JEFF THOMAS COBB

Leading with Learning

Trends

The Future and Learning – Connecting the Dots

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future and learning - photo of highway into horizon sunrise

The learning landscape continues to evolve in very interesting ways.

I’ve noticed lately, for example, that artificial intelligence (AI) seems to finally be getting significant traction. Enough so that numerous notable figures like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk have expressed concern concerns about how it might run amok.

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Entering the Shift Age – and the Age of Agile Publishing

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entering-the-shift-age-houleMy colleague, co-author, and friend David Houle has a new book out: Entering the Shift Age: The End of the Information Age and the New Era of Transformation. The book has been racing up the charts at Amazon, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the forces that will shape our lives in the coming decades. (And that’s everyone, right?!)

But for the purposes of this post, I want to focus not so much on the contents of the book as on the way the book was written and published. How David brought the book to market says a lot about what the future may hold for publishing.

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Are we on the verge of podcasting mania?

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I keep seeing and hearing signs that podcasts, which enjoyed a sort of “mini-bubble” several years ago, may be making a comeback.

Michael Stelzner raises the possibility in a recent interview with Mitch Joel  (An excellent interview to listen to if you happen to be thinking about starting a podcast.)

I’ve heard Christopher Penn, on Marketing Over Coffee, speculate about a possible surge in podcasting on at least a few occasions.

Granted, all of these people are podcasters, and so am I. But research and common sense tend to support the idea that podcasting is a channel you don’t want to ignore.

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The Times They Have A’ Changed

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times-they-are-a-changinCome writers and critics who prophesize with your pens
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again.
And don’t speak to soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no telling who it is naming.
For the loser now will be later to win,
And the times, they are a changin’

The times have been changin’ for a while now. We went from a mass media newspaper-radio-TV world to a Web world that, at first, promised more of the same. More of the same didn’t happen because of one powerful word – and  that word is not Facebook, or Twitter, or even “blogging.” Those are all symptoms of a more fundamental shift. [Read more…] about The Times They Have A’ Changed

4.5 Projections for Association E-learning

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The ASAE online e-learning conference is underway and Elliot Masie, among others, is offering up his thoughts on e-learning trends as part of the content. I have not yet viewed Masie’s presentation, but thought I throw in my own two cents before doing so. I’m calling these projections rather than predictions or trends because they project my own biases and beliefs as much as anything else.

  1. Forward thinking associations will discover the open educational resource (OER) movement and engage. I’ve written about it briefly here and will write more soon. Associations generally represent large communities of subject matter experts in a given field. It seems inevitable that members will generate content that is valuable for sharing for educational purposes. Associations need to facilitate this process.
  2. Which leads to the second point, forward thinking associations will start acting more like networks than groups in how they think about education (and, for that matter, other services).  This is a reference to Stephen Downes’ views on how groups think (unity, coherence, focus of voice) as opposed to how networks think (diversity, openness, interaction). (See, for instance, Downes’ E-learning 2.0 in Development presentation or the brief exchange here). It also brings to mind Fisher’s conception of teacher as network administrator and Siemens idea of teacher as curator.
  3. All of which suggests that the role of the learner is also changing and the importance of personal learning environments (PLE) will increase. I see a significant number of health and medical-oriented associations (with Medbiquitous in a leadership role) focused on personal portfolio management. This is a natural in the association world, and it will significantly impact the role of traditional learning management systems (LMS).
  4. Also related to the move to (OER) and network thinking, the role of collaboration in association educational initiatives will increase (though I certainly don’t expect this to happen overnight). A while back Dave Sabol pointed out the RxWiki initiative that grew out of a collaboration among the National Community Pharmacists Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations. Take a look. There are intimations of the future here.
  5. Aside from demonstrating collaboration, the RxWiki initiative also offers an example of associations leveraging their expertise—and more specifically, their members’ expertise to educate the broader public. Call it public education, consumer education, or whatever you like, but I think more of this is coming. I offer this last one as a “half” projection however, as I realize that this sort of broader educational focus may not be a fit for all types of associations.

Inspired or insane? Let me know your thoughts. Now I’ll go see what Elliot Masie has to say.

JTC