Futurists Predict Six Major Issues Facing IT in Higher Education in 2012
Posted on January 24, 2012 by Patrick.Masson | Leave a Comment
Well, it’s that time of the year again–the beginning–so the predictions are out and David Raths of Campus Technology has submitted a few IT Trends to Watch in 2012. The subhead of his article is actually more descriptive of what you will find in it: Four eminent futurists predict the trend lines for 6 major issues facing IT in higher education in 2012. The six trends/issues covered in the report include information technology’s responsibility for helping to foster alternatives to current library and text issues, working within flat or declining budget parameters, generating innovations in gamification for teaching and learning, evolving social media options for better results, and helping to work out what constitutes plagiarism in the Internet world and how to monitor it. It’s interesting stuff. But one opportunity discussed by these futurists intrigued me the most: the development of augmented reality (AR) products which they seem to agree will take virtual reality to the next level.
What is augmented reality? PC Magazine provides the following definition: A type of virtual reality that combines real and imagined images in a real-time session. In augmented reality, most of the images are real. Huh? But the magazine goes on to give this further explanation: For example, Sportvision’s 1st and Ten graphics system superimposes a yellow line onto the football field showing TV viewers where the yard line for a first down is located.
While at UCLA I worked on a variety of visualization and modeling projects for both education and research. With these, we focused on rendering “non-visual” data to provide a graphical representation of un-veiwable objects, for example, measuring and mapping Hounsfield units to visualize a skull, without having to dissociate it from the patient’s head, and, running simulations to assess the possible outcomes of an experiment–it’s far faster, cheaper and less painful to induce a stress fracture on a computer generated mandible than a real one. But in all of these cases, the input was again, non-visual.
In addition, the hours of development time required to collect and parse the data, apply the physics and then raster the final image(s) limited the availability, while the restrictions on data types for input limited the applicability. Apparently today (or at least later, sometime in 2012), what once took months can/will happen on the fly and at a much lower cost (as it is with all technology), and with the ease of a point and click camera (embedded in your smart phone and running any one of a variety of new AR apps), anyone can capture enough information to perform a variety of tasks, from enhancing an existing visual reference to provide clarity or detail, to actually extruding additional/emergent data to project possible future states or scenarios.
And now that this is so readily available, I was curious to see how AR might be used in higher education so I went to take a look online at one product mentioned by the futurists: Layar. At that site, you can view a number of videos that show how the product works for a range of applications. Very interesting stuff. I’m not recommending the product, but I do recognize the potential for AR technology in teaching and learning in higher education, especially online. You can access the Layar website home page here. Click on ‘About Layar Vision’ to see the videos. If you do, and if you see ready application in higher education, please feel welcome to share your perspective in a comment on this post. The full Campus Technology future trends article is available here.
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Is There Merit in a ‘Badge’ System That Certifies Higher Education Achievement?
Posted on January 17, 2012 by Ken Udas | Leave a Comment
A recent article published in The Chronicle of Higher Eduction and entitled ‘Badges’ Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas, explores the reasons why there is growing interest in this alternative (or additive) to the power of traditional degrees and credits. What are badges? The author of the article, Jeffrey R. Young, provides this: Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting systems of “badges” to certify skills and abilities. …these badges denote areas employers might look for, like mentorship or digital video editing. Many of the new digital badges are easy to attain—intentionally so—to keep students motivated, while others signal mastery of fine-grained skills that are not formally recognized in a traditional classroom.
If you are a higher education traditionalist –or not - and are inclined to dismiss this idea, I urge you to read Mr. Young’s article. If for no other reason, the fact that the topic is featured in the Chronicle, indicates that it has come of age. In it you will find reference to others with a similar first impression but who have become strong advocates for badges. You will also find comments from people in higher education who think badges could revolutionize and/or significantly reform business as usual for traditional colleges and universities across the nation. Granted, not everyone in higher education quoted in the article is an advocate of badges.
For me, one of the most interesting implications of badges centers on how and why students and employers might find them useful. Would students potentially find digital badges motivating? Perhaps their scope of use falls into more informal learning or achievement than is usually captured by a degree or credits earned for a course. Perhaps digital badges are most appropriate for the stuff that is not about content knowledge, but is more about behavior. For example, perhaps in addition to diplomas and transcripts that certify assessment of exhibited knowledge in content areas, there is room for digital badges that indicate a learner has exhibited qualities such as “leadership,” “creativity,” “critical reasoning skills,” “civic engagement,” “citizenship,” or a propensity for “volunteerism.” These are certainly qualities that are valued by employers, admissions committees, civic leaders, and parents, but are infrequently formally recognized with an artifact. That said, the value of digital badges may be difficult to capture and communicate because of a lack of standards and the risk we run of turning badges into “little” degrees by creating organizations that certify badges. Maybe they will need to be something much less formal, something that means something within an organization to provide motivation, provide internal recognition and perhaps a trigger for potential employers and other stakeholders to ask about.
Referencing an ongoing development effort by Mozilla to create a framework to let anyone with a website issue authentic, forgery-free education badges with detailed descriptions of the skill(s) acquired, Mr. Young offers this in the Chronicle article: Employers might prefer a world of badges to the current system. After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned. Students using Mozilla’s proposed badge system might display dozens or even hundreds of merit badges on their online résumés detailing what they studied. And students could start showing off the badges as they earn them, rather than waiting four years to earn a diploma. This might be true, and the willful proliferation of badges without broadly agreed standards might work just fine.
Would a strong positive sentiment among employers and students suggest the possibility that consumer pull will accelerate and broaden the use of badges even if colleges and universities aren’t interested in anything that would push the idea into the marketplace in a big way? Then there is this consideration: which types of traditional institutions could further distinguish and differentiate themselves by becoming meaningfully involved in the dialogue about digital badges and perhaps early adopters of badges awarded as part of ongoing degree programs? Do digital badges potentially bridge the things that we currently assess rigorously and award certificates and degrees for those things that we know are beneficial, but are not reflected, assessed, and recognized in the curriculum? Would doing so at least temporarily create a market advantage over late adopters and non-adopters, and less temporarily serve as the foundation for better relationships with employers, funders, and the communities we serve?
If you have a perspective or strong opinion about badges, I hope you will share it with us by commenting here. The full text of The Chronicle article is available here.
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M.I.T. Investing Millions in the Development of a New Online Learning Platform; Will Offer ‘Affordable’ Certificates
Posted on January 6, 2012 by Ken Udas | Leave a Comment
Recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) made two significant announcements that could very well have a significant influence or impact over all providers of online higher education. Just about everyone already knows that for about 10 years people anywhere could log in and access M.I.T. prepared course materials for free. According to The New York Times, reporting on the latest developments in a story entitled M.I.T. Expands Its Free Online Courses, about 100 million people around the world have done just that. But now M.I.T. is taking the online initiative to the next level through a program to be known as MITx. For the first time online learners will be able to earn certificates, through an M.I.T. project at a nominal cost. At this time the Institute is only saying certification of knowledge will be made available at …an “affordable” charge, not yet determined.
Secondly, it sounds like M.I.T. is investing millions in online teaching and learning research and in the development of an online learning platform that will feature free access and use. M.I.T. says the new platform will eventually host a virtual community of learners around the world — and enhance the education of M.I.T.’s on-campus students, with online tools that enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences…
These are both very significant developments that will likely draw ongoing interest among teachers and learners worldwide. But, for three reasons, it is M.I.T.’s apparent goal to offer online learners the option of earning certificates at an affordable rate that intrigues me the most. The first reason has to do with the linkage between accessibility and affordability. Access to credits, degrees, and certificate distinctions isn’t complete or, in fact, very real, if the costs for such are out of reach for learners. Will M.I.T. set a new benchmark for affordability and, if so, how will the economic model work?
Two, it has been said by some that elite institutions won’t be changed by (or change themselves in response to) potentially disruptive distance learning developments. The thinking goes, the so-called elite institutions have plenty of potential customers willing and able to pay the full traditional cost of earning a degree. Therefore, using this logic, why worry about the potential economic disruption some say the online option could pose to the establishment? What does M.I.T.’s decision to offer certificates online at an ‘affordable’ rate say about the conventional wisdom among some within the establishment?
Three, the general approach M.I.T. is pursuing points to some very good and interesting models that have emerged from alternative education providers such as Western Governors University and projects such as the OERu (Open Education Resources University), launched just this year, the Kahn Academy, and similar initiatives that challenge the traditional tightly coupled functions within the “traditional university.” MITx has some very real potential to enrich and potentially catalyze a developing ecosystem that on one hand is allowing the disaggregation of educational services from the perspective of the institution, while building a much larger integrated network from the perspective of learners. Although MITx, as currently described, maintains internal relationships between faculty developing M.I.T. open courseware, M.I.T. “teachers” supporting learning, M.I.T. knowledge assessment infrastructure, and an M.I.T. created not-for-profit body within the Institute offering certification for online learners of MIT coursework, we will almost certainly see MITx learners independently identifying, creating, and leveraging educational resources from elsewhere to apply to their certificate, and we may see MITx courseware, assessment, learning designs, and infrastructure used to earn certification from other institutions. This is when things get very interesting, especially for institutions that do not have an endless supply of potential learners willing and able to pay the full traditional price of earning a traditional degree.
Predictably, much of the sector will simply wait and see. At the very least we ought to wait, see, and learn, and better yet, we ought to engage and learn together. After all, there is no reason to let M.I.T. have all the fun. In the meantime, you can access the full article about M.I.T.’s developments, as provided by The New York Times, at this link.
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Insightful Reasons Why This is a Good Time of Year for Job Seeking Recent Grads
Posted on December 29, 2011 by Som Seng | Leave a Comment
Writing for FOXBusiness, Emily Driscoll in an item entitled Job-Hunting Tips for December Grads, debunks much of the conventional wisdom about job seeking opportunities this time of year for recent college graduates. You know… everyone is partying, no one is hiring, business as usual is on hold or at least slowed. But as she explains it, with the help of sources who track these things, these and a couple of other factors can actually put the December graduate at an advantage.
In brief, since hiring managers typically face lesser demands this time of year on a day to day basis, they have more time and they may be significantly more accessible. The article also notes that year end budgets for 2012 are being developed at many companies and these budgets likely include hiring plans and salary set asides for the coming year. The holiday season is also a great time, she notes, to network. And, since there are fewer new college grads this time of year than in May and June, there’s less competition for the available jobs.
The article includes other tips every recent college graduate may want to note. For example, it suggests that landing a job, any reasonable job, is more important than landing the ideal job that is in complete alignment with an individual’s field of study. The complete story from FOXBusiness is available here.
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