On 03/06/2013,
in K-12 related,
by Daniel Christian
On 02/22/2013,
in communities of practice, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, faith, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, instructional design, interactivity, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, morals/values, more voice more choice more control, real-world assignments, social learning / networks, strategy, student-related, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Some very frustrated reflections after reading:
- It’s time to worry: Boys are rapidly falling behind girls in school — from takepart.com by Peg Tyre
Reporter Peg Tyre explains why the challenges boys face in school need to be taken much more seriously.
Excerpt:
Right now, boys are falling out of the kindergarten through 12th grade educational pipeline in ways that we can hardly imagine.
This situation continues to remind me of the oil spill in the Gulf (2010), where valuable resources spilled into the water untapped — later causing some serious issues:
.
From DSC:
What are we doing?!!! We’ve watched the dropout rates grow — it doesn’t seem we’ve changed our strategies nearly enough! But the point that gets lost in this is that we will all pay for these broken strategies — and for generations to come! It’s time to seriously move towards identifying and implementing some new goals.
What should the new goals look like? Here’s my take on at least a portion of a new vision for K-12 — and collegiate — education:
- Help students identify their God-given gifts and then help them build up their own learning ecosystems to support the development of those gifts. Hook them up with resources that will develop students’ abilities and passions.
. - Part of their learning ecosystems could be to help them enter into — and build up — communities of practice around subjects that they enjoy learning about. Those communities could be local, national, or international. (Also consider the creation of personalized learning agents, as these become more prevalent/powerful.)
. - Do everything we can to make learning enjoyable and foster a love of learning — as we need lifelong learners these days.
(It doesn’t help society much if students are dropping out of K-12 or if people struggle to make it through graduation — only to then harbor ill feelings towards learning/education in general for years to come. Let’s greatly reduce the presence/usage of standardized tests — they’re killing us! They don’t seem to be producing long-term positive results. I congratulate the recent group of teachers who refused to give their students such tests; and I greatly admire them for getting rid of a losing strategy.)
. - Give students more choice, more control over what their learning looks like; let them take their own paths as much as possible (provide different ways to meet the same learning objective is one approach…but perhaps we need to think beyond/bigger than that. The concern/fear arises…but how will we manage this? That’s where a good share of our thinking should be focused; generating creative answers to that question.)
. - Foster curiosity and wonder
. - Provide cross-disciplinary assignments/opportunities
. - Let students work on/try to resolve real issues in their communities
. - Build up students’ appreciation of faith, hope, love, empathy, and a desire to make the world a better place. Provide ways that they can contribute.
.
- Let students experiment more — encourage failure.
.
On 02/20/2013,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, online learning, participation, simulations, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, technologies for your home, television, transmedia,
by Daniel Christian
Excerpt:
It’s not unusual for a science fiction television show to spin off a video game. What is unusual is linking the show and the game together on an ongoing basis, with plot elements and characters from each crossing over to the other. In April, gaming company Trion Worlds and the Syfy cable television channel will unveil Defiance, the first such crossover massively multiplayer online game (MMO) and TV show.
From DSC:
Transmedia.
Multimedia.
Interactivity.
Participation.
Gamification.
Sounds like there must be something here for the next gen of learners — and learning from the living room.
Also see:
- Six fascinating, informative, and just plain good lectures on videogames in iTunes U — from forbes.com by Carol Pinchefsky
On 02/14/2013,
in higher education, K-12 related, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning,
by Daniel Christian
.
Excerpt: (emphasis DSC)
.
.
Building on the success of the Stanford Online High School (OHS), OHSx will allow middle- and high-school students everywhere to engage in real-time, seminar-based online courses without being formally enrolled in the OHS. Students who successfully complete a course through OHSx will receive a Stanford University Online High School transcript reflecting their achievement.
We are fortunate that our first course will be “Introduction to Mathematical Thinking,” by Dr. Keith Devlin, whose distinguished career includes authoring numerous textbooks as well as a recurring presence as “the Math Guy” on National Public Radio.
This course was originally designed for undergraduates considering a mathematics major in college and has been previously offered to over 70,000 students using the Coursera platform. OHSx is offering this course to advanced high school juniors and seniors. The OHSx course will incorporate Dr. Devlin’s absorbing lectures and will include additional material including regular real-time video-conference seminars should be lead by a Stanford OHSx instructor.
On 02/06/2013,
in 21st century, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, emerging technologies, future, global / globalization, higher education, K-12 related, reinvent, robotics, social learning / networks, social media, society, streams of content, surviving, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
First, what prompted the questions and reflections that are listed below? For that, I turn to some recent items that I ran across involving the use of robotics and whether that may or may not be affecting employment:
The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee; for example their book Race Against the Machine
Excerpt of description:
But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.
How to freak out responsibly about the rise of the robots — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson
It’s fun to imagine an economy where machines are smarter than humans. But we don’t need an artificial crisis over artificial intelligence.
Excerpt:
Let’s say it upfront: Technology can replace jobs and (at least temporarily) increase income inequality. From the spinning jenny to those massive mechanical arms flying wildly around car assembly lines, technology raises productivity by helping workers accomplish more in less time (i.e.: put a power drill in a human hand) and by replacing workers altogether (i.e.: build a power-drilling bot).
…
What ails us today isn’t a surplus of robots, but a deficit of demand. Yes, we have a manufacturing industry undergoing a sensational, but job-killing, productivity revolution — very much like the one that took farm employment from 40 percent in 1900 to less than 5 percent today. But the other nine-tenths of the economy are basically going through an old-fashioned weak-but-steady recovery, the kind that hundreds of years of financial crises would predict.
America has hit “peak jobs” — from techcrunch.com by Jon Evans
Excerpt:
“The middle class is being hollowed out,” says James Altucher. “Economists are shifting their attention toward a […] crisis in the United States: the significant increase in income inequality,” reports the New York Times.
Think all those job losses over the last five years were just caused by the recession? No: “Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market,” according to an AP report on how technology is killing middle-class jobs.
Technology and the employment challenge — from project-syndicate.org by Michael Spence
Excerpt:
MILAN – New technologies of various kinds, together with globalization, are powerfully affecting the range of employment options for individuals in advanced and developing countries alike – and at various levels of education. Technological innovations are not only reducing the number of routine jobs, but also causing changes in global supply chains and networks that result in the relocation of routine jobs – and, increasingly, non-routine jobs at multiple skill levels – in the tradable sector of many economies.
Man vs. robot — from macleans.ca by Peter Nowak
.
.
Secondly, some reflections (from DSC)
I wonder…
- What types of jobs are opening up now? (example here)
- What types of jobs will be opening up soon? How about in 3-5 years from now?
- Should these trends affect the way we educate and prepare our kids today?
- Should these trends affect the way we help employees grow/reinvent themselves?
Again, for me, the answer lies at least partly in helping people consistently obtain the knowledge that they need — i.e. to help them build, grow, and maintain their own learning ecosystems — throughout their lifetimes. We need to help people dip their feet into the appropriate streams of content that are constantly flowing by.
Perhaps that’s one of the key new purposes that K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training departments out there will play in the future as they sift through the massive amounts of information coming at us to help individuals identify:
.
- What are the most effective tools — and methods — that people can use to connect with others?
(Then allow folks to pick what works best for them. Current examples: blogging/RSS feeds, Twitter, social bookmarking.)
.
- Who are some of the folks within each particular discipline/line of work that others (who want to learn about those disciplines) should know about?
.
- What trends are coming down the pike and how should we be preparing ourselves — and/or our organizations — for those changes?
.