Monday, January 31, 2022

California offers college students $10K for public service - Associated Press

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that 45 colleges and universities in California, including some of the most prestigious campuses in the state, will be part of a new public service program that will subsidize tuition for students who do community service alongside their studies. The program called “Californians For All College Corps” will start in the fall 2022 semester with 6,500 students who will be deployed to part-time work in areas of pressing need like K-12 education disparities, climate change and food insecurity, Newsom said in a news conference with the leaders of the state’s public university and community college systems.

https://www.ocregister.com/2022/01/18/california-offers-college-students-10k-for-public-service/

Sunday, January 30, 2022

How Safe Is Your Password? - Katharina Buchholz, Statistica

Password, 123456, qwerty - while passwords which appear on the list of the most common passwords should definitely be retired from use, even a more unique password can be easy to crack if a computer program is tasked with systematically breaking it. As seen in data by website Security.org, adding even one upper case letter to a password can already dramatically alter its potential. In the case of an eight-character password, it can now be broken in 22 minutes instead of instantaneously in one second – an increase of more than 1000 percent.

https://www.statista.com/chart/26298/time-it-would-take-a-computer-to-crack-a-password/

Saturday, January 29, 2022

This Leadership Approach Is Damaging Careers. A Harvard Business Review Study Explains Why - Jeff Steen, Inc.

Professional development is not extra work without structure. To avoid sapping employees' energy and feeding scope creep, you have to build a program for career advancement. In the wake of the Great Resignation, many business leaders have frantically sought ways to keep their best talent on board. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, of course -- it depends on industry, available resources, business makeup, and at least a dozen other factors. There is one recurring best practice that seems to have consistent impact, however: Offer professional development. In other words, give your employees the opportunity to level up in their careers with skills training and credentialing.

https://www.inc.com/jeff-steen/this-leadership-approach-is-damaging-careers-a-harvard-business-review-study-explains-why.html

Friday, January 28, 2022

Princeton Disability Collective: Online learning and teaching options must be available to all - Ellen Li, Christopher Lugo, and Hannah Faughnan, Daily Princetonian

We urge the University to offer online learning and teaching options for all undergraduate students, teaching assistants, and instructors, to protect immunocompromised and disabled undergraduates, graduate students, and staff. In addition, many graduate students and instructors live with or care for people who are at risk, such as young children, older people, and other vulnerable groups. Our lives are more valuable than Princeton’s desire to keep up appearances of a “normal” Ivy League semester. Simply put, that illusion is not worth dying for. 

https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2022/01/remote-option-disability-immunocompromised-princeton

Thursday, January 27, 2022

4 Daily Strategies for a Happier Workplace, According to Research - Marcel Schwantes, Inc.

One study found that happiness led to a 12 percent spike in productivity, while unhappy workers were 10 percent less productive. Plain and simple, the research asserts, positive emotions invigorate human beings. Happier employees use their time more effectively, increasing the pace at which they can work without sacrificing quality. Naturally, leaders then must inquire about how to shift to a culture of happiness for business outcomes. Well, the first lesson is never to force happiness to happen. You can't implement a prescribed people strategy to squeeze more productivity out of workers. It doesn't work that way.

https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/4-daily-strategies-for-a-happier-workplace-according-to-research.html

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

8 key technologies for the future of work - Bob Violino, Computerworld

As the hybrid workplace becomes the norm, technologies designed to accommodate, protect, and improve productivity for remote and in-office employees will be critical. For technology and business leaders, one of the biggest questions is what tools and services are critical for supporting workers today and beyond. What will enable them to be productive, connected, engaged, and satisfied, regardless of where they are physically working? Here are some of the key — and often complementary — technologies that will power the workplace into the near future, and some of the ways they will be used to enhance work environments — whatever or wherever those environments might be.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3645502/8-key-technologies-for-the-future-of-work.html

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

4 ways your campus can benefit from educational simulations - Laura Ascione, eCampus News

Instructors are turning to educational simulations to help students build critical workforce skills--is your institutions following suit? A growing number of colleges and universities are turning to educational simulations for mental health awareness, sexual misconduct training, and more. By immersing participants in different scenarios, educational simulations help close gaps in teaching skills and assessing learning, provide critical training that isn’t always possible face-to-face, and help increase workforce readiness.

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2022/01/10/4-ways-your-campus-can-benefit-from-educational-simulations/

Monday, January 24, 2022

Report: 69% of enterprises embrace quantum computing - Venture Beat

Sixty-nine percent of global enterprises have already adopted or plan to adopt quantum computing in the near term, according to a new survey of enterprise leaders commissioned by Zapata Computing. The findings suggest that quantum computing is quickly moving from the fringes and becoming a priority for enterprise digital transformation, as 74% of enterprise leaders surveyed agreed that those who fail to adopt quantum computing will fall behind.

https://venturebeat.com/2022/01/09/report-sixty-nine-percent-of-enterprises-embrace-quantum-computing/

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Video Games Already Do What the Metaverse Just Promises -CECILIA D'ANASTASIO, Wired

It’s been 20 years since wedding bells first rang in Second Life. Game developer Square Enix included mechanics for sending out invitations, composing vows, and exchanging rings in 2002’s Final Fantasy XI. Outside of nuptials, online games already provide the most compelling functions associated with the “metaverse”—often, with greater graphic fidelity, more complex social systems, and at a significantly larger scale. As professional cyberspace architects and governors, it is game developers who have iterated on and mastered the two to three actually promising attributes of a metaverse, mostly revolving around socializing in virtual worlds.“Aaron Delwiche, an assistant professor at Trinity University in San Antonio,” reads one 2004 WIRED article, “often gathers students in his Games for the Web class in an unlikely classroom: the metaverse known as Second Life.”

https://www.wired.com/story/video-games-ahead-of-metaverse/

Saturday, January 22, 2022

The 18 most popular online courses from the top universities in the world - Julia Pugachevsky, Insider

Some of the best schools in the world have free online courses on edX, Coursera, and FutureLearn. Linked below, you can find the most popular online course from each university, based on enrollments. Schools include Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, UC Berkeley, Columbia, and more.

https://www.insider.com/guides/learning/best-free-online-courses-from-top-universities

Friday, January 21, 2022

Out of Crisis, Compassion: Using Instructional Technologies to Alleviate Student Stress - Jill Anderson, Educause Review

Compassion can be defined as "sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it."Footnote2 The distress caused by the pandemic has been well documented. The effects on college and university students have been of particular interest. For example, one study reported that 71 percent of students said that the pandemic increased their levels of stress and anxiety.Footnote3 Students in this study worried more about health and academic performance, found it more difficult to concentrate and sleep well, and interacted less with others. 

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/8/out-of-crisis-compassion-using-instructional-technologies-to-alleviate-student-stress

Thursday, January 20, 2022

The Era of Flexible Work in Higher Education - Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

During the pandemic, we all saw that a lot of staff work could be done remotely because we were doing it remotely. In the survey we did of faculty and staff, people self-reported that they felt they were more productive working remotely. You might expect that people might want to put a positive spin on their own work. So we asked supervisors, did you feel that people were more productive? And they said yes as well. So there was a general consensus that people were actually very productive working remotely.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/05/era-flexible-work-higher-education-has-begun

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Relevant, Efficient, and Economical: Learning Touchstones with Ray Schroeder - Leading Learning

In this episode of the Leading Learning Podcast, Jeff talks with return guest Ray about COVID’s indelible impact on teaching and learning, the metaverse, blockchain, non-fungible tokens, artificial intelligence, teaching ahead, and how Google’s wildly popular certificates make the case for relevant, efficient, economical learning going forward.

https://www.leadinglearning.com/episode-288-ray-schroeder/ 

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

6 pieces of advice for women in STEM - Laura Ascione, eCampus News

It’s common knowledge that engaging–and retaining–girls and women in STEM classes, STEM degrees, and STEM careers is an ongoing challenge. Some key elements in this equation are representation, along with ensuring girls and women have role models to support them in their STEM learning and career paths. The pandemic has prompted many workers to change their career paths, and many STEM sectors like cybersecurity struggle with talent shortages. Women only account for 28 percent of the STEM workforce today. Here, six female tech leaders share their advice for today’s girls and women as they carve out STEM studies and career paths of their own:

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2022/01/04/6-pieces-of-advice-for-women-in-stem/

Monday, January 17, 2022

Facing an existential crisis, some colleges do something rare for them — adapt - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report

As the enrollment crash becomes an existential crisis, what’s happened at this nearly 140-year-old art school shows that colleges and universities can, in fact, transform, by quickly adding programs in response to student and employer demand, better connecting academic offerings to workforce opportunities and generally challenging a culture that resists change. “The numbers are undeniable,” said Ian Anderson, vice president of academic affairs and dean. “You have to innovate your way off of this demographic cliff.”

https://hechingerreport.org/facing-an-existential-crisis-some-colleges-do-something-rare-for-them-adapt/

Sunday, January 16, 2022

FIU awarded grant to advance 21st century skills development through university-community partnerships - Lourdes Perez, FIU

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) has awarded a grant to Florida International University to further its partnerships with local community organizations and businesses, aimed at providing students with the skills they need to successfully enter the workforce upon graduation. FIU partnered with MITRE, a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to research and development in the public interest, to develop a curated and coordinated pathway to provide students with technical skills, interpersonal skills, and access to experiential opportunities. The university aims to use the pilot as a scalable model to provide clearer and more direct pathways to careers.

https://news.fiu.edu/2021/fiu-awarded-grant-to-advance-21st-century-skills-development-through-university-community-partnerships

Saturday, January 15, 2022

Creating a Constellation of Offerings with Microcredentials and Continuing Education - KRISTINE COLLINS, Modern Campus

Microcredentials are the hottest topic in higher education, and institutions need to launch and scale them strategically.  On this episode, Kristine Collins, Assistant Dean of Academic Programs in the School of Continuing Studies at University of Toronto, talks about microcredentials and how to leverage CE division’s expertise to launch and scale them successfully. 

https://moderncampus.com/podcast/episode-fourteen.html

Friday, January 14, 2022

Google Upgrades Its Tool to Search and Add Citations on Documents - IBL News

The feature is intended to allow an easy search of cited materials on books and online sources and then add them, formatted, into Google Docs. The tool will be available automatically for end-users. It is expected to roll out in late November to early December. “By automating part of the source creation process, and ensuring correct formatting, we hope to save you time and reduce manual errors while managing citations,” said Google in a blog post.

https://iblnews.org/google-upgrades-its-tool-to-search-and-add-citations-on-documents/

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Migration to Digital Classrooms Should Re-Spark Learning Analytics - Raj Kaji and Shalini Sealey, Fierce Education

As it turns out, this work of analyzing the data can also be difficult, time-, people- and resource-intensive. The mass migration to digital classrooms, however, is sparking renewed interest in the potential of learning analytics and predictive modeling for student success. But this time, given the dramatic increase in the number of learners and faculty using technology regularly for learning, institutional leaders may see that the power of analytics may lie in their simplicity rather than their complexity. 

https://www.fierceeducation.com/technology/migration-digital-classrooms-should-re-spark-learning-analytics

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Skillsoft Pays $525 Million for SaaS Learning Platform Codecademy - IBL News

Skillsoft (NYSE: SKIL) announced the acquisition of the learning platform Codecademy for $525 million in cash and stock yesterday. Earlier this year, Skillsoft acquired Global Knowledge and Pluma. By adding Codecademy’s clients and 40 million learners, Boston-headquartered Skillsoft will host 46 million users and over 12,000 corporate customers, according to its data. The Codecademy team — mostly based in New York, where the company was founded in 2011 — will join Skillsoft.

https://iblnews.org/skillsoft-pays-525-million-for-saas-learning-platform-codeacademy/

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Trends Driving Innovation for Higher Education in 2022 - Annie Galvin Teich, Fierce Education

Like many, Head of Education at Google Cloud Steven Butschi views the pandemic as a catalyst for institutional change and shared his observations about the opportunities they represent in a recent interview with Fierce Education. There is a lot of opportunity for the digital transformation of higher education. According to Butschi, there at least three “needs” driving the next phase of change in colleges and universities,

https://www.fierceeducation.com/technology/future-trends-driving-innovation-higher-education

Monday, January 10, 2022

Why New York City is cracking down on AI in hiring - Nicol Turner Lee and Samantha Lai, Brookings Institution

The New York City Council voted 38-4 on November 10, 2021 to pass a bill that would require hiring vendors to conduct annual bias audits of artificial intelligence (AI) use in the city’s processes and tools. Companies using AI-generated resources will be responsible for disclosing to job applicants how the technology was used in the hiring process, and must allow candidates options for alternative approaches such as having a person process their application instead. For the first time, a city the size of New York will impose fines for undisclosed or biased AI use, charging up to $1,500 per violation on employers and vendors. Lapsing into law without outgoing Mayor DeBlasio’s signature, the legislation is now set to take effect in 2023. It is a telling move in how government has started to crack down on AI use in hiring processes and foreshadows what other cities may do to combat AI-generated bias and discrimination.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2021/12/20/why-new-york-city-is-cracking-down-on-ai-in-hiring/

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Entrepreneurs Are Struggling With Mental Health. It Doesn't Have to Be This Way, Inc.com

There is another threat to our health, and most of us are not doing all we can to prevent the grave repercussions. As Brene Brown so eloquently pointed out, "Another pandemic is going to follow this one-- it's already started; we're months into it now-- which is a real mental-health pandemic." Mental health issues have been on the rise in America for decades. Rates of depression increased by more than 50 percent for young people, ages 12-25, between 2005 to 2017. The global pandemic, bringing with it an added measure of stress, isolation, fear, and reduced access to routine medical care, only exacerbated the problem. As an entrepreneur, mental health is of particular concern to me. Entrepreneurs have a higher than average rate of anxiety and depression. Many are standing on a dangerous precipice. Expectations on entrepreneurs are extremely high. 

https://www.inc.com/curtis-j-morley/entrepreneurs-are-struggling-with-mental-health-it-doesnt-have-to-be-this-way.html

Saturday, January 8, 2022

57 Jobs of the Future - Thomas Frey, Futurist Speaker

In many cases, the new jobs and categories of jobs will be quite technical as people work to bring blockchain, cryptocurrency, the metaverse, self-driving transportation, and other IT innovations to fruition and then into our daily lives. But before we get there, we should recognize that in some cases, technology breakthroughs will lead to more than just technical jobs. Take geriatric services, for example. Thinking beyond COVID, medical technology is extending life expectancy for seniors. That trend will continue to drive a critical demand for a variety of personal care services for retirees, who are likely to enjoy over 20 years of time after retirement at 65. below, I’ve identified 57 technology-related new jobs in 15 industries that will directly support or respond to these kinds of technology breakthroughs.

https://futuristspeaker.com/future-of-work/57-jobs-of-the-future/

Friday, January 7, 2022

U.S. population growth has nearly flatlined, new census data shows - William H. Frey, Brookings

America’s population size is standing still, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Population growth over the 12-month period from July 1, 2020 through July 1, 2021 stood at unprecedented low of just 0.12%. This is the lowest annual growth since the Bureau began collecting such statistics in 1900, and reflects how all components of population change—deaths, births, and immigration levels—were impacted during a period when the COVID-19 pandemic became most prevalent.[i] The new estimates show that during this period, population growth declined from the previous year in 31 of 50 states as well as Washington, D.C., with 18 states sustaining absolute population losses. In some states, especially California and New York, population losses were exacerbated by inflated out-migration during the pandemic, just as other states such as Florida and Texas benefitted from greater population in-flows.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/u-s-population-growth-has-nearly-flatlined-new-census-data-shows/

Thursday, January 6, 2022

The future requires durable skills - Laura Ascione, eCampus News

The price of a college degree continues to creep higher across the country. But has the value of that degree kept pace? Students expect their investment in college to pay off in the form of meaningful employment. However, according to new data, both recent grads and HR managers believe that the absence of durable skills–including people skills–training in higher education offers an opportunity for colleges and universities to partner with students and employers in closing a critical skills gap. 

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2021/12/23/the-future-requires-durable-skills/

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

The Future Is Here: Your 2022 Planning Guide - EDUCAUSE Showcase Series

This showcase is focused on helping you build and support a more proactive orientation to the future of higher education. Equipped with information about the practices, technologies, and trends emerging around us, we can start today to make plans and take actions that will help better position our institutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.

https://www.educause.edu/showcase-series/the-future-is-here-your-2022-planning-guide

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

7 ways to make the wider enterprise comfortable with artificial intelligence - Joe McKendrick, ZD Net

Extend ownership and responsibility for AI beyond the IT department. AI needs to be an enterprise-wide initiative, with all parties involved. "Successful and productive deployment of AI is a cross-functional effort far beyond just data science," says Dr. Michael Wu, chief AI strategist at PROS.  "Extended teams need to range from the technical side, involving IT and cloud operations for security and data governance, to the business side, involving change management, training for education, adoption, best practice."

https://www.zdnet.com/article/7-ways-to-make-the-wider-enterprise-comfortable-with-artificial-intelligence/

Monday, January 3, 2022

State, Local Govt Can Prepare Now for Post-Quantum Security - Julie Pattison-Gordon, GovTech

Quantum computing strong enough to break traditional encryption methods is looming on the horizon — and federal officials want state and local governments to start planning for that future now.  2022 could see the next stage in this work, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) slated to release an initial standard for quantum-proof encryption algorithms. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, has been creating resources to help prepare entities to adopt the new standards, and it plans to push for greater awareness of these offerings in the new year.

https://www.govtech.com/computing/state-local-govt-can-prepare-now-for-post-quantum-security

Sunday, January 2, 2022

A step towards building greater trust in AI in education - Jim Larimore, University World News

Today, the users – the parents, the students, the instructors – have no sense of whether a tool is safe and effective, and they tend to be afraid of most AI-enabled tools. To address the problem, Riiid, which specialises in AI-powered education solutions, and DXtera Institute, a non-profit membership organisation that uses technology to lower barriers in education delivery, have formed a cross-sector alliance of companies, non-profit organisations and education technology associations to work on an AI in Education benchmark initiative. The initiative, launched in August, is focused on establishing benchmarks and standards in four critical categories – Safety (security, privacy), Accountability (defining stakeholder responsibilities), Fairness (equity, ethics and lack of bias), and Efficacy (quantified improved learning outcomes). In a word, SAFE educational AI.

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20211214103758477

Saturday, January 1, 2022

What Will Be the Highest-Paying IT Career 5 Years From Now? - Oliver Rist, PC Magazine

There are a series of high-paying IT skills you could chase, but none have more potential than security. Based on an October 2020 study from Burning Glass Technologies, depending on the security skill you decide to chase, you'll see five-year projected growth up to 165% and a significant potential annual salary bump, on average between $5,000 and $15,000, depending on the discipline. The area with the most potential is application-development security, and it's probably the one that'll get you the most thanks from customers and users, since you'll be making their apps and cloud services safer. This skill is best if you're currently a developer, since you'll be focusing on making code as bulletproof as possible.  (Ray asks - what certificates you might offer to meet this need?)

https://www.pcmag.com/news/cybersecurity-careers-show-massive-hiring-and-salary-boosts-over-the-next