Techno-News Blog

World Economic Forum

From transportation solutions to video-streaming applications, artificial intelligence (AI) permeates almost every aspect of our lives. This includes government, where AI is increasingly making an impact. Consider the two examples below:

• Emma chatbot: US Citizenship and Immigration Services receives a considerable amount of service requests daily. In response, a chatbot named Emma was deployed to address immigration questions. Emma, which can operate in both English and Spanish, handles more than a million immigration queries a month.
• Firebird framework: Co-developed by Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department, Firebird helps the City of Atlanta prioritize buildings for inspection according to the building’s risk of fire.

5 challenges for government adoption of AI

Top College Consultants
Spectrum teens graduating from high school have more educational options than ever before. We can help by assessing students’ college readiness, and finding the best-fit programs and supports. Below you will find an extensive list of “autism-friendly colleges,” including: Spectrum support programs in 4-year colleges; Colleges designed exclusively for students with learning differences or special needs (including autism); Support programs for students with learning differences that may not be specifically for students on the spectrum, but are considered autism-friendly; A small sample of non-degree programs for students with intellectual/developmental disabilities – there are many more listed at Think College.

https://www.topcollegeconsultants.com/autism-in-college/

By Scott D. Miller,  Presdient, Virginia Wesleyan University

The slowness of many colleges and universities to mobilize to combat the effects of changing demographics, rapid advances in technology, rising costs of tuition and students’ customer preference has shifted the campus ground. A June 18 article in The Atlantic points out that 3,122 four-year schools (many for-profit) existed in 2013-14. By last year, there were 2,902. Not all small colleges around the nation are failing. Many, having revised their curricula, sharpened their marketing and created additional revenue streams, have found new pathways to survival. Others need to promote their unique niches.

https://pilotonline.com/opinion/columnist/guest/article_582500fc-bfc6-11e9-999c-83937384a9aa.html

Mitchell Willetts, Enid News and Eagle

‘This is going to be a big year’ Public schools increasingly enter virtual learning landscape
Nancy Fain assists Hannah Killam during ePREP lab at Emerson Middle School Friday, August 16, 2019. The online learning program provides a blended classroom experience allowing students to take classes online at home and classes in a traditional setting. (Billy Hefton / Enid News & Eagle) Even as enrollment in virtual schools like Epic Charter Schools continues to grow, many Oklahoma public school districts have been slow to respond, hesitant to innovate. But now, in a sudden statewide shift, public school districts are aiming to make up for lost time and lost students by launching nontraditional programs of their own. “I would say this is going to be the big year,” said Monty Guthrie, deputy superintendent of finance and federal programs of the state Department of Education.

https://www.enidnews.com/news/local_news/this-is-going-to-be-a-big-year-public-schools/article_c9795ec1-1094-56f4-a7ec-3411f1d2d75a.html

Hallie Busta, Education Dive

Growth in online programs is expected to drive gains in the boot camp sector this year, according to an annual survey from Course Report about the market for non-college boot camps. More than 23,000 graduates across 110 boot camp providers are expected for 2019, a figure that is up 50% year-over-year. Online programs are expected to grow at more than three times that pace to reach 5,519 graduates in 2019 across 14 providers. Course Report counts only full-time, synchronous programs toward its online tally. Boot camps are increasingly looking to companies and colleges as partners, with the latter often including credit-bearing options, Liz Eggleston, co-founder of Course Report, told Education Dive in an interview.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/online-programs-fueling-boot-camp-sectors-growth-in-2019/561123/

By Gwen Moran, Fortune
As technology, including robots, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other forces change the nature of work, employees will need new skills to adapt to shifting roles. Research firm Gartner predicts that employees who regularly update their skill sets and invest in new training will be more valued than those with experience or tenure. But it’s not going to be easy. The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs 2018” report estimates that, by 2022, more than half (54%) of employees will require significant skills updating or retraining. More than one-third (35%) will need about six months to get up to speed, while nearly one in five will require a year or more of additional training.

https://fortune.com/2019/08/18/job-replaced-by-automation-artificial-intelligence-ai/

The SREB Fact Book on Higher Education is one of the nation’s most comprehensive collections of comparative data on higher education. For decades, state leaders, policymakers, researchers and journalists have used the Fact Book to find accurate, comparable data and learn more about long-term trends. The 2019 Fact Book includes more than 100 tables on data such as the population and economy, enrollment, degrees, student tuition and financial aid, faculty and administrators, revenue and expenditures. In all but specialized data based on SREB’s regional survey, figures for each of the 50 states and District of Columbia are available.

https://www.sreb.org/fact-book-higher-education-0

Julian Torres & Sabine Gerdon, World Economic Forum

Widespread adoption of AI has been slower in government than in the private sector. Given the magnitude of the impact that AI could have on public entities, it is important to understand the roadblocks that stand in the way of systemic government adoption of AI. Through extensive stakeholder consultation we have identified five key barriers to AI adoption in government:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/artificial-intelligence-government-public-sector/

By Juan Mateos-Garcia and Joysy John, Singularity Hub

One way to minimize AI risks is to increase the diversity of the teams involved in their development. As research on collective decision-making and creativity suggests, groups that are more cognitively diverse tend to make better decisions. Unfortunately, this is a far cry from the situation in the community currently developing AI systems. And a lack of gender diversity is one important (although not the only) dimension of this. A review published by the AI Now Institute earlier this year showed that less than 20 percent of the researchers applying to prestigious AI conferences are women, and that only a quarter of undergraduates studying AI at Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley are female.

https://singularityhub.com/2019/08/16/ai-is-in-danger-of-becoming-too-male-new-research/

By Cade Metz, NY Times 
Artificial intelligence is being taught by thousands of office workers around the world. Before an A.I. system can learn, someone has to label the data supplied to it. Humans, for example, must pinpoint the polyps. The work is vital to the creation of artificial intelligence like self-driving cars, surveillance systems and automated health care. It is not exactly futuristic work.  A.I. researchers hope they can build systems that can learn from smaller amounts of data. But for the foreseeable future, human labor is essential.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/technology/ai-humans.html

By Rhea Kelly, Campus Technology

We talked with Julin Sharp, assistant vice president for information technology at Marist College, about her institution’s efforts to engage faculty with innovative tools and pedagogies. Marist’s Digital Education group, is a centralized team that works with faculty across the college to support technology-enabled teaching and learning. The department’s stated mission is “Digital Education is committed to leading the promotion, infusion, and support of technology-facilitated pedagogical innovation. This innovation is designed to aid faculty in enriching student learning experiences as a means to develop the intellect, character, and skills required for enlightened, ethical, and productive lives in the global community of the 21st century.

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/08/07/engaging-faculty-with-new-tech.aspx

Arman Ahmed, Entrepreneur India
The fourth industrial revolution is upon us, it’s creating a technologically-driven world at a lightning-fast pace. The effects of this change are being felt strongly across industry verticals. Industry 4.0 technologies like Machine Learning & AI, Big Data, Data Science, Cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), and Robotics are creating new opportunities for businesses. To leverage the opportunity businesses are increasingly investing in identifying the right digital initiatives and enabling the workforce to implement the solutions. In the context of the changing digital economy, the demand for hands-on technical skills is on the rise. We are transitioning through the phase of industry-wide transformation and access to a skilled workforce is emerging as a major challenge for businesses.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/338265

Dalvin Brown, USA TODAY

What used to take an elaborate plot to discreetly spread answers across a classroom can now be done with a swipe on a smartwatch. You used to have to steal the answer key or have a cheat sheet hidden around your desk. Now, smartphones can be disguised as calculators, information can be spread invisibly via the airwaves and tiny earbuds allow students to listen to content transmitted from a smartphone in their backpack across the room. The self-identified student cheaters we reached out to wouldn’t go on the record to discuss these behaviors (for obvious reasons). However, Twitter is a hotbed for discussion on the topic and smartwatches are a fan favorite as a convenient loophole to classroom smartphone bans.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/08/16/how-teachers-preventing-high-tech-cheating-classroom/2017389001/

Preethi Kasireddy, Medium

Odds are you’ve heard about the Ethereum blockchain, whether or not you know what it is. It’s been in the news a lot lately, including the cover of some major magazines, but reading those articles can be like gibberish if you don’t have a foundation for what exactly Ethereum is. So what is it? In essence, a public database that keeps a permanent record of digital transactions. Importantly, this database doesn’t require any central authority to maintain and secure it. Instead it operates as a “trustless” transactional system — a framework in which individuals can make peer-to-peer transactions without needing to trust a third party OR one another. Still confused? That’s where this post comes in.

https://medium.com/@preethikasireddy/how-does-ethereum-work-anyway-22d1df506369

By Rebecca Koenig, EdSurge

Aaron Rasmussen, co-founder of MasterClass, this week announced the launch of Outlier, an online provider of university-level courses.  Although the Outlier topics are decidedly more staid, they may serve a higher purpose. That’s because Rasmussen thinks he can help students reduce the cost of earning degrees. Outlier joins the ranks of several other online course providers that market their a-la-carte classes (rather than complete degree programs) as more affordable options for earning college credit despite having no accreditation of their own. It’s largely left up to students to check and verify which institutions will accept which online classes for which degree requirements.

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-08-15-new-provider-offers-low-cost-online-courses-but-will-the-credit-transfer

Matthew Lynch, Tech Edvocate

Adult learners have specific needs that education technology may find challenging to meet. Adult learners are not a homogeneous group. Some study to complete their high school education, some want to prepare for college, others want to get a promotion or just get a job. And their levels of reading, writing and math differ widely. Also, their time for study is limited. A recent report funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education lays out how technology could make an impact on adult learners. The report covers five areas of opportunity.

https://www.thetechedvocate.org/using-the-power-and-promise-of-edtech-to-empower-adult-learners/

by Sara Weissman, Diverse Education
Faculty are slowly becoming more racially and ethnically diverse – but not nearly as diverse as their students, a new Pew Research Center study found. More than three-quarters of faculty are White compared to 55 percent of students, according to fall 2017 data from the National Center for Education Statistics. From 1997 to 2017, the number of minority students climbed by 17 percent while faculty diversity rose 10 percent.

https://diverseeducation.com/article/152333/

Des Moines Register Editorial

The National Student Clearinghouse, which follows the status of undergraduates at institutions eligible for federal aid, gathers information about the so-called college “persistence” rate. This is the percentage of students who return to college at any institution for their second year.  According to the organization’s most recent report, of the 3.5 million students who enrolled in college for the first time in fall 2017, 74% returned to any U.S. school the following fall. That means more than 25% did not. Let those statistics sink in. One in four.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/08/14/many-freshman-college-students-do-not-return-school-second-year-editorial/1986500001/

\Chloe Bradford, CBS19

More students turning to online courses for post-high school education“It’s that ability to do class to do work at 3 o’clock in the morning in your pajamas because that’s the only time you’ve got,” TJC Director of Distant Education Ken Craver said. ““Mainly, you can explain it in one word: It’s flexibility. People that really gravitate to online learning are busy people.” There are classes that cater to your passion, whether it be nursing, education or paralegal studies. Research conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group states more than one-in-four students in the United States are enrolled in online learning. They also found the number of students studying on a campus has dropped by over 1 million between 2012 and 2016.

https://www.cbs19.tv/article/news/education/more-students-turning-to-online-courses-for-post-high-school-education/501-da93d72f-699d-435a-af84-918e5c21596f

John Byrne, Forbes

“When we started 2U, the market was in its infancy,” explained 2U CEO Christopher Paucet who co-founded the company in 2008. “The core thesis of the company was that online programs could drive a similar quality to campus programs and that the company’s scale and unique platform characteristics would build a competitive moat around the business over time. Today, the online education market is evolving. Secular forces are pushing more schools online. Indeed, it’s becoming obvious that all schools are going online. We’re calling it the mainstreaming of online education.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/poetsandquants/2019/08/14/has-online-education-jumped-the-shark/#6b5ff5b172e1

Kelsey Sheehy, Josh Moody, U.S.News & World Report•

Online courses give students the flexibility to earn a college degree while juggling responsibilities such as work and family. But it is not uncommon for students to experience a few hiccups along the way. Smooth out your path to an online degree by avoiding these 10 big mistakes.

https://news.yahoo.com/10-big-mistakes-online-students-190519226.html