The survey findings reveal a mix of confidence and concern about an uncertain future for U.S. higher education:
83 percent of respondents believe that the higher education system today is the best or one of the best in the world;
61 percent think the higher education system will still be the best or one of the best in the world in 10 years;
91 percent expect the number of online programs at their institution to increase in the next decade;
78 percent said colleges and universities are doing a good, very good or excellent job of fostering academic innovation;
A quarter of respondents think the higher education system is heading in the right direction; and
A third of respondents said the pace of change at their own institutions is “too slow,” citing lack of money as the biggest hurdle to change.
“We also found that, amid rising tuition prices and student debt, most deans still believe that higher education is a good return on the investment,” added Selingo.
My notes: this is a 1997 article
the explosion of information is not accompanied by understanding of information.
p. 337 However, if one accepts a definition of information as a process rather than as a thing, then such policies can at best form a framework for the creation of mean- ing by the individuals or groups who are creating information by bring- ing their knowledge to bear on the data available to them
Data acquisition, maintenance and delivery are a vital part of organisational life, but problems arise when we fail to recognise the necessary links to knowledge.
p. 338 However, just teaching users the practi- calities of applications has been seen to be deficient. It leads to an exces- sive focus on ‘how’ to use a particular application rather than on ‘why’ it should be used 13.
p. 379 Information literacy is a stage above computer literacy, the latter usually implying the ability to use a personal computer . My note: some librarians assume that “computer literacy” is the same as “digital literacy” and were trying to convince me that information literacy is succeeding digital literacy, where it is the other way around
p. 380 There are those within the LIS community who warn that librar- ians should not stray into areas that are not appropriate. Behrens points out that the future is likely to see an increased emphasis on a part- nership between librarians and educators. My note another glaring discrepancy between myself and the librarians at SCSU
p. 386 The phrase information literacy has some value in expressing what might need to be done if the aims of information policies are to be made concrete. It points to the need for an emphasis on the awareness of the individual using data of a range of issues. These are not, it has been argued, to be limited to issues of storage and retrieval but have, centrally, to be concerned with issues of definition and meaning. These issues might be tackled in this order: what are the issues in this field surround- ing the nature of knowledge (i.e. how do we formulate questions); how might data be best acquired, stored, etc. in order to answer these ques- tions? (this might well best be paralleled by training in computer literacy); and what factors, both social and individual, place constraints on our ability to use the data?
These are the top 10 workforce skills students will need by 2020
By Laura Ascione, Managing Editor, Content Services, @eSN_Laura
June 20th, 2017
a recent McGraw-Hill Education survey, just 40 percent of college seniors said they felt their college experience was helpful in preparing for a career. Alarmingly, that percentage plummeted to 19 percent for women answering the same question.
1. Extreme longevity: People are living longer–by 2025 the number of Americans older than 60 will increase by 70 percent 2. The rise of smart machines and systems: Technology can augment and extend our own capabilities, and workplace automation is killing repetitive jobs 3. Computational world: Increases in sensors and processing makes the world a programmable system; data will give us the ability to see things on a scale that has never been possible 4. New media ecology: New communication tools require media literacies beyond text; visual communication media is becoming a new vernacular 5. Superstructured organizations: Social technologies drive new forms of production and value creation, and social tools are allowing organizations to work at extreme scales 6. Globally connected world: Diversity and adaptability are at the center of operations–the U.S. and Europe no longer hold a monopoly on job creation, innovation, and political power
The top 10 workforce skills of 2020 include:
1. Sense making: The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems
2. Social intelligence: The ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems, globally connected world
3. Novel and adaptive thinking: Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based. The Drivers: Rise of smart machines and systems, globally connected world
4. Cross cultural competency: The ability to operate in different cultural settings. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, globally connected world
5. Computational thinking: The ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data based reasoning. The Drivers: New media ecology, computational world
6. New media literacy: The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication. The Drivers: Extreme longevity, new media ecology, Superstructured organizations
7. Transdisciplinary: Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines. The Drivers: Extreme longevity, computational world
8. Design mindset: The ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, computational world
9. Cognitive load management: The ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functions. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, computational world, new media ecology
10. Virtual collaboration: The ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team. The Drivers: Superstructured organizations, globally connected world
The numbers reveal a year-to-year online enrollment increase of 226,375 distance education students–a 3.9 percent increase, up over rates recorded the previous two years. More than 6 million students are now online learners, according to the report.
More than one in four students (29.7 percent) now take at least one distance education course (a total of 6,022,105 students).
Graduate students are twice as likely to take all of their courses online (26 percent) as undergraduate students (12 percent).
The number of students studying on a campus has dropped by almost 1 million (931,317) between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of “exclusively distance” students live in the same state as their institution (55 percent), while 42 percent are studying online at an out-of-state institution.
Public institutions educate the largest proportion of online students (67.8 percent), though more online learners in private institutions attend nonprofit schools than for-profits, according to the data.
And according to LMS provider Docebo, the 2016 world-wide revenue for self-paced online learning products and services (in US$ millions) exceeded $23 million in North America, beating out Europe and even Asia by a large margin.
Going corporate: According to the latest market study by Technavio, the size of the global corporate online learning market is predicted to reach an approximate amount of USD 31 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.
An important component: Within online learning, the LMS market is expected to grow at an incredible rate—a CAGR of 24 percent by 2020.
The biggest growth: Within online learning, the cloud is also growing at a tremendous rate. IT spending is steadily shifting from traditional IT offerings to cloud services, and the aggregate amount of cloud is expected to go from $111 billion in 2016 to $216 billion in 2020.
The Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, and advancements in online learning have changed the way universities reach prospective students, engage with their current student body, and provide them the resources they need.
The Internet of Things has opened up a whole new world of possibilities in higher education. The increased connectivity between devices and “everyday things” means better data tracking and analytics, and improved communication between student, professor, and institution, often without ever saying a word. IoT is making it easier for students to learn when, how, and where they want, while providing professors support to create a more flexible and connected learning environment.
Virtual/Augmented Reality
Virtual and augmented reality technologies have begun to take Higher Ed into the realm of what used to be considered science fiction.
By 2020 more than 50 billion things, ranging from cranes to coffee machines, will be connected to the internet. That means a lot of data will be created — too much data, in fact, to be manageable or to be kept forever affordably.
One by-product of more devices creating more data is that they are speaking lots of different programming languages. Machines are still using languages from the 1970s and 80s as well as the new languages of today. In short, applications need to have data translated for them — by an IoT babelfish, if you will — before they can make sense of the information.
Then there are analytics and data storage.
security becomes even more important as there is little human interaction in the flow of data from device to datacentre — so called machine-to-machine communication.
The education program, which aims to reach as many as 1.8 million Girl Scouts in kindergarten through sixth grade, is being developed in a partnership between the Girl Scouts and Palo Alto Networks, a security company, the organization said in a press release.
some of the findings in Kahoot!’s first-ever EdTrends Report : Google is gaining a stronghold in United States classrooms, with Chrome OS expanding its presence on school computers, while Apple’s iOS has been on the decline since the first quarter of 2015 among students and teachers.
Chromebook had the highest number of users among teachers (44 percent) and students (46 percent), when they were asked about their top devices used. Google’s Productivity Suite (G Suite or Classroom) was the most widely used productivity suite in U.S. classrooms, with 57 percent saying they used it, compared to 23 percent saying they used Microsoft Office 365.
a majority of educators (more than 60 percent) said the purpose of adopting education technology was to increase student productivity and efficiency. Their key educational priorities for 2017-18 are “to improve student learning and outcomes” (88 percent), and to “better leverage available time and motivate students” (71 percent).
Educators saw the top ed tech trends in the next school year as:
Digital platforms for teaching, learning and assessment;
Personalized learning;
Computational thinking, coding and robotics;
Increased understanding of data; and
Gamificiation.
Some other key findings in the report include:
A majority of U.S. public school educators surveyed said they are challenged with budget restraints and lack of resources when it comes to implementing education technology;
A majority of U.S. private school educators said they lack training to understand or adopt new technology;
Many public and private school educators said they saw the adoption of “technology for the sake of technology” as a challenge;
Educators in California struggle with lack of training and “technology for the sake of technology,” while teachers in Texas struggle with bureaucracy, budget constraints and a lack of resources.
MPS students will be receiving devices that come with 3GB of high-speed LTE data (with unlimited data available at 2G speeds if usage exceeds that amount). Students can keep their device up to four years while they are in high school no cost, according to initiative site. Additionally, devices are equipped with filters to block adult content that cannot be disabled and are Free Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) compliant.
a number of recommendations for helping online programs attract students, including:
Cater to students’ career goals. “Since online students are so career focused, understanding which programs will best educate students for the job market is critical to online program success,” the researchers noted;
Make sure admissions offices provide fast responses to online students, as well as upfront figures on financial aid and transfer credits; and
Adapt online access to accommodate mobile technology.
