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Peter Baskerville
The current/traditional system of higher education could well be described as an expensive, on-campus, classroom styled, cohort organised, professor centric, seat-time structured and curriculum based learning system. This system requires the student to learn and understand a specialised core canon of information from generally paper-based textbooks. Understanding must then be demonstrated via the production of mostly text-based assessments to a standard that satisfies the requirement of a particular educational institution. In meeting this standard, the student secures the institution's academic award.
If we look at the impact that technology could play on each aspect of this definition, we may well discover an effective alternative. But first ...
Let it be said right at the start, that the current/traditional system of higher education has served well the needs of an industrial age, where graduates acquired “know what" knowledge to carry out specialist roles and functions that were logical, controlled and cumulatively sequenced.
So education institutions became the learning factories of the industrial age and synced their output to the specialised needs of that age. In doing so they also imbibed the industrial age's efficiency mantra and organised students into age-related cohorts where knowledge was taught to students collectively, following the same sequence and delivered from the same geographic place. This bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all industrial age product became primarily focused on the industrial age's 'efficiency of production' mantra, which generally took precedence over the individual student's needs.
But the world has changed .... and it has changed fundamentally in a way that many describe as a new age.
In today's age, 'change and innovation' rather than 'stability and structure' is the new norm, making many of our industrial age skills now redundant. This matrix below shows the progress of our changing human society and the significant change that is now taking place as our society transitions from the Industrial Age to the current Information/Conceptual age.
In this ever-changing 21st century Knowledge/Conceptual age, students need far more than to ‘know what’ to do in specialist roles and functions. They need to be able to use knowledge as a resource to build something new, rather than see acquired knowledge/understanding as an end in itself. Students need to be able to create new knowledge with their 'know-what' knowledge and so be able to use higher-order thinking to apply, analyse, synthase, evaluate and create.
In the Information/Conceptual age, students need to master the Internet/mobile technologies to then creatively use knowledge to build new knowledge that is shared and enhanced by their engagement with global/virtual networks.
There is no doubt in my mind that the advent of the Internet, coupled with mobile technologies, has fundamentally changed the way we learn in the same way that microwave ovens changed the way we cooked, TVs changed the way we entertained ourselves, ATMs changed the way we engaged with banks and how MP3's playing digital recordings changed the way we listened to music.
So looking once more at each of the aspects of the current/traditional system of higher education described previously, I will look at how technology could be used to create an effective alternative:
"Increasingly we’ll see location-based services utilised as a key learning tool in higher education. We’ll see the management student in a case-study location, the social worker in the community, the nurse in the hospital, the archaeologist in the field, still connected with university resources and a community of peer learners." Professor Gilly Salmon [2]
“The rise of online peer review may mean that some texts exist exclusively in virtual form, where they can be updated and refined in real time,” says Linda O’Brien, CIOof the University of Melbourne in Australia. [3]
Footnotes
[1] Digital Collections on DukeMobile iPhone App
[2] Tech for teaching: five trends changing higher education
[3] http://“The rise of online peer ...
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The current/traditional system of higher education could well be described as an expensive, on-campus, classroom styled, cohort organised, professor centric, seat-time structured and curriculum based learning system. This system requires the student to learn and understand a specialised core canon of information from generally paper-based textbooks. Understanding must then be demonstrated via the production of mostly text-based assessments to a standard that satisfies the requirement of a particular educational institution. In meeting this standard, the student secures the institution's academic award.
If we look at the impact that technology could play on each aspect of this definition, we may well discover an effective alternative. But first ...
Let it be said right at the start, that the current/traditional system of higher education has served well the needs of an industrial age, where graduates acquired “know what" knowledge to carry out specialist roles and functions that were logical, controlled and cumulatively sequenced.
So education institutions became the learning factories of the industrial age and synced their output to the specialised needs of that age. In doing so they also imbibed the industrial age's efficiency mantra and organised students into age-related cohorts where knowledge was taught to students collectively, following the same sequence and delivered from the same geographic place. This bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all industrial age product became primarily focused on the industrial age's 'efficiency of production' mantra, which generally took precedence over the individual student's needs.
But the world has changed .... and it has changed fundamentally in a way that many describe as a new age.
In today's age, 'change and innovation' rather than 'stability and structure' is the new norm, making many of our industrial age skills now redundant. This matrix below shows the progress of our changing human society and the significant change that is now taking place as our society transitions from the Industrial Age to the current Information/Conceptual age.
In this ever-changing 21st century Knowledge/Conceptual age, students need far more than to ‘know what’ to do in specialist roles and functions. They need to be able to use knowledge as a resource to build something new, rather than see acquired knowledge/understanding as an end in itself. Students need to be able to create new knowledge with their 'know-what' knowledge and so be able to use higher-order thinking to apply, analyse, synthase, evaluate and create.
In the Information/Conceptual age, students need to master the Internet/mobile technologies to then creatively use knowledge to build new knowledge that is shared and enhanced by their engagement with global/virtual networks.
There is no doubt in my mind that the advent of the Internet, coupled with mobile technologies, has fundamentally changed the way we learn in the same way that microwave ovens changed the way we cooked, TVs changed the way we entertained ourselves, ATMs changed the way we engaged with banks and how MP3's playing digital recordings changed the way we listened to music.
So looking once more at each of the aspects of the current/traditional system of higher education described previously, I will look at how technology could be used to create an effective alternative:
- Technology could provide an alternative to expensive learning with the conversion of on-campus learning into digital learning products. This would involve, video lectures, online tests, pdf's of text documents, digitizing presentations like Powerpoint and then scaffolding these digital learning products into an online Learner Management System. Classroom courses could be filmed with multiple cameras and a sound mixer and uploaded to allow students to review any topic from an online index that charts the content of the entire class. Web applications and freeware such as Google docs can improve efficiency and reduce costs. e.g. Inkling
- Technology could provide an alternative to on-campus learning by employing the mobility of smartphones and tablets coupled with mobile apps, [1] allowing students to carry a 24/7 access to learning “in their pockets” ... from anywhere, in any place.
- Technology could provide an alternative to classroom styled learning by leveraging the power of cloud computing to engage a online community of peer learners and provide access to the information they need. The connectivity of mobile devices with their ability to monitor our coordinates creates the potential for “learning locations”.
"Increasingly we’ll see location-based services utilised as a key learning tool in higher education. We’ll see the management student in a case-study location, the social worker in the community, the nurse in the hospital, the archaeologist in the field, still connected with university resources and a community of peer learners." Professor Gilly Salmon [2]
- Technology could provide an alternative to cohort organised learning with an online virtual community of practice that help participants in an informal way to address issues and become better at what they do. These communities help participants to deal with a world that is increasingly complex, uncertain, volatile and uncertain. It has proven to be effective in the digital world, particularly for lifelong learning market dedicated to self-learning via collaborative learning which included the sharing of knowledge and experience with crowd-sourcing new ideas and development. Students' sense of audience is completely different. Blogging, online platforms and social media will change our notion of audience from the teacher + cohort ... to the world. e.g. Learning Management System | LMS | Schoology
- Technology could provide an alternative to professor centric learning with learning from a cloud of currently practising professionals working a business model that exchanges knowledge and skills for a subscription or fee ro for free like it's done here on Quora. e.g. Custom Elearning Development | Learnkit
- Technology could provide an alternative to seat-time structured learning with a change in focus on competency based learning that assesses success based on the ability to perform a task regardless of the time taken to learn it. Competency based assessment is ideal for online games and simulations coupled with audio/visual/text based tests.
- Technology could provide an alternative to curriculum based learning with 'just in time' learning delivered over mobile devices and activated in response to the student's pressing need to solve some problem given to them as a learning process.
- Technology could provide an alternative to a student knowing a specialised core canon of information with a focus instead on how to source, access, validate and attribute existing crowd-sourced library published on the Internet and accessed via mobile devises. Technology ensures that we wil spend far less time finding information, so we can invest a significantly more amount of time digesting, thinking, and learning about new information.
- Technology could provide an alternative to paper-based textbooks with real-time digitally published online texts maintaining validated currency via a system of online peer review. e.g. Free Online Textbooks, Flashcards, Practice, Real World Examples, Simulations
“The rise of online peer review may mean that some texts exist exclusively in virtual form, where they can be updated and refined in real time,” says Linda O’Brien, CIOof the University of Melbourne in Australia. [3]
- Technology could provide an alternative to text-based assessments with the outcomes from online gaming and simulation software applications being used to demonstrate the student's ability to apply their knowledge to relevant problems. e.g. Simformer - business simulations for online training, business games and education
- Technology could provide an alternative to educational institution standards with industries, organisations and businesses developing their own online assessments as a demonstration of competency.
- Technology could provide an alternative to institution's academic awards with badges earned for short courses taken online as taught by industry experts or organisations will take it upon themselves to accredit and award potential employees with competency tests. e.g. Udemy (company)
Footnotes
[1] Digital Collections on DukeMobile iPhone App
[2] Tech for teaching: five trends changing higher education
[3] http://“The rise of online peer ...
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Continue reading...
