We may listen to facts from Siri or Alexa, or directions from Google Maps or Waze, but would we let a virtual agent enabled by artificial intelligence help mediate conflict among team members? A new study says not just yet. Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Denver created a simulation in which a three-person team was supported by a virtual agent avatar on screen in a mission that was designed to ensure failure and elicit conflict. The study was designed to look at virtual agents as potential mediators to improve team collaboration during conflict mediation. But in the heat of the moment, will we listen to virtual agents?

Google introduced a revamped version of its entry-level smart speaker at a press event in New York Tuesday: The new $49 Nest Mini speaker effectively replaces its Home Mini predecessor with bigger sound, a built-in machine learning chip for faster responses, ultrasound for proximity detection and the ability to pair 2 speakers for inexpensive stereo sound. The Nest Mini pulls all of this off while staying true to the Home Mini's size and shape, with a bit of a twist: Google decided to rely on 35% post-consumer plastic for the Nest Mini's enclosure, and make the speaker's fabric cover out of 100% recycled material derived from old plastic bottles. The company also added a hook to the back to give consumers an option to wall-mount the Nest Mini. And in addition to the three existing colors (white, black and red), the Nest Mini is now also available in light blue (pictured above). But the biggest two new features are the sound improvements, as well as the addition of on-device machine-learning.

IMAGE: This is a maize field in Colombia. Farmers in Colombia's maize-growing region of Córdoba had seen it all: too much rain one year, a searing drought the next. Yields were down and their livelihoods hung in the balance. The situation called for a new approach. They needed information services that would help them decide what varieties to plant, when they should sow and how they should manage their crops.

During the Gilded Age and the second industrial revolution, the world saw rapid adoption of life-altering technologies -- electricity, rail transport, the automobile, telegraph communications and then the telephone. Thanks to these innovations, companies were able to create and sell products they could not before to people they had not previously been able to reach, in ways they never could have envisioned. That young United States saw unprecedented growth, with total national wealth increasing from $16 billion in 1860 to $88 billion by 1900. Today's evolution looks set to be just as transformative. Disruptive technologies like augmented reality, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT) are already having an impact.

Based on my experience as a curriculum specialist in the world of digital resources, here's the number one most successful content-sharing best practice of all time: do you have a group chat where you share nonsensical YouTube videos with each other? I'm sure the last thing you shared on it probably wasn't what you think of when you think of the life-changing potential of digital resources, but think of it anyway. Did you save it for later? There's so much that determines whether content "works" for someone, but for a curriculum specialist, whether it did or not is the most important question in the world. That's why I'm fascinated with these group chats and seek them out whenever we, at Learning Equality, visit our users: if they let me, I'll peer over their shoulders to see who's sharing what in Rajasthan (seventh-grade girls, Bollywood music), in Mexico (twentysomethings, stickered selfies), and in Kakuma refugee camp (everyone, hair styles, Office tutorials, conversion rates…).

Teachers learn best from experience, and from each other. Communities of practice are an important opportunity for teachers to continue to refine their teaching, reflect, and learn valuable insights from colleagues and mentors -- whether through discussing their own practice, or hearing about the practice of others. Teachers in low-resource/disconnected environments who want to improve their content-specific pedagogy and general teaching practice, can frequently be cut off from these opportunities. In such environments, teachers may have limited numbers of peers with which to interact, especially for those who are subject specialists. Standard models of teacher development and continual professional development are best delivered through communities of practice, because they allow for engagement in discussions with other teachers, and learning from their experience, in order to improve the quality of lessons for their students.

We explored the need for automated curriculum alignment in crisis contexts, and the possible role of artificial intelligence (AI) in recognizing curricular mandates and patterns, and recommending pertinent educational content in return. This work is part of a broader collaboration working with refugees and partner organizations to explore utilizing digital education to support learning in these contexts. The Design2Align series has included discussion of contextual display and creation of metadata, teacher-generated content annotations, and the technical considerations in OER for curriculum alignment facilitation. We're delighted to introduce the fourth installment of the blog series by our co-founder and Executive Director, Jamie Alexandre. Jamie discusses how user data from multiple open platforms could be used to train machine learning models, in order to optimize recommendations to teachers of contextually relevant learning pathways for their students. Our table brought together participants from diverse backgrounds and skill sets, spanning government, foundations, the tech industry, education nonprofits, and UN agencies, which made for some lively debates!

We explored the need for automated curriculum alignment in crisis contexts, and the possible role of artificial intelligence (AI) in recognizing curricular mandates and patterns, and recommending pertinent educational content in return. This work is part of a broader collaboration working with refugees and partner organizations to explore utilizing digital education to support learning in these contexts. The experience of engaging our professional communities in such a challenging question was as valuable as the outputs themselves, so we've been sharing the discussions and debates we've had as they may be useful in other's work. Over the past month, the Design2Align blog post series has covered topics such as contextual display and creation of metadata, teacher-generated content annotations, technical considerations in OER for curriculum alignment facilitation, and open models for just-in-time learning pathway recommendations. Today, Learning Equality's UX Design Lead, Jessica Aceret talks about the specific curriculum needs for crisis contexts, and how it requires not only a human touch but also an alignment tool that provides intelligent content recommendations so that the relevant resources can be more easily found. The Design Sprint on Curriculum Alignment in Crisis Contexts, which took place back in March, in Paris, saw many different roles in the education technology space strategically brought together -- curriculum designers, policymakers, technology experts, refugees, and more.

Consider a refugee population coming from country C residing in host country B, with limited or no access to education. The trauma of conflict and displacement, coupled with the difficulty of integration within the host country puts refugee populations at a significant educational disadvantage, so it is worthwhile considering options that could "level the playing field" by providing improved access to education. There is hope that the vast amounts of Open Educational Resources (OER) that are freely available on the internet can play a role in this, in particular in combination with educational platforms like Kolibri. The Kolibri platform aims to provide access to learning opportunities for all and it is particularly suited for the refugee context as the runs-anywhere capabilities of the Kolibri applications allow it to be accessed in computer labs, in the classroom, from phones, and in informal learning centres. Our experience and work with partners like UNHCR have shown that in emergency and crisis contexts, a key bottleneck is the lack of sufficient educational content aligned to the learning goals of the project.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA Today's newsroom and any business incentives. When it comes to getting gifts during the holidays, is there anything more exciting to unwrap than a shiny piece of tech? For many people, fancy new gadgets are the epitome of a high quality gift, as they often enable myriad creative, productive, and personal uses the gift giver may not even be aware of at the time. However, when it comes to giving a tech gift, that can be stressful.