Unit 3 – Discussion Board 1

Tyler Scafidi

Colorado Technical University

January 23, 2025

New Media Consortium (NMC) Trends

The Horizon Report detailed the importance of mental health supports and controls within universities and organizations (Muscanell & EDUCAUSE, 2025). It provided several recommendations on how to assess, structure, plan milestones, resources, and suggested the use of some Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to facilitate mental health support and environment conducive to personal wellbeing. The report goes into more detail on how it is the responsibility of every campus member to be aware and supportive of mental health, and suggests that Learning Management Systems (LMSs) provide a wide-array of resources and tools to accelerate personal development, peer-driven environments, and mental health. They also suggested that virtual reality therapy, telehealth, and AI-powered technologies, which may not have completely been invented/developed yet, will offer universities the ability to offer better and more mental health services on a limited budget. Figure 1 shows a recommended roadmap to defining, executing, and maintaining short, medium, and long-term objectives.

Figure 1

Action Roadmap, from 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan: Mental Health Supports

Note: The Action Roadmap above Is just one recommended graphical representation, by Muscanell & EDUCAUSE, 2025.

The Horizon Report for Higher Education (2014) provides a creative classroom research model, which includes infrastructure, content and curricula, assessments, learning practices, teaching practices, organization, leadership and values, and connectedness as innovative pedagogical practices. The report shows a high demand for virtual learning management systems (LMSs), social networking, and thinking of students as creators over consumers. Learning management systems and virtual classrooms have come a long way in the past decade, but the benefits may be lacking the quality of being in person. Certainly, they increase a school’s revenue and service delivery, reaching regions and students that would otherwise not be able to participate. However, for the student, the learning environment is not as rich, live questions are not always possible, and social networking online is not the same as being around cohorts, from my experience of approximately six years in full-time online classes across three degrees and universities. The flexibility has certainly allowed me to continue attending, but the knowledge I have gained seems to be less than expected by reciprocal careers (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2014).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have many great features, including: digital data analysis, portability, cloud resources, and student-specific insights and recommendations. Some AI LMSs have adaptive content, tailored to students’ needs. I have mixed feelings about the need to pay a school for this though, especially with the sentiment towards degree holders, the Department of Education (DOE), and the high profits schools make from software that translates into a no-guarantee outcome. While receiving the platform, structure, sometime accreditations, and conferment of a degree, the value of a degree has significantly decreased (over experience), while the costs continue to go up (Pappas, 2024).

Education alone cannot guarantee any particular outcome. it prepares students to solve larger problems, can provide a level of credibility, and can be required for some roles. Although, many states/employers are reducing degree requirements, focused on Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts for the past few years, providing roles to highly underqualified agents while others, such as myself, are detested. The Department of Education (DOE) is set to be abolished, H-1B technical visa employees are preferred over highly-educated technical students to save money, and likely get sponsored to come over here making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most employers will tell applicants that while they do have a degree, they either: do not have the required experience/track record, it does not mean they know how to work at that employer/role, they cost too much, and may feel somewhat aggravated if they do not hold degrees themselves.

Some reports show a positive outlook for graduates in 2025, but some also show over 50% of respondents with a pessimistic outlook (Gray, 2024; McGlauflin, 2024). While the new push is for “meritocracy”, it seems that the most important outcome is the bottom-line, despite the ethical, moral, or legal disruption it causes. The top skill employers seem to look for is problem solving, but school does not teach much real-world problem solving (Gray, 2024). Instead, they teach traditional methods, which have not been used in day-to-day employer operations in many decades; they have plenty of software, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and outsourced/cheaper employees for that. While the foundational and extended knowledge can help solve problems, the push to AI-based environments everywhere will significantly reduce the demand for original thinking, and produce a labor force of searching specialists, when there is human=input needed. Artificial Intelligence is certainly powerful, efficient, and beneficial in many applications, but applying it across-the-board poses several issues and challenges. Not only that, but in the United States, nationwide themes change every four years.

References

Gray, K. (2024, December 9). What Are Employers Looking for When Reviewing College Students’ Resumes? Retrieved from naceweb.org: https://www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisition/candidate-selection/what-are-employers-looking-for-when-reviewing-college-students-resumes

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2014). NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Eeucation Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from events.educause.edu: https://events.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2014.pdf

McGlauflin, P. (2024, August 21). More than half of college seniors are pessimistic about starting their careers, according to a new report. Retrieved from hr-brew.com: https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2024/08/21/class-of-2025-career-pessimism-handshake

Muscanell, N., & EDUCAUSE. (2025). 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan: Mental Health Supports. Retrieved from library.educase.edu: https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2025/1/2025horizonactionplanmentalhealth.pdf

Pappas, C. (2024, October 22). Top LMS Platforms With The Best AI Tools For Training And Education In 2024. Retrieved from elearningindustry.com: https://elearningindustry.com/best-ai-tools-for-training-and-education-top-lms-platforms