21st Century Learning and Teaching

Brandman University is taking a new approach to adult education, focusing on students' competencies so that they can apply their work experiences to speed their path to graduation.

Brandman already is working with companies, including Walmart and Discover, to offer employee-education programs. The Irvine, California-based nonprofit university's competency-based programs make it easier for working adults to earn college degrees and advance their careers.

At most conventional colleges, students must fulfill prerequisite courses to earn admission and a set of required courses to earn a degree. Under the Brandman approach, if an applicant has, say, a 20-year career in finance but no formal coursework in finance, the university's “adaptive learning engine” can detect her prior knowledge and tailor the curriculum to ensure that she focuses on new material. Brandman's first graduate completed a bachelor's of business administration degree in 18 months.

The technology that makes the Brandman model possible includes a cloud software platform developed by edtech startup N2N Services. On the platform, the university developed a game-based learning application that offers students a series of tests to demonstrate their competency. As students pass each test, they’re automatically moved to the next level of the program.

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Blockchain is often touted as a world-changing technology and in many ways, it is. However, it isn’t necessarily the cure-all panacea for the world’s problems that many evangelists would have you believe.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the issues with blockchain that anyone thinking of using it should understand. Starting with perhaps the biggest…

Blockchain has an environmental cost

At least, the way it is being used today, it does. Blockchain relies on encryption to provide its security as well as establish consensus over a distributed network. This essentially means that, in order to “prove” that a user has permission to write to the chain, complex algorithms must be run, which in turn require large amounts of computing power. Of course, this comes at a cost. Taking the most widely known and used blockchain as an example – Bitcoin – last year it was claimed that the computing power required to keep the network running consumes as much energy as was used by 159 of the world’s nations.

Yes, Bitcoin’s blockchain is a hugely valuable network – with a current market capacity at the time of writing of over $170 billion – so sophisticated and computationally intense security is essential. Smaller scale blockchains – such as those that an organization may deploy internally to securely monitor and record business activity – would consume a fraction of that. Nevertheless, it’s an important consideration and the environmental implications as well as the energy costs can’t be ignored.

Lack of regulation creates a risky environment

Read more in the article...

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Wealth managers will again find themselves dedicating much of 2018 to adopting new compliance requirements. With this comes associated increases in operating costs. However, regtech will make the process more cost-efficient, according to GlobalData Financial Services

In 2018 the wealth management sector will face another wave of regulatory changes that aim to make the industry more transparent and restore consumer confidence. #

In Europe, MiFID II entered into force in January 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation will be effective from May.

On the other side of the ocean, the US financial services industry is getting ready for the Fiduciary Rule, which is due to enter into force in 2019.

Across the board, as of January 2018 all countries that signed the OECD’s agreement on automatic exchange of information must now be fully compliant with the Common Reporting Standard and report on accounts held by their residents.

Regulation has weighed heavily on wealth managers’ operating costs in the past few years.

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The FinTech Big 5: RegTech, Blockchain, InsurTech, AI and Financial Inclusion

Going in to 2018, we have chosen five areas of interest to focus on. Each represents a vital area of innovation in the financial industry, and has a particular relevance to Luxembourg’s thriving financial technology ecosystem.

Each week we will be choosing one of the topics to focus on, both in the content we share on social media, but also in a dedicated newsletter looking at the top five stories from that week. First, let’s introduce the topics:

1. Regulatory Technology (RegTech)

2. Blockchain

3. Insurance Technology (InsurTech)

4. Artificial Intelligence

5. Financial Inclusion

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https://www.scoop.it/t/luxembourg-europe/?&tag=LHoFT

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’m sure you’ve heard of Bitcoin and blockchain. After all, they are one of the most trending topics these days  —  the ultimate buzzwords of the year. Even people who’ve never mined cryptocurrency or understand how it works, are talking about it. My non-techie friends are completely at loss …

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A major breakthrough in cryptography may have solved one of the biggest obstacles to using blockchain technology on Wall Street: keeping transaction data private.

Known as a “zero-knowledge proof,” the new code will be included in an Oct. 17 upgrade to the ethereum blockchain, adding a level of encryption that lets trades remain private. Previously, users were able to remain anonymous but transactions were verified by allowing everyone on the network to see them.

“Zero-knowledge proofs are one of the biggest inventions in the last two decades in cryptography,” said Emin Gun Sirer, an associate professor of computer science at Cornell University. It “will allow a slew of applications we can’t even imagine right now.”

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It’s long been argued that blockchain  – the underlying DNA of cryptocurrency Bitcoin – could transform the way financial services companies do business, but how close is it to being used day-to-day?

When it comes to some aspects of the financial services industry, adoption is still a little way off.

There’s no doubt that blockchain’s real-time characteristic and ability to act as a public ledger of all transactions could revolutionise many parts of financial services, reducing risks and bringing cost savings among other benefits.

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Nach der Entscheidung der SEC gegen das Auflegen eines von den Winklevoss-Zwillingen initiierten Bitcoin-Fonds ist der Kurs der Kryptowährung eingebrochen. Eine Erholung ist aber in Sicht.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?&tag=Bitcoin 

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=blockchain

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=Smart+Contracts

Kämpfen Sie mit den Erklärungen dazu, wie Bitcoin und Blockchain funktionieren? Dann lesen Sie diesen Post und wir werden es Ihnen in einfachen Worten erklären.

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Infographic outlining what blockchain adoption could look like, the 10 key hurdles to adopting blockchain in financial services and more

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According to a new report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, Blockchain will end paper based certificates, automate the award, recognition and transfer of credits, increase learner ownership and control over their own data, reduce institutional data costs and risk–but only if open standards are adopted.

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RegTech 2.0

During the first phase of RegTech, startups focussed more on the technology to drive compliance use cases and were less conversant with the nuances of the regulations in a holistic manner. This lack of understanding of regulatory complexities by
RegTech startups proved a significant challenge for banks wishing to work with them. RegTech firms in RegTech 2.0 are expected to collaborate more, with banks, regulators and domain experts, to
demonstrate their offerings’ success far more quickly. 

Also, as offerings in the next phase evolve from niche propositions to broader compliance propositions, they are in far more need of active support from regulators and industry consultants.
The market of regulators and central banks around the world are also struggling with the data deluge and supervision of new entrants in the banking industry.

The entire lifecycle of policy making, enforcement and supervision is ripe for disruption with the use of advanced technology. Startups would need to be patient in handling the bureaucracy of state-run organizations and even longer sales cycles. Startups
would also need to improve their knowledge of regulators’ underlying objectives and demonstrate unambiguously how their solutions can help the regulators do a better job than the status quo.

Equipped with past learnings and strong support from regulators and governments across the world, RegTech 2.0 is at an inflexion point for a new era of efficient and effective compliance powered by technology.

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https://www.scoop.it/t/luxembourg-europe/?&tag=FinTech

https://www.scoop.it/t/luxembourg-europe/?&tag=LHoFT

Do you know what’s connecting?

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Bitcoin-Mining ist inzwischen schon zum professionellen Business geworden. Teilweise werden riesige Server-Farmen zum Schürfen der Digitalwährung betrieben. Die dafür benötigte Energie ist enorm. Länder wie Irland verbrauchen im Jahr weniger.

Was es aus technischer Sicht mit der Blockchain auf sich hat, erfahren Sie in unserem Praxisbericht "So funktioniert die Blockchain".

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Some of the technology institute’s graduates can now choose to receive secure virtual credentials protected by block-chain technology.

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Blockchain in Education

1. Joint Research Centre the European Commission's in-house science service Blockchain in Education A study on the digital accreditation of personal and academic learning Andreia Inamorato dos Santos @aisantos Groningen, The Netherlands 5th September 2017

2. 2 Joint Research Centre - JRC The JRC (Seville) is the in-house science service of the European Comission. Our main goal is to support policy making in Europe via research evidence. We have over 100 policy reports published in the field of education, to include reports on Open Education, area in which we locate our blockchain study.  It can be downloaded from: http://bit.ly/openeduframework   

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Die Blockchain wird meist in Verbindung mit Bitcoins gebracht. Ganz falsch ist der Zusammenhang auch gar nicht. Zwar ist die Anwendung der Blockchain-Methode generell auch in anderen Bereichen möglich, in einer offenen Blockchain erfolgt die Validierung jedoch grundsätzlich durch das sogenannte „Mining“.

Und das wiederum ist nur mit Bitcoins möglich, da sich der nicht unerhebliche Validierungsaufwand für potenzielle Miner schlicht nur durch die anteilige Entlohnung durch Bitcoins lohnt. Gratis würde wohl kaum jemand seinen Rechner und die entsprechende Rechenleistung zur Verfügung stellen.

Lediglich in geschlossenen Systemen, etwa zwischen Banken gibt es auch andere Validierungsmethoden. Gerade Banken betreiben aktive Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Blockchain.

Besonders nützlich für die Geldinstitute ist ein geschlossenes System etwa bei der Übertragung von Wertpapieren zwischen den verschiedenen Häusern. Das die Blockchain auf längere Sicht also die Banken abschaffen wird, stimmt deshalb nicht.
Das mag vielleicht auch daran liegen, dass für die Blockchain-Technologie ein relativ fundiertes Wissen benötigt wird.

Die Methode kann also, zumindest zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt, mit Nichten von jedermann verwendet werden. Auch Experten gibt es auf diesem Gebiet noch sehr wenige.

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Tricky? Sure. But it would transform the net into a universal “source of truth.

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Un nouvelle étude de KnowledgeWorks explore le potentiel de la technologie blockchain au niveau des écoles, des enseignants, des parents et des élèves en ce qui concerne l'avenir de l'apprentissage.

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