surviving

8 items re: learning as it relates to those in prison

On 03/29/2016, in 21st century, economics, reinvent, social learning / networks, society, sociology, staying relevant, surviving, United States, by Daniel Christian

From Wikipedia’s page on “Prison Education” (emphasis DSC):

Reductions in recidivism
Recent research on prison education programs presents discouraging statistics on the current recidivism rate. The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) reported in 2011 that nearly 7 in 10 people who had been incarcerated will commit a new crime, and half will end up back in prison within three years. Given that about 95 out of every 100 incarcerated people eventually rejoin society, it is crucial that there are educational programs in the prison system.^[16] Not only is it important to develop programs in prison that are educational but if recidivism is a goal then there also needs to be support programs in the community to support the reentry population where they can either continue their education or get assistance in finding a sustainable job.^[17]

Skeptics claim that, in many cases, prison education produces nothing more than “better educated criminals”.^[18] However, many studies have shown significant decreases in recidivism. “The more educational programs successfully completed for each six months confined the lower the recidivism rate” according to Harer (1994), in his Federal Bureau of Prisons Office of Research & Evaluation report.^[19]^[20]

…
Personal development
To those afforded the opportunity to further their education, it “may be the first glimmer of hope that [they] can escape the cycles of poverty and violence that have dominated their lives”.^[21] Pursuing an education can also undo some of the damage accrued during their stay in prison; it can awaken senses numbed and release creativity that is both therapeutic and rehabilitative.^[22]

With good skills and an education, released prisoners have a better chance at moving on with their lives despite their criminal record. 75% of college-educated ex-prisoners are able to find stable employment.^[23] Employment helps ex-prisoners stay out of prison, despite the formidable obstacles, including the social stigma of being an ex-con and state laws that bar them from professions requiring licensure. They will be dealing with these obstacles for the rest of their lives.

A College Education for Prisoners — from/by the Editorial Board of the New York Times

Excerpt:

States are finally backing away from the draconian sentencing policies that swept the country at the end of the last century, driving up prison costs and sending too many people to jail for too long, often for nonviolent offenses. Many are now trying to turn around the prison juggernaut by steering drug addicts into treatment instead of jail and retooling parole systems that once sent people back to prison for technical violations.

But the most effective way to keep people out of prison once they leave is to give them jobs skills that make them marketable employees. That, in turn, means restarting prison education programs that were shuttered beginning in the 1990s, when federal and state legislators cut funding to show how tough they were on crime.

a16z Podcast: Your worst deeds don’t define you — life and redemption in prison — this podcast is produced by Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm

Description:

Men and women who have spent decades in prison are being released into an iPhone-enabled world that they hardly recognize. Shaka Senghor is one of those people, imprisoned at age 19 for second-degree murder and released almost two decades later in 2010. “It was like Fred Flintstone walking into an episode of the Jetsons,” he tells Ben Horowitz in a conversation about his book, Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison.

Today, Senghor is an activist, advocate, and mentor for young men and women who find themselves on the same troubled path he took. This episode of the a16z Podcast covers Ben and Shaka’s conversation about healing, humanity, and redemption — especially if you believe that it’s how you finish, not just how you start, that matters.

Prison ministry degree program reflects restorative justice — from calvin.edu by Jon Gorter; from 2/26/15

Excerpt:

At Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, MI, select inmates will have the opportunity to earn an AA or BA degree in Ministry Leadership through Calvin College this fall.

The Ministry Leadership program, initiated by the Calvin Theological Seminary (CTS) in partnership with Calvin College, has gained the interest of the college; and though it is still waiting for final accreditation, was approved by faculty senate at the beginning of this month.

Each year, around 18 to 20 selected inmates will be transferred from various Michigan prisons to the Handlon Correctional Facility to take courses in required core disciplines and in Ministry Leadership.

After completing at least 124 semester hours over a period of 5 years, students will receive a BA degree, which will enable them to lead worship, disciple fellow inmates, and mentor short-term prisoners.

Related:
Calvin programs designed to educate inmates — from calvin.edu by Anneke Kapteyn

Also relevant/see:

Traveling the World in Search of a New Vision of Justice — from takepart.com by Rebecca McCray
Baz Dreisinger traverses the continents in her new book, visiting prisons worldwide and bringing their lessons back to the U.S.
Excerpt:
As a longtime teacher in U.S. prisons, journalist, and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Baz Dreisinger has spent many hours considering incarceration in the United States. In her new book, Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World, she takes her expertise and looks out to the rest of the world. Traveling from South Africa, to Uganda, to Brazil, to Thailand, and Australia, Dreisinger takes her teaching skills into far-flung modern prison complexes and gives her readers a glimpse into the lives of the men and women incarcerated there.TakePart talked to Dreisinger about what she learned while working on the book and how it changed the way she thinks about justice in the U.S. (The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
.
The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI)
The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) creates the opportunity for incarcerated men and women to earn a Bard College degree while serving their sentences. The academic standards and workload are rigorous, based on an unusual mix of attention to developmental skills and ambitious college study. The rate of post-release employment among the program’s participants is high and recidivism is stunningly low. By challenging incarcerated men and women with a liberal education, BPI works to redefine the relationship between educational opportunity and criminal justice.
.
Divine Hope Seminary
Excerpts from website:
Divine Hope Reformed Bible Seminary is a dedicated prison seminary that operates within the Danville Correctional Center (Illinois) and the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, the Westville (Indiana) Correctional Center and the Rockville (Indiana) Correctional Center.
…
The school is called Divine Hope Reformed Bible Seminary because it provides an opportunity for hope-giving and life-changing studies that prepare our students for useful service within and outside of prison.

Addendums on 4/4/16:

Hebrews 13:3 New International Version (NIV)

³Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Why Tribeca Film Institute is doing screenings in prison — from fastcompany.com by David Zax
The Community Screening Series helps prisoners connect to each other, the world outside, and new educational opportunities.

Excerpt:

The evening’s screening—Tribeca does two every month—would also serve as an on-ramp to other educational initiatives in the prison; several men in the audience had come to early screenings where they learned about a higher education program in the prison offered through John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
…
But Bravo had a longstanding interest in mass incarceration and prison education. Growing up in Far Rockaway, Queens, people in his community kept getting locked up, so often on simple drug possession. “I realized there was a direct relationship between the prison industrial complex and poor communities of color,” he recalls today. In the ’90s, he became a hip-hop journalist, editing a column for a magazine about prisons, and he began to visit them. Meanwhile, the U.S. prison population soared (it now stands at 2.4 million, giving the U.S. one of the highest incarceration rates in the world).

Bravo kept wanting to work to connect prisoners to the outside world. When he started making documentaries for PBS, he made sure to screen them in prison. When he worked for the famed documentarian Albert Maysles, he did the same. “I thought of prison audiences as a vital stakeholder group in the community,” he recalls.
…
At Otisville, the screening winds to its conclusion. Ransom, White, and Rodriguez break the men into three groups, leading them in discussion. In Rodriguez’s group, conversation about the film turns heady immediately, as the men pick apart Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, which so wildly lower the bar for self-defense claims. “Citizens are killing people because they thought he had a gun? That has to be addressed,” says one. “My mother told me you have to teach young black males how to deal with police authority,” says another. “These are not things young white men have to learn…”

As the evening unfolds, the conversation winds more generally to the topic of justice.

“What does it take to have justice?” White asks the men, as Bravo looks on.

One of the incarcerated men responds immediately: “Education.”

What are the learning-related ramifications of technologies that provide virtual personal assistants? [Christian]

On 03/09/2016, in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, collaboration, communications, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, disruption, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, social learning / networks, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tablets, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, television, tools, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Everything Siri can do for you and your Apple TV — from imore.com by Lory Gill

Excerpt:

When you ask Siri what it can search for, it will respond, “I can search by title, people (actor, director, character name, guest star, producer, or writer), ratings (like PG or TV-G), reviews (such as best or worst), dates (like 2012 or the 80s), age (like kid-friendly or teen), seasons, episodes, and studio. And of course, I can search by genre.”

But, what else can Siri do?
…
Siri has a fairly robust search feature with multi-layer filtering.
…
While you are watching a movie or TV show, or listening to music, you can get a little extra help from Siri. It’s like having a buddy sitting next to you — but they don’t shush you when you ask a question.
…
You can search for content in the Music app on Apple TV by artist, album, or song title. With a little know-how, you can also turn Siri into your personal deejay.
…
While you may normally look to your smartphone for your weather predictions, Siri can be just as helpful about the conditions around the world as your local weatherman or app. All you have to do is ask.

From DSC:
Following this trajectory out a bit into the future — and in light of significant developments that continue to occur with artificial intelligence, the development and use of algorithms, the potential use of web-based learner profiles (think LinkedIn.com/Lynda.com, MOOCs, the use of nanodegrees), second screen-based apps, and the like — one has to wonder:

“What are the ramifications of this for learning-related applications?!”

“Scholarships & Grants for Students with Disabilities” — plus other related resources

On 02/25/2016, in accessibility / UDL, career development, education, funding / grants, parents/guardians, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Per Mark Cappel, Senior Editor at MoneyGeek.com (emphasis DSC):

MoneyGeek.com has spent the last few months expanding our site to produce comprehensive financial planning resources for people with disabilities for all stages of life. Our guides are helpful for families and students with disabilities searching for financial aid and scholarship options, parents and persons with disabilities planning financially for home modifications, and more.

See:

Reflections on “University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private” [Cohen & Bray]

On 02/09/2016, in change, funding / grants, higher education, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private — from nytimes.com by Patricia Cohen and Chad Bray

Excerpt:

The troubled for-profit education company that owns the giant University of Phoenix agreed on Monday to be bought for $1.1 billion by a group of investors that includes a private equity firm with close ties to the Obama administration.

The university and its owner, the Apollo Education Group, have been subject to a series of state and federal investigations into allegations of shady recruiting, deceptive advertising and questionable financial aid practices.

In recent years, many for-profit educational institutions that have received billions of dollars in federal aid, including the University of Phoenix, have been pummeled by criticisms that they preyed upon veterans and low-income students, saddling them with outsize student loan debt and subpar instruction.

Also see:

New education department office to crack down on colleges — from wsj.com by Josh Mitchell
Student Aid Enforcement Unit will focus on schools accused of misconduct
Excerpt:
The Obama administration plans to boost the federal government’s power to investigate and punish colleges accused of deceptive marketing tactics and other misconduct, part of a campaign to address years of student complaints about for-profit institutions.

Also see:

Student Aid Enforcement Unit Formed to protect students, borrowers, taxpayers — from ed.gov on 2/8/16

Excerpt:

As part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive action to protect students and taxpayers, the U.S. Department of Education is creating a Student Aid Enforcement Unit to respond more quickly and efficiently to allegations of illegal actions by higher education institutions.

“When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they’ll actually get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families,” said Acting Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. “When that doesn’t happen we all pay the price. So let me be clear: schools looking to cheat students and taxpayers will be held accountable.”

From DSC:
For profits have brought some solid things to the education table…but they’ve also brought some bad practices to the table as well. To some degree, the above items relate to the efforts and influence of the federal government to affect institutions involved in higher education.

Taking this thought into a different direction then…one should think carefully, therefore, when the federal government opens up new efforts to support innovation within higher education — something I support, by the way, as it could facilitate the creation of alternative pathways for learners and it finally enforces some true competition — and therefore a greater emphasis on innovation — within the higher ed landscape. (Yes I realize that there’s some level of competition within institutions of traditional higher education…but historical and current accreditation practices have pretty much kept things looking quite similar across the landscape.)

Institutions of traditional higher education may now be forced to rethink their game plans and strategies as they move forward — something I hope that will positively impact our future students. Such forces and events should make institutions of traditional higher education more innovative, open to change (where it’s needed), relevant, and responsive to changes in the environment.

Equipped for EQUIP? Here’s a primer — from edsurge.com by Bart Epstein and Ben Wallerstein (on 11/9/15)

Excerpt:

On October 15th, the Department of Education launched a new Experimental Site called Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships (EQUIP), which creates a pathway to federal aid for unaccredited education providers–including the fast-growing bootcamp sector. Here’s what you need to know.

The US Department of Education’s Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI) is a policymaker’s dream. The authority granted though the ESI allows the Secretary of Education to waive certain rules governing federal financial aid to experiment with new models and test their impact. The goal: improve access for low-income students, and increase the return on our $130 billion annual investment in student aid.

As a policy “lab,” Experimental Sites have allowed the Department of Education to provide Title IV access for self-paced and competency-based programs, decouple aid from the credit hour, and fund students who demonstrate prior learning through assessments.

From DSC:
As higher ed (as an industry) doesn’t seem to be able to decrease the costs of obtaining a degree, alternatives continue to crop up.

If…

The prices don’t start coming down from institutions of traditional higher education
Alternatives continue to crop up and gather steam
The U.S. Federal Government gets behind such alternatives

…then higher ed (again, as an industry) can only blame itself for not responding more significantly than we did.

We need to respond. We need to address this growing wave of unrest regarding higher ed. We need more innovation. We need lower prices. Towards that end, that’s why I’ve been saying that we need more TrimTab Groups to find ways to maintain quality, but reduce the price.

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

Report from Davos: 5 million jobs to be lost by 2020 because of tech advances — from siliconbeat.com by Levi Sumagaysay

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A new report predicts a loss of 5 million jobs in the next five years because of technological advances, but don’t blame it all on the robots.

The other culprits: artificial intelligence, 3-D printers and advances in genetics, biotech and more.

The World Economic Forum, which is holding its annual meeting in Davos this week, in its report details the effects of modern technology on the labor market, for better or for worse. It says “the fourth industrial revolution” will be “more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen.”

The report actually estimates a loss of 7 million jobs in 15 economies that today have 1.86 billion workers, or about 65 percent of the world’s workforce, but it also expects 2 million new jobs to be created.

From DSC:
If this turns out to be true, how should this affect our curricula? What should we be emphasizing and seeking to build within our students?

Is the next Uber coming your way? — from ibm.com IBM’s Global C-suite Study

Excerpt:

This report is IBM’s second study of the entire C-suite and the eighteenth in the ongoing series of CxO studies developed by the IBM Institute for Business Value. We now have data from more than 28,000 interviews stretching back to 2003. Our latest study draws on input from:

Chief Executive Officers (CEOs): 818
Chief Finance Officers (CFOs): 643
Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs): 601
Chief Information Officers (CIOs): 1,805
Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs): 723
Chief Operating Officers (COOs): 657

…

Innovations that harness new technologies or business models, or exploit old technologies in new ways, are emerging on an almost daily basis. And the most disruptive enterprises don’t gradually displace the incumbents; they reshape entire industries, swiftly obliterating whatever stands in their way. So how are C-suite executives (CxOs) tackling the threat of competition from companies in other sectors or with very different business models? Our latest study explores what they think the future holds, how they’re identifying new trends and how they’re positioning their organizations to prosper in the “age of disruption.”

From DSC:
Is looking out for the next Uber just something that corporations/businesses should be doing? Isn’t this true for us as individuals as well? That is, aren’t our jobs/positions vulnerable to disruption as well? As our organizations go, so we often go. As such, should we leave the pulse checking to others or should we be developing these types of skills ourselves? That is, shouldn’t our own gazes be set on the horizons so that we aren’t broadsided as individuals?

Given the pace of change and given that more of us are freelancing, this is why I think that we need more such training within K-12 and higher education — programs that focus on pulse checking a variety of landscapes. Futurism is not gazing into some magic ball; such skills can be useful today.

DanielChristian-MonitoringTrends

Automation potential and wages for US jobs [McKinsey Global Institute]

On 01/08/2016, in 21st century, business, career development, change, disruption, economics, engineering, reinvent, robotics, staying relevant, surviving, trends, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Automation potential and wages for US jobs — from McKinsey Global Institute
McKinsey analyzed the detailed work activities for 750+ occupations in the US to estimate the percentage of time that could be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technology.

Also see:

Four fundamentals of workplace automation — from mckinsey.com by Michael Chui, James Manyika, and Mehdi Miremadi
As the automation of physical and knowledge work advances, many jobs will be redefined rather than eliminated—at least in the short term.

Will Lynda.com/LinkedIn.com pursue this powerful vision with an organization like IBM? If so, look out!

On 12/15/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, communities of practice, competency-based learning/education, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, immersion, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, simulations, social learning / networks, staying relevant, STEAM-related, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Back in July of 2012, I put forth a vision that I called Learning from the Living [Class]Room.

It’s a vision that involves a multitude of technologies — technologies and trends that we continue to see being developed and ones that could easily converge in the not-too-distant future to offer us some powerful opportunities for lifelong learning!

Consider that in won’t be very long before a learner will be able to reinvent himself/herself throughout their lifetime, for a very affordable price — while taking ala carte courses from some of the best professors, trainers, leaders, and experts throughout the world, all from the comfort of their living room. (Not to mention tapping into streams of content that will be available on such platforms.)

So when I noticed that Lynda.com now has a Roku channel for the big screen, it got my attention.

Lets add a few more pieces to the puzzle, given that some other relevant trends are developing quite nicely:

tvOS-based apps are now possible — and already there are over 2600 of them and it’s only been a month or so since Apple made this new platform available to the masses
Now, let’s add the ability to take courses online via a virtual reality interface — globally, at any time; VR is poised to have some big years in 2016 and 2017!
Lynda.com and LinkedIn.com’s fairly recent merger and their developing capabilities to offer micro-credentials, badges, and competency-based education (CBE) — while keeping track of the courses that a learner has taken
The need for lifelong learning is now a requirement, as we need to continually reinvent ourselves — especially given the increasing pace of change and as complete industries are impacted (broadsided), almost overnight
Big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to pick up steam; for example, consider the cognitive computing capabilities being developed in IBM’s Watson — which should be able to deliver personalized digital playlists and likely some level of intelligent tutoring as well
Courses could be offered at a fraction of the cost, as MOOC-sized classes could distribute the costs over a greater # of people and back end systems could help grade/assess the students’ work; plus the corporate world continues to use MOOCs to cost-effectively train their employees across the globe (MOOCs would thrive on such a tvOS-based platform, whereby students could watch lectures, demonstrations, and simulations on the big screen and then communicate with each other via their second screens*)
As the trends of machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT) pick up, relevant courses/modules will likely be instantly presented to people to learn about a particular topic or task. For example, I purchased a crib and I want to know how to put it together. The chip in the crib communicates to my Smart TV or to my augmented reality glasses/headset, and then a system loads up some multimedia-based training/instructions on how to put it together.
Streams of content continue to be developed and offered — via blogs, via channels like Periscope and Meerkat, via social media-based channels, and via other channels — and these streams of multimedia-based content should prove to be highly useful to individual learners as well as for communities of practice

Anyway, these next few years will be packed with change — the pace of which will likely take us by surprise. We need to keep our eyes upward and outward — peering into the horizons rather than looking downwards — doing so should reduce the chance of us getting broadsided!

*It’s also possible that AR and VR will create
a future whereby we only need 1 “screen”

Addendum:
After I wrote/published the item above…it was interesting to then see the item below:

IBM opens Watson IoT Global Headquarters, extends power of cognitive computing to a connected world — from finance.yahoo.com
1000 Munich-based experts to drive IoT and industry 4.0 innovation
Launches eight new IoT client experience centers worldwide
Introduces Watson API Services for IoT on the IBM Cloud

Excerpt:

MUNICH, Dec. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the opening of its global headquarters for Watson Internet of Things (IoT), launching a series of new offerings, capabilities and ecosystem partners designed to extend the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT. These new offerings will be available through the IBM Watson IoT Cloud, the company’s global platform for IoT business and developers.

The need for ethics, morals, policies, & serious reflection about what kind of future we want has never been greater!

On 11/19/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, business, Canada, change, communities of practice, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, morals/values, Near Field Communication (NFC), pace of change, policy, political science, programming, psychology, real-world assignments, relationships, robotics, society, sociology, strategy, surviving, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, UK, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This posting is meant to surface the need for debates/discussions, new policy decisions, and for taking the time to seriously reflect upon what type of future that we want. Given the pace of technological change, we need to be constantly asking ourselves what kind of future we want and then to be actively creating that future — instead of just letting things happen because they can happen. (i.e., just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.)

Gerd Leonhard’s work is relevant here. In the resource immediately below, Gerd asserts:

I believe we urgently need to start debating and crafting a global Digital Ethics Treaty. This would delineate what is and is not acceptable under different circumstances and conditions, and specify who would be in charge of monitoring digressions and aberrations.

I am also including some other relevant items here that bear witness to the increasingly rapid speed at which we’re moving now.

Redefining the relationship of man and machine: here is my narrated chapter from the ‘The Future of Business’ book (video, audio and pdf) — from futuristgerd.com by Gerd Leonhard

.

Robot revolution: rise of ‘thinking’ machines could exacerbate inequality — from theguardian.com by Heather Stewart
Global economy will be transformed over next 20 years at risk of growing inequality, say analysts

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A “robot revolution” will transform the global economy over the next 20 years, cutting the costs of doing business but exacerbating social inequality, as machines take over everything from caring for the elderly to flipping burgers, according to a new study.

As well as robots performing manual jobs, such as hoovering the living room or assembling machine parts, the development of artificial intelligence means computers are increasingly able to “think”, performing analytical tasks once seen as requiring human judgment.

In a 300-page report, revealed exclusively to the Guardian, analysts from investment bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch draw on the latest research to outline the impact of what they regard as a fourth industrial revolution, after steam, mass production and electronics.

“We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work,” the authors say. “The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives.”

First genetically modified humans could exist within two years — from telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton
Biotech company Editas Medicine is planning to start human trials to genetically edit genes and reverse blindness

Excerpt:

Humans who have had their DNA genetically modified could exist within two years after a private biotech company announced plans to start the first trials into a ground-breaking new technique.

Editas Medicine, which is based in the US, said it plans to become the first lab in the world to ‘genetically edit’ the DNA of patients suffering from a genetic condition – in this case the blinding disorder ‘leber congenital amaurosis’.

Gartner predicts our digital future — from gartner.com by Heather Levy
Gartner’s Top 10 Predictions herald what it means to be human in a digital world.

Excerpt:

Here’s a scene from our digital future: You sit down to dinner at a restaurant where your server was selected by a “robo-boss” based on an optimized match of personality and interaction profile, and the angle at which he presents your plate, or how quickly he smiles can be evaluated for further review. Or, perhaps you walk into a store to try on clothes and ask the digital customer assistant embedded in the mirror to recommend an outfit in your size, in stock and on sale. Afterwards, you simply tell it to bill you from your mobile and skip the checkout line.

These scenarios describe two predictions in what will be an algorithmic and smart machine driven world where people and machines must define harmonious relationships. In his session at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando, Daryl Plummer, vice president, distinguished analyst and Gartner Fellow, discussed how Gartner’s Top Predictions begin to separate us from the mere notion of technology adoption and draw us more deeply into issues surrounding what it means to be human in a digital world.

Univ. of Washington faculty study legal, social complexities of augmented reality — from phys.org

Excerpt:

But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction—as well as potential discrimination—are bound to follow.

The Tech Policy Lab brings together faculty and students from the School of Law, Information School and Computer Science & Engineering Department and other campus units to think through issues of technology policy. “Augmented Reality: A Technology and Policy Primer” is the lab’s first official white paper aimed at a policy audience. The paper is based in part on research presented at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, or UbiComp conference.

Along these same lines, also see:

Augmented Reality: Figuring Out Where the Law Fits — from rdmag.com by Greg Watry
Excerpt:
With AR comes potential issues the authors divide into two categories. “The first is collection, referring to the capacity of AR to record, or at least register, the people and places around the user. Collection raises obvious issues of privacy but also less obvious issues of free speech and accountability,” the researchers write. The second issue is display, which “raises a variety of complex issues ranging from possible tort liability should the introduction or withdrawal of information lead to injury, to issues surrounding employment discrimination or racial profiling.”Current privacy law in the U.S. allows video and audio recording in areas that “do not attract an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy,” says Newell. Further, many uses of AR would be covered under the First Amendment right to record audio and video, especially in public spaces. However, as AR increasingly becomes more mobile, “it has the potential to record inconspicuously in a variety of private or more intimate settings, and I think these possibilities are already straining current privacy law in the U.S.,” says Newell.

Stuart Russell on Why Moral Philosophy Will Be Big Business in Tech — from kqed.org by Queena Kim

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Our first Big Think comes from Stuart Russell. He’s a computer science professor at UC Berkeley and a world-renowned expert in artificial intelligence. His Big Think?

“In the future, moral philosophy will be a key industry sector,” says Russell.

Translation? In the future, the nature of human values and the process by which we make moral decisions will be big business in tech.

Life, enhanced: UW professors study legal, social complexities of an augmented reality future — from washington.edu by Peter Kelley

Excerpt:

But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction — as well as potential discrimination — are bound to follow.

An excerpt from:

THREE: CHALLENGES FOR LAW AND POLICY
AR systems change human experience and, consequently, stand to challenge certain assumptions of law and policy. The issues AR systems raise may be divided into roughly two categories. The first is collection, referring to the capacity of AR devices to record, or at least register, the people and places around the user. Collection raises obvious issues of privacy but also less obvious issues of free speech and accountability. The second rough category is display, referring to the capacity of AR to overlay information over people and places in something like real-time. Display raises a variety of complex issues ranging from
possible tort liability should the introduction or withdrawal of information lead to injury, to issues surrounding employment discrimination or racial profiling. Policymakers and stakeholders interested in AR should consider what these issues mean for them. Issues related to the collection of information include…

HR tech is getting weird, and here’s why — from hrmorning.com by guest poster Julia Scavicchio

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Technology has progressed to the point where it’s possible for HR to learn almost everything there is to know about employees — from what they’re doing moment-to-moment at work to what they’re doing on their off hours. Guest poster Julia Scavicchio takes a long hard look at the legal and ethical implications of these new investigative tools.

Why on Earth does HR need all this data? The answer is simple — HR is not on Earth, it’s in the cloud.

The department transcends traditional roles when data enters the picture.

Many ethical questions posed through technology easily come and go because they seem out of this world.

18 AI researchers reveal the most impressive thing they’ve ever seen — from businessinsider.com by Guia Marie Del Prado,

Excerpt:

Where will these technologies take us next? Well to know that we should determine what’s the best of the best now. Tech Insider talked to 18 AI researchers, roboticists, and computer scientists to see what real-life AI impresses them the most.
…

“The DeepMind system starts completely from scratch, so it is essentially just waking up, seeing the screen of a video game and then it works out how to play the video game to a superhuman level, and it does that for about 30 different video games. That’s both impressive and scary in the sense that if a human baby was born and by the evening of its first day was already beating human beings at video games, you’d be terrified.”

Algorithmic Economy: Powering the Machine-to-Machine Age Economic Revolution — from formtek.com by Dick Weisinger

Excerpts:

As technology advances, we are becoming increasingly dependent on algorithms for everything in our lives. Algorithms that can solve our daily problems and tasks will do things like drive vehicles, control drone flight, and order supplies when they run low. Algorithms are defining the future of business and even our everyday lives.
…
Sondergaard said that “in 2020, consumers won’t be using apps on their devices; in fact, they will have forgotten about apps. They will rely on virtual assistants in the cloud, things they trust. The post-app era is coming. The algorithmic economy will power the next economic revolution in the machine-to-machine age. Organizations will be valued, not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions that ultimately impact customers.”

Related items:

Toyota, Tesla or Google: who’s spending the most on artificial intelligence in the car industry? — from techworld.com by Margi Murphy
Which businesses are investing in artificial intelligence? Read how artificial intelligence will change the car industry, and other sectors, as we know it.
Toyota Invests $1 Billion In Artificial Intelligence In US — from wtvox.com / Associated Press
Top 10 Emerging Technologies That Could Transform Our Future — from wtvox.com by E Aston
What Technology Will Look Like In Five Years — from techcrunch.com by Diomedes Kastanis
Welcome To Brain Science’s Next Frontier: Virtual Reality — from fastcompany.com by Tina Amirtha
Amy Robinson, executive director at the startup EyeWire, is making neuroscience into a playground for the hot tech du jour.

Addendums:

ABI Research Shows Augmented Reality on the Rise with Total Market Worth to Reach $100 Billion by 2020 — from abiresearch.com
‘Self-Driving Cars Will Dominate the Roads by 2030,’ Says Internet of Things Visionary — from coinspeaker.com by Eugenia Romanenko
Robots are learning to say “no” to human orders — from quartz.com by Kit Eaton
Excerpt:
It may seem an obvious idea that a robot should do precisely what a human orders it to do at all times. But researchers in Massachusetts are trying something that many a science fiction movie has already anticipated: They’re teaching robots to say “no” to some instructions. For robots wielding potentially dangerous-to-humans tools on a car production line, it’s pretty clear that the robot should always precisely follow its programming. But we’re building more-clever robots every day and we’re giving them the power to decide what to do all by themselves. This leads to a tricky issue: How exactly do you program a robot to think through its orders and overrule them if it decides they’re wrong or dangerous to either a human or itself? This is what researchers at Tufts University’s Human-Robot Interaction Lab are tackling, and they’ve come up with at least one strategy for intelligently rejecting human orders.

Addendum on 12/14/15:

Algorithms rule our lives, so who should rule them? — from qz.com by Dries Buytaert
As technology advances and more everyday objects are driven almost entirely by software, it’s become clear that we need a better way to catch cheating software and keep people safe.

The Messy Human Core of Reinventing Higher Education Institutions [LeBlanc]

On 09/16/2015, in 21st century, change, colleges, community colleges, higher education, leadership, organizational change, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, universities, by Daniel Christian

The Messy Human Core of Reinventing Higher Education Institutions — from educause.edu by Paul LeBlanc

Excerpts:

Discussions of business model reengineering and innovation in higher education tend to focus on program design, technology, data, and marketing challenges and on delivery, organizational, revenue, and outsourcing models—along with the myriad other moving parts of the modern organization. Even though traditionalists and romantics would rather not think about these questions, which they view as a neoliberal “corporatization” of the academy, getting the organizational questions wrong can imperil the academic mission for which all colleges and universities exist—especially in these turbulent times for higher education. Still, for those of us who are thinking hard about innovation and new business models, two critical components are too often missing from our discussions: people and culture.

…

But here’s the thing: the very best organizational models are doomed to failure if staff talent is not good and if the culture is poor, whereas high performers and the right culture can produce amazing results even with a poor organizational model.

The jobs that AI can’t replace — from bbc.com by Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee
At the heart of capitalism is the concept of creative destruction. And this phenomenon is turbocharged by technological progress. Innovations from the cotton gin to electricity to the computer have created dramatic changes in the way that we work and the jobs that are available.

Excerpt:

Current advances in robots and other digital technologies are stirring up anxiety among workers and in the media. There is a great deal of fear, for example, that robots will not only destroy existing jobs, but also be better at most or all of the tasks required in the future.

Our research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has shown that that’s at best a half-truth. While it is true that robots are getting very good at a whole bunch of jobs and tasks, there are still many categories in which humans perform better.

Get ready for ‘The Economy Of Things’ — from forbes.com by Veena Pureswaran

Excerpt:

The IoT is not just about smart homes that light up when you arrive or washing machines that text you when the cycle is done. The IoT will turn physical assets into participants in real-time global digital markets. As the Internet of Things continues to turn physical assets into participants in new real-time, digital marketplaces, it’s creating what we describe as a new “Economy of Things.”

These types of assets will become as easily indexed, searched and traded as any online commodity. In fact, such digital marketplaces represent huge economic opportunities for growth and advancement.

Who’s the boss? Hitachi looks to promote artificial intelligence — from blogs.wsj.com by Jun Hongo; with thanks to Norma Owen for this resource

Excerpt:

Hitachi Ltd. is looking to promote artificial intelligence to management.

The Japanese electronics maker said it has developed a new artificial intelligence program that will enable robots to deliver instructions to employees based on analyses of big data and the workers’ routines.

“Work efficiency improved by 8% in warehouses with the new artificial intelligence program, compared to those without them,” a Hitachi spokeswoman said. “The program can examine an extremely large amount of data to provide the most efficient instruction, which is impossible for human managers to handle.”

Hitachi last month unveiled a fast-moving two-armed robot which it says may replace humans in performing basic functions like retrieving items in warehouses.

Tomorrow’s workers want mobile, but are employers ready? — from domo.com
70 percent of future workforce expect a bring-your-own-device culture; value technology perks nearly five times more than a stocked kitchen

Excerpt:

The study, which polled more than 2,000 college students, confirmed what many have assumed: that millennials are a mobile-first generation. Not surprisingly, the survey confirms that millennials spend most of their time accessing the Internet via a mobile device, 46 percent via a mobile phone and 43 percent on a tablet or laptop. Additionally, the report uncovers how much time millennials spend on various mobile activities. More than 97 percent use their phones to send or receive text messages, 96 percent use them to access the Internet, and 68 percent turn to a mobile device to stream music and send or receive pictures.

The findings also affirm how critical it is for companies to adjust to the ever-changing mobile-centric business world in order to attract top talent, which will increasingly be comprised of the millennial generation.

‘Transformer in chief’: The new chief digital officer — from mckinsey.com by Tuck Rickards, Kate Smaje, and Vik Sohoni
The CDO role is changing dramatically. Here are the skills today’s world demands.

Excerpt:

In the alphabet soup that is today’s crowded C-suite, few roles attract as much attention as that of the chief digital officer, or CDO. While the position isn’t exactly new, what’s required of the average CDO is. Gone are the days of being responsible for introducing basic digital capabilities and perhaps piloting a handful of initiatives. The CDO is now a “transformer in chief,” charged with coordinating and managing comprehensive changes that address everything from updating how a company works to building out entirely new businesses. And he or she must make progress quickly.

According to social forecasts in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, the point at which our labor market has more freelancers than full-time employees is between 5 to 10 years away. The growing automation of knowledge work means that, globally, we are expected to lose around 2 billion jobs by 2030. Some of that loss will be softened by new jobs created, but they’re going to be of the low-paid, temporary, variety. Today’s university graduates are facing what has been termed a “high skills/low income” future. The recent rapid growth in “knowledge process outsourcing” — the breaking up of salaried jobs into bid-for tasks, through websites like Elance.com and Freelancer. com — may well be transforming economies of developing countries like India, but it is causing futurists in the west to predict “the end of job.”

— What the Future Economy Means for How Kids Learn Today

The unlikely cities that will power the U.S. economy — from bloomberg.com

Excerpt:

Huntsville is one of a growing number of smaller U.S. cities, far from Silicon Valley, that are seeking to replace dwindling factory jobs by reinventing themselves as tech centers. Across the Midwest, Northeast, and South, mayors and governors are competing to attract tech companies and workers.

How freelancers are fighting for their labor rights — from fastcompany.com by Dillon Baker
In the absence of unions, creative freelancers are finding new ways to work collectively.

Excerpt:

“On average, our members are owed over $10,000 in unpaid invoices and spend 36 hours tracking down each missing payment,” says Freelancers Union founder and labor lawyer Sara Horowitz. She explains that nearly half (44%) of their members report issues in getting paid.

But getting paid on time is just one of the hurdles that the growing independent workforce faces.

For example, the Internet has lowered the bar to entry for professional writing and created more opportunities than ever, which on one hand is good news for entry-level writers, but shrunken profits have also hollowed out freelance rates at many publications.

4 ways to prepare for the workplace of the future — from fastcompany.com by Erin Palmer
Millennials face a much more volatile workplace than ever. Here are four ways to adapt.

Excerpt:

The workplace of the future will be a world of contradictions—which the next generations that enter it will need to master.

Charting a career path in a mercurial workforce means staying focused and adaptive in equal measure. That’s something millennials and their younger generation Z counterparts will need to be able to do more successfully than their elders ever had to.

For now, though, the learning curve still looks steep. A recent study by the online work company Upwork found that despite the millions of millennials looking for work, 53% of hiring managers said that they struggle to find and retain millennial employees.

Today’s leaders have gotten to where they are by adapting to what’s now and what’s next, not blindly clinging to one specific path.

Addendum on 9/15/15:

APIs Are The New FTEs — from techcrunch.comby Gaurav Jain
Excerpt:
A decade ago, a VP of engineering at a startup might have evaluated the resumes of five solid front-end engineers. Five years ago that VP would have looked at GitHub profiles. Today, they are just as likely to evaluate a front-end framework like Ionic, Meteor or Aurelia and build it themselves.

It’s not just front-end options. We’ve seen a massive proliferation in frameworks, libraries and other tools that allow a single talented engineer to do the work of a team.

Companies and products like Heroku, Celery, RabbitMQ, Mandrill, Fastly, Chartio, Chargebee, Shipwire, Docker, Codeship, Rainforest QA, Replicated and Chartbeat have changed the nature of tech development. These are just a small subset of services that replace the work of individuals or entire teams.

WordPress Ate Webmasters
This trend has pros and cons. It will make life harder for those with only mid-tier technical knowledge. Look at what WordPress has done to “webmasters.” The blogging platform turned CMS has colonized the web, and accounts for ~23 percent of Internet traffic.

The Free Two-Year College Movement — A Special/Mini Feature from evoLLLution.com (where the LLL stands for lifelong learning)

Excerpt:

Given the importance of postsecondary credentials to succeeding in today’s labor market, access to and completion of two- and four-year degrees has become a high priority for higher education leaders, government officials and employers. In 2014, Tennessee launched the Tennessee Promise, which granted Tennesseans tuition-free access to two-year colleges in the state. Oregon, in 2015, passed a similar piece of legislation and President Obama made America’s College Promise—a national roll-out of this style of program—a hallmark of his State of the Union address.

While the program goes to great lengths to create unprecedented levels of access to higher education, the focus must turn to how colleges will manage life in this new reality and how the higher education marketplace will have to shift to adjust to this new level of access. This Feature focuses on those elements of the free two-year college movement.

From DSC:
From the original Kalamazoo Promise (which was generously/graciously put forth by a group of anonymous donors), many such “promise” programs have been developed — affecting programs all the way up to President Obama’s development of America’s College Promise.

Colleges and universities would be wise to keep this potential trend on their radars, while preparing plans for what they would do if this trend picks up steam.

White House: Innovation in Higher Education — from elearnspace.org by George Siemens

Excerpt from George’s posting (emphasis DSC):

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to the White House. The invitation was somewhat cryptic, but basically stated that the focus on the meeting was on quality and innovation.
…
2. Higher education generally has no clue about what’s brewing in the marketplace as a whole. The change pressures that exist now are not ones that the existing higher education model can ignore. The trends – competency-based learning, unbundling, startups & capital inflow, new pedagogical models, technology, etc – will change higher education dramatically.

3. No one knows what HE is becoming. Forget the think tanks and the consultants and the keynote speakers. No one knows how these trends will track or what the university will look like in the future. This unknowability stems from HE being a complex systems with many interacting elements. We can’t yet see how these will connect and inter-relate going forward. The best strategy in a time of uncertainty is not to seek or force the way forward, but to enter a cycle of experimentation. The Cynefin Framework provides the best guidance that I’ve seen on how to function in our current context.
…
7. Expect a future of far greater corporate involvement in HE. VC funds are flowing aggressively and these funders are also targeting policy change at local, state, and national levels. We aren’t used to this level of lobbying and faculty is unprepared to respond to this. Expect it. Your next faculty meeting will involve a new student success system, a personalized learning system, an analytics system, a new integrated bootcamp model, new competency software, new cloud-based computing systems, and so on. Expect it. It’s coming.

8. Expect M & A activities in higher education. I fully anticipate some combination of partnering with companies like General Assembly, creation of in-house bootcamps, or outright acquisitions by innovative universities.

Higher Education is moving from a 4 year relationship to students to a 40 year relationship.

From DSC:

[First of all, if you read this George, thanks for sharing your experiences, reflections, and recommendations from your recent trip to the White House. I/we appreciate it.]

I can’t agree with — and emphasize — George’s second point (above) strongly enough. Too often, I think we have our heads and eyes pointed downward, busy in our work; we fail to look up and see what’s happening all around us. We neglect to see the trends that are occurring and that will likely have an impact on us. If we were doing this, as we should be doing, several of our priorities would instantly change and there would be a much stronger sense of urgency in identifying some new directions/strategic initiatives/experiments within institutions of traditional higher education.

I don’t see our institutions competing with our typical/normal peer groups of the past. More and more, I think that we are competing with the new models, startups, and alternatives to traditional higher education. Yes, traditional institutions of higher education can respond and change — some have been doing so already. But how many of our institutions within the overall learning ecosystems are not experimenting? How many of our institutions have their heads buried in the sand, waiting for the good old days to return? Those days are not going to return. They’re gone. That ride is over. We need to wake up and adapt before the alternatives gain momentum (perhaps even borrowing some strategies from the alternatives, hmm?).

This is why I’m big on experimentation and the implementation of TrimTab Groups within higher education.

Finally, you may not like the word “disruption” and you may think it’s overused. But I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

As George warns in his posting, there are dramatic changes to higher education coming down the pike. George is not one to hype things up — he is a level-headed deep thinker. I’d suggest that we listen to what he’s saying to us via his experiences and reflections from participating in his recent meetings/conversations held at the White House.

RealEstate-HigherEd-DanielSChristian11-1-13

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025? [Christian]

On 07/31/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adult learning, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), blended learning, business side of he, career development, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, digital storytelling, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, liberal arts, lifelong learning, marketplaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pace of change, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, second screen apps, social learning / networks, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, TVs, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

This posting can also be seen out at evoLLLution.com (where LLL stands for lifelong learning):

From DSC:
What might our learning ecosystems look like by 2025?

In the future, learning “channels” will offer more choice, more control. They will be far more sophisticated than what we have today.

That said, what the most important aspects of online course design end up being 10 years from now depends upon what types of “channels” I think there will be and what might be offered via those channels. By channels, I mean forms, methods, and avenues of learning that a person could pursue and use. In 2015, some example channels might be:

Attending a community college, a college or a university to obtain a degree
Obtaining informal learning during an internship
Using social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn
Reading blogs, books, periodicals, etc.

In 2025, there will likely be new and powerful channels for learning that will be enabled by innovative forms of communications along with new software, hardware, technologies, and other advancements. For examples, one could easily imagine:

That the trajectory of deep learning and artificial intelligence will continue, opening up new methods of how we might learn in the future
That augmented and virtual reality will allow for mobile learning to the Nth degree
That the trend of Competency Based Education (CBE) and microcredentials may be catapulted into the mainstream via the use of big data-related affordances

Due to time and space limitations, I’ll focus here on the more formal learning channels that will likely be available online in 2025. In that environment, I think we’ll continue to see different needs and demands – thus we’ll still need a menu of options. However, the learning menu of 2025 will be more personalized, powerful, responsive, sophisticated, flexible, granular, modularized, and mobile.

Highly responsive, career-focused track

One part of the menu of options will focus on addressing the demand for more career-focused information and learning that is available online (24×7). Even in 2015, with the U.S. government saying that 40% of today’s workers now have ‘contingent’ jobs and others saying that percentage will continue climbing to 50% or more, people will be forced to learn quickly in order to stay marketable. Also, the 1/2 lives of information may not last very long, especially if we continue on our current trajectory of exponential change (vs. linear change).

However, keeping up with that pace of change is currently proving to be out of reach for most institutions of higher education, especially given the current state of accreditation and governance structures throughout higher education as well as how our current teaching and learning environment is set up (i.e., the use of credit hours, 4 year degrees, etc.). By 2025, accreditation will have been forced to change to allow for alternative forms of learning and for methods of obtaining credentials. Organizations that offer channels with a more vocational bent to them will need to be extremely responsive, as they attempt to offer up-to-date, highly-relevant information that will immediately help people be more employable and marketable. Being nimble will be the name of the game in this arena. Streams of content will be especially important here. There may not be enough time to merit creating formal, sophisticated courses on many career-focused topics.

With streams of content, the key value provided by institutions will be to curate the most relevant, effective, reliable, up-to-date content…so one doesn’t have to drink from the Internet’s firehose of information. Such streams of content will also offer constant potential, game-changing scenarios and will provide a pulse check on a variety of trends that could affect an industry. Social-based learning will be key here, as learners contribute to each other’s learning. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) will need to be knowledgeable facilitators of learning; but given the pace of change, true experts will be rare indeed.

Microcredentials, nanodegrees, competency-based education, and learning from one’s living room will be standard channels in 2025. Each person may have a web-based learner profile by then and the use of big data will keep that profile up-to-date regarding what any given individual has been learning about and what skills they have mastered.

For example, even currently in 2015, a company called StackUp creates their StackUp Report to add to one’s resume or grades, asserting that their services can give “employers and schools new metrics to evaluate your passion, interests, and intellectual curiosity.” Stackup captures, categorizes, and scores everything you read and study online. So they can track your engagement on a given website, for example, and then score the time spent doing so. This type of information can then provide insights into the time you spend learning.

Project teams and employers could create digital playlists that prospective employees or contractors will have to advance through; and such teams and employers will be watching to see how the learners perform in proving their competencies.

However, not all learning will be in the fast lane and many people won’t want all of their learning to be constantly in the high gears. In fact, the same learner could be pursuing avenues in multiple tracks, traveling through their learning-related journeys at multiple speeds.

The more traditional liberal arts track

To address these varied learning preferences, another part of the menu will focus on channels that don’t need to change as frequently. The focus here won’t be on quickly-moving streams of content, but the course designers in this track can take a bit more time to offer far more sophisticated options and activities that people will enjoy going through.

Along these lines, some areas of the liberal arts* will fit in nicely here.

*Speaking of the liberal arts, a brief but important tangent needs to be addressed, for strategic purposes. While the following statement will likely be highly controversial, I’m going to say it anyway. Online learning could be the very thing that saves the liberal arts.

Why do I say this? Because as the price of higher education continues to increase, the dynamics and expectations of learners continue to change. As the prices continue to increase, so do peoples’ expectations and perspectives. So it may turn out that people are willing to pay a dollar range that ends up being a fraction of today’s prices. But such greatly reduced prices won’t likely be available in face-to-face environments, as offering these types of learning environment is expensive. However, such discounted prices can and could be offered via online-based environments. So, much to the chagrin of many in academia, online learning could be the very thing that provides the type of learning, growth, and some of the experiences that liberal arts programs have been about for centuries. Online learning can offer a lifelong supply of the liberal arts.

But I digress…
By 2025, a Subject Matter Expert (SME) will be able to offer excellent, engaging courses chocked full of the use of:

Engaging story/narrative
Powerful collaboration and communication tools
Sophisticated tracking and reporting
Personalized learning, tech-enabled scaffolding, and digital learning playlists
Game elements or even, in some cases, multiplayer games
Highly interactive digital videos with built-in learning activities
Transmedia-based outlets and channels
Mobile-based learning using AR, VR, real-world assignments, objects, and events
…and more.

However, such courses won’t be able to be created by one person. Their sophistication will require a team of specialists – and likely a list of vendors, algorithms, and/or open source-based tools – to design and deliver this type of learning track.

Final reflections

The marketplaces involving education-related content and technologies will likely look different. There could be marketplaces for algorithms as well as for very granular learning modules. In fact, it could be that modularization will be huge by 2025, allowing digital learning playlists to be built by an SME, a Provost, and/or a Dean (in addition to the aforementioned employer or project team). Any assistance that may be required by a learner will be provided either via technology (likely via an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled resource) and/or via a SME.

We will likely either have moved away from using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) or those LMSs will allow for access to far larger, integrated learning ecosystems.

Functionality wise, collaboration tools will still be important, but they might be mind-blowing to us living in 2015. For example, holographic-based communications could easily be commonplace by 2025. Where tools like IBM’s Watson, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Deepmind, and Apple’s Siri end up in our future learning ecosystems is hard to tell, but will likely be there. New forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) will likely be mainstream by 2025.

While the exact menu of learning options is unclear, what is clear is that change is here today and will likely be here tomorrow. Those willing to experiment, to adapt, and to change have a far greater likelihood of surviving and thriving in our future learning ecosystems.

Learning Ecosystems

Is the next Uber coming your way? [IBM’s Global C-suite Study]

Automation potential and wages for US jobs [McKinsey Global Institute]

The Messy Human Core of Reinventing Higher Education Institutions [LeBlanc]

Reflections on George Siemens’ posting: “White House: Innovation in Higher Education”

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