From DSC:
In this series of periodic postings re: experimentation (see here and here), this week’s Consumers Electronics Show prompts me to think about different types of experiments, prompting such questions as:
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  • When will we see more educationally-related second screen apps?
    .
  • How might this type of setup dovetail with MOOCs provided by institutions of higher education? With MOOCs offered by the corporate world?
    .
  • What sorts of technologies will weave their way into what could be offered here?
    (The following possibilities come to my mind: Artificial Intelligence (AI), learning agents, recommendation engines, course or topic playlists, web-based learner profiles, data mining/analytics, videoconferencing, educational gaming, virtual tutoring, BYOD, and/or cloud-based computing. Other…?)
    .
  • Will Internet-enabled marketplaces and exchanges — between learners and teachers — become commonplace?
    .
  • Will technologies involved with endeavors like IBM’s Watson or with Knewton be deployed in this kind of convergent environment? If so, what sorts of doors/job opportunities/new skillsets would that open up or require?
    .

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The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

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Some relevant items on this include:

Flingo reveals Samba, a first of its kind dual interactive TV and second screen platform — from pandodaily.com byasdf

Excerpt:

This week at CES in Las Vegas (the Consumer Electronics Show), San Francisco-based Flingo will release the latest version of its platform, dubbed Samba, aimed at changing this. Samba will make four-year-old Flingo one of the first to offer a combined Interactive TV and Second Screen experience.

“We saw a surge of Smart TV and tablet adoption in 2012, but realized that a seamless TV experience across all screens was missing,” says Flingo co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin, formerly of BitTorrent. “Samba will blur the lines between linear television and the Web.”

Flingo is unique in that it uses video, not audio to identify what content is being viewed…

Samba offers viewers the ability to actively engage with programming in real-time through their primary screen. This can take the form of polls, social conversations, recommendations, or consumption of related media. In the case of Second Screens, aka internet-connected laptops, tablets, and smartphones used simultaneously while watching TV, the company can offer an even wider array of complementary content and engagement, such as aggregated social feeds relating to live programming or an ability to watch past episodes of a live show. This can all be delivered across multiple screens, in concert.

 

Also see:

Smart TV Alliance adds Panasonic and IBM to its fold, lays bare new SDK features -- Sean Buckley

 

Also see:

 

samsung smart tv ces 2013

 

Kevin Smith/Business Insider

 

More tangentially, but still relevant:

  • McGraw-Hill to debut adaptive e-book for students — from blogs.wsj.com by Shalini Ramachandran
    Excerpt:

    The SmartBook…works like this: All readers essentially see the same textbook as they read for the first five minutes. But as a reader answers review questions placed throughout the chapter, different passages become highlighted to point the reader to where he or she should focus attention.

 

CES 2013: What to expect — from gdgt.com

Excerpt:

The biggest consumer electronics event of the year is about to start. And while certain major companies won’t be there (we’re talking to you, Microsoft and Apple), those that are will be showing off some exciting new gadgets, including 4K TVs, touchscreen displays, and next-generation smartphones and tablets. Here’s what we’re expecting, based on what we’ve seen so far.

 

From DSC:
Though Apple TV will be “the elephant in the room”, the questions I ponder are:

 

  • What would educationally-related apps look like if smart/connected TVs and second screen devices continue to make their way into the living room?
    .
  • What new functionality and pedagogies would open up to us if Learning from the Living [Class] Room came to fruition?
    .
  • Will MOOCs morph into something that will make it’s way into our living rooms? What about if corporations offered their own MOOCs?

 

 

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From DSC:
Eventually, this will lay a solid foundation for what I’m calling “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.”

 

Also see:

  • HEVC is game changer for multi-screen and IPTV
    Excerpt:
    There is an industry consensus that HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding), the draft compression standard, will have a dramatic impact on the industry thanks to its ability to eventually halve bit rates compared to MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), the current encoding Gold Standard that it will complement but ultimately succeed. And as with all encoding, if you create sufficient extra coding efficiency to halve bit rates then you can also choose to leave bit rates the same but double picture quality, or turn the bandwidth/quality dial to any point in between. Encoder vendors are working towards deployments of the new codec as early as next year, probably starting with multi-screen TV services and fixed line IPTV.
    .
  • Indra Sistemas SA : Connected TV: Gateway to the job market for the disabled
    Excerpt:
    Thanks to this standard, researchers of the Visual Telecommunications Application Group (G@TV), through the Indra-Adecco Foundation Chair, are developing a television platform in which people with various disabilities can access services such as distance learning and job offers. It will also enable employers and the public to obtain information about disability and the integration of the disabled into the workforce.

Yahoo! and Samsung form multi-year partnership to deliver Interactive TV — from dailyfinance.com by Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Partnership to provide real-time, enhanced entertainment and advertising to homes across the United States

Excerpt:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Yahoo! (NAS: YHOO) and Samsung today announced an expanded multi-year partnership to integrate Yahoo!’s Broadcast Interactivity platform into Samsung 2012 Smart TVs. Yahoo! Broadcast Interactivity, powered by its automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, SoundPrintTM, will be deployed in Samsung’s SyncPlus platform, enabling new opportunities for intelligent content discovery, advertising and engagement, bringing an unprecedented level of interactivity in the living room.

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From DSC:
Another steps towards:

 

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

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A fifth of TV sets connected to the Internet by 2016 — from digitaltvresearch.com

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Welcome to Star Scholar U., where a personal brand is the credential — from The Chronicle by By Jeffrey R. Young

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Welcome to Star Scholar U 2

Keri Rasmussen for The Chronicle

Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason U., helped build an online-education site, Marginal Revolution U, based on a blog he runs with Alex Tabarrok. “In part we did it just to show it could be done—that you can have a Web site which looks nice and works,” Mr. Cowen said.

 

Excerpt:

A new kind of university has begun to emerge: Call it Star Scholar U.

Professors with large followings and technical prowess are breaking off to start their own online institutions, delivering courses with little or no backing from traditional campuses.

Founding a university may sound dramatic, but in an era of easy-to-use online tools it can be done as a side project—akin to blogging or writing a textbook. Soon there could be hundreds of Star Scholar U’s.

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5 perspectives on the future of the human interface — from techcrunch.com by Alex Williams

Excerpt:

The next generation of apps will require developers to think more of the human as the user interface. It will become more about the need to know how an app works while a person stands up or with their arms in the air more so than if they’re sitting down and pressing keys with their fingers.

Also see:

 

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Rethinking carrots: A new method for measuring what players find most rewarding and motivating about your game — from gamasutra.com by Scott Rigby, Richard Ryan

Excerpt:

The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction model (PENS) outlines three basic psychological needs, those of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, that we have demonstrated lie at the heart of the player’s fun, enjoyment, and valuing of games. By collecting players’ reports of how these needs are being satisfied, the PENS model can strongly and significantly predict positive experiential and commercial outcomes, in many cases much more strongly than more traditional measures of fun and enjoyment. And despite the simplicity of the model conceptually, it shows promise as a “unified theory” of the player experience by demonstrating predictive value regardless of genre, platform, or even the individual preferences of players.

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Pearson project will let professors mix free and paid content in e-textbooks — from The Chronicle by Alisha Azevedo

Excerpt:

Pearson, a major textbook publisher, continued its push into digital education on Monday by introducing a service that allows instructors to create e-textbooks using open-access content and Pearson material.

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A river of data — from educationnext.org by Bror Saxberg
Making the learning experience more effective

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How should teaching change in the age of Siri?– from MindShift

Excerpt:

 Short of banning smartphones (a short-term solution, at best), the evolution of artificial intelligence services like Siri means that there will be a shift from a focus on finding the answer as the endpoint to a greater focus on analysis. You have the answer, but so what? What does that answer mean in a real-life situation?

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Degreed launches crowdfunding campaign for reimagined ‘digital diploma’ — from gigaom.com by Ki Mae Heussner
San Francisco startup Degreed is challenging the traditional college diploma with an online service that tracks and scores educational achievements from established institutions as well as new online learning platforms. Ahead of a public launch in 2013, Degreed this week began a crowd funding campaign.

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A capitalist’s dilemma, whoever wins on Tuesday — from the New York Times by Clayton Christensen

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In a way, this mirrors the microeconomic paradox explored in my book “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” which shows how successful companies can fail by making the “right” decisions in the wrong situations. America today is in a macroeconomic paradox that we might call the capitalist’s dilemma. Executives, investors and analysts are doing what is right, from their perspective and according to what they’ve been taught. Those doctrines were appropriate to the circumstances when first articulated — when capital[From DSC: or from an educational perspective, we could use the word information] was scarce.

But we’ve never taught our apprentices that when capital is abundant and certain new skills are scarce, the same rules are the wrong rules. Continuing to measure the efficiency of capital prevents investment in empowering innovations that would create the new growth we need because it would drive down their RONA, ROCE and I.R.R.

 

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Gartner sees 821M unit smart device mkt in 2012; 1.2B 2013 — from forbes.com by Eric Savitz

 

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Why Apple could still own the living room of the future — from cultofmac.com by Mike Elgan

 

Why Apple Could Still Own the Living Room of the Future

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Google and all the big-screen TV makers want to
own the the all-purpose living room entertainment system of tomorrow.

 

 

Connected home has broad appeal — from connectedworldmag.com

Excerpt:

Connectivity is becoming a part of so many home devices and systems that someday soon we may no longer refer to “connected home” technology but instead simply say technology for the home. The connected aspect will be implied, thanks in part to M2M (machine-to-machine) technology.

 

 

Augmented Reality in education — from ARNews.TV by Paul Hamilton

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Augmented Reality in Education - October 26 2012

 

 

Learn best practices for using iBooks Author in education — from the New Media Consortium

Excerpt:

In 2012 the AT&T Learning Studio, NMC member Abilene Christian University (ACU) produced an annual report for corporate and on-campus audiences. The report needed to showcase media content within the broader context of our mandate to be a learning laboratory within the university. ACU chose iBooks Author to test its value as a tool for first-time users and design professionals. This webinar recording will walk you through opportunities and challenges in using iBooks Author for major projects.

 

 

Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2013 and Beyond
Analysts Examine Latest Industry Directions at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, October 21-25 in Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla., October 24, 2012—

Gartner, Inc. has revealed its top predictions for IT organizations and IT users for 2013 and beyond. Gartner analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 25.

 Gartner’s top predictions focus on economic risks, opportunities and innovations that will impel CIOs to move to the next generation of business-driven solutions. Selected from across Gartner’s research areas as the most compelling and critical predictions, they address the trends and topics that underline the reduction of control that IT has over the forces that affect it.

 “The priorities of CEOs must be dealt with by CIOs who exist in a still-turbulent economy and increasingly uncertain technology future,” said Daryl Plummer, managing vice president and Gartner fellow. “As consumerization takes hold and the Nexus of Forces drives CEOs to certain expectations, CIOs must still provide reliability, serviceability and availability of systems and services. Their priorities must span multiple areas. As the world of IT moves forward, it is finding that it must coordinate activities in a much wider scope than it once controlled, and as a result, a loss of control echoes through several predictions we are making.”

Gartner’s top predictions for IT organizations include the following…

 

Invisible’s ‘The New Obsolete’ showcases self-constructed instruments, touts a typewriter-driven piano (video) — from engadget.com by Billy Steele

Invisible's 'The New Obsolete' showcases selfconstructed instruments, touts a typewriterdriven piano

 

Addendums:

 

http://www.apple.com/osx/

 

  • Mountain Lion available today [7/25/12]  from the Mac App Store — from Apple.com
    Apple announced [on 7/25] that OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, is available as a download from the Mac App Store. Mountain Lion includes more than 200 innovative new features, such as iCloud integration, the all-new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration, Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring, and Game Center. Mountain Lion is available as an upgrade from Lion or Snow Leopard for $19.99 (US). Read more: apple.com/osx

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Apple Q3 Earnings: Even underwhelming numbers are strong — from readwriteweb.com

 

 

Tagged with:  

Apple's iTunes U may be leading a global revolution in higher education

 

From DSC:

Apple has been putting together a solid ecosystem of hardware and software that allows for the creation and distribution of content.  “Easy is hard” I like to say and Apple’s done a great job of creating easy-to-use devices and apps. They have a long way to go before iTunes U has all the built-in functionality needed to replace a Blackboard Learn or a Moodle type of CMS/LMS.  But given their solid history of creating highly-usable hardware and software, they could deal a smashing blow to what’s happening in the CMS/LMS world today. 

Plus, with Apple TV, Airplay mirroring, the growth of second screen-based apps, and machine-to-machine communications, Apple is poised to get into this game…big time. If my thoughts re: “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” come to fruition, Apple would be positioned for some serious worldwide impact on lifelong learning; especially when combined with the developments such as the use of MOOCs, AI and HCI-related innovations, learning agents, web-based learner profiles, and potential/upcoming changes to accreditation.

Too far fetched do you think? Hmmm….well considering that online learning has already been proven to be at least as affective as f2f learning — and in some studies has produced even greater learning outcomes/results — I wonder how things will look in mid-2015…? (That is, where is the innovation occurring?)


 Addendum:

  • Connected TV penetration to top 50% by 2017 — from worldscreen.com by Mansha Daswani
    Excerpt:
    SCOTTSDALE: ABI Research forecasts that more than 50 percent of television homes in North America and Western Europe will have Internet-connected TV sets by 2017, up from just 10 percent last year, while Blu-ray player penetration is expected to rise to more than 76 percent from about 25 percent. The report notes that the popularity of connected TV is not limited to developed markets—there have been increasing shipments to China, ABI notes.
    .
  • Advertisers need to pay attention to connected TV [INFOGRAPHIC] — from Mashable.com
    .
  • The future of TV is two screens, one held firmly in your hands — from FastCompany.com by Kit Eaton
    Excerpt:

    The connected TV, sometimes called the smart TV (and even branded as such by Samsung) is a growing phenomenon: TV makers are adding limited apps, Net connectivity, and even streaming media powers to their newer TVs in the hope they’ll persuade you to upgrade your newish LCD for a flatter, smarter unit. They’re desperate to, given how flat this market is. But according to new research from Pew, the future of TV may actually be a little more closely aligned with the notion of a “connected TV viewer,” an important distinction. Pew spoke to over 2,200 U.S. adults a couple of months ago and discovered that 52% of all adult cell phone owners now “incorporate their mobile devices into their television watching experiences.”

 

AT&T brings more second-screen features, content to U-verse customers on iPhone, iPad & iPod touch, and online — from prnewswire.com

Excerpt:

DALLAS, July 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — The remote control is no longer the main device sitting next to you on the couch. Your iPhone or iPad is quickly becoming an integral part of TV watching, and AT&T* U-verse® TV customers now have access to several new features and content that bring their TV and wireless experiences together, including:

  • An expanded lineup of on demand premium and TV content available through the U-verse App for iPhone and iPod touch and AT&T U-verse App for iPad at no extra charge, including HBO®, Cinemax®, HBO, STARZ, ENCORE, MOVIEPLEX and Music Choice videos.
  • The ability to now link your iPad to your U-verse TV receiver with the AT&T U-verse App to access up to the minute sports companion content and scores from various leagues for today’s games, a review of yesterday’s games, and to see who is playing tomorrow.
  • The ability to now share information about what you are watching with friends on Facebook, and now, on Twitter through the AT&T U-verse App for iPad.
  • The ability to use your iPhone or iPod touch to control your U-verse TV with a full-featured, intuitive U-verse remote control with channel, guide, DVR, interactive app and on-demand controls, now available on the U-verse App for iPhone and iPod touch. The capability is already available today with the AT&T U-verse App for iPad.

From DSC:
Another illustration of convergence as well as another vendor taking one more step towards enabling a “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” piece of our future learning ecosystems.

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The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

 

 

 

Addendum:

What is AirServer? — my thanks to Mr. Johnny Ansari at Calvin College for this resource

Overview
AirServer is a powerful Mac/PC application that enables you to stream or mirror your iOS device, such as your iPhone 4S, to your Mac/PC. If your computer is connected to a secondary or alternative display, such as an HDTV or projector, your iOS device can use that display. If your iOS device allows Mirroring then anything you see on that device can be displayed on the big screen.

AirServer is the most advanced AirPlay/AirTunes receiver app on the market. Mirroring has been fully supported since version 4.0 of AirServer. No other app will let you seamlessly stream audio, videos, photos, and photo slideshows to your Mac or iOS device. AirServer gives you more features for less money, and it keeps getting better. Android fans rejoice: we now support AirPlay streaming to Mac from Android devices running doubleTwist+AirTwist.


AirServer makes history — 1 May, 2012

We’re so hyped about our latest breakthrough with AirServer that we couldn’t hold back any longer. This is something no other app has done. This is history in the making.

AirPlay Mirroring for PC is here!
That’s right. AirServer is the first and only software that can Mirror your iPhone/iPad to your Windows PC. This is a pre-release version and doesn’t yet have sound or some of the eye candy features of full blown AirServer. But it does have Mirroring. And Mirroring will enable you to take your iPhone 4S and display the screen pixel perfect on your PC. Over the coming weeks we’ll be adding free updates to the PC version to bring it up to speed with the Mac version. Exciting times ahead.

The evolution of a couch potato: How TV and viewers are changing — from hindustantimes.com by Abhishek Baxi

Section headings:

  • Remote controls are dead
  • Let’s bring social in
  • There’s an app for it
  • Viewer is the king

Excerpt:

The future of TV will be based on experiences to engage, entertain, and activate viewers stemming from creativity, imagination, and innovations in technology. While traditionally, TV has been a medium of consumption, the Web experience via PC, mobile, or stand-alone devices, has also brought in real-time engagement. While many call it the death of traditional TV industry, it might just be the factor which brings growth.
Addendum/also see:
  • Luminous Design – the Future of Smart TV — from  innovationexcellence.com
    What is the future of Smart TV? How to create a luminous design that will enlighten TV experience across devices, and make it really consistently Smart? Who could tell us the way better than Dale Herigstad? Dale is Chief Interaction Officer at Possible, and an internationally recognized designer and thought leader on the future of interactive and “many-screen” rich media interfaces.

Updating the second screen ecosystem infographic — from digitalvideospace.blogspot.com

From DSC:

  • Watch this space to see how what I call Learning from the Living Room develops! 
  • It will be interesting to watch how educational gaming dovetails into this as well.

Also see:

The potential of cloud-based education marketplaces — from evoLLLution.com (LifeLong Learning) by Daniel Christian; PDF-based version here

Excerpt:

Such organizations are being impacted by a variety of emerging technologies and trends – two of which I want to highlight here are:

  • Online-based marketplaces – as hosted on “the cloud”
  • The convergence of the television, telephone, and the computer

One of the powerful things that the Internet provides is online-based marketplaces. Such exchanges connect buyers with sellers and vice versa. You see this occurring with offerings like Craig’s List, e-Bay, PaperBackSwap.com, and others.

 

iCloud, not the new iPad, is Apple’s real key to the post-PC revolution — from ReadWriteWeb.com by Dan Frommer

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

What makes the iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and gradually, even the Mac, “post-PC” devices, is the idea that they’re all tied together behind the scenes: Your work, your entertainment, your apps, everything. It’s not that they just replace a PC in your home. It’s that they go beyond what a PC ever offered.

That’s where iCloud comes into play.

© 2024 | Daniel Christian