Instructional Design Careers and Freelancing Presentations — from christytuckerlearning.com by Christy Tucker
A collection of my presentations and podcasts on instructional design careers and freelancing, including transitioning from teaching to ID.
How to Handle Unusual Questions Asked During a Job Interview — from hongkiat.com by Singyin Lee
Learn the art of answering unconventional questions in job interviews.
Have you ever been in a job interview where you were thrown off by an unexpected question? Questions like, “Why is a manhole cover round?” or “What’s the most crucial part of a sandwich?” or even “What three items would you want if you were stranded on a deserted island?“
Rest assured, it’s unlikely that your job will require you to survive on a deserted island. So, why do interviewers ask such perplexing questions? The truth is, these questions serve a purpose, and it’s not necessarily to hear your answer.
What recruiters are really interested in is what your responses reveal about your character and problem-solving abilities.
Also important and related to one’s career development, see:
Corporate America Promised to Hire a Lot More People of Color. — from bloomberg.com
It Actually Did.
The year after Black Lives Matter protests, the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs — 94% went to people of color.
The overall job growth included 20,524 White workers. The other 302,570 jobs — or 94% of the headcount increase — went to people of color.
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But the trend continued up the job ladder in top, high-paid jobs, too: Companies increased their racial diversity among executives, managers and professionals.
For another item relevant to career development, see:
Next, The Future of Work is… Intersections — from linkedin.com by Gary A. Bolles; via Roberto Ferraro
So much of the way that we think about education and work is organized into silos. Sure, that’s one way to ensure a depth of knowledge in a field and to encourage learners to develop mastery. But it also leads to domains with strict boundaries. Colleges are typically organized into school sub-domains, managed like fiefdoms, with strict rules for professors who can teach in different schools.
Yet it’s at the intersections of seemingly-disparate domains where breakthrough innovation can occur.
Maybe intersections bring a greater chance of future work opportunity, because that young person can increase their focus in one arena or another as they discover new options for work — and because this is what meaningful work in the future is going to look like.
From DSC:
This posting strikes me as an endorsement for interdisciplinary degrees. I agree with much of this. It’s just hard to find the right combination of disciplines. But I supposed that depends upon the individual student and what he/she is passionate or curious about.
Speaking of the future of work, also see:
Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
I think we have an answer on whether AIs will reshape work…
A lot of people have been asking if AI is really a big deal for the future of work. We have a new paper that strongly suggests the answer is YES.
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Consultants using AI finished 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25.1% more quickly, and produced 40% higher quality results than those without. Those are some very big impacts. Now, let’s add in the nuance.
Ask the Chair: Are Great Chairs Born or Made? — from chronicle.com by Kevin Dettmar (behind a paywall)
Higher education is finally getting serious about training new department heads.
Great chairs aren’t born, but made; “trial and error” isn’t actually a professional-development strategy. The provost and deans should recognize that a confident and competent chair makes their job easier, creates a well-functioning department, and buoys faculty, student, and staff morale.
As someone vitally engaged with the chair’s role, I do think we are experiencing a sea-change when it comes to how institutions are preparing chairs. For too long, colleges have treated the position as simply a minor cog in the chain of command. But more and more institutions are now investing in their chairs.
An excerpt from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ posting from Brandon Busteed on LinkedIn:
6. Create externship programs for faculty. Many college and university faculty have never worked outside of academia. Given a chance to be exposed to modern workplaces and work challenges, faculty will find innovative and creative ways to weave more work-integrated learning into their curriculum.
From DSC:
This is a great idea — thanks Brandon!
I might add another couple of thoughts here as well:
Which Way to the Fitting Room? — from michelleweise.substack.com by Dr. Michelle R. Weise
Trying on the Jobs of the Future
What if there was a way in which we could try on different careers and pathways? What if there was such a thing as a career pathway fitting room so that we could better understand the direction we might want to pursue before we make an investment or take out a loan?
One venture-backed company called Springpod has made this challenge its central focus: Helping more people not choose the wrong career or pathway. In its current formation in the UK (Springpod is now branching out to the state of Rhode Island), over 400,000 British middle and high school learners can try a “course taster,” or 10 to 15 hours of a university course from an array of universities (1/3 of the postsecondary institutions in the UK offer a course spotlight on Springpod). Alternatively, a learner can try a one- to two-hour work-based learning experience with one of the 200 employers featured on the platform.
From DSC:
Speaking of finding out more about careers, I haven’t yet checked this program out, but we would like our youngest daughter to watch some of its episodes:
Real Life 101 — from amazon.com
Ever wondered what you might want to do for the rest of your life? Have you thought about your “dream” job? Do you have any idea what it takes to get there? Are you headed in the right direction? Real Life 101 takes you “on the job” so you can see for yourself why these professionals love what they do.
Future of Work Report AI at Work — from economicgraph.linkedin.com; via Superhuman
The intersection of AI and the world of work: Not only are job postings increasing, but we’re seeing more LinkedIn members around the globe adding AI skills to their profiles than ever before. We’ve seen a 21x increase in the share of global English-language job postings that mention new AI technologies such as GPT or ChatGPT since November 2022. In June 2023, the number of AI-skilled members was 9x larger than in January 2016, globally.
The state of play of Generative AI (GAI) in the workforce: GAI technologies, including ChatGPT, are poised to start to change the way we work. In fact, 47% of US executives believe that using generative AI will increase productivity, and 92% agree that people skills are more important than ever. This means jobs won’t necessarily go away but they will change as will the skills necessary to do them.
Also relevant/see:
The Working Future: More Human, Not Less — from bain.com
It’s time to change how we think about work
Contents
A TV show with no ending — from joinsuperhuman.ai by Zain Kahn
ALSO: Turbocharged GPT is here
We’re standing on the cusp of artificially generated content that could theoretically never end. According to futurist Sinéad Bovell, “Generative artificial intelligence also means that say we don’t want a movie or a series to end. It doesn’t have to, you could use AI to continue to generate more episodes and other sequels and have this kind of ongoing storyline.”
If we take this logic further, we could also see hyper-personalized content that’s created just for us. Imagine getting an AI generated album from your favourite artist every week. Or a brand new movie starring actors who are no longer alive, like a new romcom with Marylin Monroe and Frank Sinatra.
While this sounds like a compelling proposition for consumers, it’s mostly bad news for actors, writers, and other professionals working in the media industry. Hollywood studios are already investing heavily in generative AI, and many professionals working in the industry are afraid to lose their jobs.
Letter from the Editor: Experienced teachers are leaving Michigan schools. This is why. — from mlive.com by Matthew Miller
They talked instead about issues like pay, stress and the sense that they no longer had the solid backing of school administrators.
Sue Harper, who retired this summer from Kreeger Elementary in Fowlerville, blamed what she called “bulldozer parents.”
…
“I have never been one to quit anything, and teaching is my passion, but this is not teaching,” one teacher wrote. “This is hours of endless paperwork, this is social work, this is counseling, this is parenting, this is babysitting, this is coaching, this is everything but teaching.”
Also relevant/see:
Low pay, culture wars, and ‘bulldozer parents.’ Why Michigan’s best teachers are calling it quits. — from mlive.com by Melissa Frick and Matthew Miller
Now a change management coordinator for Fifth Third Bank, she said, “I don’t take the stress from my job home. I don’t feel guilty, like I always could be doing more for someone.”
Thousands of experienced teachers have retired or left the profession in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic first closed schools and shifted classes to Zoom.
Teachers say they’re burnt out, tired of a lack of support and lack of respect, feeling the impact of the increasingly acrimonious politics surrounding public education.
And finally:
Let’s Use ChatGPT to ‘Think Different’ About K-12 Schools — from gettingsmart.com by Kara Stern
So, in addition to asking ChatGPT to think like a school communications professional, a principal, or a teacher, what if we asked ChatGPT to think like the populations we’re serving, as a way of improving the education (or UX) we’re delivering?
Why I Keep Teaching — from edutopia.org by Rachel Jorgensen
A veteran educator explains why, despite the many challenges, she continues to try to change students’ lives, in turn enriching her own.
EVERY TIME I SHOW UP FOR WORK, A STUDENT MIGHT CHANGE MY LIFE FOR THE BETTER
EVERY TIME I SHOW UP FOR WORK, A STUDENT MIGHT CHANGE MY LIFE FOR THE BETTER
MY WORK HAS INVISIBLE RIPPLE EFFECTS
34 Ways to Quiet a Rambunctious Class — from edutopia.org by Daniel Leonard
From “Silent 20” to imaginary marshmallows, these teacher-tested strategies for all grade levels can help you snap an unruly classroom back to attention.
Per EdSurge:
‘THE MOTH’ GOES TO SCHOOL: For more than a decade, the nonprofit behind the popular storytelling podcast The Moth has run workshops in schools to help students share impactful stories from their lives. Now the group started a spin-off podcast, Grown, highlighting those student stories. Here’s what they’re learning, and why they say storytelling needs to be taught in schools.
The Power of Storytelling for Youth https://t.co/5OyBarJtQp #edtech via @EdSurge
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 25, 2023
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DC: This article is behind a paywall so I couldn’t read it…but I think we need more *fixes/overhauls* and less coping.
More student centered; less legislative/administration centered. https://t.co/MsEe7058XV
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 25, 2023
ElevenLabs’ AI Voice Generator Can Now Fake Your Voice in 30 Languages — from gizmodo.com by Kyle Barr
ElevenLabs said its AI voice generator is out of beta, saying it would support video game and audiobook creators with cheap audio.
According to ElevenLabs, the new Multilingual v2 model promises it can produce “emotionally rich” audio in a total of 30 languages. The company offers two AI voice tools, one is a text-to-speech model and the other is the “VoiceLab” that lets paying users clone a voice by inputting fragments of theirs (or others) speech into the model to create a kind of voice cone. With the v2 model, users can get these generated voices to start speaking in Greek, Malay, or Turkish.
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Since then, ElevenLabs claims its integrated new measures to ensure users can only clone their own voice. Users need to verify their speech with a text captcha prompt which is then compared to the original voice sample.
From DSC:
I don’t care what they say regarding safeguards/proof of identity/etc. This technology has been abused and will be abused in the future. We can count on it. The question now is, how do we deal with it?
Introducing SeamlessM4T, the first all-in-one, multilingual multimodal translation model.
This single model can perform tasks across speech-to-text, speech-to-speech, text-to-text translation & speech recognition for up to 100 languages depending on the task.
Details ??
— Meta AI (@MetaAI) August 22, 2023
Google, Amazon, Nvidia and other tech giants invest in AI startup Hugging Face, sending its valuation to $4.5 billion — from cnbc.com by Kif Leswing
But Hugging Face produces a platform where AI developers can share code, models, data sets, and use the company’s developer tools to get open-source artificial intelligence models running more easily. In particular, Hugging Face often hosts weights, or large files with lists of numbers, which are the heart of most modern AI models.
While Hugging Face has developed some models, like BLOOM, its primary product is its website platform, where users can upload models and their weights. It also develops a series of software tools called libraries that allow users to get models working quickly, to clean up large datasets, or to evaluate their performance. It also hosts some AI models in a web interface so end users can experiment with them.
The global semiconductor talent shortage — from www2.deloitte.com
How to solve semiconductor workforce challenges
Numerous skills are required to grow the semiconductor ecosystem over the next decade. Globally, we will need tens of thousands of skilled tradespeople to build new plants to increase and localize manufacturing capacity: electricians, pipefitters, welders; thousands more graduate electrical engineers to design chips and the tools that make the chips; more engineers of various kinds in the fabs themselves, but also operators and technicians. And if we grow the back end in Europe and the Americas, that equates to even more jobs.
Each of these job groups has distinct training and educational needs; however, the number of students in semiconductor-focused programs (for example, undergraduates in semiconductor design and fabrication) has dwindled. Skills are also evolving within these job groups, in part due to automation and increased digitization. Digital skills, such as cloud, AI, and analytics, are needed in design and manufacturing more than ever.
The chip industry has long partnered with universities and engineering schools. Going forward, they also need to work more with local tech schools, vocational schools, and community colleges; and other organizations, such as the National Science Foundation in the United States.
Our principles for partnering with the music industry on AI technology — from blog.youtube (Google) by Neal Mohan, CEO, YouTube
AI is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners.
Developers are now using AI for text-to-music apps — from techcrunch.com by Ivan Mehta
Brett Bauman, the developer of PlayListAI (previously LinupSupply), launched a new app called Songburst on the App Store this week. The app doesn’t have a steep learning curve. You just have to type in a prompt like “Calming piano music to listen to while studying” or “Funky beats for a podcast intro” to let the app generate a music clip.
If you can’t think of a prompt the app has prompts in different categories, including video, lo-fi, podcast, gaming, meditation and sample.
A Generative AI Primer — from er.educause.edu by Brian Basgen
Understanding the current state of technology requires understanding its origins. This reading list provides sources relevant to the form of generative AI that led to natural language processing (NLP) models such as ChatGPT.
Three big questions about AI and the future of work and learning — from workshift.opencampusmedia.org by Alex Swartsel
AI is set to transform education and work today and well into the future. We need to start asking tough questions right now, writes Alex Swartsel of JFF.
“As AI reshapes both the economy and society, we must collectively call for better data, increased accountability, and more flexible support for workers,” Swartsel writes.
The Current State of AI for Educators (August, 2023) — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
A podcast interview with the University of Toronto on where we’re at & where we’re going.
In solitary confinement, your neighbors are your teachers. — from opencampusmedia.org by Charlotte West
Kwaneta Harris, who is incarcerated in Texas, writes about helping the young women who live next to her in solitary confinement learn how to read. This essay was co-published with Slate.
San Quentin is helping men prepare for jobs outside — from college-inside.beehiiv.com by Charlotte West
I visited Employer Day at San Quentin, where 30 incarcerated men sit down with Bay Area employers and apply what they learned during a four-month job readiness program.
Job interviews can be daunting, especially if you’ve never done one before. But even more so if you’ve been incarcerated. I visited Employer Day at San Quentin in March to learn more.
