Daniel S. Christian

The Short-term Credentials Landscape — from newamerica.org by Monique O. Ositelu, PhD, Clare McCann, and Amy Laitinen
What We See and What Remains Unseen

Abstract

Given the rapid growth in short-term programs, and policymakers’ fast-growing interest to invest federal higher education dollars into very-short-term credentials, we explore what the research does—and does not— show us about such credentials’ utility in the labor market. With concerns about equity, our review of the literature guides us towards caution, as a strong push for short-term certificates may run the risk of reifying socioeconomic stratification.

From DSC:
I wonder…will accreditation move towards the use of crowd-sourced methods? Similar to rating one’s driver or one’s experience with a product, will microcredentials get into more reviews and recommendations from the users of various learning/training-related sites and services?

Will users of a service comment on whether the credential helped them (with a salary increase, with practical knowledge, with an expanded scope of projects at work, etc.)?

2 Chronicles 10 (NIV) — from biblegateway.com (emphasis DSC)

Excerpt:

10 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. ²When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. ³So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and all Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: ⁴“Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days.” So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.

⁷They replied, “If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”

⁸But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. ⁹He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him replied, “The people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. ¹¹My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”

12 Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.” 13 The king answered them harshly. Rejecting the advice of the elders, 14 he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”

From DSC:
The new, younger king didn’t listen to the older, more experienced people (i.e., the elders) who had worked with King Solomon (a king who reigned over a united Israel for 40 years…and a person whom the Bible says was the wisest king of all time). Instead the younger king sought the counsel of his younger peers and went with that advice. This led to Rehoboam’s downfall — at least in terms of keeping a strong, united Israel. He was only a king of a much smaller kingdom due to his decision and actions.

What might the youth of today learn from this? How might entrepreneurs learn from this? What might companies like Google, Facebook, and others learn from this? How might this impact how we go about developing the culture of a company? What’s valued and what’s not valued?

There are probably different lessons one can learn from 2 Chronicles Chapter 10. But here’s one example that comes to my mind…

…just because we can…

…doesn’t mean we should.

Michigan appeals to former teachers as districts face ‘dire’ shortage — from mlive.com by Kayla Miller

Kindergarten teacher Melissa Sanborn instructs students…Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020 at Cook Elementary School in Grand Blanc. (Jake May | MLive.com) Jake May | MLive.com

Excerpt:

Looking ahead to August, Beecher Community School District is expecting to be short about a quarter of their needed teaching staff for the 2021-22 school year.

The Flint-area district is one of many schools across Michigan fighting to keep educators in classrooms amid a statewide teacher shortage. The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) is now appealing to former teachers to get recertified and back to work.
…
David Crim, spokesperson for the Michigan Education Association, said multiple factors are keeping people from pursuing teaching and forcing young teachers to leave the profession.

“There’s no respect for teachers, no respect for the profession and poor compensation,” Crim said. “We have the perfect storm.”

From DSC:
It feels like there are major changes occurring throughout the K-12 learning ecosystems out there. It will be interesting to see what shakes out from this period of disruption.

By the way, those with little respect for teachers clearly have never taught themselves. Teaching is a very difficult profession. You try providing personalized learning to 25-30+ students at a time. Once you begin to scratch the surface, you’re retiring. We need to continue to try to share our knowledge, learnings, effective pedagogies/research, growth, tools, contacts, and more to help the next generation of teachers, students, administrators, and leaders.

Personally, I would like to see teachers have far more agency themselves. Don’t straight jacket them so much with standardized testing every ___ weeks/months. And allow more choice and control for the students (where possible). And allow the damn trains to slow down and/or vary their pace — allow them to stop if necessary for a student or a group of students.

K-12 education in America is a like a quickly moving train that stops for no one.

I don’t see real personalized learning occurring until more technologies get involved/integrated into the classrooms out there — things like learner preferences, cloud-based learner profiles, AI and more.

One wonders what this type of tech will do for online-based learning, &/or hybrid/blended learning, &/or hyflex-based learning in the future [Christian]

On 05/24/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, disruption, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, law schools, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, platforms, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, society, student-related, telecommunications, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, TVs, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual courts and law firms, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, vocational / trades, web-based collaboration, webinars, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
It will be interesting to see — post Covid19 — how vendors and their platforms continue to develop to allow for even greater degrees of web-based collaboration. I recently saw this item re: what Google is doing with their Project Starline. Very interesting indeed. Google is trying to make it so that the other person feels like they are in the same space with you.

.
Time will tell what occurs in this space...but one does wonder what this type of technology will do for online-based learning, and/or hybrid/blended learning, and/or hyflex-based learning in the future…?

What if we could create these kinds of calendars and/or apps for faculty & staff as well as for students? [Christian]

On 05/10/2021, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Augmented Reality (AR), Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, multimedia, new media literacies, online learning, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, United States, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

What if we could create these kinds of calendars and/or apps for faculty and staff as well as for students? — idea from Daniel Christian. The vehicles could be developed as analog/physical formats or in digital formats and apps. In the digital realm, one could receive a daily notification.

For faculty/staff:

Teaching and learning tips; pedagogies (flipped learning, active learning, etc.); ideas that have worked well for others
Creative experiments to try (such as digital storytelling or with an emerging technology such as AR, MR, or VR)
Tips & tricks re: tools within the learning ecosystem of one’s organization
How to make digital content that’s accessible
Items re: bias, diversity, equity & inclusion
Dates to be aware of (for processes on one’s LMS/CMS as an example)
Notes of encouragement and/or humor
Links to key resources
Other

[The Corporate Training / L&D world could do this as well.]

An example of what a page might contain within a physical flip calendar

A calendar page that says Memory if the residue of thought.

Example calendar page that states when courses will be published on an LMS

For students

Studying tips
How to take courses online
How people learn
Resources, books, people to follow on Twitter, blogs and RSS feeds, etc.
Pictures of judges, legislative bodies, law offices, corporate HQs, other
Notes of encouragement
Ethics
Professionalism
Other

A very sharp learning space and my thoughts on this record-setting drone display

On 05/06/2021, in A/V -- audio/visual, Africa, Asia, Daniel S. Christian, Europe, ideas, innovation, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, society, the downsides of how people use tech, UK, vendors, by Daniel Christian

A couple of items from the May 2021 Inavate edition:

A very sharp learning space right here!

DC: While I think this is really sharp for large events that are held every so often (like large concerts or 4th of July events in the U.S.), I don’t want to walk out my front door to see that the skies have become billboards.https://t.co/zv80dO6F5T pic.twitter.com/wVFb7nK2F3

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) May 5, 2021

Faculty and Staff Often Don’t Trust One Another. How Do We Fix That? — from chronicle.com by Jenae Cohn
Three ways to bridge divisions as academe prepares for the post-pandemic era.

Excerpts:

One of the few welcome outcomes of Covid-19, and higher education’s rapid move to remote instruction, is that many faculty members are more aware than ever of who the staff members are and what we do.

As Lee Skallerup Bessette wrote in October, staff members — anyone working on a college campus who is not a professor or an administrator — have been on the front lines during the pandemic: “We are the face that faculty members see when they have questions, concerns, or struggles with the technology they have been asked to use. We are the face that students see when they have questions, concerns, or struggles related to distance learning or on-campus policies and procedures.”

Yet however much academics and administrators have been turning to us for help now, they still rarely involve and entrust staff members with campus decision-making around teaching, curriculum development, and research.
…
It behooves every college and university to consider what authentic collaboration between the staff and the faculty might look like. How? Here are three concrete steps in that direction.
.
Step 1: Offer incentives for faculty-staff partnerships.
Step 2: Rethink hierarchical traditions.
Step 3: Create shared experiences.

From DSC:
Although I was an Adjunct Professor for over 5 years and have worked alongside faculty members for 20 years, the majority of my work and efforts have mainly been on the staff side of the house. So I appreciate The Chronicle hosting this article and I thank Jenae for writing it. It’s an important topic.

If traditional institutions of higher education are going to survive, there needs to be much broader governance, a much greater use of teams to create and deliver learning experiences, and a much stronger culture of innovating and experimenting with new ideas. At the end of the day, I think that the following two things will be the deciding factors on whether a particular institution survives, merges, shrinks, or closes its doors altogether:

The culture of a particular institution
Whether that institution has visionary leadership or not (and not just being data-driven…which comes up short again and again)

Also see:

Debunking six continuing fallacies of higher education — from universityworldnews.com by Sanjit Sethi and Elliot Felix

Job 19:25 (NIV)

On 04/30/2021, in Daniel S. Christian, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, by Daniel Christian

²⁵I know that my redeemer^[a] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.

.

Picture of an empty tomb.

Cracking me up! “A conference call — in real life” and “Email — in real-life”

On 04/29/2021, in business, collaboration, communications, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, media/film, tools, vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
One of my sisters sent this to me and it cracked me up!

Also see:

Brief reflections on “How to Design a Hybrid Workplace” [The New York Times]

On 04/24/2021, in A/V -- audio/visual, blended learning, business, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, hybrid learning, innovation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, online learning, platforms, remote teaching and learning, smart classrooms, society, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, telecommunications, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

How to Design a Hybrid Workplace — from nytimes.com

Excerpt:

But many companies have hatched a postpandemic plan in which employees return to the office for some of the time while mixing in more work from home than before. The appeal of this compromise is clear: Employers hope to give employees the flexibility and focus that come from working at home without sacrificing the in-person connections of the office.

From DSC:
There has been — and likely will continue to be — huge pressure and incentives put on companies like Cisco, Zoom, Microsoft, and others that develop the products and platforms to help people collaborate and communicate over a distance. It will be very interesting to see where these (and other) vendors, products, and platforms are 2-3 years from now! How far will we be down the XR-related routes?

How will those new ways of doing things impact telehealth? Telelegal? Virtual courts? Other?

From DSC:
I read an interesting article out at Inside Higher Ed from the other day:
Rejecting Remote Proctoring — from insidehighered.com by Elizabeth Redden
University of Michigan Dearborn made a universitywide decision to reject remote proctoring and invest in faculty development instead.

At the same time many other colleges were considering whether to employ the technologies, UM Dearborn’s leadership made the choice that eproctoring was unacceptably invasive, at least when it comes to students who hadn’t signed up for that kind of surveillance.

From DSC:
Lower stakes assessments offered with a greater variety of ways to check for mastery. That fits in with what I’m reading about re: the topic of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which offers:

Multiple methods of engagement
Multiple methods of representation
Multiple methods of action & expression <– to demonstrate what they are learning

It also reduces anxiety — something that’s needed in this period of time.

Making VR a Reality in the Classroom [Flynn & Frost]

On 04/22/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, attention, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, future of higher education, generational differences, graphics, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, IT in HE, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, multimedia, platforms, play, psychology, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

Making VR a Reality in the Classroom — from er.educause.edu by Cat Flynn and Peter Frost
Faculty and staff at Southern New Hampshire University piloted virtual reality in an undergraduate psychology course to see if it can be an effective pedagogical tool.

Excerpt:

Meeting the Learning Needs of Gen Z and Beyond
While this study was conducted with current SNHU undergraduates, our team aimed to understand the implications of immersive learning for both today’s students and future learners.
…
Given Gen Z’s documented love for gaming and their desire for higher education to equip them with problem-solving and practical skills, VR provides a confluence of experiential learning and engagement.

From DSC:
Cost and COVID-19 are major issues here, but this is an interesting article nonetheless.

I think Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Augmented Reality (AR) will play a significant role in the future of how we learn. It may take us some time to get there, but I believe that we will.

DC: How will the legal realm deal with robotics, AI, IoT, blockchain, & other emerging techs? What place do these discussions have in law schools?

On 04/21/2021, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, Blockchain, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, ideas, innovation, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, policy, programming, society, by Daniel Christian

A reasonable robot in the eyes of the law — from innovationaus.com by Stuart Corner

Excerpts:

“But what happens when an autonomous vehicle kills someone? A robot is not subject to the law. So is the car manufacturer liable, or the developer of the software? And how do you pinpoint the cause of such an accident?”

You can’t tax a robot worker
“If my employer, the University of Surrey could get a robot to automate my job, which they will someday, they would save money doing that, even if we were both equally good, because they have to make National Insurance contributions [a UK earnings tax that funds state pensions and other benefits] for my work and a host of other reasons, but the machine is taxed more favourably.

Artificial intelligence and the future of national security — from news.asu.edu

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is a “world-altering” technology that represents “the most powerful tools in generations for expanding knowledge, increasing prosperity and enriching the human experience” and will be a source of enormous power for the companies and countries that harness them, according to the recently released Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

This is not hyperbole or a fantastical version of AI’s potential impact. This is the assessment of a group of leading technologists and national security professionals charged with offering recommendations to Congress on how to ensure American leadership in AI for national security and defense. Concerningly, the group concluded that the U.S. is not currently prepared to defend American interests or compete in the era of AI.

Also see:

EU Set to Ban Surveillance, Start Fines Under New AI Rules — from bloomberg.com by Natalia Drozdiak

Excerpt:

The European Union is poised to ban artificial intelligence systems used for mass surveillance or for ranking social behavior, while companies developing AI could face fines as high as 4% of global revenue if they fail to comply with new rules governing the software applications.

Also see:

Wrongfully arrested man sues Detroit police over false facial recognition match — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell
The case could fuel criticism of police investigators’ use of a controversial technology that has been shown to perform worse on people of color

Excerpts:

A Michigan man has sued Detroit police after he was wrongfully arrested and falsely identified as a shoplifting suspect by the department’s facial recognition software in one of the first lawsuits of its kind to call into question the controversial technology’s risk of throwing innocent people in jail.

Robert Williams, a 43-year-old father in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills, was arrested last year on charges he’d taken watches from a Shinola store after police investigators used a facial recognition search of the store’s surveillance-camera footage that identified him as the thief.

Prosecutors dropped the case less than two weeks later, arguing that officers had relied on insufficient evidence. Police Chief James Craig later apologized for what he called “shoddy” investigative work. Williams, who said he had been driving home from work when the 2018 theft had occurred, was interrogated by detectives and held in custody for 30 hours before his release.

Williams’s attorneys did not make him available for comment Tuesday. But Williams wrote in The Washington Post last year that the episode had left him deeply shaken, in part because his young daughters had watched him get handcuffed in his driveway and put into a police car after returning home from work.

“How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” he wrote. “As any other black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly — even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.”

Addendum on 4/20/21:

Aiming for truth, fairness, and equity in your company’s use of AI — from ftc.gov by Elisa Jillson

Reflections on “5 Ways to Marry Higher Ed to Work” [Schaffhauser]

On 04/11/2021, in business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, history, ideas, innovation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, new business models, society, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vocational / trades, workplace, by Daniel Christian

5 Ways to Marry Higher Ed to Work — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpts:

Treat employers as customers.
Move beyond the idea of the bachelor degree as the end-all.
Link coursework with competences.
Develop a “shared vocabulary of skills” that can be used by employers and peer institutions.
Design for equity and inclusion.

From DSC:
It’s great to see more articles like this that promote further collaboration — and less siloing — between the worlds of higher education and the workplace.

My guess is that those traditional institutions of higher education who change/adapt quickly enough have a much greater chance at surviving (and even thriving). Those that don’t will have a very rough road ahead. They will be shadows of what they once were — if they are even able to keep their doors open.

Disruption is likely ahead — especially if more doors to credentialing continue to open up and employers hire based on those skills/credentials. One can feel the changing momentums at play. The tide has been turning for the last several years now (history may show the seeds of change were planted in times that occurred much longer ago).

Learning Ecosystems

The Short-term Credentials Landscape [Ositelu, McCann, & Laitinen]

A very sharp learning space and my thoughts on this record-setting drone display

Reflections on “Faculty and Staff Often Don’t Trust One Another. How Do We Fix That?” [Cohn]

Job 19:25 (NIV)

Cracking me up! “A conference call — in real life” and “Email — in real-life”

Brief reflections on “How to Design a Hybrid Workplace” [The New York Times]

Reflections on “5 Ways to Marry Higher Ed to Work” [Schaffhauser]

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