Education 2.0 & 3.0

"If you’ve ever heard of Apple Camp and wanted to learn more about it, here’s everything you need to know ..."

In March 2020, UK higher education embarked on a sudden shift to digital learning. In the vast majority of cases, it wasn’t a designed and fully realised transformation of teaching and learning.

It was an emergency response to an unprecedented situation that relied on upskilling staff rapidly enough to enable them to deliver the remainder of their courses, and assess them, in as effective and equitable way as possible. 

The extent of this digital shift, and the tools, techniques and platforms used, varied not only between universities but also within them, depending on the demands of different departments and the confidence and capabilities of the staff.

PwC Ireland’s chief digital officer, Joe Tynan, discusses the company’s new digital fitness assessment app and the importance of closing the digital knowledge gap.

Digital awareness has never been so important. More people than ever are now working from home and communicating online, and the current crisis has highlighted the dangers of misinformation, which has never been easier to access.

Becoming more digitally fit can help people at any technical level to improve their digital literacy and awareness in this challenging time.

With this in mind, PwC has released its own digital fitness app for free

Will you be involved in delivering the roll out of new courses to support the upcoming Essential Digital Skills (EDS) entitlement for adults aged 19 and over?
Our new professional development programme commissioned by the Department for Education and designed by staff from the sector will help you to prepare, as well as build your digital skills and confidence.

The following is based on my doctoral thesis, my experience as Web Literacy Lead at the Mozilla Foundation, and the work that I’ve done as an independent consultant, identifying, developing, and credentialing digital skills and literacies.

Earlier this month, the UK government announced £13.5 million of new funding for 2,500 artificial intelligence (AI) and data science conversion degrees, and 1,000 scholarships for people from underrepresented groups in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths (STEM) sector.
Potential applicants will hold a degree in other disciplines and scholarships will be made available to support applicants from diverse backgrounds, including people returning to work after a career break, and under-represented groups in the AI and digital workforce, including women and people from ethnic minorities.

This video clip is a bit old, but I still like using it to spark conversation on why we need to teach differently in today’s classrooms. When we have almost instant access to factual information, we shouldn’t be asking students to simply recall those facts. The Teaching Innovation Progression Chart highlights Research and Information Fluency as one of the key strands for student success. In a student-driven classroom, teachers should be modeling strategiesto guide student investigation, designing challenges that promote synthesis of resources to address an authentic task, supporting students as they acquire, evaluate, and apply information, and facilitating and formatively assessing authentic tasks where students are engaged in research and using information fluently. In these classrooms, we should see students constructing questions to guide research, selecting the most appropriate digital tools and information sources, assembling and synthesizing information to address authentic tasks, and using tools to powerfully display and interact with information. 

There is growing recognition in the education systems around the globe that being able to problem-solve computationally—that is, to think logically and algorithmically, and use computational tools for creating artifacts including models and data visualizations—is rapidly becoming a prerequisite competency for all fields.

In 2012, the U.K. national curriculum began introducing computer science (CS) to all students. Singapore, as part of its “Smart Nation” initiative, has labeled developing CT as a “national capability.” Other countries, from Finland to South Korea, China to Australia and New Zealand, have launched large-scale efforts to introduce CT in schools, as either a part of new CS curricula or integrated into existing subjects. Here in the U.S., former President Barack Obama called on all K-12 students to be equipped with CT skills as part of an “Computer Science for All” initiative in 2016. Most emergent efforts in the US involving CT are currently part of CS curricula, although CT is increasingly seeing integration into STEM (especially science) learning.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Computational+Thinking

So you want to do content marketing – and in a big way. This isn’t going to be a tentative test. You’re making an aggressive, committed, all-in push to create and engage an audience for the long-term.

First of all – good for you! Content marketing is effective, and increasingly more effective than advertising. And as it gets harder and harder for advertising to work, we expect more companies to make serious, committed shifts like this.

But now that you know you’re serious, you’re going to need to hire people. This assumes, of course, that you’ve decided to keep this thing in-house rather than hire an agency.

I think that’s smart. Here’s why:

Good content marketing involves the entire company – sales, customer service, management, even accounting and development. An in-house team will always have better communication channels with those departments than an agency will. You’ll see each other in the elevator, at the Christmas party, and at any other company-wide function.

There’s no question of everyone being “on the team” with an in-house content program. This isn’t always so with agencies. There are sometimes lingering questions about what an agency’s priorities really are.

Great content marketing rises up from your company’s DNA. Your brand voice, your value proposition, your understanding of your customers… these are so core to your company that I worry about hiring an agency to define it for you.
With the agency thing settled, you now need to go build your team. The question becomes: What are your goals? What’s your budget? Those answers will inform how big of a team you’ll need and who you’ll hire first.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=press

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/curation-the-21st-century-way-to-learn-on-its-own-pace-and-to-organize-the-learning/

Jack Ma is optimistic about jobs in the age of AI and automation — but only if we start educating our children differently. Computers will always be better at calculating than we will, so we need to focus on service and creativity to be prepared.

“MADE IN INTERNET”

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba, isn’t afraid of artificial intelligence (AI) or automation. Instead, he thinks we need to prepare in the right ways for the massive, disruptive changes these forces are precipitating.

“In the last 200 years, manufacturing [brought] jobs. But today, because of the artificial intelligence, because of the robots, manufacturing is no longer the main engine of creating jobs,” Ma said Wednesday at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum. “The service industry is going to be the main driver for job creation.”

Ma’s not alone in this thinking; many experts feel that the way we currently teach children is ineffective, outdated,won’t prepare them for automation or STEM jobs, and renders higher learning inaccessible to too many. But when it comes to AI, Ma joins a debate that’s much more polarizing, with experts taking positions across the spectrum of opinion.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://gustmees.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/what-are-the-skills-needed-from-students-in-the-future/

If you work in social media, explaining your job can be a frustrating experience - especially to family members who probably assume that you just use Facebook all day. 

For Community Managers, in particular, there tends to be a lot of confusion over exactly what the role entails.

To clear things up, I thought I’d delve into the world of community management and find out why it’s becoming increasingly important for brands of all kinds.

Here’s a beginner’s guide.

What does a community manager do?

The role of a community manager is to act as the bridge between a brand and the community it is aiming to create (i.e. a loyal audience or group of core consumers connected by a similar interest). 

They should be the brand’s ambassador, engaging with potential customers and building relationships with existing ones. They are also focused on gauging sentiment around the brand, using social listening tools in order to monitor feedback and engagement.   

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Digital+Skills

In order to get the most out of the digital classroom, teachers should utilize these teaching strategies to enhance student engagement and academic success.

Digital and numeracy skills are amongst those that are most sought after by employers, and can help you progress in work and boost your job prospects. Digital skills can be anything from using social media and staying safe online to coding, programming or digital marketing.

There is a belief that younger people are fully engaged with the digital world. But I am currently leading a project exploring people’s knowledge and use of online data, and the preliminary findings from our research has found that data literacy is not uniformly high among younger people, as is often assumed. Instead, some young people have very low levels of data literacy.

According to Matthew Fell, chief UK policy director at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) “adult learning is heading in the wrong direction at precisely the wrong time for our economy and our society”.

The ‘Digital Roadmap’ launched by the Pathways for Prosperity Commission this week correctly emphasises the need to put people at the centre of the digital future by equipping them with foundational skills in literacy and numeracy, digital skills and ‘soft skills’ such as communication, management, analytical thinking and problem-solving. Lack of relevant skills in the digital age can limit opportunities for African countries to make the most of digital technologies and catch up.

Have you heard of something called cyber hygiene? Surely, brushing your teeth and taking showers isn’t something traditionally associated with technology — yet the term is a useful metaphor for needing to make smart decisions about your smart devices.

Good hygiene is something you’re taught as a child and something that generally sticks with you for the rest of your life. It involves three basic principles: using products and tools that fit your hygiene needs, performing these hygienic tasks correctly, and establishing a routine.

But what is cyber hygiene and what does it have to do with your computer and connected devices?

Cyber hygiene is about training yourself to think proactively about your cyber security — as you do with your daily personal hygiene — to resist cyber threats and online security issues. Unfortunately, cyber security still isn’t taken as seriously as cavities and root canals. Some people take cyber security for granted, but this may change, as cyber threats continue to evolve. In the meantime, establishing solid cyber hygiene practices should be as routine as brushing your teeth.

Here are a few tips to get you and your family thinking about good cyber hygiene practices.

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https://gustmees.wordpress.com/?s=cyberhygiene

https://www.scoop.it/topic/securite-pc-et-internet/?&tag=Cyber-Hygiene

Developed through a collaborative process between researchers and practitioners, this toolkit is a curated cross-section of resources that relay knowledge and best practices in achieving real success in youth-centered digital learning. The Reclaiming Digital Futures toolkit is a curated cross-section of resources that relay best practices in youth-centered digital learning.

In the future 9 out of 10 jobs will require digital skills – but today 44% of Europeans (aged 16 to 74) do not have basic digital skills. Helping people develop their digital skills is both a key goal for public libraries across the EU and a Google priority.

Public Libraries 2020 (PL2020) and Google are excited to partner with and equip libraries with resources to support and train their local communities.

“Libraries Lead with Digital” is a toolkit created by librarians, for librarians, that will include online resources and lesson plans to help people stay safe online, grow their digital skills, and explore coding.

Education may be the passport to the future, but for all the good teaching out there, it would seem that schools are failing to impart some of the most important life skills, according to one educational expert.

Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group, argues that today’s school children are facing a “global achievement gap”, which is the gap between what even the best schools are teaching and the skills young people need to learn.

This has been exacerbated by two colliding trends: firstly, the global shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, and secondly, the way in which today’s school children – brought up with the internet – are motivated to learn.

In his book The Global Achievement Gap, Wagner identifies seven core competencies every child needs in order to survive in the coming world of work.

1. Critical thinking and problem-solving

New measures to boost key competences and digital skills, as well as the European dimension of education
Brussels, 17 January 2018

To follow up on the Gothenburg Summit, the European Commission has today adopted new initiatives to improve key competences and digital skills of European citizens, to promote common values and pupils' awareness of the functioning of the European Union.

The new proposals come only two months after European Heads of State and Government discussed education, training and culture at the Gothenburg Summit in November 2017. They are intended to reduce socio-economic inequalities, whilst sustaining competitiveness in order to build a more united, stronger and more democratic Europe.

1. A Council Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning: Building on the Recommendation on Key Competences adopted in 2006, this proposal brings forward important updates reflecting the rapid evolution of teaching and learning since then. It aims to improve the development of key competences of people of all ages throughout their lives and to provide guidance to Member States on how to achieve this objective. A particular focus is placed on promoting entrepreneurial drive and innovation-oriented mindsets in order to unlock personal potential, creativity and self-initiative. Moreover, the Commission is recommending steps to foster competences in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and motivate more young people to embark on a career in these fields. The proposals made today should also be seen as part of the answer to urgently improve European education systems to face the many challenges highlighted in the latest PISA survey. More generally, the measures will support Member States in better preparing learners for changing labour markets and for active citizenship in more diverse, mobile, digital and global societies.

2. A Digital Education Action Plan that outlines how the EU can help people, educational institutions and education systems better adapt to life and work in an age of rapid digital change by:

making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning;

developing the digital competences and skills needed for living and working in an age of digital transformation; and

improving education through better data analysis and foresight.

Initiatives include supporting schools with high-speed broadband connections, scaling up a new self-assessment tool for schools on the use of technology for teaching and learning (SELFIE) and a public awareness campaign on online safety, media literacy and cyber hygiene.

3. A Council Recommendation on common values, inclusive education and the European dimension of teaching: This initiative proposes ways in which education can help young people understand the importance of and adhere to common values set out in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union. It aims at strengthening social cohesion and contributing to fight the rise of populism, xenophobia, divisive nationalism and the spreading of fake news. The proposal also strengthens inclusive education to promote quality education for all pupils as well as the European dimension of teaching, so children also learn about Europe's common heritage and diversity and get a good understanding of the functioning of the EU. To support these aims, the Commission will take steps to increase virtual exchanges among schools, notably through the successful e-Twinning network, and boost school mobility through the Erasmus+ programme.

Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:

https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=EU

As more companies and more industries buy into the benefits of social media and community development, the number of job opportunities available for professionals with community-building skills also continue to grow.

Companies are looking for professionals who can blend their skills to effectively deliver updates to a community, but also have the ability to tap into that community to collect feedback for a company to use for improving its product or delivering its message.

While the job opportunities grow, so to do the number of professionals who include community skills on their resumes and profiles. On LinkedIn alone, the number of people who have added "Community Management" to their skills list is up 46% year-over-year.

But being a quality community manager goes beyond having the knowledge and background to use social media networks. Here are 10 qualities a community manager should possess to improve the chances of success in the position, according to professionals who work within social media and community today.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Digital+Skills

The report, released today, highlights the emergence of a new global skills gap where gender, class, geography and age can have a huge impact on whether a person is able to harness new technologies or not. It also presents strategies for ensuring all groups of people can develop these skills.