President-Elect Advised to Scale Personalized Learning

KnowledgeWorks, a nonprofit that works with federal, state and district leaders to expand competency-based and personalized learning, has issued four recommendations on how Donald Trump and his  secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, can “scale personalized learning.”

The advice focuses on streamlining the path between K—12 and higher ed for increased college enrollment; removing barriers to innovation within states; adding flexibility to the federal financial aid system; and prioritizing personalized learning initiatives for discretionary grant programs.

The emphasis is placed especially on flexibility, a concept of great importance to DeVos, a strong advocate for the use of school vouchers, which would support parents using federal dollars to send their children to private schools, among other choices. In a speech at last year’s South by Southwest Education Forum, the education reformer called for revolutionizing the “education delivery system” by opening it up and allowing “for choice, innovation and freedom.”

In a five-page “memo,” KnowledgeWorks suggested:

• Finding ways to promote the “effective transitions” of students between their secondary education and college. One idea would be the creation of a “postsecondary transition innovation fund,” that could be used, for example, to support the transition to competency-based pathways in education and re-engagement of students who have dropped out.
• Helping states and districts scale their personalized learning systems. The components needed would address many of the stipulations covered in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) — assessment, accountability, school improvement and the education workforce — and also suggests expansion of learning opportunities outside of school and support for research and development tied to personalized learning.
• Supporting individual pathways toward postsecondary credentials by making federal financial aid more flexible. This would require a move away from basing financial aid on the number of hours a student attends college or the number of credit hours he or she is pursuing — shifting the emphasis to other areas, such as competency education and dual enrollment.
• Giving a priority score to grants that focus on personalized learning. The characteristics of that include alignment with standards students need to be successful in college, individualized learning experiences and varied pacing of instruction based on student need.

“We look forward to working with the new administration to create a policy platform that makes it easier for learners to access high-quality, customized pathways to college and career success,” wrote Lillian Pace, senior director of national policy, in an article on the organization’s website. “In a time of uncertainty, there is no better strategy than to build on our strengths. By empowering our local innovators, we can turn their energy and dedication into a system that works for all.”

The full memo is available on the KnowledgeWorks website here.

• By Dian Schaffhauser

Ka’Ching! 2016 US Edtech Funding Totals $1 Billion

Artificial Intelligence is Reshaping Life On Earth: 101 Examples

I recently read this article on gettingsmart.com and thought it would be great to share the list.

This month I’ve been tracking news headlines to get a sense for how widespread AI applications have become. With a couple news alerts and searches I spotted 101 current applications–no SciFi here, these are tools people are using today. And these aren’t just clever algorithms–they are getting better and smarter the more data they interact with.

Life & Media

1. Mapping apps and satellite view (Google Earth)
2. Speech recognition (TechCrunch)
3. Dating apps (Vancouver Sun)
4. Language translation (Silicon Valley Business Journal)
5. Image recognition (Fei-Fei Li on TED)
6. AI composition and music recommendations (Newsweek)
7. Make reservations at a restaurant. (Techcrunch)
8. Filters content and make recommendations (Hubspot podcast)
9. Write articles (Recode)
10. Optimize website-building (TechCrunch)
11. Manages prayer requests (Deseret News)
12. Track and store the movements of automobiles, trains, planes and mobile phones (IBM)
13. Track real-time sentiments of billions of people through social media (IBM)
14. Beat the best humans in chess and Go (CCTV)
15. Coaching social emotional relationships (Phys)

Safety & security

1. Security-driven AI systems can easily detect and identify bad behaviors from good behaviors. (Economic Times)
2. Quickly find security vulnerabilities (Defense One)
3. Criminal justice system is increasingly using algorithms to predict a defendant’s future criminality (Propublica)
4. Anomaly detection using machine vision (IBM)
5. Predictive models for crime (IBM)
6. Autonomous aerial and undersea warfighting (Nextgov)
7. Guide cruise missiles (Express)

Industry & Agriculture

1. Optimize crop yield (Amr Awadallah in Forbes)
2. LettuceBot reduces chemical use by 90% (Wired)
3. Driverless tractors (Business Wire)
4. Manufacturers predict which machines will breakdown (Amr Awadallah in Forbes)
5. Smart robots for repetitive jobs from apple picking and  sneaker maker, (Techcrunch)
6. Robots develop and share new skills (MIT)

Transportation

1. Driverless cars (Nature) coming to Pittsburgh this fall (Wired)
2. Driverless trucks (TechCrunch)
3. Managing drone traffic (Yahoo)
4. Making bus routes smarter (Shanghai Daily)
5. Improve the efficiency of public transportation systems (IBM)
6. Oil exploration efficiency (Oil Price)

Environment

1. Prediction and management of pollutants and carbon footprints. (IBM)
2. Make data centers, power plants, and energy grids more efficient (Money)

Medicine & Health

1. Digitized health records and all medical knowledge to improve diagnosis (IBM)
2. Performing cohort analysis, identifying micro-segments of similar patients, evaluating standard-of-care practices and available treatment options, ranking by relevance, risk and preference, and ultimately recommending the most effective treatments for their patients (IBM)
3. Power precision medicine (NIH)
4. Reduction of medical errors (H&HN)
5. Study the genetics of Autism (SAC)
6. Analyze genomic sequences to develop therapies (Amr Awadallah in Forbes)
7. Read x-rays better than a radiologist (nanalyze)
8. Genomic editing–which may be the most important (and scariest) item on the list (Time)
9. Use social media to diagnosis depression and mental illness (Tech Times)

Organizational Management

1. Speeding and improving Identity verification and background checking (PE Hub)
2. Monitor employee satisfaction and predict staff turnover (HuffPost)
3. Sorting through stacks of résumés from job seekers. (Propublica)
4. Replace handcrafted rule-based systems (TechRepublic)
5. Smart virtual assistants (Slate)
6. Enterprise tech companies provide deep learning as a service–AI on demand (TweakTown)
7. Humans and robots will increasingly collaborate on problem solving (Quartz)
8. Automated floor cleaning (Slate)

Art & Architecture

54. Organic algorithms in architecture (Greg Lynn on TED)

1. Virtual reality art (Wired)
2. Synthesized music (Newsweek)

Social services & Infrastructure

1. Timely and relevant answers to citizens (IBM)
2. Predict the needs of individuals and population groups, and develop plans for efficient deployment of resources. (IBM)
3. Prediction of demand, supply, and use of infrastructure (IBM)
4. Mobile phone network services (RCRwireless)
5. Analysis of lead contamination in Flint water (Talking Machines)
6. improve building and city design (Property Report)
7. Poverty map of Africa to improve services delivery (Yahoo)

Finance and Banking

1. Fraud detection (Business Insider)
2. Scan news, spot trends and adjust portfolios (Hubspot podcast)
3. Determine credit scores and qualify applicants (Propublica)
4. Find the best insurance coverage at the right cost (IBM)
5. Deliver personalized service with reduce error rates (Finextra)
6. Handle 30k banking customer services transaction/month (American Banker)
7. Answer 100M financial questions involving complex data (Fast Company)
8. Auto-adjudication of insurance claims (Fast Company)
9. Tax preparation (CFO)

Marketing & Customer Service

1. Power chatbot customer service (CB Insights)
2. Product recommendations (Digital Marketing Blog)
3. Manage White House comments (Techcrunch)
4. Chatbot lawyer contests parking tickets (Guardian)
5. Robot inventory checker (NY Times)
6. Recognise customer behavior and provide predictive customer service (Brand Equity)
7. Predict eBay sales (HeatST)
8. Improve sales funnel conversion (Digital Marketing Blog)

Entertainment

1. Fantasy football picks (Fake Teams)
2. Writing screenplays (Entertainment)

Education

1. Recommend next best learning experience (Forbes)
2. Personalized learning programs (IBM)
3. Intelligent tutoring (Forbes)
4. Provides six trait writing feedback (Hubspot podcast)
5. Digitized the world’s literature enabling search/analysis (IBM)
6. Embedded adaptive assessments promotes competency-based learning (Google’s Jonathan Rochelle in Business Insider)
7. Improve career education (Google’s Jonathan Rochelle in Business Insider)
8. AI is boosting HigherEd persistence with text nudges (Rose Luckin in Times HigherEd)
9. Process intelligence tools identify and visualize opportunities (MIT)
10. Matching teachers and schools (Getting Smart)
11. Bus scheduling (Getting Smart)

Smart Home

1. Smart home control systems (Fortune)

Check out these smart home startups. A lot of these use AI behind the scene to get smarter over time.

The Changing Employment Landscape

This has been a weird recovery–sluggish and slow to produce jobs and higher wages. In addition to a bunch of unusual international circumstances, the global economy has been incorporating exponential technology, particularly all the artificial intelligence applications above. While the bots are eating away at some predictable job categories, all this technology has yielded frustratingly slow productivity growth.

The economy remains a head scratcher, but web research yields pretty consistent advice for young people and job seekers in this new age of automation:

1. Do what AI doesn’t do well: give a hug, solve a mystery, tell a story. (NPR)
2. Analytical and interpersonal skills will likely become more important. (Brookings)
3. Focus on adding value in novel situations. (Anthony Goldbloom on TED)
4. Focus on computational thinking not just coding. (Edsurge)

99. Critical thinking, systems analysis, and inductive reasoning are increasingly important in “mixes and depths” that are currently rare. (Quartz)

100. Social interaction and co-working increasingly important (Business Insider)

1. Equip graduates to work effectively alongside AI (Rose Luckin in Times HigherEd)

What’s the new hot field? When you pull junior aside at the pool party (like The Graduate), instead of “plastics” you should be recommending “machine learning.”

The first half of the information age was programming computers to do what we want. In the second half of the information age computers are programming themselves. Machine learning is the practical subset of artificial intelligence–the new hub of efforts to add intelligence to every facet of life. And it’s hot.

“It’s huge. It’s really one of the biggest shifts that we have seen in the last few decades. And it’s creating demand, off the charts demand, and this is across all industries,” said Amr Awadallah of Cloudera.

Amr added, “The future need for people with high technical skills when it comes to data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning is going to be off the charts.”

More broadly Google’s Jonathan Rochelle knows it takes a smart application of cutting-edge products to help kids learn. He encourages teachers to help kids use the latest products effectively. Those are the skills that will give them the greatest leg up as citizens, Rochelle says. “Imagine if we could teach kids all the tools that are at their disposal,” he says, “and let them take the next step to stand on the shoulders of giants.”

The Tragedy of Student Loans

One of the big scams going around right now is student loans for individuals attending for-profit universities. It goes something like this: Heavy advertising for pain free, at-your leisure online or on-site degrees—encouraging students to take on a large debt load to pay for their studies—and then frequently little (if any) support for students, inadequate classes, and difficulty transferring credits to other institutions. The dropout rate is typically substantial. Personal student debt is growing at a staggering rate.

Here’s the thing though—students at for-profit institutions represent only 9% of all college students, but receive roughly 25% of all federal Pell Grants and loans, and are responsible for 44% of all student loan defaults.

A study by The National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, suggested that students who attend for-profit education institutions are more likely to be unemployed, earn less, have higher debt levels, and are more likely to default on their student loans than similar students at non-profit educational institutions. Although for-profits typically serve students who are poorer or more likely to be minorities, these differences do not explain the differences in employment, income, debt levels, and student loan defaults. The Government Accountability Office has also found that graduates of for-profits are less likely to pass licensing exams, and that poor student performance cannot be explained by different student demographics.

For-profits have higher completion rates for one- and two-year associate’s degree programs, but higher dropout rates for four-year bachelor’s degrees. However, studies have suggested that one- and two-year programs typically do not provide much economic benefit to students because the boost to wages is more than offset by increased debt. By contrast, four-year programs provide a large economic benefit.

An investigation by the New York Times suggested that for-profit higher education institutions typically have much higher student loan default rates than non-profits. Two documentaries by Frontline have focused on alleged abuses in for profit higher education.

The following infographic from Collegestats.org will give you a good visual of what’s going on with student debt. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always thought that the fundamental purpose of an educational institution should be to educate, not to turn a profit.

What Did 2013 Hold for Educational Technology in Schools

Looking back at the article I was astounded to find that basically none of the information in the first chart was relevant and the proposal that “Apps” would be the prevalent part of the year actually was/is true. 
via Smartblogs/Katharine Haber

To connect with those working on the front lines of education technology, SmartBrief on EdTech editor Katharine Haber asked readers about their thoughts on what 2013 will bring for technology in schools.

According to our results, about one-third of respondents see classroom technology as the most significant issue on the horizon, while a slightly smaller group is concerned about online education, followed by computer-based testing and digital citizenship.

When asked how their schools and districts are using technology to enhance student learning, a majority of respondents reported that some teachers are employing tech tools in the classroom, while a significantly smaller proportion said technology is playing a broader role throughout the curriculum or being integrated through blended-learning programs or “bring your own technology” programs.

Readers reported that online applications and games are the most effective tools for engaging students, while digital textbooks and resources, along with mobile devices, are not far behind.

Interestingly, few respondents see social media as an effective tool. Given the ongoing buzz about Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, this response begs the question of whether many schools simply are not using social media as part of classroom instruction.

There are arguably numerous factors to consider when using social media with students, and many schools and districts might be blocking or otherwise prohibiting use of such websites on campus. However, given their popularity, is it possible there is an untapped resource here? What do you think?

What do you see as the most significant issue in education technology for 2013?

Which statement best describes how your school or district is integrating technology into student learning?

Which tech tools most effectively engage students in your classroom, school or district?

Katharine Haber is an associate editor for SmartBrief, writing and editing content about a variety of topics in education.

Great Post by David Warlick

via 2¢ Worth

Today’s infographic is simple and to the point. A big part of grade school and even college and onward, is writing papers. Some professions write more papers than others, but it is still an important skill in order to get your point across. This infographic uses venn diagrams to convey the importance of different parts of papers, and to show how they interact with one another. It also shows how much of your paper should include each part.

Of course every paper should begin with an introduction and end with a conclusion. It should also include several point in the middle, that are introduced and concluded in the introduction and conclusion. But how should the middle be laid out? That is up to the author, but it should there is a bit of a formula.

This infographic does a great job of showing that there should be pros and cons. You should always share how your paper may be argued against, and go ahead and prove some of these points wrong. In addition, a good paper should show why the information is important. Why should someone read your paper?

Show this to your students whenever a paper is assigned. Make sure your students are ready to write a good paper, and know what is involved in writing such a paper.

http://visual.ly/write-your-paper-right

How to Support Teachers for 21st Century Learning

via eClassroom News

Experts weigh in on how administrators can support teachers in implementing collaboration and creativity

Implementing broad concepts like critical thinking and communication may seem like natural next steps to educators, but unless teachers receive support from school policy and infrastructure, providing students with a true 21st century education may not be so easy.

This was a key topic of discussion during a recent Connected Educator Month webinar, hosted by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and EdLeader21—a national network of school and district leaders focused on integrating the 4Cs into education.

The 4Cs–communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity–are part of P21’s mission to help educators teach students 21st century skills. Webinar panelists said this task can’t be accomplished without support from school administrators in the way of space design, instructional practices, and school policy.

Dana Strother, chief academic officer at Douglas County School District in Colorado, said her district “looked at Bloom’s Taxonomy and vetted our state’s standards through the taxonomy” during an evaluation of instructional practice.

“Areas that were lacking we improved through what we call ‘World Class Outcomes,’ and instructional design that allows for the 4Cs. We also provided CIA curriculum and instruction alignment and wove authentic learning experiences into the curriculum for support,” she said.

The district also made it a priority to provide supporting infrastructure through district policy on risk-opportunities.

“It’s important to let teachers know, in various ways, but also through policy, that we support risk-taking opportunities, or new strategies, projects, or professional development opportunities that may be new or unique,” she said.

For example, Douglas County lets teachers experience inquiry-based professional development opportunities in order for teachers to learn through the same practices they’re expected to teach students.

“We’re asking teachers to incorporate new kinds of teaching that include the 4Cs, so why should teachers in turn be taught in a different manner? Sometimes by thinking outside of the box and going against traditional methods, especially from an administrator standpoint, the results are better,” Strother said.

Randy Fielding, chairman and founding partner of educational facilities planning and architectural design firm Fielding Nair International, said he believes school design also factors heavily into incorporating the 4Cs into a student’s daily life.

Fielding’s design firm tries to incorporate 20 “learning modalities” into school design, which include concepts, such as Independent Study, Peer Tutoring, Team Collaboration, and One-on-One Learning, to support the 4Cs of instruction.

“To have a truly 21st-century school, you have to inspire organic collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication, and focusing on design can help.”

“To have a truly 21st-century school, you have to inspire organic collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication, and focusing on design can help. For example, you could have a ‘watering hole’ space off hallways where students could casually converse; you could have a ‘cave space’ where students could reflect for independent thinking; and you could have a ‘campfire space’ where everyone gathers to collaborate,” Fielding said.

Panelists emphasized that it’s also important for administrators and teachers to understand that instruction focused on the 4Cs doesn’t just work for certain kinds of subjects, students, or teachers.

“The 4Cs work for every kind of student and teacher in classrooms across the country,” said Donna Harris-Aikens, director of Education Policy and Practice at the National Education Association (NEA). “It’s less a series of requirements and more just authentic learning. For example, a math class could use its English and design skills to help draft a proposal to help senior citizens in their community make their homes more accessible. For this kind of project, you need the 4Cs in STEM, English, and community service.”

Fielding said it’s important that school and district leaders support teachers in working together to develop collaborative projects for their students.

One of the schools his firm works with has a student-run lunch program through which students negotiate with local farmers. They serve the week’s menu selections on carts around the school so students can taste-test their creations. Students in the program generate quarterly reports on profit and loss, and send those reports off to the school board.

“Students get credit for working in this program, which essentially teaches them collaboration skills, analytical skills, and even creative skills, thanks to cooking,” he said.

However, panelists said that there are still barriers for teachers who want to pursue the 4Cs, including getting first-world experience on how to actually teach broad concepts like creativity.

“That’s why we introduced the Creative Innovator Network in our district, which allows teachers to collaborate with not only their peers on different projects, but also local businesses to brainstorm ideas on how students can better serve the community,” said Strother. “We also bring students into the teacher professional development sessions to hear their voice and how they enjoy learning, so that teachers can adapt their instruction.”

“The biggest barrier for teachers is time,” said Harris-Aikens. “Finding time to make everything work effectively and collaborate is hard, especially because planning, or collaborating, time needs to be on a consistent and continual basis. Students also need a large amount of time to work on these projects, and to have time flexibility in case they make mistakes, as well. Administrators need to make sure teachers and students can have that time in their day.”

For more on this topic, watch the full webinar.

Minecraft for Moms – What You Need to Know

7 Chrome Apps for Science (STEM) Education

1- 3D Solar System

This is a 3D solar system simulation application, which gives you the approximate location of the planets in the solar system at different time, and some information about each one of them.

2- Anatomy 3d

Anatomy 3D provides you with a bunch of interactive tools to use to dissect, explore and learn about the human body in 3D. The tool is also available for Android and iOS users.

3- Anatomy Games

This extension offers users a variety of anatomy games and atlases to help them learn about human anatomy

4- Planetarium

Planetarium is a beautiful interactive sky map that students can use to explore the stars and learn about planets. The tool shows over 1500 stars with a magnitude of up to “+5”.

5- Useful Periodic Table

This is a periodic table of the elements that has all the elements and most of their respective properties collected and stored in one easy to use and simple to find location.  Contained within this periodic table is a unit converter that will convert some of the scientific dimensions.  Also, containing links to wikipedia for further literature on that element that you wish to know.  Great for students because of the elements quiz contained within.

6- BioDigital Human

The BioDigital Human is a 3D platform that simplifies the understanding of anatomy, disease and treatments. Explore the body in 3D!

7- Anatomy Skills : Bones

Learn all of the major bones in the human body using three different modes: Learn, Game and Quiz. The app covers all of the major bones in the body from the phalanges to the femurs. Carefully selected graphics make the features easy to identify.

Obama, free community college may not work

In his SOTU, President Obama proposed making community college tuition free for two years

Michael Horn: We need a better strategy for skills training before going down the track of subsidizing students

“Michael B. Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation and executive director of its education program. He is author of “Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools” and “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.”

(CNN)In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed making community college tuition free for two years to boost college graduation rates and lift more people into the middle class.

Unfortunately, his plan doesn’t make the grade. The proposal would not only pile up more debt by further subsidizing runaway college costs, it would also perilously undercut the emergence of more innovative educational programs designed to help students succeed in the workforce.

Offering only a lukewarm pathway to the job market, community colleges are incapable of fulfilling the President’s lofty ambitions. Although there are some high-performing community colleges and stellar stories of success for certain students, the overall picture of success at two-year community colleges is dismal.

According to the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, only 22% of students graduate within three years, and 28% graduate within four. More telling, 80% of students say they want a bachelor’s degree or higher, and yet only 20% of these students transfer to a four-year institution within five years.

Even for those who earn a community college degree, it often isn’t as useful as other options. Thanks to credential inflation, pursuing a professional certification — which more clearly indicates a person’s skills than a degree — often pays off better than an associate’s degree, according to Census Bureau data.

The conversation around making community college free also masks a larger problem, which is that community colleges are already heavily subsidized and far less affordable than commonly believed.

At $3,300, community college tuition is well under the $5,730 currently available in Pell Grant aid to low-income students. But the expenditure per student at a community college — the true cost of the education — is far higher, about four times more at $13,000 per student. That means that more than 60% of the cost of community college isn’t paid for through tuition, but through various forms of government aid at the federal, state and local levels.

As a result, even if the President’s plan passed, it wouldn’t help the large number of already-overcrowded community colleges that have waiting lists numbering in the thousands. Tuition is only a small part of the funding needed to educate additional students.

What’s more, because of the limited productivity gains possible in the community college model, those costs will continue to rise, which means that tuition will, too. The proposal’s $60 billion price over 10 years is likely to grow with only a questionable return on the investment.

Opinion: Two years of free community college makes sense

The larger question the proposal misses is not how to allow students to afford college, but how to make college affordable. There’s a huge distinction. The focus should be to make postsecondary education less costly and of better quality, such that the question of how to afford it becomes manageable. The President’s proposal merely charges education, in the form of debt for future generations of taxpayers, rather than changes it.

Instead we need to encourage students to seek innovative offerings that are lower cost and improve the quality and accessibility of higher education.

Such options are emerging. Patten University offers a new online, competency-based program that charges undergraduate tuition of $350 per month, or $1,316 per term. Tuition includes access to as many courses as one can complete and all the ebooks and course materials needed, and Patten receives no government funding. Another online, competency-based program, Southern New Hampshire’s College for America, charges annual tuition of $2,500.

Rather than supporting innovative options like Patten and Southern New Hampshire, the President’s plan would nudge students toward a community college sector that is incapable of repositioning its model around student success and fuel rising college costs.

5 ways community colleges are fixing higher education

If enacted, the President’s proposal would be unlikely to achieve its ultimate aims and would exacerbate a larger problem lurking behind college financing. Although the plan amounts to little more than political posturing given the current congressional makeup, it will negatively influence the political conversation around higher education in the years ahead.

By supporting free community college, President Obama is merely kicking the can down the road for future generations to confront. We need a better strategy for skills training overall before we go further down the track of subsidizing students to attend community college only to emerge with little to show for it.