Tracking/Integrating Emerging Technologies in the Online Enterprise
Tracking/Integrating Emerging Technologies in the Online Enterprise
Ray Schroeder
Ray Schroeder
UPCEA Sr. Fellow
Embedded Files
First: A word about presentation format. For the past dozen years, we have been "power-point-less" at the UIS Center for Online Learning, Research and Service. Rather than using a static, aging format, we prefer to create Web pages for our presentations to assure that they are easily accessible, updatable, and always available. Please follow along on your own device (or visit at a later date) to delve more deeply into the links and videos that interest you.
Organization of Presentation Site
Organization of Presentation Site
- We will survey a handful of the key emerging technologies to set context
- We will examine ready-made, on-going, daily-updated resources
- We will examine approaches to developing your own personalized updates
- We will outline strategies to assure you are up to date
- We will discuss the decision-making process on implementing emerging technologies, pedagogies and practices.
- Desired outcomes are to subscribe to relevant curations, create custom feeds, and develop methods to decide and implement new technologies, pedagogies and practices.
Advent of 5G
Advent of 5G
5G is the next generation of mobile broadband that will eventually replace, or at least augment, your 4G LTE connection. With 5G, you’ll see exponentially faster download and upload speeds. Latency, or the time it takes devices to communicate with the wireless networks, will also drastically decrease. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-5g/
How does this impact online and distance learning
How does this impact online and distance learning
- The ultra high speed of 5G is faster than many campus networks - up to 20 Gb/s compared to less than 1 Gb/s in optimum 4G connections
- The low latency of 2 milliseconds compared to 50 milliseconds in 4G enables interactivity like never before - such as VR and remote laboratories and even surgeries
- Connectivity at a distance will enable virtually everything that is done on campus and even more (see Ray's Inside Higher Ed column on 5G https://www.insidehighered.com/users/ray-schroeder
- What this all means for 5G is that there is a golden opportunity here for higher education institutions to be a vanguard for the development of 5G-driven technologies. Network operators and businesses have realized there is little room for 5G fast-followers. The 5G revolution can only be sparked by striking out early and fostering innovation – and colleges and universities are the perfect place to do that. https://www.lightreading.com/partner-perspectives-(sponsored-content)/the-benefits-5g-will-bring-to-higher-education/a/d-id/754118
- When it comes to the 5G, there are already plenty of applications in manufacturing, media, city management, and healthcare. Education is just scratching the surface of what’s possible in the classroom. Here is what teachers and educators can expect: https://www.gettingsmart.com/2019/04/5-ways-5g-will-make-classrooms-smarter/
- How soon? In two years we will see a majority of our learners with access - not everyone - but the competition will be felt from universities that are offering the high performance apps and engagements.
Who is leading the initiative to rollout 5G online by 2022 on your campus?
VR, AR, MR in a 5G World
VR, AR, MR in a 5G World
5G offers the wide bandwidth and low latency that is required for quality virtual reality and augmented reality. Those conditions had only previously been available through local area networks. But, now 5G enables the enormous learning potential to students at a distance.
“AR/VR has great potential in democratising the educational process and making it a personalised learning experience for learners of all stripes. AR/VR is not a gimmick when deployed correctly. They allow learners to explore abstract concepts in a distraction-free environment and allow them to connect with the concept,” - Ankur Aggarwal, founder of VR-based edtech startup Veative https://inc42.com/features/what-is-the-future-of-edtech-and-learning-in-india-from-an-ar-vr-lens/
There are as many potential VR and AR applications in education as there are in the collective world. Here are six real-world applications at a range of universities around the world. https://builtin.com/edtech/virtual-reality-in-education
Colleges, universities, corporations and start-ups are all converging on developing applications for VR and AR in higher education. Here are 10 of the leaders https://touchstoneresearch.com/the-top-10-companies-working-on-education-in-virtual-reality-and-augmented-reality-rebooted/
Who on your campus is leading the VR / AR initiatives? Who is planning to integrate these technologies into online programs?
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence will increasingly drive the education engine through this decade. It will become a primary moderator of delivery to distant and online students. The low latency and high bandwidth of 5G will enable AI to be responsive and adaptive to individuals.
The power of AI is in handling large volumes of data - especially in an autonomous way.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning - Skymind
You can think of deep learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence as a set of Russian dolls nested within each other, beginning with the smallest and working out. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, and machine learning is a subset of AI, which is an umbrella term for any computer program that does something smart. In other words, all machine learning is AI, but not all AI is machine learning, and so forth.
https://skymind.ai/wiki/ai-vs-machine-learning-vs-deep-learning
Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Applications, Promise and Perils, and Ethical Questions - EDUCAUSE Review
What are the benefits and challenges of using artificial intelligence to promote student success, improve retention, streamline enrollment, and better manage resources in higher education? AI is affecting all aspects of higher education: administration, teaching, assessment, student performance and more.
A sampling of areas where artificial intelligence is emerging that will affect higher ed
AI musicians have emerged - Aiva https://youtu.be/HAfLCTRuh7U and https://youtu.be/gA03iyI3yEA, with voiced singing https://youtu.be/4MKAf6YX_7M , and more - they have a following! Impact is coming for music education.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/auxuman-ai-album/
Saraj Raval explains how it is done:
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AI that summarizes research for faculty and students.
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AI essay graders have been around for some years; they keep getting better and better.
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AI passes 12th grade science test; not just regurgitating facts, this test requires cognitive reasoning:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/9/13/20863269/ai-aristo-science-test-allen-institute
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EssayBot will write your student essays - perhaps not an "A" - but credible.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/4/15/18311367/essaybot-ai-homework-passing
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Toward AI that learns to write - well.
http://news.mit.edu/2019/toward-artificial-intelligence-that-learns-to-write-code-0614
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You are reading AI-written reports every day (many are written from AI-gathered research as well) - in Bloomberg (1/3 of all reports), Washington Post, Forbes, Guardian, Associated Press and many more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html
https://techhq.com/2019/09/writing-and-research-tools-the-future-of-the-newsroom/
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Poetry and other creative writing by AI.
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/15/18623134/openai-language-ai-gpt2-poetry-try-it
Trying out the Open AI Writing software.
How is AI integrated into your teaching and learning? Is there a coordinated effort merging technology innovation, support, and pedagogy?
Adaptive Learning
Adaptive Learning
A Proposed Model AI Governance Framework - Personal Data Protection Commission (1/23/19)
The PDPC presents the first edition of A Proposed Model AI Governance Framework (Model Framework) - an accountability-based framework to help chart the language and frame the discussions around harnessing AI in a responsible way. The Model Framework translates ethical principles into practical measures that can be implemented by organisations deploying AI solutions at scale. Through the Model Framework, we aim to promote AI adoption while building consumer confidence and trust in providing their personal data for AI.
https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/resources/model-ai-gov
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How does society create an ethics guide for AI?
Ramin Vatanparast, Venture Beat
Because AI is so comprehensive and covers several industries, we find ourselves asking obscure questions such as “Do we need to legalize predictive AI policing?” or “How do we iron out biases from algorithms that determine job promotions?” With these questions arising, the key one that remains unanswered surrounds ethics. How do we ensure that AI technologies are ethically designed? To answer this question, there are essentially four aspects that dictate the result: the dilemma, the impact, adoption, and institutionalization.
https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/18/how-does-society-create-an-ethics-guide-for-ai/
Additional Readings
https://edservices.wiley.com/artificial-intelligence-in-higher-ed-admissions-retention/
No discussion of AI is complete without considering the impact of quantum computing
No discussion of AI is complete without considering the impact of quantum computing
Quantum Computing will enable advance AI in ways we have yet to full understand, however, we know it will allow incredibly massive datasets to be analyzed in the blink of an eye. It will bring breakthroughs in fields such as meteorology, medicine, and education where we can assemble massive-scale data that can be combed for causality, prediction, and previously unrecognized connections.
Quantum Computing Is Poised to Change Everything
Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
It is truly rare that an advancement comes along that changes every aspect of society; quantum computing is poised to do just that in the 2020s. Do you recall Moore’s law? That’s the axiom developed by Gordon Moore some two dozen years ago that the processing power of computers would double every 18 months to two years. Now, quantum computing has ushered in Hartmut Neven’s law. His law predicting growth in quantum computing power is one that is doubly exponential. That is two to an exponent of two to a second increasing exponent. Charted on a graph, that growth rate appears to become nearly vertical.
Quantum Computing is on the Verge of Supercharging AI
The advent of quantum computing will fuel a "quantum" leap in artificial intelligence. The Google 54 qubit computer just claimed computing supremacy over the previous fastest computer in the world, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge. "Purportedly, Google’s Sycamore quantum processor, using 54-qubits, performed calculations in 200 seconds that would have taken today’s supercomputers over 10,000 years to complete. The power and potential of such an achievement are awe-inspiring, even if there are no obvious practical applications today." Note: IBM disputes the claim . IBM has their own 53 qubit computer.
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Hello quantum world! Google publishes landmark quantum supremacy claim - Nature 10/23/10
Scientists at Google say that they have achieved quantum supremacy, a long-awaited milestone in quantum computing. The announcement, published in Nature on 23 October, follows a leak of an early version of the paper five weeks ago, which Google did not comment on at the time. In a world first, a team led by John Martinis, an experimental physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Google in Mountain View, California, says that its quantum computer carried out a specific calculation that is beyond the practical capabilities of regular, ‘classical’ machines1. The same calculation would take even the best classical supercomputer 10,000 years to complete, Google estimates.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03213-z
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Here's Why Quantum Computing Supremacy Matters - Futurism
American theoretical physicist John Preskill first coined the term “quantum supremacy” back in 2012. In a column for Quanta Magazine published earlier this month, he defined it as “the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers can’t, regardless of whether those tasks are useful.” It’s important to note that quantum supremacy doesn’t mean a quantum computer can solve a task that’s impossible for a classical computer. “Given enough time… classical computers and quantum computers can solve the same problems,” Thomas Wong of Creighton University told Quanta Magazine.
https://futurism.com/why-quantum-supremacy-matter
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Quantum Information and AI - Alex Moltzau, Towards Data Science
“In physics and computer science, quantum information is the information of the state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques.” “Quantum neural networks (QNNs) are neural network models which are based on the principles of quantum mechanics. There are two different approaches to QNN research, one exploiting quantum information processing to improve existing neural network models (sometimes also vice versa), and the other one searching for potential quantum effects in the brain.”
https://towardsdatascience.com/quantum-computing-and-ai-789fc9c28c5b
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Speed Demons: How Quantum Computing Could Change Education - By Jeffrey R. Young Oct 29, 2019
Meet Alexey Galda, a research assistant professor at the University of Chicago, who specializes in trying new methods of quantum computing. In his spare time, he’s an avid wingsuit flyer, and he’s actually in the Guinness World Records for achieving the fastest horizontal speed in one of these real-life superhero outfits. He was going over 200 miles per hour.And to bring the conversation back down to earth, we talked with Ray Schroeder, the associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois at Springfield, to hear what these new super-fast computers might mean for education.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-10-29-speed-demons-how-quantum-computing-could-change-education
Additional Readings
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-milestone-quantum-standardization.html
https://gizmodo.com/google-confirms-achieving-quantum-supremacy-1839288099
https://www.verdict.co.uk/quantum-computing-2019/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/john-preskill-explains-quantum-supremacy-20191002/
https://enterprisetalk.com/quick-bytes/googles-breakthrough-quantum-computing/
Advances at Johns Hopkins include identifying new superconductor material for qubits
https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/quantum-computing-john-hopkins
How can you keep up with the daily developments and trends?
How can you keep up with the daily developments and trends?
Ray's Daily (365 days/year) Curated Reading Lists and Social Media. Blogs with daily updates on the field of online / continuing learning in higher education
Ray's Daily (365 days/year) Curated Reading Lists and Social Media. Blogs with daily updates on the field of online / continuing learning in higher education
These are resources that UPCEA and Ray provide at no charge to you!
- UPCEA Professional, Continuing and Online Education Update https://continuingedupdate.blogspot.com/ (three items a day with more than one million visits with more than 1,000 leaders at UPCEA institutions subscribing to the daily feed)
- Ray's Curation https://rayscuration.blogspot.com (for those with time to only look at one item a day)
- Recession Reality in Higher Education https://recessionreality.blogspot.com/ (two items a day chronicling the decline in funding and closure/merger of colleges since 2008)
- UIS OER Blog https://uisoerblog.blogspot.com (one item a day to keep the OER fire burning)
- Ray's bi-weekly column in Inside Higher Ed https://www.insidehighered.com/users/ray-schroeder
- Ray's Twitter https://twitter.com/rayschroeder (one or two items daily; followed by 3,270+)
- Ray's LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/rayschroeder (same as Twitter with 2,800 followers)
Create your own custom filter for news and updates
Create your own custom filter for news and updates
I spend about two hours a day collecting / reading /filtering 150 articles seven days a week to generate the lists above. My intended audience is deans, directors and faculty members engaged in online and continuing education. I search for technologies, pedagogies, practices, and trends using my "secret sauce." You can develop your own, using various tools.
- Custom create your own Google Alerts https://www.google.com/alerts
- Tutorial on creating effective Alerts https://mention.com/en/blog/how-to-set-up-google-alerts/
- Some alternatives to Google Alerts https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/5-google-alerts-alternatives-you-need-to-explore/556696/
Create your own daily list of sites
Create your own daily list of sites
Small sample of good news sites (in my opinion)
- Inside Higher Education https://www.insidehighered.com/
- MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/
- Campus Technology https://campustechnology.com/
- Top 100 Higher Education Blogs and Websites in 2020 https://blog.feedspot.com/higher_education_blogs/ (see #44 and #62)
Small sample of good research sites (in my opinion)
- Chronicle of Higher Ed (subscription) https://www.chronicle.com/
- International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl
- Utah State's list of peer reviewed journals for online teaching and learning https://empowerteaching.usu.edu/journalsforteachingandlearning
Attend Conferences, Keep in Touch with Connections, Engage
Attend Conferences, Keep in Touch with Connections, Engage
Nothing is more important than engagement with the field and other leaders in the field.
- Connect and correspond regularly with those who are leading our field
- Attend conferences - national, regional and even local gatherings on learning technologies
- Enroll in a relevant MOOC - I really enjoyed the Learning How to Learn MOOC by McMaster University and UC San Diego this year. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
- Create a formal or informal advisory board - perhaps two boards - one of regional employers with HR executives and the other of technology professionals. (for example, I serve on a small technology external advisory board for the University of Nebraska Medical Center - it is a useful engagement for all involved)
- Connect with other leaders in your state or region - make cross-institutional visits and offer pro bono in-service presentations
Deciding to follow / implement a new technology, practice, program
Deciding to follow / implement a new technology, practice, program
This is where the rubber hits the road. How and when do you best decide to invest scarce resources in something new?
A few things to consider:
- We are in a dynamic, highly-competitive, rapidly-changing field. We must keep up or be left in the dust of last month's trash!
- Only a small fraction of the new tech companies and initiatives survive. As an example, though we lost no hard revenue by investing in Google Wave a decade ago, I caused my university to lose valuable time, effort and built-up expectations by early experimentation with the system that Google unceremoniously abandoned.
- Carefully plumb your trusted sources - both published and personal - to see who is adopting the technology or approach and who is not.
- Examine US Dept of Ed policies and regulations as well as regional accreditor rules that may be relevant.
- Get the low-down on your competitors - where are they going with this technology?
- Do a deep cost/benefit analysis of implementation - what are the dollar, time, reputation costs and benefits?
- Always have an escape route - what if this technology disappears or crashes in the middle of the semester?
UPCEA provides a free "second opinion" service for our members. UPCEA's leading consultants are available on relatively short notice for a 30-minute conversation about any of the challenges you may encounter. You may email us directly or use the form at: https://upcea.edu/resources/research-benchmarking/second-opinion/
Use the CORE discussion lists - there is extended knowledge and power in numbers ! https://core.upcea.edu/home
Contact Ray
Contact Ray
rschr1@uis.edu ~ rayschroeder@gmail.com ~ ray@upcea.edu
Senior Fellow, University and Professional Continuing Education Association
Associate Vice Chancellor for Online, Professor Emeritus
University of Illinois Springfield
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