Pandemic allowing millions of 'digital nomads' to work remotely and travel at the same time | National Politics - The Denver Channel

Madison Morine is a digital nomad. It’s a new title he’s only had since January, but it’s one he’d like to keep by The Denver Channel.

Photo: The Denver Channel

He’s always wanted to take time off from work and travel the country, but the pandemic has allowed him, and millions more, to work remotely and travel at the same time.

“The memories have been fantastic,” said Madison Morine. “I've seen things this year that I’ve never seen before.”...

Morine is part of a growing group of traditional working professionals who are traveling while working remote, or digital nomads. This group grew by 96% from 2019 to 2020 from 3.2 to more than 6.3 million people, according to a study by MBO Partners.

Read more... 

Source:  The Denver Channel 

Digital nomads: the reality of running a business from anywhere | Flexible working - Financial Times

Vanessa Brown, production journalist at the FT says, Jubril Agoro remembers first hearing the word “coronavirus” last March in Bali, Indonesia. “I was just panicking,” he says. 

Jo Lodge and Farez Rahman relocated to Malaysia from the UK in 2017

After 11 years on the road, the co-founder of financial education business Live Richer Academy and founder of travel video company Passport Heavy rushed to get on a flight back to the US. 

Agoro, 34, is one of a growing number of digital nomads — people who work remotely online and are “location independent”. According to a report by MBO Partners, which supports independent professionals and their clients, their numbers have increased by 49 per cent in the US during the pandemic, rising from 7.3m in 2019 to 10.9m in 2020. The “biggest shift is that traditional job holders have been unleashed from their offices and many, instead of staying in one place, are taking to the road,” the report adds. 

A nomadic life is appealing — and some countries, such as Barbados and Bermuda, are trying to attract more remote workers. But the wider tax implications of working away from your home country are complex. Anyone planning to work abroad long-term needs to get specialist tax advice...

Hopes for the future The digital nomad lifestyle may be an appealing next move for some workers who have unexpectedly become freed from office life. According to MBO Partners’ report, between 2019 and 2020 there was an 18 per cent increase in Americans saying they “plan on becoming digital nomads over the next two to three years”. Agoro says: “One of my biggest goals is just to show people, open people’s minds to, this is possible and it’s a lot easier and more affordable than people even thought.”

Read more... 

Source: Financial Times

Talk it Out: Should students return for fall 2021? | Features - University Star

Opinion: It's too soon for 100% capacity in-person classes by Mckenzie Siller, Student at Texas State University and Jesse Westburg, Student at Texas State University.

Photo: Asia Alcala

Texas State students, faculty and staff are expected to return to full capacity in-person classes at the start of the fall 2021 semester. This news came from President Denise Trauth, who on April 7, sent out a campus-wide email announcing the university's return to normalcy.

While the return to a pre-pandemic campus experience may come as a sense of relief for some students, others feel uneasy about sitting in a lecture hall surrounded by potentially unvaccinated and mask-free peers.

With the fall semester approaching, Trauth aims to provide all students, faculty and staff the opportunity to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, with a model projecting the administration of 1,500-1,800 doses a week. 

Despite this hopeful projection, Texas State should not return to fully in-person classes for the fall semester. Instead, the university should opt for opening at 75% for the fall 2021 semester until more students are fully vaccinated...

Furthermore, the delta variant of COVID-19 is of concern to the CDC. As of June 20, the variant accounts for 20% of new U.S. COVID-19 cases. This variant is highly contagious and more severe than the normal strain of COVID-19. However, health experts say the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are nearly 90% effective at preventing illness of the delta variant.

Read more... 

Source: University Star

Education: What We Can Do Better | Entrepreneurs - Forbes Africa

Tom Bennett, Director and Founder of researchEd in the United Kingdom, on what evidence tells us about the future and purpose of education.

Photo: Getty Images

AS COVID-19 SWEPT THROUGH THE WORLD, SOME AREAS OF OUR lives were more deeply affected than others, one of them being education. Before the pandemic, technology had started taking a more prominent place in education, and online learning was being integrated into the system.

When Covid-19 struck, schools and tertiary institutions were forced to change their models rapidly, migrating to digital options. Soon, the talk pivoted to blended learning and hybrid solutions, combining in-person and virtual classrooms and teaching methods. How likely are we to return to old teaching methods and classroom settings, we ask educationist, author and speaker Tom Bennett, who hails from the United Kingdom (UK) and is the Director and Founder of researchED...

Bennett has written four books on classroom behavior and evidence-informed education. “Ideas about how we manage behavior are still stuck in the 19th century, and too many teachers and schools are forced to reinvent the wheel every generation instead of building upon what we have found to work and improving upon it,” he explains.

“Teachers rarely get an evidence-informed training as they begin their careers, and many schools still make decisions based on intuition, gut feeling and hunches. But children – and teachers – deserve much better than that. We can do much better than that.” 

Read more... 

Source: Forbes Africa

A new era for edtech: shifting IT priorities for learning | E-learning - Education Technology

Edtech can enable a safe and effective learning environment for teachers, who can then invest their time in better supporting students, as Nick Offin, Head of sales, marketing and operations, Dynabook reports.

Photo: Education Technology

IT leaders working in education are no stranger to the profound impact of the pandemic. The last year of online learning has ushered a new era in education – with technology at the heart of teaching and learning strategies.

As a result, whilst the future remains uncertain, digital plans for education institutions have taken on a new significance and IT teams have had to undertake a technology reset – assessing whether existing infrastructures and technologies are fit to deliver a secure and reliable learning experience. In fact, a recent study by Dynabook found that nearly two thirds of IT leaders in education will increase their IT budgets this year.

Unlike businesses, hybrid working isn’t having the same impact on the education sector. However, the pandemic has certainly shone a light on the need for appropriate edtech that can be used effectively in school and at home – even after this period. So, as we contemplate the future of learning, what do these new IT-led priorities look like in practice?.

Read more... 

Source: Education Technology  

Simplifying Digital Learning In The Hybrid Classroom | Higher Education - BW Businessworld

An increasing number of Edtech players entering the market provides countless options for educators and students alike. However, with pandemic settling, not all institutes are looking for the most advanced system but simplified digital tools in their classroom, according to Vasudha Mukherjee, works with BW Education.

Photo: BW Businessworld

Hybrid learning is not an invention of the pandemic, but rather a developing concept that was pushed into gear with the crisis. Several institutes were already integrating technological solutions into their classes long before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Therefore, it is no surprise that even when the crisis stabilises not all courses will return to 100 per cent classroom teaching. It is questions of percentage, how much will be online, and how much in the classroom. 

The Many Forms of the Hybrid Classroom

The transition to online classes was sudden but did not necessarily pose a challenge to all higher education institutes. While not all were prepared to go online full-time, institutes did have some procedures in place, resources that could be used even in the early days of the pandemic. Today,  there is a multitude of options between online classrooms, edtech companies, e-Learning platforms and even foreign collaborations. Needless to say, there are many creative solutions to the crisis of distance education...

The Teaching Tools

Lenovo solutions are not only aiming at remote learning students but is enabling IT staff to evolve cloud-based management system. Lenovo has transformed 360 degrees of the product-led organisation to solution-led not organisation. Addressing the most critical needs with the technology-centric handholding of its customers. It is a smart technology that is evolving every moment, addressing concerns of all the stakeholders:

1. Teacher: Digital learning has become the new normal and these things are very important to track, manage and monitor students. Lenovo Smart classroom uses an intelligence tool to provide high quality digitised content that reduces the burden of lesson preparation and enhance student interaction collaboration, easily track, manage ad monitor the educational content that is displayed to students in an effective learning management system.
2. Student: Students are always looking for fun, interactive class experiences. Through Lenovo Smart Classrooms, learning can be an enjoyable experience. With access to great immersive education content directly on their device, students can learn from anywhere. AI-based technology helps boost student confidence by helping them practise English speaking at home. 
3. IT Admins: Lenovo SmartClassroom gives a solution and IT admins the power to optimise operations, ensure compliance, data security and asset accountability. Furthermore, the institution administration can make data-driven decisions to manage the curriculum overall in performance through an intuitive dashboard: What are the software that can and cannot be used?
4. Parents: Information on student learning progress and class performance is shared with the parent on a regular basis. Parents also have the authorisation to control applications on the student device to ensure the physical mental wellbeing of their child. There has to be a tool that can actually control and show the contents being searched by children on their devices. 

Mukesh Nihalwani, Sales Head- Pvt Education, Lenovo India states, “We are in the position to break the digital divide and involve Education Institute for a bigger IT ecosystem, our hybrid classrooms are an opportunity for online teaching and learning revolution.”...

Conclusion 

Mukesh Nihalwani says, “We have the tool, but the right tool has to be used in the right manner.”

Regardless of the pandemic, the hybrid classroom was inevitable for moving forward, at least in the eyes of some higher educational institutes. While there are challenges, such as device availability, the mental health of students, social aspects of learning, etc. most institutes and tech companies have taken it upon themselves to find the solutions to make education accessible to everyone. Even though the pandemic has made hybrid classrooms and blended learning a necessity, the education and tech industry is quickly catching up to meet the demands. 

Read more... 

Source: BW Businessworld  

The best e-learning websites so you don’t have to attend in-person classes | Work From Home - Mighty Gadget

James Smythe, UK tech blogger reports, Over the past year, many students have been angry at education establishments for the way they have been treated during the COVID pandemic.

Photo: Mighty Gadget

Many university students have had to pay out for both their full tuition fees and accommodation even though they have barely attended any in-person lectures.

In a recent survey, nearly half of all students thought their degree offered poor value for money this year. Many students claimed that paying £9K isn’t worth it for what has effectively become online learning.  

At the same time, many of us have realised that working from home or studying from home can be highly effective while reducing costs, saving time and lowering stress.

Many people don’t want to go back to working from an office, and I would imagine that many students feel similar about education...

So what are some of the best e-learning / remote learning platforms out there?

Read more... 

Source: Mighty Gadget

Jump into the field of robotics with this elearning course | Offers - BleepingComputer

If you’re looking for a career in robotics, or just curious about what makes robots work, you can’t go wrong starting with the basics by BleepingComputer Deals.

Photo: BleepingComputer

That’s why we’re offering The 2021 Raspberry Pi and Arduino Bootcamp Bundle for the massively discounted price of $19.99! Anyone who wants to get into robotics will benefit from building a foundation in Robotic Operating System (ROS), Raspberry Pi, and Arduino, which are the stepping stones for bringing your robots to life!

Professionals who hop into the field of robotics can have a career working with some of the hottest tech on the bleeding edge of development. It’s a job in high demand, with roboticists making from approximately $100,000 a year on average! You can fulfill some of those dreams from watching robots fight in movies or TV, right now, for a one-time price of $19.99.

The five courses will cover all you need to know to get started with ROS, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino; that’s more than 40 hours of content that you will have lifetime access to, for a massively discounted price! 

Read more... 

Source: BleepingComputer

Are Algorithms the Answer? | Community Colleges - Inside Higher Ed

Sara Weissman, Reporter at Inside Higher Ed concluded, An experiment suggests colleges can help students bypass remedial courses for college-level classes by using algorithms instead of placement tests to predict academic outcomes.

Photo: SolStock/E+/Getty Images

At more than 70 percent of colleges, placement tests determine whether students need to take remedial courses. If those tests are inaccurate, students may find themselves incorrectly placed on a remedial track and enrolled in noncredit classes that delay them from earning their degrees and increase the cost of their education.

A working paper, one in a series released by the National Bureau of Economic Research in June, suggests that placement tests could be replaced by an algorithm that uses a more wide-ranging set of measures to predict whether a student would succeed in credit-bearing college courses.

The authors developed an algorithm and tested it in an experiment that included 12,544 first-year students across seven different community colleges in the State University of New York system, observing a subsample of students for two years...

The authors of the working paper acknowledged some researchers have concerns that algorithms can perpetuate racial or socioeconomic biases in the data used. They noted that while the algorithm did not close gaps in access to college-level courses, it also did not exacerbate them. The algorithm boosted placement rates in college-level classes across groups.

Read more... 

Source: Inside Higher Ed

The evolution of cryptography in mobile networks and how to secure them in the future | Ericsson Blog - Ericsson

Mobile network security has come a long way in the decades since cryptography was first introduced into the GSM standard by John Preuβ Mattsson, Senior Specialist, security, Pinar Comak, Experienced Researcher, Security and Ferhat Karakoç, Senior Researcher Security.

Photo: Ericsson

We take an in-depth look back over the algorithms and protocols that brought us this far – and see how well prepared we are for the quantum challenges of the future.

Cryptographic algorithms and security protocols are among the main building blocks for constructing secure communication solutions in the cyber world. They correspond to the locks that secure a house in the physical world. In both, it is very difficult to access the assets inside without a valid key. The algorithms and protocols are based on hard mathematical and computationally infeasible problems, whereas the lock mechanisms are based on the difficulty of solving the physical construction.

Mobile networks are critical infrastructure and heavily use advances in cryptographic algorithms and protocols to ensure the security of the information in the communication and privacy protection for the individuals. In this blog post, we take a detailed look at the cryptographic algorithms and protocols used in mobile communications and share some insights into the recent progress. We give an overview taking into consideration the development from 2G to 5G and beyond. In addition, we present detailed information on the progress toward defining the profiles to be used in the security protocols for the mobile communication systems. Last but not least, we give the current status and future plans for post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and protocols...

Challenges in updating profiles

Updating profiles for cryptographic algorithms and security protocols is a process that takes many years because of backward compatibility, as nodes from one release often have to talk to devices from much older releases. Before any weak algorithms or protocol versions are forbidden, the support of strong alternatives needs to have been mandatory for several releases.

Read more... 

Source: Ericsson