Week 13 - Social Media Learning #2

Hi everyone - for this last post this week, I wanted to talk about key strategies in education for social media learning that could be implemented in this IEOR 190G class next year and even in the general Berkeley curriculum!

In designing classrooms and curriculums to integrate social media as a key tactic, I want to propose these topics to consider:

1. Selecting the Right Tool

For professors trying to differentiate their instruction, social media tools embrace collaboration and global access to people and other resources. It gives students the chance to:

• Exchange ideas
• Provide constructive feedback
• Provide avenues to connect content with our learners' many different interests.

Differentiating with social media is most effective when we plan learning experiences based on content, process, and product and incorporate readiness, interests, and learning profiles. The key here is that the student's VOICE is allowed to speak. The following guidelines can help any classroom teacher ensure that the tool used will address students' needs:

1. Be clear about the academic learning outcomes.
2. Assess what students know and don't know.
3. Identify related student background connections.
4. Utilize social networks that can:
   • Address needs for struggling learners
   • Ensure that advanced learners are growing.

2. Readiness

Readiness focuses on a student's current academic skill level. Work is structured to help them address any gaps or needs for enrichment. Students work in like-skill groups for specific, targeted support to address a common need, such as guided reading or tiered (leveled) activities. They also collaborate in mixed-skill groups to support struggling students with needed skill development. Additionally, experiences can stretch the advanced students in a mixed-skill group -- they may have the core skills, yet the critical thinking challenges them and their teammates.

Some great social media tools:

• Kaizena: a space where students get feedback for revising their work.
• Weebly: blog tool that can create "center" activities

• Survey Monkey: online survey tools for capturing students' progress. 

3. Learning Profiles

When students address concepts from diverse perspectives, especially in collaborative groups, it can lead to in-depth understanding. Learning profiles are about providing each student with experiences that incorporate a variety of learning style elements, not just one.

Try these tools:

• Thinglink uses pictures to place links in different places 

• Piktochart offer a visual explanation of a concept or idea.

• Tackk lets you create small interactive pages or build a portfolio of work

Week 13 - Social Media Learning #1

Hi everyone! I wanted to talk about social media in education for this blog post. This is the first time that an in-person class has placed such a big emphasis on social media learning, and it was quite refreshing. As a member of Generation Y, we are the ones who have grown and watched social media become an integral part of our social lives. Now, it is great to see that this medium can finally enter the educational space.

I have taken quite a few online classes where social media learning was a part of the curriculum, but I feel that was necessary because we never had actual meetings and physical interactions with our peers in the course. 

When we take a look at the facts regarding Generation Y and social media, it seems surprising why the education system has not embraced this medium more heavily yet. 

Generation Y seems to be more active in the social networks when compared to older age groups. We can observe it at Facebook – the most popular social network. The younger generation is changing the way they take advantage of the social media tools. Facebook is for mostly Millenials, which practically means a social network is turning into a multi-tool service – instead of following news services, Generation Y is following fanpages and communicating via social networks in place of sending e –mails In case of dissatisfaction, they prefer to make a complaint on a company fanpage rather than send a regular complaint form to the producer.

There's numerous ways to include social media in education:

1. Blogging
2. Podcasts
3. Twitter
4. Facebook posts
5. Video sharing
6. Collaborative presentation

This video below shows a great idea for how social media can be supported by psychology:

Week 13 - Key Takeaways #2

Hi everyone! Last blog post for the entire semester - it's been great to post weekly on here and engage with you all through our blogs and YouTube channels! Our last class session was pretty bittersweet, but I really liked that we had a guest speaker talk for half of the class on the changing dynamics of the patent marketplace from someone who has so much knowledge in this space.

I wanted to impart to you all the final key takeaways that I learned from this course:

1. Social media:
• This was my first time that I had used social media significantly in a class. Starting my own blog has always been a dream of mine, but I was glad that Professor Lavian was able to push some of us in the right direction to really start our own platforms regarding patents. Now, I have a much better understanding how to work a blog and create engaging content that will allow others to want to interact. In addition, I really loved learning how to maintain my YouTube channel because it was so interesting to be able to talk and generate video content, which is a lot harder to do than print content! Overall, I have been able to start my online presence through these platforms, which I will touch upon next!

1. Online presence:
• By having us create blogs, Youtube accounts and re-posting Twitter links, Professor Lavian is actually helping us to create a "following" through our social media platforms. This is extremely interesting to see considering how far your ideas can spread if you generate content that appeals to a wide audience. The intersection of technology and patents is something that I feel I have a good base of knowledge with now, and I hope to continue to build upon this knowledge set in the future to create an online presence.
2. Individual vs. group activities:
• I really enjoyed the fact that our assignments were really a mixture of individual and group work. The individual work came in the form of creating blog posts and then creating new Youtube videos to accompany those. However, the true benefit from these assignments were the comments, where we all engaged as a class together. The structure of the class allowed for a great discussion and is something that I hope I can see in the future from other classes as well. When classes are just limited to individual work, it "silos" everyone and people cannot share their ideas and creativity.

Overall, loved this class! I feel that I came away with tangible skills on the patent world, while gaining a better understanding of the intangible aspects of the marketplace and the changing dynamics. I will be sure to keep up to date on the latest patent news because it has such a profound effect on our lives!

Best,

Payal

Week 13 - Key Takeaways #1

Hi everyone! We've been able to discuss a lot of key takeaways from this entire semester, and I really appreciated the way the professor has structured this course. We talked a lot about some takeaways and what we learned from the course, and I wanted to start off with these:

1. Peer engagement:
• The peer engagement through the comments was a great way to learn through the semester, from the minds and brains of our peers! I loved that I could get constructive feedback and positive encouragement at the same time for all of my assignments. It was great to see the passion that my peers had for helping my own content become that much better!
2. Creativity:
• This class really pushed my creative side, as I was always thinking of ways to make my posts more creative and witty and engaging. For a class on patents, I loved that it pushed my boundaries and really put me in the "authors" position, as I had never before realized how hard generating content is, as I was always the consumer of content, never the producer.

Stay tuned for the next few takeaways!

Week 12 - Post #4

Last post for the week - overall, I really enjoyed listening to Efrat's lecture on the intersection of business and patent law. She really had some great diagrams and key takeaways that put all we have been learning this semester into play. 

One key takeaway she discussed was the difference between the "Old Patent Marketplace" vs. the "New Patent Marketplace in the 21st Century"

In discussing a marketplace, first we need to understand the following:

• Key Players
• Key forces/drivers
• Relationships between all in the ecosystem

The Old Marketplace (as defined by Efrat):

In the old model, there were really only three key players that existed:

1. IP Creators/Holders - the usual "creative" minds behind patents
2. IP Users - those who wanted to license these ideas for applicable products and further items in the marketplace or for research
3. Enforcement - the US PTO would be in charge of overseeing this one-way relationship between these two

Overall, the communication was a one-way street. Legal enforcement could easily see the channel communications, and notify for any legal infringements that occurred between the licensing agreements of these two entities. This is before the introduction of the patent troll...

The New 21st Century Marketplace (as defined by Efrat):

In the new model, there are now FOUR key players that exist:

1. IP Creators/Holders - the usual "creative" minds behind patents
2. IP Users - those who wanted to license these ideas for applicable products and further items in the marketplace or for research
3. Enforcement - the US PTO would be in charge of overseeing this one-way relationship between these two
4. *Intermediaries - these encompass more than just patent trolls and have introduced a new class of companies involved in the patent practice
1. NPE's
2. Patent funds
3. Market makers
4. Financial services

Now, when we take a look at the practices and what has been happening in the 21st century market, it is extremely hard for ligitation and enforcement to keep track of where the "flow" of patent sales/licensing occur. Because more parties are now involved in this ever-changing marketplace, and some of those parties are not operating for the betterment of the patent system (aka trolls).

This marketplace mimics how the global marketplace is changing and adapting. The entrance of new players, most of whom are threats to the patent world, changes the dynamics of how our system works and creates a NEED to change patent law and the rules that govern this system. Our government needs to ensure that it is responding to these changes quickly!

Week 12 - Post #3

One of the key issues that Efrat explained to us in her lecture was surrounding the "America Invents Act." I wanted to delve deeper into this topic and see how it has truly impacted the patent world, when it was put into play around mid-2013.

The key changes are as follows:

1. Change from "first to invent" --> "first to file" 
1. This directly aligns the United States with the rest of the world on this issue
2. Establishment of the PTAB (Patent trial and appeals board) - this allows for a post-granting review process by a patent legal entity that can judge the merits of grants that are uncertain or that come into question.
3. Joinder of parties: this legally prohibits plaintiffs from being able to sue multiple defendants
4. The AIA allows accelerated examination merely by paying a surcharge
5. The AIA continues the trend of moving validity issues out of the federal courts and into the USPTO by allowing a 9-month post-grant public opposition period for applications filed after Sept. 16, 2012, or March 16, 2013 for some applications.
6. The AIA allows owners to file applications directly.
7. The AIA allows commonly owned patents and applications to not be prior art against each other.
8. The AIA strengthens patent validity by stating that “failure to disclose the best mode” and “failure to have correct inventorship” may not be used to invalidate a patent.
9. The AIA allows third parties to submit prior art against pending applications if submitted within 6 months after publication or before the first Examination Report.
10. The AIA allows patent owners more ways to correct patents after grant. Expands post-grant patent reexamination for consideration of prior art to now include a second proceeding called supplemental examination which would allow the USPTO to consider any information that raises a substantial new question of validity.
11. The AIA provides a prior user defense against a charge of infringement for an infringer in all lawsuits after Sept. 16, 2011 who can show commercial use more than a year before the filing date.
12. The AIA provides inventors with a 75% discount on USPTO fees if they have no more than 4 patents and a gross income less than 3 times median household income.

I want to delve into the Pro/Cons of the act:

Pro:

1. Aligns the United States with the patent filing process of other countries
2. Could speed up patent review and decrease the huge backlog that exists today
3. Cut down "general costs" that will make this option more affordable to all citizens to file

Con:

1. Although costs are cut, the majority of the fees still left in the patent process associated are with lawyers - a fee that favors corporations that can employ an army of lawyers and legal consultants
2. The trend on filing "first" can be a huge push against the "small inventor" to create this urgency to go through the process when products and other spin-off ideas may not be fully developed
3. Under the AIA, patent related fees will increase 15%.
4. Under the AIA, a $400 surcharge will be added for documents not filed electronically.
5. The AIA establishes a specific post-grant review program for business method patents involving financial products so the USPTO can determine if these “bank patents” are legitimate.
6. After enactment of the AIA, clients can expect legal fees will increase due to added difficulty to provide legal advice under two legal regimes.

Week 12 - Post #2

For this post, I want to discuss the macroeconomic forces that are changing and shaping the patent marketplace. Efrat was great in breaking this down into four key forces that are key to the marketplace's survival:

I actually found this model that Efrat built very similar to the ones that I see in my business courses when evaluating the strength or weaknesses of a marketplace. Given the rapidly changing technology landscape, we need to analyze the external forces affecting the patent marketplace. 

1. IP Litigation at an all time high - this is mainly due to the fact that patent trolls have been proliferating and growing for years now, reaching all time highs. They have been suing large corporations, and have therefore brought light to the justice system of this horrifying trend that has affected our intellectual property ecosystem. I have therefore listed this trend and force on the marketplace as a THREAT.
2. Very active patent transaction market - we can see from this course how active this market, which just shows that innovation and the need to file these patent to protect intellectual property has been increasing. Overall, this is a good thing for the ecosystem. I have listed this trend as an OPPORTUNITY.
3. USPTO Overloaded/Underfunded - as many other departments in the government are underfunded, it is not a surprise to see this statistic in this model. With the recent government shutdown and an impasse between the two parties, I can really only see this trend become even more pronounced as government departments are stripped to their bare minimum to save money through the next few months. Unfortunately, this really increases the time it takes to not only file a patent, but also to process and certify it too. Again, this is only going to slow innovation in the US, and I have therefore listed this trend as a THREAT.
4. Global competition - globalization is something that has been a trend for the past few decades. Although it has to led to increased competition, overall, the trend has been one to push companies to continue to innovate and ensure they are continue to be on top of their game, as they see competition not just from within their own borders but outside their borders too. I have therefore listed this an an OPPORTUNITY.