:: Global Learning Technology Investment Patterns Ambient Insights regularly releases brief reports on learning technology industry, including this latest effort, International Learning Technology Investment Patterns, 2015. Interestingly, one-third of the record breaking investment in learning technology in the first half of 2015 was for China-based companies. More than one-half was for consumer-facing products and services.   Read more.  Designing Learning Spaces for the Mobile Era More attention needs to be paid to the design of spaces for learning. This article is a good place to start.   Read more.  Interview with Stanford’s John Hennessy  Useful Q-and-A with former Stanford President, John Hennessy. He rightly calls for more experimentation to drive improvements in online learning. He cites Carnegie Mellon University’s work as an example. Couldn’t agree more.   Read more.  Open University’s Open Science Lab Despite our close ties and shared histories we do a remarkably good job in North America of being ignorant of what’s going on in the UK. Case in point: Open University. For decades they have built and tested new ways to foster learning in the online environment. One of these efforts is the Open Science Laboratory - a set of 60+ online lab experiences for undergraduates.   Read more.  Rising Textbook Prices  Mark Perry provides some data on the rising cost of print textbooks. His example, taken from the University of Michigan-Flint, shows textbooks reaching the $400.00 level.   Read more.  MIT Considers it’s Next Move Washington Post reports that MIT, long in the vanguard of online education, is considering a for-profit venture.   Read more.  

Fernstone Retreat Each of us was given directions to the cabins located deep in rural Pennsylvania. We planned to spend three days, around-the-clock, hashing out plans for the new venture. It would be several weeks before we settled on a company name. Most of us had never met. We arrived from different cities, states, and even countries. Some came to the venture after working in a well-known R&D initiative at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. Others were former education publishing executives, still more came from academia. Programmers rounded out the remaining. Like many of our colleagues in higher education, we were dissatisfied with the current state of online learning. We wanted to show what was possible if you brought together the best of learning theory, provided educators with actionable information about what’s working and what isn’t, and made the long-awaited holy grail of personalization feasible and trustworthy. Reflecting our roots in Carnegie Mellon University, the foundation for this venture was science: the best approach would be backed by evidence of improved learning outcomes. Experience has shown all of us in higher ed that improving learning outcomes and increasing retention rates is difficult. If technology is going to a play a major role in helping those students that don’t succeed quickly or easily, we need to take course design seriously, and bring all of the capacity of the digital learning to bear. A Very Good Start It’s tough to launch a new business, no matter the field. Most new ventures don’t survive.  Very few get the funding they need to make a serious go of it against the big players. Worse still, higher education is an especially cautious sector and because of our particular approach, we needed to find colleges and universities that were just as ambitious as we were. We launched back in mid-2013. The team has grown since then. We’ve been lucky enough to work with more than 40 partner institutions including Western Governors University, the pioneer in what is now the very active space of competency-based education, and the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley  - one of the highest ranked MBA programs in the world. Earlier this year, we beat out 270 other organizations to win the Return on Education Innovation Award (ROE) at SXSW. And late last year we were the grateful recipients of the Next Generation Courseware Challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If this good fortune wasn’t enough, this week we announced  9.75 million USD in funding from Draper Triangle Ventures, Hearst Ventures, and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This seems, then, like the ideal time to stop and say thanks. First, thank you to Carnegie Mellon University and William Gutman, in particular, for providing such a solid foundation. But we also need to thank the colleges and universities that have chosen to work with us to explore the limits of what’s possible in online learning. Thanks.  

New paper published in issue 43 of eLearningPapers - Applied Games and Gamification - Drivers for Change:An Experiment to Assess Students’ Engagement in a Gamified Social Learning Environment This paper presents a research work conducted to address students’ disengagement by investigating if gamification can make a contribution to solving this problem. The disposition to experience flow, a psychological state, was used as a measurement of engagement. An experiment allowed testing a research hypothesis concerning flow in a gamified environment.co-authored with Sérgio Mateus, Rebeca Redondo a Ana Vilas.The overall purpose of the experiment was to test the hypothesis that a gamified version of a Social Learning Environment (SLE) causes in its users an increase in their disposition to experience flow (see this other post) than the non-gamified version. The disposition to experience flow was assessed by using a questionnaire based on the Portuguese version of the DFS-2.The experiment tested a group of subjects (a class of 3rd grade students) before and after the treatment (using the gamified version of the SLE). A pre-test, using the DFS-2, indicated how the subjects did prior to administration of the treatment condition and a post-test evaluated the subjects after the treatment. The effect was taken as the difference between the pre-test and the post-test scores.Although small, an increase in the students’ tendency to experience flow was observed, particularly in the flow dimensions related to flow outcomes.Issue 43 of eLearning Papers has two other gamification papers:To Game or not to Game - a pilot study on the use of gamification for team allocation in entrepreneurship education andWhat really works in gamification? Short answer: we don’t know, so let’s start thinking like experimenters

A public survey released by Deloitte (quoted by the Harvard Business Review here) more than half the executives surveyed said that their current performance management approach didn’t result in high performance or in increased employee engagement. Those surveyed are not alone - and the most recent announcement was that Accenture was getting rid of annual performance rankings and reviews. But wasn’t performance management - with all employees then rated on a bell curve - considered as a best practice for optimal organizational management? Let’s look at the drivers behind this new understanding of performance. Accenture has 330,000 employees - and managers spend thousands of hours on getting trained on performance management and following the practice. What’s behind this huge departure from tradition, and what does it mean for the future of performance management? Why say goodbye to performance management? This is what Deloitte’s people have to say about the move (Deloitte is piloting a new system, Accenture is abandoning it altogether): "They, and we, are in need of something nimbler, real-time, and more individualized—something squarely focused on fueling performance in the future rather than assessing it in the past… We’ve arrived at a very different and much simpler design for managing people’s performance. Its hallmarks are speed, agility, one-size-fits-one, and constant learning, and it’s underpinned by a new way of collecting reliable performance data." Performance management is time consuming: Counting the hours dedicated to the performance review process, to year-end assessments and to the consensus-building process of how employees are ranked against each other Deloitte found that creating the ratings consumed 2 million hours a year! Rating skills isn’t science nor art and ratings reflect very little truth: this is what Deloitte says about rating people in HBR: "The most comprehensive research on what ratings actually measure was conducted by Michael Mount, Steven Scullen, and Maynard Goff … Their study—in which 4,492 managers were rated on certain performance dimensions by two bosses, two peers, and two subordinates—revealed that 62% of the variance in the ratings could be accounted for by individual raters’ peculiarities of perception. Actual performance accounted for only 21% of the variance. This led the researchers to conclude … most of what is being measured by the ratings is the unique rating tendencies of the rater. Thus ratings reveal more about the rater than they do about the ratee." Perfromance management didn’t focus on people’s strengths and what made the best teams work best. Good teams were driven by intrinsic motivation. Most performance management ended up focusing on the past and not providing guidance for the future. So, what lies ahead for performance management? Most companies choosing to discontinue traditional performance management spoke about the need to provide timely feedback and abandon forced rankings altogether. According to research by CEB 6% of Fortune 500 companies have gotten rid of rankings, which used to be the golden rule for human resource management. Timely feedback: timely feedback is feedback that is timely enough to allow an employee to re-work what they are doing, instead of gazing at the past and regretting it. Mario Herger, a gamification guru, told me once that what he likes about gamification is that you can fail, get up and do it again. I think this is an important observation: just like in a real game you lose lives again and again till you figure out a certain level, good feedback is timely enough to let you fail, get up and fix your act. Gamification, in many senses, is just that since it tells you how you’re doing almost immediately, based on the actions you’ve performed in enterprise applications. Fair and transparent: performance management should be perceived as fair, transparent and objective. Again, looking to gamification, we can imagine a system where everyone is rated based on the same elements in the same way. A lot of the psychological distress and dis-engagement associated with a sense of unfairness can be avoided this way. It also helps the organization to better calibrate itself. Visibility: employees need to feel there is a connection between the performance expected of them and the needs of the business. They need to know how it all fits together. This is where companies like betterworks are changing performance management and where gamification, by communicating corporate goals, are attacking one of the weaknesses of traditional performance management. No rankings: Labelling people  by ranking them doesn’t create motivation - it creates a "fight or flight" response. Imagine an employee has gone overboard to perform, but the forced ranking system makes the employee end up ranked 4 out of 5. Imagine that employee performed at level 2 in the past. Ranking the employee 4 is then a disheartening experience. Rather than highlight that employee’s enormous improvement relative to himself, it highlight other employees, creating a sense of competition. We’ve written about this problem of forced rankings when we spoke about leaderboard mistakes to avoid. The experience of ignoring the employee’s accomplishments and drive and a forceful comparison to others will also cause a defensive reaction which will include the employee’s ignoring of feedback, undermining the entire performance review process. This avoidance of implicit competition and focus on intrinsic drives is also changing gamification, as we’re written here. Paying attention to growth: Additionally, focusing on performance rankings creates an atmosphere where employees are ranked on "fixed" characteristics such as talent or intelligence and not on how much they grew relative to themselves. This creates a deterministic atmosphere and results in a natural reaction by employees - distancing themselves emotionally from the performance review process. This excellent article describes the problem thus: "Kansas State University management professor Satoris Culbertson, who studied the response to more than 200 performance reviews, argues that the mere act of receiving a numerical rating can be perceived as negative feedback, and even people with a growth mind-set don’t react well to negative feedback". Focus on the future: The main driver cited by Accenture was the need to focus on the future and not provide feedback about the past. New performance management is focused on shorter term goals, rapid feedback cycles and on-going feedback, just like gamification - giving people the tools to grow instead of forcing them to focus on the past and on winner-takes-all competition. Performance management is changing - the dogma of forced ranking is cracking - and new technologies, such as gamification (but also many others), will become the performance management of the future. These technologies will win not as a result of sophistication or algorithms, but as a result of empathy and a design which is made to make people feel better, and help them obtain meaning, satisfaction and a sense of control and autonomy from the performance review process.      

Daily Rituals: How artists work - a book review by Mason Currey This fascinating book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work shares quick 5-10 paragraph stories of the rituals of over 161 creative artists. Writers, choreographers, and painters are included with perhaps a heavy leaning towards writers (just because I guess they write about it.) Today’s book review gives teachers who inspire creativity an arsenal of stories of the greats of history. Who will like Daily Rituals? While this is NOT necessarily a book for kids (Thomas Wolfe’s habits are a bit over the top, but then again, he was Thomas Wolfe.) This is definitely a book for literature teachers and those teaching students creativity. It is notable that not every artist had a ritual all of the time, but when they produced work, they most certainly did have one. For me, it has challenged me to find and develop my own rituals to help me be more creative. I was struck by how many of the highly creative artists walked. Dickens took a 3 hour walk through the streets or countryside starting promptly at 2pm every day or Tchaikovsky’s two hour walks each day when he was often known to scribble down ideas as he walked. It was also interesting to me how Agatha Christie balanced her home life and writing (flitting in and out of her family life and writing, she seems to have struck the ultimate balance of productivity and writing.) Of course, many artists had their share of addictions with alcohol and amphetamines being among the top habitual excesses. My Book Review of Daily Rituals Overall I found the book fascinating just because I write. This book is an enjoyable read, very fast paced, and sometimes I’m left wanting to know more about some of these artists but that is the intent of the book. Because the chapters are very short, you can also pick it up and put it down easily, so it would be perfect reading for your break or lunch. I do recommend reading this on ebook because I’ve already found myself going back and searching the text for stories and ebook searches are faster. This is one literature, art, dance, and music teachers will want to reference because storytelling is often a powerful underpinning of great teaching. Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey is an intriguing book and I read every page. I’m keeping it on my Kindle as a reference book. The post Daily Rituals: How artists work - a book review [Book] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti @traceywilen cover an important topic: how do educators stay employed and relevant FOR LIFE. (Yes, I said for life.) Based upon her research, she has some things to share with all educators about the trends driving education and how we can stay relevant (and employed.) Who should listen to this show? Any educator who wants to stay employed until they are ready to retire. More than that, if you want to thrive, understanding the big picture trends is important because you can see where decision makers are spending the money. My favorite part of the show is when Tracey talks about Society 3.0 and how technology is shaping education. She also gives interesting insight into reasons behind the growth of online learning and online tutoring. (And how tutoring might be a great opportunity for many of us.) Her research into how students are actually learning is quite fascinating as well. (It’s not what you think.) She also gives advice to those who are dealing with an unexpected career change or setback based upon some new research on "how you get a job in a tough economy." Listen to the show Listen Now! Listen on iTunes "Staying Relevant, Staying Abreast, Staying Employed for Life" Add Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti to your PLN Twitter: @traceywilen Personal Blog: http://www.traceywilen.com/ Huffington Post Blog: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-tracey-wilendaugenti/ You’ll want to read her Huffington article: Don’t get Left Behind: How to Stay Employed in a Technology Based World on this topic. Every Classroom Matters is a bi-weekly podcast by Vicki Davis on BAM Radio network. Every classroom matters because every child matters. Listening will help you teach with better results, lead with a positive impact, and live with a greater purpose. Subscribe. The post Secrets of Staying Employed for Life - Dr. Tracey Wilen Daugenti [EMC #25] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Steven Anderson @web20classroom discusses the job of a technology coach. ‘Technology isn’t about technology, technology is about people." Steven says so well. Who should listen to this show? This is a must listen for EVERY technology coach or for anyone in school who manages and helps cast the vision for what technology coaches should be and do. My favorite thing Steven shared in this show is how to help technology coaches help more teachers when there are just not enough technology coaches. I also love his ideas about doing a really good needs assessment with teaches when they don’t know what they don’t know and the Friday Institute’s Need Assessment (Creative Commons license) and how you can use it to help your teachers improve. Listen to the Show Listen Now! Listen on iTunes "Technology Coaches: Helping Teachers Find the Best Ways to Use Technology in the Classroom" Add Steven Anderson to your PLN Blog: http://blog.web20classroom.org/ Twitter: @web20classroom Every Classroom Matters is a bi-weekly podcast by Vicki Davis on BAM Radio network. Every classroom matters because every child matters. Listening will help you teach with better results, lead with a positive impact, and live with a greater purpose. Subscribe. The post Being an awesome Technology Coach with Steven Anderson #ECM 52 appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

If you have the iPhone 5s, you’ve probably figured out the camera is something pretty special. (As you can tell from the featured photo on this post.) The iPhone 5S has some cool new photography features but so does ios7. I’ve been doing some research to support the iphoneographers in my class and have turned up some interesting tips you might not know about the Photo App in iOS 7 and with the iPhone 5S. 11 Things You might Not Know about the iPhone Photography in iOS7 You can shoot in slo Mo You can hold down the shutter button and the iPhone will shoot at 10 frames per second (FPS) on the iPhone 5s online. It will then select the best one based on sharpness and clarity. The iphone 5s’ new A7 processor makes this possible. You can shoot square (for Instagram) or Panorama Apple (finally) included filters — there are just 8 of them but they are pretty frequent ones for most of us who use them. (But these don’t work on the videos or panorama.) HDR is just for Photo and Square mode. The collections feature that organizes by date, time, and event is SWEET You can see videos and panoramas separately from photos and all kinds of organization features are available. You can have a shared stream with someone (put it on your Apple TV and curate it to have a current stream of pics from your classroom although on Apple Forums there are some issues with screensavers being reported.) Don’t forget that you can swipe up from the Bottom of the screen to start the camera Grid went away but you can get it back. Go into Camera > Photos & Camera > On/Off for "Grid" under the Camera Section You can zoom in while recording a video in iOS 7 (just pinch or spread out to zoom in or out.) I upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the 5S and it was a huge improvement for me, although I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t had a problem. If you need a good camera, it is totally worth the upgrade because the photos I take are as good as the tiny digital camera I used to carry around about 5 years a go. iPhone photography definitely got an upgrade. (Just consider upgrading your hard drive space if you are getting it for pics and video.) You have to go into settings to turn on the iphone grid feature. I love the grid but hate that this is hidden away. This is one of the only things I don’t care for because most of it is really awesome. The post 11 Cool iPhone Photography Tips appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Last week, Dave Burgess @burgessdave opened our Gamifi-ed OOC with a video keynote about igniting passion and teaching. It is no secret that Teach Like a PIRATE is one of my all time favorite teaching books and Dave is the real deal. Take time to listen to watch Dave Burgess’ video - Dave gets going around minute 4 or so after the intros. (Listen to his 10 minute Every Classroom Matters interview.) Go to Gamifi-ed YouTube Teaching and Elements of Gaming He related his teaching methods to gaming and elements of gaming. I love what he shares about labeling yourself a certain "style" of teacher (and not to do that.) "When you see something that is engaging large numbers of people, so you should relentlessly pursue using that in your classroom." How can we add elements to the classroom: anything that works and gamification is one of those things. The Lunar Landing Description is EPIC If you want to see what an epic, exciting teacher looks like - forward to around minute 25 to almost 30 to see Dave share how he teaches about the Lunar Landing. Wow. I’m ready to go back to school and teach. Your Class Gets Popular and You Become Less Popular with Some Teachers And my friend, Dave Burgess, I could come through that computer and hug yo for what you said happens when your class gets wildly popular and how much grief you get. (Around minute 32 or so.) I so needed that because it is so true. If you want to rock your classroom, LISTEN to what he says. Authentic Assessment and why Students (and Parents Fight it) Around 42 minutes, the conversation turns to Authentic Assessment and Dave says some things that every educator should hear and discuss. Take time to talk about authentic assessments. He’s dead on.   All of these videos are OER (Open Education Resources) for you to use in your courses, blogs, and anywhere. Remix. Reuse. Share.   The post Dave Burgess Video: Passion and Teaching #gamifi-ed [Video] appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

Dana Dunnan @DanaDunnan gives advice to new teachers based upon his 26 years of teaching in US public education. He has a new book Notes to a New Teacher but I also loved watching the video about his work and cool science projects. Who should listen to his show? New teachers should definitely listen, but I think all teachers will be interested - particularly if you’re a teacher who may be struggling with staying positive about teaching. Dana talks about impactful teachers with an incredible viewpoint. He talks about a "subversive activity" done with his journalism course that had surprising results about who was actually the best teacher in the school. Listen to the Show Listen to the Show on ITunes "New Teachers: Three Things They Didn’t Teach You in Education School" Add Dana Dunnan to your PLN Dana’s Website: http://chalkdustmemories.com/ Twitter: @DanaDunnan Dana’s Books Notes to a New Teacher ($1.99 on Kindle) Chalkdust Memories ($.99 on Kindle) You’ll also want to view his video about cool science projects. Every Classroom Matters is a bi-weekly podcast by Vicki Davis on BAM Radio network. Every classroom matters because every child matters. Listening will help you teach with better results, lead with a positive impact, and live with a greater purpose. Subscribe. The post 3 Things You Didn’t Learn in Ed School with Dana Dunnan #ECM 53 appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog.