Free Artificial Intelligence (AI) course from Stanford this fall

 

Addendum on 8/16/11:

  • Virtual and artificial, but 58,000 want course — from NYT
    PALO ALTO, Calif. — A free online course at Stanford University on artificial intelligence, to be taught this fall by two leading experts from Silicon Valley, has attracted more than 58,000 students around the globe — a class nearly four times the size of Stanford’s entire student body.

Analysis: In debt row, hints of emerging-economy crises — from Reuters by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
WASHINGTON | Sun Jul 24, 2011 5:59pm EDT
Debt default. A ratings downgrade. Political deadlock. Such terms, once associated primarily with the developing world, now abound in the mighty United States.

 

Google Building “Global Classroom” in YouTube EDU with 400 Colleges Worldwide — from blip.tv

About the above video:

Having launched just over two years ago as a hub for college and universitie YouTube channels, YouTube EDU has become a destination for education, providing an index for a broad range of topics and campus activities, says Angela Lin who manages the education program at YouTube. The YouTube site integrates content from 400 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel and Australia.

exchangealanguage.com -- Improving languages by creating friendships

Tagged with:  

From DSC:
First, a word of caution. Due to the content of some of the stations available herein, I would recommend that only those people who are 18 or older visit this site.

 

 

WorldTV.com

Connected TV Summit: TV apps and second screen strategies — from tvgenious.net by Emma Wells

Excerpts (emphasis by DSC — especially as it relates to education & learning-based apps):

Connected TV has been around for a while, and 2010 has seen connected devices, especially smartphones, go mainstream.  One of the key highlights of today’s Summit was the fact that the second screen is becoming an important part of the TV environment.

New consumer behaviour patterns and the rapid pace of technology have given birth to TV everywhere strategies, companion apps, TV apps, and VoD adoption.

The TV App Experience

At the event, it was hypothesised that “consumers are starting to redefine what they see as television”. This is good news for TV app developers, as they seek to mould a new, modern, TV experience.

TV apps are seen as an ideal way to hand control over to the viewers.  Additionally, TV apps can be used as the gateway to personalised viewing, and social media-integrated content. According to BT’s Andy Heselwood, the connected TV winner will be “the company who makes the shared TV experience personal. How to do this effectively without cluttering the TV screen and ruining the “lean back” experience still remains to be seen.

The main benefit of TV apps is that they are lightfooted and require substantially less effort to update than the set top box (STB) or TV. This means that lifecycles can be accelerated, and there is more room for experimentation and development. During the summit, Siemens even went so far as to say that  TV apps on connected TVs can “throw the set top box out of your operations plan”.  If true, this prediction could spell trouble for STB manufacturers.

John Hunter on the World Peace Game — TED March 2011 — my thanks to Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Kate Byerwalter for this great presentation

 

TED Talks -- John Hunter presents the World Peace Game -- March 2011

About this talk
John Hunter puts all the problems of the world on a 4’x5′ plywood board — and lets his 4th-graders solve them. At TED2011, he explains how his World Peace Game engages schoolkids, and why the complex lessons it teaches — spontaneous, and always surprising — go further than classroom lectures can.

About John Hunter
Teacher and musician John Hunter is the inventor of the World Peace Game (and the star of the new doc “World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements”).

 

 

From DSC:
I realize that many in education don’t view Bill and Melinda Gates with a great deal of admiration or respect. However, they and their foundation are about to make a hugely positive difference in — and contribution to — education. I’m sure that these grants will help create solutions that will feature professionally-done, highly-engaging, interactive, multimedia-based, team-created educational content. I hope that many of the solutions will feature sophisticated back-end engines that will allow for highly personalized/customized learning.

This is huge because such solutions are highly scalable. Plus look at who is involved at this point:

  • Pearson
  • Educurious Partners
  • Florida Virtual School
  • Institute of Play
  • Reasoning Mind
  • Quest Atlantis
  • Digital Youth Network
  • EDUCAUSE

Also see:

Also see:

 

Pearson acquisitions — from FutureLearn.org by George Siemens

Excerpt:

Education is on a path to globalization, roughly where businesses were in the 1970s. No clear leader exists, conglomerates haven’t made a huge impact yet, technology is marginally used for conducting business, and acquisitions to expand market capacity are rare. That’s changing. Pearson is rapidly pursuing acquisitions. The education sector, from the stance of corporations, is ripe for innovation. For startups this is a great opportunity. The Silicon Valley effect (create a startup with the intention of being purchased by Google, Microsoft, Facebook) is starting to gain traction in the education sector.

Video conference project sparks meaningful learning — from ConvergeMag.com by Tanya Roscorla

Also see:

  • A Taste for Telepresence — from The Journal by Dian Schaffhauser
    Although high-end videoconferencing is still new to this Maryland school district, it’s a sensible next step on a well-planned path to location-free communication.

 

A hugely powerful vision: A potent addition to our learning ecosystems of the future

 

Daniel Christian:
A Vision of Our Future Learning Ecosystems


In the near future, as the computer, the television, the telephone (and more) continues to converge, we will most likely enjoy even more powerful capabilities to conveniently create and share our content as well as participate in a global learning ecosystem — whether that be from within our homes and/or from within our schools, colleges, universities and businesses throughout the world.

We will be teachers and students at the same time — even within the same hour — with online-based learning exchanges taking place all over the virtual and physical world.  Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) — in the form of online-based tutors, instructors, teachers, and professors — will be available on demand. Even more powerful/accurate/helpful learning engines will be involved behind the scenes in delivering up personalized, customized learning — available 24x7x365.  Cloud-based learner profiles may enter the equation as well.

The chances for creativity,  innovation, and entrepreneurship that are coming will be mind-blowing! What employers will be looking for — and where they can look for it — may change as well.

What we know today as the “television” will most likely play a significant role in this learning ecosystem of the future. But it won’t be like the TV we’ve come to know. It will be much more interactive and will be aware of who is using it — and what that person is interested in learning about. Technologies/applications like Apple’s AirPlay will become more standard, allowing a person to move from device to device without missing a  beat. Transmedia storytellers will thrive in this environment!

Much of the professionally done content will be created by teams of specialists, including the publishers of educational content, and the in-house teams of specialists within colleges, universities, and corporations around the globe. Perhaps consortiums of colleges/universities will each contribute some of the content — more readily accepting previous coursework that was delivered via their consortium’s membership.

An additional thought regarding higher education and K-12 and their Smart Classrooms/Spaces:
For input devices…
The “chalkboards” of the future may be transparent, or they may be on top of a drawing board-sized table or they may be tablet-based. But whatever form they take and whatever is displayed upon them, the ability to annotate will be there; with the resulting graphics saved and instantly distributed. (Eventually, we may get to voice-controlled Smart Classrooms, but we have a ways to go in that area…)

Below are some of the graphics that capture a bit of what I’m seeing in my mind…and in our futures.

Alternatively available as a PowerPoint Presentation (audio forthcoming in a future version)

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

— from Daniel S. Christian | April 2011

See also:

Addendum on 4-14-11:

 

Tagged with:  

Skype Community Comes to the Classroom — from The Journal by David Nagel

Skype in the classroom offers teachers a free platform for communications and collaboration.
Skype in the classroom offers teachers a free platform for communications and collaboration.

Skype has launched a global community for educators called Skype in the classroom.

The free service is focused on connecting teachers from around the world to allow them to communicate, collaborate on projects, draw expertise from one another, and share learning materials and best practices. It also serves as a launchpad for connecting students with their peers in classrooms across the planet using Skype video.

 

 

Addendum on 4/1/11:

© 2024 | Daniel Christian