TECHNOLOGY

The Transformation of Education through AI and EdTech

Published

1 year ago

July 8, 2023

The Transformation of Education through AI and EdTech

The education industry and teaching are on the precipice of major transformation due to the acceleration of all kinds of new technologies, predominantly artificial intelligence (AI).

Education is no longer just a human endeavor, and both teachers and prominent institutions and organizations in the field of education must adapt and adjust as education and technology (also known as EdTech) combine to develop a new, more efficient way of learning.

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As you know, much of my teaching revolves around my Hard Trend Methodology and anticipatory thinking, differentiating between Hard Trends and Soft Trends to identify and embrace disruption before it occurs. Hard Trends are those that are future certainties that will happen, while Soft Trends are future possibilities that can be influenced and changed.

Before we dive into where the world of education is heading, I want to remind everyone that the world has shifted from a time of rapid change to a time of transformation. Change always comes to us from the outside in, forcing us to react, manage crises, put out fires. In contrast, transformation comes from the inside out, created by you and your team.

When something comes from the inside out, you have far more control in shaping your future, but this also takes a positive Futureview® as well.

Hard Trends in Education and Futureview

The purpose of my Hard Trend Methodology coupled with having a positive Futureview is to predict disruption before it disrupts, thus turning disruption into a choice. We cannot simply predict the future, but we must actively shape it.

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With regard to EdTech and specifically AI applications, this means actively shaping the future of education in anticipatory fashion instead of just having a wait-and-see attitude about the future and the impact said technology will have on educators and the industry. As new applications in the EdTech space arise, anticipatory thinking helps to pre-solve many problems these applications will bring and shed light on what disruptions will result.

So, what are some of the more notable Hard Trends approaching the education industry? AI software, especially the likes of ChatGPT, is getting more powerful each day and will only continue to do so. The days of writing something from scratch are starting to look much different, and while this may help students springboard into a more riveting term paper, teachers and administrators alike are struggling to keep up, and in many cases, fearing and rejecting such a profound transformation.

Since we know AI in general is a Hard Trend future certainty that is not going away, Anticipatory educators and administrators can and should leverage this knowledge, pre-solve the problems that already stem from AI in education (I can think of one major one — plagiarism!), and in turn, realign their organization’s Futureview to one that adapts and grows with this application. After all, if not ChatGPT, there will be something else — that is how Hard Trends work!

The Symbiotic Relationship of AI and Teaching

In the early 1980s, I made a prediction that we were going to automate and humanize education for the first time in history. In more recent years, this prediction has already become a reality. But what does this mean?

In short, this means that we can automate the parts of education that are not necessary for humans to teach so they can focus more intently on the parts of education that cannot be automated.

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There are two levels of learning that humans are capable of, also known as the cognitive domain. The lower level of the cognitive domain involves recall, information observation, and simple principles, while the higher level involves applying, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, and creating.

In years past, educators have been stuck teaching the lowest levels of the cognitive domain and seldom have time to reach those higher levels. Even educators themselves become discouraged in doing so, especially since they know that human beings are far more capable of deeper, more critical thinking.

With the rise of applications in EdTech, educators can turn over the lower level of learning to automation, returning to the educators more time and opportunity to teach the higher level of the cognitive domain. What this then does is simultaneously prepare a student of any age for the ever-changing world of disruptive digital technology while helping them realize how to work with tech as opposed to against it, avoiding future disruptions in their lives.

For instance, teaching a child to multiply should really be an interactive, self-diagnostic system using gamification and automation. While something like a calculator can figure out the answer to what a simple multiplication equation is, the educator can then explain in more hands-on, human ways how the equation applies to their everyday life. This unlocks tremendous opportunity in incorporating those principles of the higher cognitive domain, and in turn, educators have now worked with EdTech as opposed to resisting it.

Indisputably, the future of education is an environment of blended learning between human beings and technology, using each in the best way to accelerate learning. Instead of thinking about technology and education as completely separate, it is becoming an increasingly symbiotic relationship.

Look for part 2 of this blog next week, where I explore the specific competencies that AI applications in the EdTech space cannot master quite like humans, and I look to learn how to use an anticipatory mindset when doubling down on these competencies as an educator or administrator in the education sector!

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

8 months ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

8 months ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

8 months ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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