Last updated on 12/6/2023

A powerful, global, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-backed, next-generation, lifelong learning platform -- meant to help people reinvent themselves quickly, safely, cost-effectively, conveniently, and consistently. And speaking of people, this new platform will require -- and will rely upon -- human beings to create it as well as to drive its effectiveness.

In the future, the lifelong ownership of the learning-related records and credentials will belong to the individual learners themselves. They will be the ones who control who else can access these records.

Some recent items/quotes/ideas to consider:

When Educators and Employers Work Together, Students Succeed — from hbsp.harvard.edu by Joseph Fuller and Manjari Raman

(Emphasis below from DSC)

Last year, in “The Partnership Imperative,” we put forth a set of more than 40 best practices that employers and educators can use to develop a close collaboration. As part of that effort, we identified three main goals and laid out strategies for achieving each.

1. Partner with each other to offer training and education that is aligned with industry needs. (DSC: Similar to how Instructional Designers want alignment with learning objectives, learning activities, and assessments of learning.)
2. Establish relationships with each other that result in the recruitment and hiring of students and graduates.
3. Make supply-and-demand decisions that are informed by the latest data and trends.

Cocreate and regularly update college curriculums so that they reflect relevant technical and foundational skills based on industry needs. Codesign programs that fit with students’ lives and industry hiring cycles. Incorporate classroom experiences that simulate real-world settings and scenarios.

***I see AI being able to identify what those changing, currently sought-after, and foundational skills are based on industry needs (which shouldn’t be hard, and vendors like Microsoft are already doing this by combing through the posted job descriptions on their platforms). These findings/results will help build regularly updated learning playlists.***

LERs Are Hot. What Are States Going To Do With Them? -- from National Governors Association

Governors and state leaders are concerned about the current labor shortage, occurring during a time when many skilled workers are underemployed or even unemployed. Skills-based approaches to hiring and recruiting can shift that dynamic—making pathways to good careers accessible to a wider segment of the workforce and opening up new pools of talent for employers. They do so by focusing on what workers know and can do, not on the degrees or credentials they’ve earned.

That’s the theory. But a lot hinges on how things actually play out on the ground.

Technology will play a key role, and many states have zeroed in on learning and employment records—essentially digital resumes with verified records of people’s skills, educational experiences, and work histories—as an essential tool. A lot of important work is going into the technical design and specifications.

This project, on the other hand, aims to take a step back and look at the current state of play when it comes to the use cases for LERs. Just a few of the key questions:

• How might employers, education providers, government agencies, and workers themselves actually use them? Will they?
• In what areas do state policymakers have the most influence over key stakeholders and the most responsibility to invest?
• What actions are needed now to ensure that LERs, and skills-based hiring more broadly, actually widen access to good jobs—rather than setting up a parallel system that perpetuates many of today’s inequities?

Exploring blockchain’s potential impact on the education sector — from e27.co by Moch Akbar Azzihad M
By the year 2024, the application of blockchain technology is anticipated to have a substantial influence on the education sector

Areas mentioned include:

• Credentials that are both secure and able to be verified
• Records of accomplishments that are not hidden
• Enrollment process that is both streamlined and automated
• Storage of information that is both secure and decentralised
• Financing and decentralised operations

These items provide evidence of the various
pieces that are coming together >>

What does the vision entail?

• A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24x7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

"I've been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven't heard of yet," Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.

• A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
• A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
• Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determine that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner as to whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
• A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
• An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
• A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
• A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
• A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course
(meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
• Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
• An online-based marketplace, matching learners with resources

Ideally, the learner is using two displays simultaneously:

• A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
• A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
• The SME(s)
• An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
• Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
• The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
• Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
• Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
• An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
• Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
• Speech-to-text capabilities to provide real-time closed captioning and transcriptions -- as well as for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
• Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
• Chatbots
• For learning how to use the system
• For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
• For asking questions within a course to obtain information -- such as asking questions of a historical figure
• As many profiles as needed per household
• Similar to asking questions of a chatbot, we will be able to use holographic storytelling where learners can ask questions of a hologram (examples here and here)
• The ability to use the learner's webcam to take pictures of equations in order to get instant feedback and/or links to other resources
• Polling
• (Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
• (Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
• (Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
• (Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
• The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
• A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
• Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”
• A twist on the flipped classroom approach, whereby students can check out videos of equations, problems, etc. and put in their "markers" with accompanying comments throughout the videos, alerting the SMEs where they have questions, comments, and/or issues

In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Consider the items below:

In the future, we won't just be able to find movies or shows, but rather, we will also be able to quickly locate up-to-date, relevant learning-related content and participate in highly-practical, learning-related experiences.

And check out what they are doing now with radio stations! So...what can be done with learning-related streams of content?!

Consider the type of service/value being offered in the graphic below...and that such a service will be constantly available on a next-gen learning platform. That is, the system will:

• Scan open job descriptions
  
• Present a constantly-updated list of the top/"hottest" skills and occupations
• Offer the relevant courses, modules, webinars, local learning hubs, discussion forums, etc. that will teach you the necessary skills to land those jobs (similar to what is shown in the above grapic involving justwatch.com or suppose.tv and what those vendors are providing for the entertainment industry).

© 2023 | Daniel Christian
However, this vision/idea goes back much further than the date listed on the
graphic below -- and the pieces continue to come together!