"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
I was out walking today listening to Pandora, and Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall came on. One of my favorites … and it reminded me of a recent blog post by Seth Godin on The Learning / Doing Gap. As Godin noted, “To quote the ancient rockers, ‘We don’t need no… education.’ But… Read more Are You Another Brick?
Stephen Downes noted this report in his blog post a few days back, noting: “This report has some flaws but it is overall a far better snapshot of the future of learning than many of its contemporaries… five scenarios dominate – education as usual, global giants, regional rising, peer-to-peed, and robo revolution. These aren’t depicted… Read more Oh The Changes We Will See
I learned an interesting turn of phrase today while reading Steve Wheeler’s new book Digital Learning in Organizations: Help Your Workforce Capitalize on Technology (2019). “Knowmad” I am about a third of the way through this book…and I am enjoying it. I have followed Steve Wheeler (a.k.a. @Timbuckteeth) for a decade now on both his… Read more Encouraging Knowmads
“As the world becomes more connected, more transparent, and more diverse, businesses need a new type of leadership.” That was the lead sentence in a Forbes article by Bonnie Marcus entitled “What Are the Most Important Leadership Skills for the Future?“. Marcus was citing the 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report by Deloitte. Deloitte researchers… Read more Human Focus in a Tech World
This week, I start teaching an 8-week course for Merrimack – ED6306 – Technology, Communication and School Improvement. One of the course objectives is for students to revise or develop a social media marketing plan for their school. And I am half-way through the Spring term at Northeastern for EDU6333 – Social Media and Beyond,… Read more Two Faces of Social Media
In a five-part series, Canadian Tony Bates looked at the overall purpose of online courses, in reaction to recent moves by the Canadian government: Ontario’s strategy to use online learning to ease pressure on high schools using online learning to reduce the cost of higher education using online education to support disadvantaged students: no online… Read more The Purpose of Online Learning
An interesting conversation developed today in my class hashtag on Twitter. One student shared Mary Ludden’s post “How to connect in a connectionless environment…”, which suggested that three key areas of focus were: Be present. Be connected. Be real. For some reason, the old book Fish! and the Fish Philosophy jumped to my mind. I… Read more On Being There
Yesterday during a web conference with faculty teaching in the Creighton University Interdisciplinary Doctorate in Leadership, we were discussing andragogy – the teaching of adults. Jeff Miller noted that one practice he used was to add Twitter to his classes. In an email later following up with me, he shared his rationale that is in… Read more Teaching and Learning with Twitter
During a brainstorming web conference with Elizabeth Mahler at Northeastern earlier this week, she noted the need to move our elearning and instructional design courses beyond simply instructional design to focus more on the user experience. Learning Experience Design (LXD) has been around for awhile, but I wonder how much attention it has garnered? Ruth… Read more Leaving a Bit of Our Heart in our Courses
I have subscribed to MIT Technology Review for almost a decade…it remains one of my best sources for what is emerging in technology. In a recent article, Bill Gates noted his ten favorite books about technology…and first on the list was Max Tegmark’s (2017) Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Apparently… Read more AI, Life 3.0, and Our Collective Future
