‘Social teaching’ company bets buy-in from Capella Education — from The Chronicle by Josh Fischman

The basic idea behind Sophia is to identify the best teachers for any concept, put their instruction for that concept online, and students all over the world can use these “learning packets”  free of charge. For example, a professor who has a really great lesson on how to factor polynomials can package that lesson—complete with video and any other materials—on Sophia, and search engines like Google will let students find it and use it.

From DSC:
Will the Forthcoming Walmart of Education turn out to be that we teach each other, free of charge? Online marketplaces and exchanges continue to appear; the game-changing environment — filled with disruption and change — continues to develop.

But know this, teaching is tough. It’s not easy, and it’s not an exact science; it’s also an art.

Our minds — and the ways in which we learn — are unbelievably complex. After decades of trying, scholars still do not agree on how we learn. There are numerous learning theories out there (still) and though we’ve come a long way, there are no silver bullets of the teaching and learning world.

So if you decide to be a teacher, you better get ready to spend some serious time honing your craft…otherwise, your ratings on these types of sites will plummet and few will see your modules/contributions. conversely, if you are an effective teacher, your ratings will reflect that and your contributions will be seen/linked to quite frequently — from people all over the world.

Also see:

Sophia -- a new online-based learning exchange


QR codes for digital literacy — from Instructional Design Fusions

Increasingly, we are recognizing that mobile devices are an important way to connect people to learning and health tools. However, text interfaces can be very problematic for individuals with poor literacy. Enter QR codes. Although we may associate them with high tech uses, they can play a valuable role in overcoming some text literacy challenges that can make the effective use of mobile phones impossible for some.

This video by adaptivepath.com describing the Mobiglyph project demonstrates how QR codes can help reduce the digital divide.

Key Features Of Upside2Go

Upside2Go is a solution that will not only help your training department reach out to your mobile workforce easily, but would also enable a mobile-based approach to real-time sharing and collaborating, within and outside a team.

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Upside2Go Key Features

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— from Upside2Go – Changing The Game at Upside Learning blog by Aneesh Bhat

Also see:

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James Morrison -- Higher Education in Transition

Example slides/excerpts:

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One example — of several great slides — regarding the old vs. the new paradigm:

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From DSC:
Re: one of the bullet points on the last slide — i.e. “Faculty work as part of instructional team” — here’s my take on what that team increasingly needs to look like in order to engage our students and to compete:

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Online Communities Spark Future Changes in the Training Profession (Interview) — from Bloomfire.com

Excerpts:

Q. Could you envision a 21st century training program for us? What might it look like?

This can be best described by what was said by John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems: “Education over the internet will make email look like a rounding error.” Chambers explains that education is not just evolving, but rather going through a complete transformation.

Q. How might these challenges differ from the challenges of yesterday?

Emerging communication methods, like instant communication and collaboration, have vastly changed the landscape of the way people assimilate information. Time has always been considered a scarce resource, but it has now become even scarcer than before.  We need to adapt to the very rapidly changing environment as training shifts its focus to learning.

Q. In response to this shift, what are some research and technological trends today that will have an impact on tomorrow?

The high-definition video conferencing, mobile learning, and innovative developments centered around social learning and performance support have the potential to lay the foundation of anytime-anywhere learning, in real-time.

Smartphones as Cognitive Prosthetics — from insidedigitalmedia.com by Phil Leigh

From DSC:
Watch the Digimarc Discover video below — then think about how this might apply to anytime, anywhere learning!!! Wow!

Enable your phone to see and hear with Digimarc Discover; recognize all forms of media in your surroundings to enrich and simplify your life..

Digimarc Discover

McGraw-Hill and Wipro to develop mConnect — an affordable mobile learning platform — to reduce skills gap in emerging markets — from McGraw-Hill.com

Excerpt:

“Through advances in mobile learning, McGraw-Hill and Wipro have an unprecedented opportunity to deliver high-quality, low-cost education to students and workers in rural areas and cities with limited access to resources,” said Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies, who made the announcement in Davos. “In a country with more than 700 million cell phones, mobile learning will help level the playing field for education in India in ways never before possible. The success of our pilots in India will serve as a powerful example of how business, schools and governments around the world can harness the power of mobile learning to give more people the skills to succeed in the global Knowledge Economy.”

Ambient Insight Reports Resilient US eLearning Market

U.S. self-paced e-Learning revenues reached $18.2 Million in 2010 — from Ambient Insight Reports by Tyson Greer, Chief Executive Officer

Seattle, WA – January 20, 2010 – The US market for self-paced e-Learning will grow to $24.2 billion by 2015 according to a new report by Ambient Insight called, “The US Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2010-2015 Forecast and Analysis.”

This report forecasts five-year online learning expenditures by eight buyer segments: consumer, corporate, federal government, state and local government, PreK-12 academic, higher education, non-profits and associations, and healthcare.

The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) growth rate for Self-paced eLearning across all eight of the buyer segments is 5.9%, but growth is much higher in particular segments. For example, growth rates in the PreK-12, healthcare, and association segments are 16.8%, 16.3%, and 14.3%, respectively.

For mobile learning:

The US Market for Mobile Learning Products and Services: 2009-2014 Forecast and Analysis
The US market for Mobile Learning products and services reached $632.2 million in 2009. The demand is growing by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3% and revenues will reach $1.4 billion by 2014.

To “appify” old media, we need a new approach — from gigaom.com

The publishing industry is keeping its formerly inky fingers crossed that mobile devices, including the seemingly ubiquitous iPad, will save its behind. With the mobile market still in its infancy, it’s a tad early to be calling definitive trends, but there is one interesting tendency underway that may endure long-term — and that is the “appification” of media content.

This “appification” is being driven by one question — what is it that the audience wants? And the answer resoundingly is this: don’t just replicate the brand, give us something different.

Blackboard Mobile Learn 2.0 embraces multimedia, gets threaded discussions — from The Journal by David Nagel
Blackboard has also launched a new service to help institutions develop custom Mobile Central apps.

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High Speed Ahead– from CampusTechnology.com

Excerpt re: expanding WiFi coverage :

“WiFi is local; that’s the trouble with it,” said McCartney. “With the 4G network, users will have wireless coverage both indoors and while outside walking around between the buildings. That’s a whole lot of coverage that we didn’t have before.”

Besides the clear advantages of faster, more reliable Internet access, the 4G service helps Purdue’s faculty and staff deliver and use bandwidth-intensive applications and solutions to students in a more seamless fashion. Known for developing proprietary mobile technologies to enhance traditional college classroom experiences, the school’s latest developments include the Facebook academic application Mixable and a student discussion tool, HotSeat, which allows students to interact with their classmates and faculty using Twitter and text messages.

Another new application that was implemented in 2010 finds students making instructional use of video in the institution’s forensics classes, among others. The program and the material produced with it are bandwidth-intensive and difficult to manipulate on a traditional WiFi network. The new 4G access will help fill that gap. “To use this application solution, you have to be able to take video, deliver it and [watch] it,” said McCartney. “You can’t do that on 3G.”

With Purdue’s 4G tower activated since early-December, staff and students are already developing new applications that will have a “measurable and material impact on learning,” said McCartney, who added he expects more colleges to jump on the 4G bandwagon as the successful implementations are documented. “As a leading university, we have to keep up with the plumbing around here, and make sure that all of our services work as expected, and as advertised.”

Get the Khan Academy on your iPhone

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— originally from Richard Byrne’s Free Technology for Teachers blog
— from DSC: I couldn’t get the actual video files to load on my iPhone, perhaps I missed a step

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Check out Paul Simbeck-Hampson’s posting:
The Future of Mobile Tagging

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The future of mobile tagging

From DSC:
How might this impact education? Hmmm…

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