Addendum on 8/18/11:
Closing the loop in education technology — from The Journal by David Nagel
Excerpt:
K-12 education isn’t using technology effectively and isn’t investing nearly enough in IT infrastructure to enable next-generation learning. That’s the conclusion of a new report, “Unleashing the Potential of Technology in Education,” which called for a greater financial commitment to education technology and the adoption of a holistic, “closed loop” approach to its implementation.
See also:
From DSC:
We may continue to be disappointed in our overall results — even if we do bump up our ed tech infrastructure/investments — if we continue to use the same models/ways of doing things. That is, I wish we would move more towards a team-based approach and stop trying to load up our teachers’ and professors’ plates with tasks that they probably don’t have the time, interest, or training to do. Graphically speaking:
So…use teams to create and deliver the content — and allow for online tutoring from a team of specialists in each discipline. Like the healthcare-related billboard I kept driving by the other day said: “A team of specialists at every step.”
Reengineering IT in higher education — from campustechnology.com by John Waters
Excerpt:
Higher ed IT is going the way of the TV repairman, eventually becoming anachronistic maintainers of commodity systems–if university and college technology managers and chief information officers don’t reclaim their rightful place as innovators. So proclaimed William G. “Gerry” McCartney, CIO at Purdue University, who spoke to attendees at the annual Campus Technology 2011 conference last week in Boston. McCarthy said he wants to see nothing less than a new kind of higher ed hybrid, one that transforms colleges and universities into “producers as well as consumers.”
From DSC:
I have had the perspective for decades now that those organizations who utilize technologies the best will be the winners (sorry for the competitive way of framing this topic, but it’s true).
“Keeping the systems running” in the world of IT is important — but the strategic use of IT has arguably become more important as the Internet, changing landscapes, and budgetary pressures continue to disrupt higher education.
In the 21st century, if you want a successful organization, you must have at least one visionary technologist — who understands your business — on your organization’s decision-making board; if not, good luck to such an organization in the future. If your organization minimizes and underestimates the power of technology to disrupt your business, things may not turn out too good for your organization in the future.
Also see:
Human Capital Trends 2011 — Revolution/Evolution — from deloitte.com
Revolution
Workforce analytics: Up the ante …………………………………………….. 1
HR in the cloud: It’s inevitable …………………………………………………. 4
From ladder to lattice: The shift is on ………………………………………. 7
Emerging markets: The front line for growth and talent …………….. 10
Diversity and inclusion: Driving business performance ………………… 12
Next-generation leaders: New models for filling the pipeline ………. 15
Evolution
Talent in the upturn: Recovery brings its own challenges ……………. 18
COOs for HR: Operations takes a seat at the table …………………….. 21
Leading in a regulated world: All risk, all the time……………………… 23
Collective leadership: Getting organizations to work as one ……….. 27
Contingent workforce: A critical talent segment ……………………….. 30
Employer health care reform: Moving beyond compliance …………. 32
But how do you move forward with such an innovation, when there isn’t definitive proof that it will work? That is the key question educators and policymakers are grappling with.
Under the education priorities of President George W. Bush’s administration, the catchphrase “research base” was drilled into educators” heads when it came to new programs and initiatives. If it wasn’t research-based, it wasn’t worth adopting.
But technology innovations occur so rapidly that it’s often impossible to do scientifically based trials proving effectiveness before schools embrace new approaches. Think of social-networking tools, iPads, and e-readers. And what other new digital-learning tools might also emerge well before scientifically based research can justify their use in classrooms?
Also see:
From DSC:
From my 20+ years of experience with working with a variety of technologies, while there is an element of risk taking to implementing technologies, there are also enormous payoffs if organizations implement the appropriate technologies.
But how can we select and implement the most effective technologies? This is where we need to rely on our technologists out there and keep them growing in the knowledge of “the business”, not just the technologies. Tell them what you are trying to achieve, and they can greatly assist. No one can hit 100% — but good technologists can get you into the right game and into the right ballpark (if not exactly lining up the exact right players, which may change or take some tweaking).
NOTE:
Don’t rely on technologists who only see their jobs as keeping the systems running. Though we need technologists who keep the infrastructures up and running, at this juncture what organizations really need are visionaries who are knowledgeable about the needs of the business (as well as the technologies), and those who are willing to explore, experiment, and take some risks…i.e. to lead….to be instrumental in forming strategies and visions. The areas outside IT need to be aware of how critical technologies are becoming in their core strategies and plans. It’s not the same ball-game as it was. Those who use technologies strategically will survive and thrive.
It should be noted that there have been risks inherent in maintaining the status quo — a 20%-30% dropout rate (in K-12) across the United States is pretty risky too, at least in my mind.
Also see:
The sky has not fallen — but pieces of it could soon be hitting a campus near you.
That is one way of summing up the findings of Inside Higher Ed’s first-ever Survey of College and University Business Officers, released today in advance of the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Business Officers. (A copy of the survey report can be found here.)
From DSC:
A reflection on:
Excerpt (with emphasis from DSC):
The secret to visionary companies’ continued success was explained best what NHL great Wayne Gretzky stated: “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” What Apple and Facebook know and more specifically their founders/CEOs’ Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have in common is aspirational clarity. They appear to be able to see where the puck will be and into the future of what their market will not just want, but go ga-ga over and then they deliver it. Some may refer to that as their being market makers, but what enables them to make their market is that they can anticipate what will delight their customers and members that those people don’t even know will delight them.
From DSC:
This is why futuring, taking pulse checks on current trends, being in touch with your customers’ expectations (and future customers in the case of students), and scenario building are so important these days.
With the pace of technological change continuing to pick up, a healthy organization will constantly be looking to maintain its relevancy — to innnovate, to reinvent itself.
If you are not constantly reinventing yourself — as an individual or more collectively as an organization — your chances of staying relevant and marketable will likely decrease in the future.
Image by Daniel Christian
A technology broadside against school leadership preparation programs — from BigThink.com by Scott McLeod
Excerpt:
If every other information-oriented societal sector is finding that transformative reinvention is the cost of survival in our current climate, schools and universities shouldn’t expect that they somehow will be immune from the same changes that are radically altering their institutional peers. We shouldn’t pretend that these revolutions aren’t going to affect us too, in compelling and often as yet unknown ways. And, yet, for some reason we do.
As long-existing barriers to learning, communicating, and collaborating disappear – and as what it means to be a productive learner, citizen, and employee shifts dramatically – it’s worth asking how we as educational leadership faculty and programs are responding. Are we doing what we should? To date the evidence is pretty clear that most of us are not.
…
Can we as educational leadership faculty do better? Given the scale and scope of the transformations occurring around us – and their power and potential for student learning – we MUST do better. It’s embarrassing to consider how little we’ve done to stay relevant. A learning revolution has occurred and – given the attention we’ve paid it – it’s as if many of us didn’t care.
From DSC — also see:
Reinventing the Technology of Human Accomplishment — by Gary Hamel; from the University of Phoenix Distinguished Guest Video Lecture Series.
From DSC:
No matter whether you agree with what Gary is saying or not, can you imagine if every lecture contained this type of team-based assistance in creating the motion graphics, recording the video, editing the video, executing proper sound design principles, etc.? Most likely such an endeavor would be more achievable/successful when producing content in a controlled, studio type of environment — and then presenting it online (vs. trying to do this in front of a live classroom/audience/face-to-face.)
Anyway, very powerful communication channels here! Excellent use of motion graphics to backup his message. A transcript with bolded headings and colored main points would be great too. By the way, wouldn’t it be cool for “call outs” to appear — somewhat in an augmented reality sort of way — when a main point was just made?!
Description of video:
Watch Gary Hamel, celebrated management thinker and author and co-founder of the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX), make the case for reinventing management for the 21st century. In this fast-paced, idea-packed, 15-minute video essay, Hamel paints a vivid picture of what it means to build organizations that are fundamentally fit for the future—and genuinely fit for human beings. It’s time to radically rethink how we mobilize people and organize resources to productive ends. Here’s how we start.
This video is an excerpt from the University of Phoenix Distinguished Guest Video Lecture Series.
Sample screen shots:
From DSC:
Again, can you imagine the bump in engagement/attention spans if a faculty member could be backed up by these types of motion graphics!?
From DSC:
I realize that many of the for-profits are already using teams of specialists…but many others are not.
–Originally saw this at the
Higher Education Management blog by Keith Hampson
From ‘gainful employment’ to lower college costs — from The WashingtonPost.com by Matt Miller
Excerpt (extra emphasis by DSC):
But whatever happens as these new rules are implemented in next few years, for-profit colleges will never get out from under a cloud, nor make good on their potential social contribution, until they pass on to students the benefit of the lower educational cost structures they are creating. To date, they’ve been reluctant to do so, because, for public companies especially, it seems tantamount to ignoring the shareholder interest in maximizing profits.
But this is shortsighted. For one thing, it ensures a perennial political backlash, which can’t serve shareholders over time. And beyond this, as a business matter, it means there’s a huge opening for any number of “Wal-Marts of higher ed” to win a vast market of underserved or overindebted young Americans (or mid-career workers who seek training) who desperately need affordable, high-quality educational services. The strategy should be to lower costs, lower prices and “make it up on the volume.” The firms that do this and earn a reputation for quality will force the traditional college world to reexamine its own inefficient practices, to the lasting benefit of students and the governments that fund them.
From DSC:
Also see:
College? There’s an app for that: How USC built a 21st century classroom — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson | May 27 2011
“Everything about this program pushes definitions about what is a semester, what is the university, what is a classroom, and where do the faculty belong?”
Excerpt:
In the spring of 2008, John Katzman, the founder of the Princeton Review, approached the Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at at the University of Southern California with a revolutionary idea. USC could increase its graduates by a factor of ten without building another room.
Every year, California adds 10,000 new teachers. And every year until 2008, USC graduated about 100. The school felt “invisible.” How could it build influence without new buildings? Katzman said his new project, 2tor, Inc, an education technology company, promised a solution. Forget the brick and mortar, and go online, he said. USC was skeptical. Surely, no Web program could possibly deliver an in-classroom quality of instruction.
Katzman disagreed. I have something to show you, he said.
Is Higher Education Ready for “The Education Bubble”? — from CampusTechnology.com by Trent Batson
Excerpts:
American higher education–the jewel in the global crown of universal education, with nearly a quarter of the total number of higher education institutions in the world, and including graduate programs that are the envy of the world–is facing the prospect of being the next bubble to burst. Technology is both a culprit and a promising ally.
The spread of information technology, and its infusion into our culture, has opened the world to learning opportunities–raising expectations for college graduates and changing the terms of success.
Is American higher education ready to either prevent the bubble from bursting or to weather the storm when it does burst? And what is the bubble?
…
The bubble, as we can see by all the dimensions just described, is, in fact, a potential “perfect storm.”
…
But this effort must also result from a presidential-level decree: “The learning theory that fit so well in our culture and with the dominant technology pre-1995 (print-based and paper-based technologies), now is not working very well for any of us, so we have to change. Each of you on campus has sincerely and devotedly committed yourselves fully to learning, but now we know that our learning epistemology is less and less appropriate. This is not your fault; it is simply a time of incredible human growth; it is a time of rapid evolution in our culture; a time of re-shaping our economy. We must transform or become irrelevant.”
From DSC:
Good to see I have some company in these perspectives; thanks for the article Trent. Also see:
From 5/21/09
Cost of buying and operating 2443 F35s is estimated to be $1.3 trillion — from Next Big Future
Lawmakers Want Backup Plan After Carter Calls JSF Costs ‘Unaffordable’
The Pentagon’s top arms buyer this week called current cost projections for the Joint Strike Fighter “unaffordable,” triggering a bipartisan group of senators to demand a Defense Department contingency plan for how tactical air forces would be modernized should the F-35 program collapse under the weight of its forecasted $1.3 trillion price tag.
From DSC:
Can you image what several teams worth of specialists could do with $1.3 trillion dollars!? Man, you could meet President Obama’s higher-ed related goals in a heartbeat!
