parents/guardians

“The transformative power of virtual courts” [Edwards] + five other items re: legal technology

On 12/15/2020, in change, Cost of legal services - including access, face-to-face, future, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, parents/guardians, society, UK, Uncategorized, United States, by Daniel Christian

The transformative power of virtual courts — from raconteur.net by Ben Edwards

Excerpt:

At the Odeon cinema in Edinburgh’s Fort Kinnaird retail park, the movie posters have been taken down and the popcorn machines covered up as jurors take their seats in one of the four auditoriums to attend a virtual court hearing.

These remote jury centres have allowed the Scottish High Court to restart criminal trials by beaming live court action directly onto the cinema screen, allowing jurors to watch and hear evidence while maintaining social distancing, something that wouldn’t have been possible inside the main court building. With a further 11 screens available in Glasgow, the court is now back up to full capacity.

“The real beauty in this approach is it provides a way of scaling up; we have a model that works and can be applied anywhere,” says Tim Barraclough, executive director of the Judicial Office for Scotland.

Also see:

Reynen Court Now Lets You Take Legal Tech Products For A Test Drive — from legaltechmonitor.com by Bob Ambrogi

Excerpt:

Reynen Court, the platform that describes itself as the app store for legal technology, has introduced a new feature, appropriately called One-Click Test Drive, that makes it easy for law firms and legal departments to test products without having to buy them or negotiate trial licenses.

Using Test Drive, a user can quickly deploy a pilot of a pre-configured application in a secure environment. The application comes fully loaded with dummy data and transaction or case materials. It can be easily launched without requiring IT support.

Legal Tech Traditionally Favored Law Firms. That May Be Changing — from law.com by Frank Ready
Ironclad’s “State of Digital Contracting, Winter 2020: AI and the Elusive Promise of Smart Contracting” virtual event delved into how changes in service delivery models could help to drive a new wave of legal tech directed toward in-house attorneys and nonlawyers.

Excerpts from Working Remote: Advantages Gained from Legal Technology Adoption — from law.com
In this episode of the Perspectives podcast, sponsored by AbacusNext and hosted on Law.com, we’ll hear highlights from the September 9th presentation titled, Working Remote: Advantages Gained Through Legal Technology Adoption.

The Top 25 Artificial Lawyer Articles of 2020 — from artificiallawyer.com by Richard Tromans

What Is Quantum Computing and How Is It Disrupting Law Firms? — from lawtechnologytoday.org by Shannon Flynn

HolonIQ North America EdTech 100 — from holoniq.com
HolonIQ’s annual list of the most innovative EdTech startupsacross North America.

This annual list helps to surface the innovations occurring across all parts of the market, and the teams who are supporting institutions, teachers, parents, learners and employers.

Some scenes from a wonderful, artistic, creative “Bitmoji Classroom” [Clay, Young, Thomas, Smith, Koch, & Verddugo]

On 11/29/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, animation, art, attention, collaboration, content development, aggregation, repositories, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, Google, graphics, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, interactivity, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, love of learning, mathematics, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, online media, parents/guardians, platforms, professional development, reading, remote teaching and learning, science, STEAM-related, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, United States, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Our oldest daughter showed me a “Bitmoji Classroom” that her mentor teacher — Emily Clay — uses as her virtual classroom. Below are some snapshots of the Google Slides that Emily developed based on the work of:

Kayla Young (@bitmoji.kayla)
MaryBeth Thomas
Ms. Smith
Karen Koch
The First Grade Creative — by C. Verddugo

My hats off to all of these folks whose work laid the foundations for this creative, fun, engaging, easy-to-follow virtual classroom for a special education preschool classroom — complete with ties to videoconferencing functionalities from Zoom. Emily’s students could click on items all over the place — they could explore, pursue their interests/curiosities/passions. So the snapshots below don’t offer the great interactivity that the real deal does.

Nice work Emily & Company! I like how you provided more choice, more control to your students — while keeping them engaged!

A snapshot of a Bitmoji Classroom created by Emily Clay

From DSC:
I also like the idea of presenting this type of slide (immediately below, and students’ names have been blurred for privacy’s sake) prior to entering a videoconferencing session where you are going to break out the students into groups. Perhaps that didn’t happen in Emily’s class…I’m not sure, but in other settings, it would make sense to share one’s screen right before sending the students to those breakout rooms and show them that type of slide (to let them know who will be in their particular breakout group).

The students in the different breakout sessions could then collaboratively work on Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides and you could watch their progress in real-time!

A snapshot of a Bitmoji Classroom created by Emily Clay

$A snapshot of a Bitmoji Classroom created by Emily Clay$

A snapshot of a Bitmoji Classroom created by Emily Clay

Also see:

Educators Turn to Bitmoji to Build Community and Engagement — from edutopia.org by Emelina Minero
Both fun and practical, Bitmoji classrooms are adding some levity to fall planning this year.

New York, NY – November 26, 2020 – The Intercept has published a video investigation by filmmaker Emily Cohen Ibañez on the impact of the switch to remote learning –– and the Coronavirus pandemic –– on students in an agro-industrial town (Watsonville, CA) and an affluent Bay Area suburb (Pine Hills, CA).

The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2020/11/25/remote-learning-school-education-covid/

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/7_YoSFNe2lM

“Life at Watsonville High was fast-paced, full of a lot of energy, a lot of really amazing students,” said Dr. Sara Roe, an English Learner Coach at Watsonville High. “Watsonville High is 98 percent Latinx, Latino, Latina. We are made up of a higher percentage of first-generation students. Socioeconomically, we’re predominantly a low-income area, so 100 percent of our students receive free and reduced lunch, and most likely, their parents or someone in their family has worked in the fields or is currently working in the fields.”

“If we thought then that kids had social, emotional challenges, their needs weren’t being met in particular ways,” said Dr. Roe, “If we thought there were issues then, I don’t think we could have ever imagined what the implications of going online would uncover for us in terms of issues for students.”

#digitaldivide #education #remotelearning #K12 #edtech #digitalequity

DC: So how might this impact the learning ecosystems out there?https://t.co/tMl5ouSX1x #learningecosystems #learningfromthelivingclassroom #careers #careerdevelopment #education #highereducation #change

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) November 25, 2020

Americans aren’t turning their backs on education; they are reconsidering how to obtain it.

Is This the End of College as We Know It? — from wsj.com by Douglas Belkin
For millions of Americans, getting a four-year degree no longer makes sense. Here’s what could replace it.

Excerpt:

For traditional college students, the American postsecondary education system frequently means frontloading a lifetime’s worth of formal education and going into debt to do it. That is no longer working for millions of people, and the failure is clearing the way for alternatives: Faster, cheaper, specialized credentials closely aligned with the labor market and updated incrementally over a longer period, education experts say. These new credentials aren’t limited to traditional colleges and universities. Private industry has already begun to play a larger role in shaping what is taught and who is paying for it.

For more than a century, a four-year college degree was a blue-chip credential and a steppingstone to the American dream. For many millennials and now Gen Z, it has become an albatross around their necks.

What has embittered so many millennials is that they played by the rules and still got stuck. Ben Puckett, a 30-year-old pastor in Michigan, earned a B.S. in physical therapy before a Master’s degree in divinity. He is $95,000 in debt.

“I went to college because I was told by parents, friends, teachers and counselors that it was the only way to ensure a good future,” Mr. Puckett says. “At 18 years old, how was I supposed to defy what my school, parents, society, friends were saying about going to college?”

“Stuck in it until I die”: Parents get buried by college debt too — from hechingerreport.org by Meredith Kolodner
ParentPlus loans have spiked, leading to financial disaster for many low- and middle-income families

Excerpt:

The couple’s original $40,000 loan to cover the cost of their son and daughter attending public universities in Indiana, where the family lived at the time, has snowballed in those 18 years, with interest rates as high as 8.5 percent. Their bill now stands at more than $100,000.

The Rifes would have lost their house if they had been forced to make the original monthly payment, so they negotiated with the federal government to get it down to $733. Still, it’s more than their mortgage, and it doesn’t cover the interest, so the amount owed has continued to grow.

From DSC:
I have fought for over a decade to bring the costs (involved with obtaining a degree) down. Through the years, I have tried to reach anyone who works within higher ed to listen…to change…to find ways to bring the price of obtaining a degree waaaaaay down.

Before 2010, I had written about a future where the cost of obtaining a degree would be 50% less. And that has already happened with a handful of instances. But the future will likely look much different than the past.

Fast forward…and the perfect storm against higher ed continues to build. The backlash continues to build.

There will be change. Count on it. 100% bound to happen. In fact, it has to happen, or this nation is in big trouble otherwise.

(11/24/20) An addendum from the Wall Street Journal:

Is This the End of College as We Know It? — from wsj.com by Douglas Belkin
For millions of Americans, getting a four-year degree no longer makes sense. Here’s what could replace it.

What’s causing the kinks in the “cognitive hoses” out there? How can we remove them? [Christian]

On 11/20/2020, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, change, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, face-to-face, faculty/staff, formal learning, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning theories, liberal arts, library / librarians, online learning, parents/guardians, participation, productivity / tips and tricks, reinvent, society, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

What's causing the kinks in the cognitive hoses out there? How can we remove them? -- Daniel Christian

https://www.kxan.com/pass-or-fail/students-meet-in-austin-churches-for-free-virtual-learning-pods-during-pandemic/

Ann Arbor church transformed into schoolhouse so immigrant children don’t fall behind — from mlive.com by Martin Slagter

Understanding the learning pods landscape — from crpe.org by Ashley Jochim and Robin Lake

Mapping the Pandemic Learning Landscape — from medium.com by Carolyn Gramstorff

Today we launched a national database that will catalogue and make sense of #learningpod initiatives across the country, with an eye toward equity.

Explore data on the 160 pods and hubs we've found so far: https://t.co/uAINWVPdqr

Read the blog: https://t.co/2yGqKVgSdL pic.twitter.com/Ts3Q9YiIYx

— Center on Reinventing Public Education (@CRPE_UW) November 19, 2020

“More choice. More control.” –> It’s all over this article. They just use different words.

On 10/30/2020, in Daniel S. Christian, education, engagement / engaging students, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online learning, parents/guardians, passions, remote teaching and learning, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, by Daniel Christian

DC: Throughout this piece I see: “More choice. More control.”#leaning #learningexperiencedesign #education #K12 #educationreform https://t.co/LyKI4mONAG

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) October 30, 2020

From DSC:
Instead of the way I put it in the above graphic, they use words like empowerment and agency. But the bottom line is the same. Huge energy gets released when students own their own learning and are intrinsically motivated (i.e., can pursue their own interests, passions). Parents, teachers, profs should know about this and encourage it.

Goodbye, Guilt! Exchanging Guilt For Gratitude During COVID-19 And Beyond [Hardrick]

On 10/26/2020, in career development, health, higher education, law schools, parents/guardians, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Goodbye, Guilt! Exchanging Guilt For Gratitude During COVID-19 And Beyond — from abovethelaw.com by Joseline Jean-Louis Hardrick
Shift your focus from the guilt and what is missing to what is present and helpful.

Excerpt:

Do you often feel guilty, drained, conflicted, or like, no matter what you do, it’s never enough? You aren’t alone. One poll on WorkingMother.com discovered that 57 percent of women feel guilty every day!

The pandemic has changed how we live and work. And now, more than ever, you may be getting worried and guilty about everything! This article provides one simple trick to release all that guilt and achieve peace, positivity, and assertiveness.

New benchmarking tool for higher ed seeks to address workplace soft skills gap — from chieflearningofficer.com by Elizabeth Loutfi
Quality Assurance Commons’ new Employability Self-Assessment will support higher education programs as they develop proficiency in teaching eight 21st century soft skills critical to today’s employers.

Excerpt:

A new assessment tool created for higher education institutions to track and measure the career success of their graduates was launched this week by nonprofit organization Quality Assurance Commons. The tool, which is called the Employability Self-Assessment, helps institutions identify the key skills employers want in candidates in the current and post-pandemic workplace.

The ESA has already been piloted at 20 colleges and universities and is being implemented at eight higher education institutions in the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities System, according to a company press release.

According to the report, the top three missing soft skills reported by employers were problem solving, critical thinking, innovation and creativity; ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity; and communication.

From DSC:
Hmmm…do our current ways of doing things get students to that point? Are the ways in which we structure our educational systems facilitating the development of those skills? Apparently not. What needs to change? For me, it’s offering “More choice. More control.” to the students. And watch the energy, curiosity, and enjoyment of learning greatly increase.

Connectivity gap persists for at least 300K California students [De La Rosa]

On 10/18/2020, in dangers of the status quo, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, K-12 related, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, parents/guardians, political science, society, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

Connectivity gap persists for at least 300K California students — from educationdive.com by Shawna De La Rosa

Dive Brief:

California school districts are required to provide both devices and high-speed internet connection to any student learning from home, but between 300,000 and 1 million remain disconnected, EdSource reports. A backlog of computer orders and weak broadband infrastructure in remote areas are contributing factors.
At a state assembly education committee hearing Wednesday, California education leaders, teachers and lawmakers discussed how to close the digital divide. Though most households have enough broadband to handle some video calls, many family networks don’t have the strength for multiple students to be connected at once.
Nationwide, approximately one-third of households with annual incomes under $30,000 and with children under 18 don’t have high-speed internet connection at home, impacting roughly 9.7 million students, according to a Pew Research Center report. A quarter of teens within that socio-economic bracket lack access to a computer at home.

National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s Monthly Update on Higher Education Enrollment — as of October 15, 2020 and as referenced late last week by The Chronicle of Higher Education

From DSC:
The window of opportunity for traditional institutions of higher education to reinvent themselves, become cheaper, and offer more value is beginning to close. The window is still there…but it’s beginning to close.

Learning Ecosystems

“The transformative power of virtual courts” [Edwards] + five other items re: legal technology

So how might this impact the learning ecosystems out there? [Christian]

Goodbye, Guilt! Exchanging Guilt For Gratitude During COVID-19 And Beyond [Hardrick]

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