backward, and it stops.”
Declan tried it again, and this time the robot shook back and forth on the gray rug. “It did it!” he cried. Amanda Sullivan, a camp coordinator and a postdoctoral researcher in early childhood technology, smiled. “They’ve been debugging their Hokey Pokeys,” she said.
The children, at a summer camp last month run by the Developmental Technologies Research Group at Tufts University, were learning typical kid skills: building with blocks, taking turns, persevering through frustration. They were also, researchers say, learning the skills necessary to succeed in an automated economy.
Technological advances have rendered an increasing number of jobs obsolete in the last decade, and researchers say parts of most jobs will eventually be automated. What the labor market will look like when today’s young children are old enough to work is perhaps harder to predict than at any time in recent history. Jobs are likely to be very different, but we don’t know which will still exist, which will be done by machines and which new ones will be created.
On 07/25/2017,
in Adobe, animation, Apple, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, graphics, multimedia, tools, web design and production,
by Daniel Christian
7 years after Steve Jobs waged war on Flash, it’s officially dying – from finance.yahoo.com by Kif Leswing
Excerpt:
Adobe is killing Flash, the software that millions used in the early 2000s to play web games and watch video in their web browsers.
The company announced the software was “end-of-life” in a blog post on Tuesday. From the blog post:
“Given this progress, and in collaboration with several of our technology partners – including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla – Adobe is planning to end-of-life Flash. Specifically, we will stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020 and encourage content creators to migrate any existing Flash content to these new open formats.”
On 07/25/2017,
in active learning, Adobe, attention, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, digital storytelling, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, interactivity, media/film, multimedia, platforms, story, storytelling, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, visualizing information, wearables,
by Daniel Christian
Campus Technology 2017: Virtual Reality Is More Than a New Medium — from edtechmagazine.com by Amy Burroughs
Experts weigh in on the future of VR in higher education.
Excerpts:
“It’s actually getting pretty exciting,” Georgieva said, noting that legacy companies and startups alike have projects in the works that will soon be on the market. Look for standalone, wireless VR headsets later this year from Facebook and Google.
“I think it’s going to be a universal device,” he said. “Eventually, we’ll end up with some kind of glasses where we can just dial in the level of immersion that we want.”
— Per Emery Craig, at Campus Technology 2017 Conference
…
“Doing VR for the sake of VR makes no sense whatsoever,” Craig said. “Ask when does it make sense to do this in VR? Does a sense of presence help this, or is it better suited to traditional media?”
Virtual Reality: The User Experience of Story — from blogs.adobe.com
Excerpt:
Solving the content problems in VR requires new skills that are only just starting to be developed and understood, skills that are quite different from traditional storytelling. VR is a nascent medium. One part story, one part experience. And while many of the concepts from film and theater can be used, storytelling through VR is not like making a movie or a play.
In VR, the user has to be guided through an experience of a story, which means many of the challenges in telling a VR story are closer to UX design than anything from film or theater.
Take the issue of frameless scenes. In a VR experience, there are no borders, and no guarantees where a user will look. Scenes must be designed to attract user attention, in order to guide them through the experience of a story.
Sound design, staging cues, lighting effects, and movement can all be used to draw a user’s attention.
However, it’s a fine balance between attraction to distraction.
“In VR, it’s easy to overwhelm the user. If you see a flashing light and in the background, you hear a sharp siren, and then something moves, you’ve given the user too many things to understand,” says Di Dang, User Experience Lead at POP, Seattle. “Be intentional and deliberate about how you grab audience attention.”
VR is a storytelling superpower. No other medium has the quite the same potential to create empathy and drive human connection. Because viewers are for all intents and purposes living the experience, they walk away with that history coded into their memory banks—easily accessible for future responses.
Google’s latest VR experiment is teaching people how to make coffee — from techradar.com by Parker Wilhelm
All in a quest to see how effective learning in virtual reality is
Excerpt:
Teaching with a simulation is no new concept, but Google’s Daydream Labs wants to see exactly how useful virtual reality can be for teaching people practical skills.
In a recent experiment, Google ran a simulation of an interactive espresso machine in VR. From there, it had a group of people try their virtual hand at brewing a cup of java before being tasked to make the real thing.
Addendum on 7/26/17:
- A New World: VR and AR Tech Developments — from er.educause.edu by Emory Craig and Maya Georgieva
On 07/06/2017,
in 21st century, Adobe, digital audio, digital storytelling, digital video, emerging technologies, ethics, morals/values, multimedia, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
AI will make forging anything entirely too easy — from wired.com by Greg Allen
Excerpt:
Today, when people see a video of a politician taking a bribe, a soldier perpetrating a war crime, or a celebrity starring in a sex tape, viewers can safely assume that the depicted events have actually occurred, provided, of course, that the video is of a certain quality and not obviously edited.
But that world of truth—where seeing is believing—is about to be upended by artificial intelligence technologies.
We have grown comfortable with a future in which analytics, big data, and machine learning help us to monitor reality and discern the truth. Far less attention has been paid to how these technologies can also help us to lie. Audio and video forgery capabilities are making astounding progress, thanks to a boost from AI. In the future, realistic-looking and -sounding fakes will constantly confront people. Awash in audio, video, images, and documents, many real but some fake, people will struggle to know whom and what to trust.
Also referenced in the above article:
- Adobe prototypes ‘Photoshop for audio’ — from creativebloq.com by Craig Stewart
Project VoCo is a prototype with the ability to synthesise new speech, effectively rewriting what a speaker has said.
On 06/06/2017,
in Adobe, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, education technology, productivity / tips and tricks, tools,
by Daniel Christian
Adobe Scan can turn any document into an editable PDF (and it’s free!) — from interestingengineering.com
Excerpts:
Adobe is launching Adobe Scan, a brand new mobile application that makes converting paper documents to editable PDF files fast and simple.
…
To develop the app Adobe invested heavily in the company’s machine learning and AI platform, Sensai.
On 05/08/2017,
in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, Adobe, animation, art, assessment, attention, blogs / blogging / vlogging, change, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty, higher education, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, media/film, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new media literacies, passions, pedagogy, podcasting, project-based learning, real-world assignments, RSS, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, universities, using teams, vendors, web design and production, web-based collaboration, writing, youth,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC and Adobe — for faculty members and teachers out there:
Do your students an enormous favor by assigning them a digital communications project. Such a project could include images, infographics, illustrations, animations, videos, websites, blogs (with RSS feeds), podcasts, videocasts, mobile apps and more. Such outlets offer powerful means of communicating and demonstrating knowledge of a particular topic.
As Adobe mentions, when you teach your students how to create these types of media projects, you prepare them to be flexible and effective digital communicators. I would also add that these new forms and tools can be highly engaging, while at the same time, they can foster students’ creativity. Building new media literacy skills will pay off big time for your students. It will land them jobs. It will help them communicate to a global audience. Students can build upon these skills to powerfully communicate numerous kinds of messages in the future. They can be their own radio station. They can be their own TV station.
For more information, see this page out at Adobe.com.
From DSC:
This is where we may need more team-based approaches…because one person may not be able to create and grade/assess such assignments.
On 04/20/2017,
in A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, graphics, media/film, multimedia, student-related, television, tools, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
What’s New for Video and Audio (April 2017) | Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud Propels Video Forward at NAB 2017 — from news.adobe.com
Latest Release Features New Capabilities in AI, VR, Motion Graphics, Live Animation and Audio
Excerpt:
SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Ahead of the National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) conference, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced a major update for video in Adobe Creative Cloud to help filmmakers and video producers collaborate and streamline video workflows. The Creative Cloud release, available today, delivers new features for graphics and titling, animation, polishing audio and sharing assets; support for the latest video formats, such as HDR, VR and 4K; new integrations with Adobe Stock; and advanced artificial intelligence capabilities powered by Adobe Sensei. Announced at Adobe Summit 2017, Adobe Experience Cloud also allows brands to deliver connected video experiences across any screen at massive scale, while analyzing performance and monetizing ads.
Technology advancements and exploding consumer demand for impactful and personalized content require video producers to create, deliver and monetize their video assets faster than ever before. From the largest studio to next generation YouTubers, a scalable, end-to-end solution is required to create, collaborate and streamline video workflows with robust analytics and advertising tools to optimize content and drive more value.
Adobe Makes Big Leaps in Video, Just in Time for NAB — from blogs.adobe.com
Excerpt:
Next week, thousands of broadcasters, video producers and digital content lovers will gather for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual conference. Just in time for the event, Adobe is unveiling big updates to our video tools for graphics and titling, animation, and sharing assets; support for the latest formats including HDR, VR and 4K; lots of improvements to video workflows; and more power from Adobe Sensei, our artificial intelligence technology. It’s all part of a major Adobe CC product update available today.
“The newest Creative Cloud video release integrates the advanced science of Adobe Sensei to make common tasks faster and easier. All video producers – whether they’re part of the major media companies or up and coming YouTubers – can now bring their creative vision to life without having to be motion graphics or audio experts,” says Steven Warner, vice president of digital media at Adobe.
These are the latest features in After Effects CC 2017, available now — from provideocoalition.com by Mark Christiansen
Get up to date and up to speed with these additions & changes
[For a detailed overview, check back during NAB when the course After Effects CC 2017: New Features from LinkedIn Learning (otherwise known as Lynda.com) will be updated with everything that’s brand new as of today. This course will feature the examples depicted here in step-by-step detail.]
Adobe updates Premiere Pro CC for April 2017 — from provideocoalition.com by Scott Simmons
And instead of waiting months for the new CC versions they should be available soon, as in probably today
After Effects NAB 2017 Update — from provideocoalition.com by Chris and Trish Meyer
How to play nice(r) with Premiere Pro editors, as well as other updates
Also see:
