These affordances are just now starting to be uncovered as machines are increasingly able to ascertain patterns, things, objects…even people (which calls for a separate posting at some point).
But mainly, for today, I wanted to highlight an excellent comment/reply from Nikos Andriotis @ Talent LMS who gave me permission to highlight hissolid reflections and ideas:
From DSC: Excellent reflection/idea Nikos — that would represent some serious personalized, customized learning!
Nikos’ innovative reflections also made me think about his ideas in light of their interaction or impact with web-based learner profiles, credentialing, badging, and lifelong learning. What’s especially noteworthy here is that the innovations (that impact learning) continue to occur mainly in the online and blended learning spaces.
How might the ramifications of these innovations impact institutions who are pretty much doing face-to-face only (in terms of their course delivery mechanisms and pedagogies)?
Given:
That Microsoft purchased LinkedIn and can amass a database of skills and open jobs (playing a cloud-based matchmaker)
Everyday microlearning is key to staying relevant (RSS feeds and tapping into “streams of content” are important here, and so is the use of Twitter)
Teachers at Coppell Independent School District have become the first to use a new IBM and Apple technology platform built to aid personalized learning.
IBM Watson Element for Educators pairs IBM analytics and data tools such as cognitive computing with Apple design. It integrates student grades, interests, participation, and trends to help educators determine how a student learns best, the company says.
…
It also recommends learning content personalized to each student. The platform might suggest a reading assignment on astronomy for a young student who has shown an interest in space.
From DSC: Technologies involved with systems like IBM’s Watson will likely bring some serious impact to the worlds of education and training & development. Such systems — and the affordances that they should be able to offer us — should not be underestimated. The potential for powerful, customized, personalized learning could easily become a reality in K-20 as well as in the corporate training space. This is an area to keep an eye on for sure, especially with the growing influence of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence.
These kinds of technology should prove helpful in suggesting modules and courses (i.e., digital learning playlists), but I think the more powerful systems will be able to drill down far more minutely than that. I think these types of systems will be able to assist with all kinds of math problems and equations as well as analyze writing examples, correct language mispronunciations, and more (perhaps this is already here…apologies if so). In other words, the systems will “learn” where students can go wrong doing a certain kind of math equation…and then suggest steps to correct things when the system spots a mistake (or provide hints at how to correct mistakes).
This road takes us down to places where we have:
Web-based learner profiles — including learner’s preferences, passions, interests, skills
Microlearning/badging/credentialing — likely using blockchain
Learning agents/bots to “contact” for assistance
Guidance for lifelong learning
More choice, more control
Also see:
First IBM Watson Education App for iPad Delivers Personalized Learning for K-12 Teachers and Students — from prnewswire.com Educators at Coppell Independent School District in Texas first to use new iPad app to tailor learning experiences to student’s interests and aptitudes
Excerpts: With increasing demands on educators, teachers need tools that will enable them to better identify the individual needs of all students while designing learning experiences that engage and hold the students’ interest as they master the content. This is especially critical given that approximately one third of American students require remedial education when they enter college today, and current college attainment rates are not keeping pace with the country’s projected workforce needs1. A view of academic and day-to-day updates in real time can help teachers provide personalized support when students need it.
…
IBM Watson Element provides teachers with a holistic view of each student through a fun, easy-to-use and intuitive mobile experience that is a natural extension of their work. Teachers can get to know their students beyond their academic performance, including information about personal interests and important milestones students choose to share. For example, teachers can input notes when a student’s highly anticipated soccer match is scheduled, when another has just been named president for the school’s World Affairs club, and when another has recently excelled following a science project that sparked a renewed interest in chemistry.The unique “spotlight” feature in Watson Element provides advanced analytics that enables deeper levels of communication between teachers about their students’ accomplishments and progress. For example, if a student is excelling academically, teachers can spotlight that student, praising their accomplishments across the school district. Or, if a student received a top award in the district art show, a teacher can spotlight the student so their other teachers know about it.
A new kind of credential has entered the crowded market for online learning.
EdX, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that provides online courses, announced last week the creation of 19 “MicroMasters” courses, a new type of online educational program. These courses are tailored master’s degree-level classes that can help students hone skills that will be immediately useful in the workplace.
“I think the MicroMasters is a big next step in the evolution of education,” Anant Agarwal, the CEO of edX and an MIT professor, said in an interview last week.
These courses – offered through 14 universities including Columbia, Arizona State University and the University of Michigan, as well as some in Australia, Europe and India – are open to anyone who wants to take them. No transcripts or prerequisites required. Students don’t even need a GED to enroll.
Anyone can learn in the MicroMasters program for free, although those who wish to receive a certificate of completion must pay a $1,000 fee. That money gives the student more than a piece of paper; it also pays for extra services, such as more attention from the instructor.
Also somewhat related/see (emphasis DSC):
An Online Education Breakthrough? A Master’s Degree for a Mere $7,000 — from nytimes.com by Kevin Carey Excerpt:
Georgia Tech rolled out its online master’s in computer science in 2014. It already had a highly selective residential master’s program that cost about the same as those of competitor colleges. Some may see online learning as experimental or inferior, something associated with downmarket for-profit colleges. But the nation’s best universities have fully embraced it. Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, U.S.C. and others have also developed online master’s degrees, for which they charge the same tuition as their residential programs.Georgia Tech decided to do something different. It charges online students the smallest amount necessary to cover its costs. That turned out to be $510 for a three-credit class. U.S.C.chargesonline students $5,535 for a three-credit class. (Both programs also charge small per-semester fees.)
With one of the top 10 computer science departments in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report, Georgia Tech had a reputation to uphold. So it made the online program as much like the residential program as possible.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the launch of LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform enabling individuals and organizations to achieve their objectives and aspirations. Our goal is to help people discover and develop the skills they need through a personalized, data-driven learning experience.
LinkedIn Learning combines the industry-leading content from Lynda.com with LinkedIn’s professional data and network. With more than 450 million member profiles and billions of engagements, we have a unique view of how jobs, industries, organizations and skills evolve over time. From this, we can identify the skills you need and deliver expert-led courses to help you obtain those skills. We’re taking the guesswork out of learning.
The pressure on individuals and organizations to adapt to change has never been greater. The skills that got you to where you are today are not the skills to prepare you for tomorrow. In fact, the shelf-life of skills is less than five years, and many of today’s fastest growing job categories didn’t even exist five years ago.
To tackle these challenges, LinkedIn Learning is built on three core pillars:
… Data-driven personalization: We get the right course in front of you at the right time.Using the intelligence that comes with our network, LinkedIn Learning creates personalized recommendations, so learners can efficiently discover which courses are most relevant to their goals or job function. Organizations can use LinkedIn insights to customize multi-course Learning Paths to meet their specific needs. We also provide robust analytics and reporting to help you measure learning effectiveness.
Today, LinkedIn has launched LinkedIn Learning — its first major product launch since the news last June that Microsoft would be snapping up the social network for $26.2 billion in a deal that has yet to close.
Companies will also be able to create their own “learning paths”—bundles of courses around a particular topic—to train employees. A chief learning officer, for instance, might compile a package of courses in product management and ask 10 employees to complete the assignments over the course of a few months.
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LinkedIn is also targeting higher-education institutions with the new offering. It is marketing the solution as a professional development tool that can help faculty learn how to use classroom tools such as Moodle, Adobe Captivate and learning management systems.
“Increasingly predictions of tech displacing workers are coming to fruition,” he added. “The idea that you can study a skill once and have a job for the rest of your life—those days are over.”
LinkedIn is also adding more personalized features to its news feed, where members can see articles and announcements posted by their professional contacts. A new “Interest Feed” will offer a collection of articles, posts and opinion pieces on major news events or current issues.
From DSC: I inserted a [could] in the title, as I don’t think we’re there yet. That said, I don’t see chatbots, personal assistants, and the use of AI going away any time soon. This should be on our radars from here on out. Chatbots could easily be assigned some heavy lifting duties within K-20 education as well as in the corporate world; but even then, we’ll still need excellent teachers, professors, and trainers/subject matter experts out there. I don’t see anyone being replaced at this point.
Excerpt:
As the equity gap in American education continues, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been urging educators, investors and tech companies to be more open in investing time and money in artificial intelligence-driven education technology programs. The reason? Gates believed that these AI-based EdTech platforms could personalize and revolutionize school learning experience while eliminating the equity gap.
The Motivation, Revision and Announcement bots each perform respective functions that are intended to help students master exams.
The Motivation bot, for instance, “keeps students motivated with reminders, social support, and other means,” while the Revision bot “helps students to best understand ways to improve their work” and the Announcement bot “tells students how much studying they need to do based on the amount of time available.”
Machine learning is best defined as the transition from feeding the computer with programs containing specific instructions in the forms of step-by-step rules or algorithms to feeding the computer with algorithms that can “learn” from data and can make inferences “on their own.” The computer is “trained” by data which is labeled or classified based on previous outcomes, and its software algorithms “learn” how to predict the classification of new data that is not labeled or classified. For example, after a period of training in which the computer is presented with spam and non-spam email messages, a good machine learning program will successfully identify, (i.e., predict,) which email message is spam and which is not without human intervention. In addition to spam filtering, machine learning has been applied successfully to problems such as hand-writing recognition, machine translation, fraud detection, and product recommendations.
From DSC: How much longer before the functionalities that are found in tools like Bluescape & Mural are available via tvOS-based devices? Entrepreneurs and VCs out there, take note. Given:
the growth of freelancing and people working from home and/or out on the road
the need for people to collaborate over a distance
the growth of online learning
the growth of active/collaborative learning spaces in K-12 and higher ed
the need for lifelong learning
…this could be a lucrative market. Also, it would be meaningful work…knowing that you are helping people learn and earn.
Edtech is furthering the reaches of education, which is now available to more people in more remote areas for less money as a result. MOOCs from leading universities around the world have reached thousands of learners in developing countries. But for one demographic, even in the most developed countries, these benefits have not been felt. Mobilising tech to teach people behind bars will reduce the risk of prisoners reoffending, hence reducing the burden on prisons. It will also help prisoners to contribute to society productively when they are set free. Recently, slowly, this is starting to change.
The benefits of education and computer-assisted learning in prisons were laid out in 2013 through a frequently cited RAND report. Edovo CEO, Brian Hill describes this potential as “by far the greatest shift in corrections and the most significant step forward” for prison education.
From DSC:
I read the article mentioned below. It made me wonder how 3 of the 4 main highlights that Fred mentioned (that are coming to Siri with tvOS 10) might impact education/training/learning-related applications and offerings made possible via tvOS & Apple TV:
Live broadcasts
Topic-based searches
The ability to search YouTube via Siri
The article prompted me to wonder:
Will educators and trainers be able to offer live lectures and training (globally) that can be recorded and later searched via Siri?
What if second screen devices could help learners collaborate and participate in active learning while watching what’s being presented on the main display/”TV?”
What if learning taken this way could be recorded on one’s web-based profile, a profile that is based upon blockchain-based technologies and maintained via appropriate/proven organizations of learning? (A profile that’s optionally made available to services from Microsoft/LinkedIn.com/Lynda.com and/or to a service based upon IBM’s Watson, and/or to some other online-based marketplace/exchange for matching open jobs to potential employees.)
Or what if you could earn a badge or prove a competency via this manner?
Hmmm…things could get very interesting…and very powerful.
More choice. More control. Over one’s entire lifetime.
The forthcoming update to Apple TV continues to bring fresh surprises for owners of Apple’s set top box. Many improvements are coming to tvOS 10, including single-sign-on support and an upgrade to Siri’s capabilities. Siri has already opened new doors thanks to the bundled Siri Remote, which simplifies many functions on the Apple TV interface. Four main highlights are coming to Siri with tvOS 10, which is expected to launch this fall.
CBS today announced the launch of an all-new Apple TV app that will center around the network’s always-on, 24-hour “CBSN” streaming network and has been designed exclusively for tvOS. In addition to the live stream of CBSN, the app curates news stories and video playlists for each user based on previously watched videos.
The new app will also take advantage of the 4th generation Apple TV’s deep Siri integration, allowing users to tell Apple’s personal assistant that they want to “Watch CBS News” to immediately start a full-screen broadcast of CBSN. While the stream is playing, users can interact with other parts of the app to browse related videos, bookmark some to watch later, and begin subscribing to specific playlists and topics.
The Department of Education announced today 67 colleges and universities selected to participate in the new Second Chance Pell pilot program, an experiment announced in July 2015 to test whether participation in high quality education programs increases after expanding access to financial aid for incarcerated individuals. The pilot program will allow eligible incarcerated Americans to receive Pell Grants and pursue postsecondary education with the goal of helping them get jobs and support their families when they are released. Today’s announcement builds on the Obama Administration’s commitment to create a fairer and more effective criminal justice system, reduce recidivism, and combat the impact of mass incarceration on families and communities through educational opportunity.
We’re embracing the bot revolution With these limitations in mind, we embrace the bot movement. In short, having our bite-sized courses delivered via messaging platforms will open up a lot of new benefits for our users.
The courses will become social.
It will become easier to consume a course via a channel that fits best for the course.
The courses will become more interactive.
Bots will remove some of the friction
The future of online learning will happen via messaging services.
Also relevant here:
From DSC: By posting such items, I’m not advocating that we remove teachers, professors, trainers, coaches, etc. from the education/training equations. Rather, I am advocating that we use technology as tools for educating and training people — and using technologies to help people of all ages grow, and reinvent themselves when necessary. Such tools should be used to help our overworked teachers, professors, trainers, etc. of the world in delivering excellent, effective elearning experiences for our students/employees.
Today [6/13/16] we are excited to share that LinkedIn has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft. We are joining forces with Microsoft to realize a common mission to empower people and organizations. LinkedIn’s vision – to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce – is not changing and our members still come first.
Our companies are the world’s leading professional cloud and network. This deal will allow us to keep growing, investing in and innovating on LinkedIn to drive value for our members and our customers. Our members will continue to develop their skills, find a job and be great at that job, using our platform. We will continue to help our customers hire top talent, market their brand, and sell to their customers.
From DSC: It’s interesting to reflect upon what this acquisition could mean and what it could bring to the workplace/career development table.
LinkedIn.com purchased/acquired Lynda.com (announced in April 2015), a growing/thriving (online-based learning) training and development company who can deliver lifelong learning and credentials to people…which continues to help people reinvent themselves.
LinkedIn.com is working on an economic graph, a digital mapping of the global economy…building a database/marketplace of job openings and people who can fill those jobs.
What is the Economic Graph?
The Economic Graph is, in short, a digital mapping of the global economy. It will include a profile for every one of the 3 billion members of the global workforce, enabling them to represent their professional identity and subsequently find and realize their most valuable opportunities. It will include a profile for every company in the world, who you know at those companies up to three degrees to help you get your foot in the door, and the product and services those companies offer to enable you to be more productive and successful. It will digitally represent every economic opportunity offered by those companies, full-time, temporary and volunteer, and every skill required to obtain those opportunities. It will include a digital presence for every higher education organization in the world that can help members obtain those skills. And it will overlay the professionally relevant knowledge of every one of those individuals, companies, and universities to the extent that they want to publicly share it. Learn more about the Economic Graph and join the discussion.
Now Microsoft is purchasing/acquiring LinkedIn.com and the data/endeavors/technologies/platforms LinkedIn.com has been working on.
(Add to that the fact that Microsoft has been working on artificial intelligence (AI), personal assistants (i.e., Cortana). It has been working on other forms of HCI as well, such as HoloLens.)
Therefore, some questions come to my mind:
Will the purchase of LinkedIn.com now add a potentially huge new reason to choose their platform/ecosystem as well? In fact, Microsoft could be expanding their platform/ecosystem — or creating a new platform — to take advantage of using AI, personal assistants, and big data to play the ultimate match maker in the workplace.
Will freelancers utilize their services to find work? (The use of freelancing continues to grow; already in the mid-30 percents of the American workforce now.)
Will Microsoft be a source of cloud-based learner profiles?
Will Microsoft now get into the credentialing business? Will Microsoft employ blockchain-based technologies? (Higher ed, take note if so.)
How will badges/badging play into this platform?
Will Microsoft work with companies to offer assessments into whether person A can be successful in position B?
He said that buy buying LinkedIn’s professional network:
“It helps us differentiate our CRM product with social selling. It helps us take Dynamics into new spaces like human capital management with recruiting, and learning, and talent management.”
He later told analysts that connecting LinkedIn data with Dynamics [Microsoft’s suite of business management software] is “where the magic starts to happen.”
Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world.It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional’s information in LinkedIn’s public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete. As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow.And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising.
When designing a program or product, many education leaders and ed-tech developers want to start with the best knowledge available on how students learn. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
Although thousands of academic articles are published every year, busy education leaders and product developers often don’t know where to start, or don’t have time to sift through and find studies that are relevant to their work. As pressure mounts for “evidence-based” practices and “research-based” products, many in the education community are frustrated, and want an easier way to find information that will help them deliver stronger programs and products — and results. We need better tools to help make research more accessible for everyday work in education.
The Digital Promise Research Map meets this need by connecting education leaders and product developers with research from thousands of articles in education and the learning sciences, along with easy-to-understand summaries on some of the most relevant findings in key research topics.
From DSC:
Below are some questions and thoughts that are going through my mind:
Will “class be in session” soon on tools like Prysm & Bluescape?
Will this type of setup be the next platform that we’ll use to meet our need to be lifelong learners? That is, will what we know of today as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Content Management Systems (CMS) morph into this type of setup?
Via platforms/operating systems like tvOS, will our connected TVs turn into much more collaborative devices, allowing us to contribute content with learners from all over the globe?
Prysm is already available on mobile devices and what we consider a television continues to morph
Will second and third screens be used in such setups? What functionality will be assigned to the main/larger screens? To the mobile devices?
Will colleges and universities innovate into such setups? Or will organizations like LinkedIn.com/Lynda.com lead in this space? Or will it be a bit of both?
How will training, learning and development groups leverage these tools/technologies?
Are there some opportunities for homeschoolers here?
Along these lines, are are some videos/images/links for you:
To enhance the Prysm Visual Workplace, Prysm today announced an integration with Microsoft OneDrive for Business and Office 365. Using the OneDrive for Business API from Microsoft, Prysm has made it easy for customers to connect Prysm to their existing OneDrive for Business environments to make it a seamless experience for end users to access, search for, and sync with content from OneDrive for Business. Within a Prysm Visual Workplace project, users may now access, work within and download content from Office 365 using Prysm’s built-in web capabilities.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
