Techno-News Blog

By Alex Lemieux , Republican Standard

How do you know that what you’re reading was actually written by a human? Interesting question considering the times.  As the rise of artificial intelligence (A.I.) begins to creep into more and more facets of life, a conversation over a network – just like this one – can leave some wondering: Am I reading what another human is writing, and how do I know? Machine-generated journalism is emerging as a tool used by many major news organizations like Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and others. Meanwhile, reporters and editors are finding themselves packing up their broadsheet news writing skills and press passes after becoming victims of layoffs at digital publishers and traditional newspaper chains alike.

A.I.’s Turing Test For Modern Journalistic Standards

by Selwyn Duke, the New American
Snitch Switch: Smart Assistants With “Moral AI” Could Call Police on Owners Who Break Law. Call it Terminator meets the second-grade tattletale, but some “experts” have suggested that electronic home assistants could be programmed with moral artificial intelligence (AI) that could decide whether to report its owners to the authorities for breaking the law.  In reality, “moral AI” is currently just a proposal by a small group of scientists who may (or may not) want publicity as much as greater knowledge, and news organs certainly crave the traffic reporting on such stories brings. The deeper issue, however, is that a prerequisite for moral artificial intelligence is moral natural intelligence.

https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/item/31620-snitch-switch-smart-assistants-with-moral-ai-could-call-police-on-owners-who-break-law

By Randy Krehbiel, Tulsa World
Gov. Kevin Stitt has made cooperation among the state’s public education systems a priority for his administration. In his first State of the State address, he called for tearing down the “silos” separating common education, career tech and higher education. In Tulsa County, that work has been going on for decades. Key players in those efforts are Tulsa Community College and Tulsa Technology Center. Through a variety of initiatives, they connect high school students with post-secondary education and the workforce while also serving many adult students. One of those connections is concurrent enrollment, which allows students to enroll in college courses while still in high school. TCC, the state’s largest two-year college, also has the largest concurrent enrollment in the state.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/business/outlook-tulsa-county-leads-the-way-in-preparing-kids-for/article_e3aa0dc9-6e66-5b3f-a415-003bbcfcb0e6.html

By Stephen Hayward, The Missor (UK)
Royal Mail has used the system more then 750 times since November after a string of horrific attacks in which rogue pets have bitten off fingers, thumbs and even a nose.  Posties are using ­virtual reality headsets to learn how to avoid being attacked by dogs. The gadgets provide a 360-degree street view scene and advice on how to deal with aggressive pets on their rounds. Self-defence training shows a postie dropping to one knee to protect herself and using her postbag as a shield. The move comes after a string of ­horrific attacks in which rogue pets have bitten off fingers, thumbs and even a nose. The new “dog byte” computer program urges posties to look for signs that a pet is present and not to take at face value assurances that an animal is harmless.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/posties-using-virtual-reality-headsets-14077547

Xinhua
China saw rapid growth in online education last year, with the number of users of such services rising 29.7 percent year on year to 201 million, accounting for 24.3 percent of total Internet users, according to a statistical report on Internet development. Around 194 million people in China accessed online education via mobile phones, up 63.3 percent compared with 2017, said the China Internet Network Information Center report. Wider use of smart devices and improved quality and accessibility of mobile Internet creates more opportunities for online education growth and makes learning via mobile devices much easier.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-03/03/c_137864471.htm

BY LAURA ASCIONE, eCampus News
Have you prepared your campus for augmented reality and artificial intelligence? A survey from the Center for Digital Education (CDE) recently found that college and university leaders are focusing on transforming academics, securing students and data, improving student services, and modernizing IT. These for core areas, they believe, will establish a solid foundation to support future innovation on campus. Within those four core areas, higher-ed leaders are focusing on these 10 top priorities to lay the groundwork for future transformation:

https://www.ecampusnews.com/2019/03/01/campus-ready-ai-other-technology-trends/

By Cait Etherington, eLearning Inside

Croft and Moore’s report, Rural Students: Technology, Coursework, and Extracurricular Activities, is based on a data collected from two different student surveys administered to selected students who wrote the ACT in 2018. The primary survey focused on technology access and included over 6,000 respondents. In addition to the students who completed the online survey, a random sample of students who either did not start the survey, or started but did not finish the survey, were sent a paper copy of the survey to complete. The second survey, which was completed by approximately 5600 students, asked students about their coursework during high school. Croft and Moore’s finding suggest that rural students are still at a great disadvantage when it comes to access to both technology and the course options that are most likely to set them up for success when applying to competitive colleges.

https://news.elearninginside.com/study-confirms-persistence-of-rural-digital-divide/

By Henry Kronk, e-Learning Inside
One of the most ambitious efforts in online education is currently underway at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Since August, the #7 business school in the country has been working to put together an Online MBA degree offering for the fall semester of this year. Earlier this month, they announced they had signed with Noodle Partners, an OPM, to help the process along. To learn more, eLearning Inside got in touch with Eliot Gattegno, managing director of the Office of Digital Education at Michigan Ross. While Gattegno won’t be teaching any courses at Michigan Ross, he and his department are responsible for overseeing the creation of the Online MBA.

https://news.elearninginside.com/creating-an-online-mba-at-a-top-business-school-the-latest-from-michigan-ross/

Mary Beth Faller, ASU
Education for Humanity partners with local groups for access to higher education
Every day, more than 44,000 people are forced to flee their homes as a result of persecution, conflict or generalized violence. Millions cross borders into new countries seeking safety, bringing with them a determination to positively contribute to their new communities. More than 85 percent of these refugees flee to developing countries, often without the ability to continue their education or get jobs. Restricted to a refugee camp or trying to make ends meet in an urban center, many want to gain skills that will benefit them in their new communities and also when they return to their countries and rebuild. Education for Humanity, an initiative of Arizona State University, is meeting that need by offering online courses to refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Uganda and Rwanda. Soon, the program will expand to Ethiopia and Kenya.

https://asunow.asu.edu/20190301-global-engagement-asu-offering-rapidly-deployable-online-courses-refugees-displaced-people

Harveen Singh, Towards Data Science

AI for everyone is a non technical course taking which you will have greater knowledge than most CEO’s in the world. At least this is what Andrew Ng claims. So let’s find out in short what he wants to convey.

https://towardsdatascience.com/ai-for-everyone-what-andrew-ng-want-to-convey-with-this-non-technical-course-in-30-points-bedaea57c81b

Futurism
When it comes to education, the internet has made distance nearly irreverent, leveling the playing field for millions of individuals who don’t have easy access to schools or universities. But aside from distance, the advanced educational technology is also helping solve two other issues that plague education: scarcity and exclusivity. While everyone wants to learn from the best in a particular field, it’s usually physically impossible and economically infeasible to do so for all but a privileged few. But thanks to modern educational technology, the best and the brightest can impart their valuable insights to a virtually unlimited amount of students, and can do so at an affordable cost. That’s where MasterClass comes in. From Daniel Negreanu to Gordon Ramsay, Masterclass online courses allow world renowned experts to share their valuable knowledge and experience to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

https://futurism.com/masterclass-online-courses-gordon-ramsay/

By Dian Schaffhauser, Campus Technology
It has been just about 12 months since the University System of Maryland (USM) announced a partnership with edX to deliver four MicroMasters programs: non-credit master’s level courses intended to accelerate the process of earning an advanced degree. The idea was to support an “inverted admissions process.” Students could try out the master’s-level coursework before making the commitment to a full-on master’s degree program. Even in those earliest days, the system made no promises about the possible results they were expecting. A headline for a news release at the time used the word, “may,” as in, “may accelerate [the] path to advanced degrees and save students thousands of dollars.” As with much about MOOCs, nobody knew whether the “mini-master” concept would gain traction among students, let alone become a “gateway” to advanced degrees.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/02/27/moocs-and-the-masters-degree.aspx

The EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Preview provides summaries of each of the upcoming edition’s trends, challenges, and important developments in educational technology, which were ranked most highly by the expert panel.  Opportunities for learners to blend their formal education with modularized online coursework, at an affordable cost, are establishing a learning continuum along which an evolving workforce can easily upskill. Badges and certificates provide prospective employers with evidence of skills gained through a wide range of educational opportunities and venues. Institutions that develop partnerships with online course providers or otherwise create a variety of options for students to master content at their own pace are responding to the needs of learners who want more control over learning pathways when earning a certificate or a degree.

https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2019/2/2019horizonreportpreview.pdf

Brent Orrell, AEI

This “gig” approach to training has advantages and disadvantages. First, it is far cheaper for the companies compared to sending employees to classroom training. Many of the firms profiled offered little or no financial incentive for upskilling, viewing it as the employee’s responsibility. This sounds somewhat harsh but it is an important test: is the employee sufficiently committed to learning to invest their own time and money in skill development? This reflects the reality that self-motivation and persistence are as highly valued in the labor market as the technical skills gained through the training. Of course, an employee who invests their own time and discretionary income in building up skills, without some sort of contribution from their employer, may also feel fewer doubts about ditching their current job for another company offering marginally higher wages.

http://www.aei.org/publication/education-and-training-in-the-gig-economy/

Lucas Mearian, Computerworld
There’s been a 517% increase in demand for software engineers with blockchain development skills in the past year, according to a new report from job search site Hired. In its first-ever analysis of only software engineering jobs, Hired found blockchain development skills ranked in the top three job openings in almost every global region. Blockchain engineers were followed by security engineers and embedded engineers, which saw 132% and 76% year-over-year growth, respectively.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3345998/demand-for-blockchain-engineers-is-through-the-roof.html

Randy Bean, Forbes

Employment in computer and information technology occupations is projected to grow 13 percent from 2016 to 2026, faster than the average for all occupations, resulting in 557,100 new jobs.[1] This is an incredible statistic to contemplate. Given extraordinary leaps in computing power, massive proliferation of data, and emergence of practical AI applications, the demand for qualified technical expertise can be expected to grow exponentially. There are a few paths to address this talent gap, but one approach that is being taken is to recruit greater numbers of women and under-represented minority groups into the technology field, particularly since these groups are under-represented in the technology field and represent a largely untapped talent pool.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2019/02/27/universities-mobilize-to-meet-explosive-demand-for-tech-talent-and-leadership/#55e3a9effd88

by Wesley Brown, Manufacturing News Briefs

As the U.S. job market continues to tighten with the national unemployment rate at 4%, employers are spending more time training new hires as they enter the workforce or switch jobs, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new report, issued on Feb. 21, shows that on-the-job training was required for a whopping 76.8% of all civilian workers in 2018, The average length of that training was 34 days, the study shows. The preparation time required for a typical worker to learn the techniques, acquire the information, and develop the facility needed for average performance in a specific job can range between a short orientation demonstration to more than 10 years. Preparation time includes formal education, pre-employment training, on-the-job training, and prior work experience.

https://talkbusiness.net/2019/02/report-three-fourths-of-u-s-workers-need-on-the-job-training-as-nations-labor-pool-tightens/

Ray Schroeder, the Evolllution

Higher education is on the cusp of major changes. Enrollments are on the decline—both online and on campus—and the trend is expected to accelerate.[1] Graduates are laboring under substantial college loan debts totaling more than $1.5 trillion.[2] Employers are demanding that applicants possess soft and hard skills that many college graduates do not hold.[3] At the same time new and emerging technologies are changing the way credentials are shared and work is done. It is in this context that continuing, professional and online programs have been imported from the periphery to the center of traditional universities.

https://evolllution.com/revenue-streams/market_opportunities/five-key-trends-for-professional-and-continuing-education-leaders-in-the-next-five-years/

Jayshree Pandya, Forbes
This is an age of artificial intelligence (AI) driven automation and autonomous machines. The increasing ubiquity and rapidly expanding potential of self-improving, self-replicating, autonomous intelligent machines has spurred a massive automation driven transformation of human ecosystems in cyberspace, geospace and space (CGS). From granting parole to diagnosing diseases, college admissions to job interviews, managing trades to granting credits, autonomous vehicles to autonomous weapons, the rapidly evolving AI systems are increasingly being adopted by individuals and entities across nations: its government, industries, organizations and academia (NGIOA). Individually and collectively, the promise and perils of these evolving AI systems are raising serious concerns for the accuracy, fairness, transparency, trust, ethics, privacy and security of the future of humanity — prompting calls for regulation of artificial intelligence design, development and deployment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2019/02/25/troubling-trends-towards-artificial-intelligence-governance/#3b62863925a5

Eli Zimmerman, EdTech
Universities are investing heavily to transform lecture-style classrooms into active-learning environments in order to boost student engagement and improve retention and recruitment rates.  Research from institutions such as Indiana University and Yale University finds that active-learning classroom environments can be beneficial for student outcomes, giving universities more reasons to consider active-learning strategies in their classroom design. With the numbers to prove that active-learning classrooms are effective, universities are now pressed to find the best way to design innovative spaces. While these innovative classrooms differ depending on the needs of the university, a recent CDW white paper outlines active-learning best practices all institutions can use.

https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2019/02/active-learning-classrooms-seven-tips-higher-education-perfcon

ADAM HARRIS, the Atlantic

“As the Committee begins to debate solutions for the vast challenges in higher education, the findings in this report must guide our approach,” Scott said in an emailed statement to The Atlantic. “Rather than diminishing the value of a college degree, we should recognize that all students should have access to the substantial financial and social benefits that come with a quality higher education.” The numbers, the report says, speak for themselves. “Two out of three jobs are filled by individuals who have at least some college education,” it reads. The report also advocates for certificate programs, but urges the need for accountability, cautioning against for-profit programs in particular, where students may pay more for less return on their investment. “The cost of attending for-profit colleges is three times that of attending a community college,” the report notes.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/congress-eyes-higher-education-act-reauthorization/584449/