vision/possibilities

Reflections on “Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader” [educause.com]

On 05/20/2015, in business side of he, career development, colleges, community colleges, creativity, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, new business models, online learning, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader — from educause.edu

Excerpts:

Two major changes have helped in defining the strategic IT leader of today and tomorrow. The first is specific to higher education: There has been an evolution in the business of higher education, with institutions needing to adopt new models to stay competitive and focus on outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and responsiveness. The second has been experienced at all levels in society: the pervasive nature and rapid development of technology. Within a higher education context, technology’s expanded presence impacts all areas of an institution. The IT leader occupies a unique position at the center of massive change, making this role both a challenging one and one that will continue to evolve in the coming years. The profession must be ready for both the changes and the opportunities.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity is for the IT leader to demonstrate the value of technology. Technology advances the institutional mission and the business of higher education. Regardless of the size or maturity of your IT organization, we think the concepts discussed here will be relevant and useful. As your IT organization moves to become a significant campus player, understanding the role of the IT leader will increase your institutional impact and enable your organization to truly lead.

Also see:

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader — from educause.edu

From DSC:
What higher ed institutions need right now are more leaders who are visionary, innovative, creative, and bold — those who understand the strategic value that a variety of technologies can bring to the table. The problem is, many in leadership/executive positions didn’t grow up with the technologies that are being used today (and the new ones that will be launched tomorrow)…so they don’t see the value in pursuing them. They’re not sold on them.

So my advice in filling any senior level position today — as well as in filling open positions on the boards that oversee our institutions of higher education — is to ask:

Is this candidate visionary? Innovative? Creative? Can they think outside the box? Or at minimum, are they open to other visionaries’ perspectives? (This type of person is in direct contrast to the person who seeks to do higher ed the same way that it’s always been done; i.e., a person who simply seeks to maintain the status quo.)
Do they understand that the heat is in the kitchen throughout higher education today? Do they understand that alternatives to traditional higher ed continue to arise on almost a monthly basis? (i.e., this is likely not the same environment as when the candidate went through college.)
If they understand that higher ed is in a major spotlight with an increasingly skeptical society (i.e., that some people think it’s too costly, that others call into question the return on their investments, that others assert that it’s not preparing students for the workplace, etc.), what do they propose to do about it? What are their solutions?
Are they tech-savvy? Do they use technology in how they communicate, how they achieve their daily tasks, in how they stay informed on the higher ed landscape, and/or in other areas such as establishing their online footprints?

Technology is key from here on out — in every area of running a university, college, or community college. Those who use technologies strategically will survive and thrive; those who minimize the value of technology are now a major handicap and a stumbling block for an institution of higher education. Such perspectives might have been acceptable years ago…but they are no longer acceptable as they completely ignore:

The state of the world today, and how increasingly, technology is permeating almost every area of the workplace as well as in the ways that we communicate and connect with each other; in fact, the very ways we live and accomplish things
The changing K-12 student and how technology is increasingly being integrated in that arena
The skills that our graduates will need
The threats to traditional higher education

Discarding the strategic value of technologies is an operational perspective that institutions of higher education simply can no longer afford — the 21st century learner will have other alternatives to choose from.

Avoiding Sweet Briar [2 articles from evoLLLution.com]

On 05/12/2015, in 21st century, change, colleges, faculty, higher education, leadership, liberal arts, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Avoiding Sweet Briar: Five tips to help institutions become more nimble — from evoLLLution.com by Richard DeMillo

Excerpt:

Educators and administrators who study the demise of institutions like Sweet Briar must wonder what steps might have been taken to avoid a similar fate. Could Sweet Briar have foreseen the problems ahead and taken steps in a different direction? How does a modern college or university remain agile in the harsh and ever-changing marketplace of higher education?

…

There is a disconnect between how a college or university functions and public perception. From research to classroom teaching, and even to administrative duties, faculty are expected to take on too much. As a result, innovation in education—a university’s main product—often takes a back seat.

When institutions become too assured of their central role, they inevitably lose ground to innovators who are better connected to the needs of students.

The shape of things to come: Five changes to move off Sweet Briar’s path — from evoLLLution.com by William G. Tierney

Excerpt:

To many of us, Sweet Briar College’s closure is not a singular example of a mismanaged institution but the proverbial canary in the coalmine. Many of our postsecondary institutions—especially under-endowed small liberal arts colleges—have to start changing or they will close. What needs to happen?

I certainly appreciate those of us who make forlorn calls for the noble aspirations of what academic life might once have been and perhaps one day could become again. At the same time, given the pace of change, if colleges and universities don’t get more with it, they will go out of business.

Addendum on 5/19/15:

Reinventing the Liberal Arts College: Collaborating to Steer Clear of Sweet Briar — from evoLLLution.com by Brian Williams
Excerpt:
Sweet Briar College’s decision to close has given heightened attention to a set of thorny questions that higher education leaders, particularly those in liberal arts colleges, have pondered for some time, revolving around a central theme: “Why do liberal arts colleges need to change their business model and what should that change entail?”As is frequently the case, the answers are much more complicated than the questions. Although similar in many respects as a group, liberal arts colleges are quite diverse in their settings, their financial circumstances, the missions they pursue and how they allocate their resources. As was recently observed in the wake of the closing at Sweet Briar, “every small college’s circumstances are unique, as are the personalities of its leaders, and drawing conclusions based on what happened at other institutions may be of limited value.” [1]

Preparing for the Digital University: A review of the history & current state of distance, blended, & online learning [Siemens, Gasevic, Dawson]

On 04/30/2015, in 21st century, adjunct faculty, Australia, blended learning, Canada, change, distance education, education technology, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, history, hybrid learning, innovation, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, organizational change, pace of change, pedagogy, research, social learning / networks, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, technology (general), trends, UK, United States, user experience (UX), vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

It is our intent that these reports will serve to introduce academics, administrators, and students to the rich history of technology in education with a particular emphasis of the importance of the human factors: social interaction, well-designed learning experiences, participatory pedagogy, supportive teaching presence, and effective techniques for using technology to support learning.

The world is digitizing and higher education is not immune to this transition. The trend is well underway and seems to be accelerating as top universities create departments and senior leadership positions to explore processes of innovation within the academy. It is our somewhat axiomatic assessment that in order to understand how we should design and develop learning for the future, we need to first take a look at what we already know. Any scientific enterprise that runs forward on only new technology, ignoring the landscape of existing knowledge, will be sub-optimal and likely fail. To build a strong future of digital learning in the academy, we must first take stock of what we know and what has been well researched.

During the process of completing this report, it became clear to us that a society or academic organization is required to facilitate the advancement and adoption of digital learning research. Important areas in need of exploration include faculty development, organizational change, innovative practices and new institutional models, effectiveness of teaching and learning activities, the student experience, increasing success for all students, and state and provincial policies, strategies, and funding models. To address this need, we invite interested academics, administrators, government and industry to contact us to discuss the formation of an organization to advocate for a collaborative and research informed approach to digital learning.

February 2015
George Siemens
Dragan Gasevic
Shane Dawson

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model [Wilcox & Ray]

On 04/08/2015, in collaboration, consortiums, experimentation, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model — from educause.com by Kim Wilcox and Edward Ray

Excerpt:

The implied message is clear: We’d prefer not to talk about what isn’t working at the postsecondary level.

We’re in a competitive sector, and there is misplaced pressure on all higher education institutions to achieve top placement in U.S. News & World Report and other annual rankings, regardless of whether or not those rankings make any sense. We all feel significant pressure to make sure that our constituents—from board members to faculty to parents to legislators—are happy with the direction of the institution. And we also know that those constituents can be impatient in waiting for substantive change to produce positive results. Honest discourse on new initiatives that seem unproductive or in need of modification is likely to lead to unpleasant conversations that few of us would relish.

This is not the way to foster innovation and improvement in higher education. The best innovators in the world typically follow the mantra that failure is acceptable, helpful, and sometimes even necessary to ultimately achieving an objective. Many of the products we rely on today, from Post-it Notes to pacemakers, resulted from mistakes or failures in the search for other innovations. And just about any founder of a successful Silicon Valley start-up has a track record of ventures that failed.

Successful innovation requires experimentation and learning from failure.

…

At the University of California, Riverside, and Oregon State University, we are engaged in one effort to achieve these goals: the University Innovation Alliance. The UIA is a consortium of eleven major public research universities that are working together to identify new solutions to challenges found throughout the higher education community, and then to share information about failures and successful solutions among institutions.

From DSC:
Some images that are along these lines:

RealEstate-HigherEd-DanielSChristian11-1-13

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

A vision for some edupreneurs out there: Leverage M2M comms for us w/in the classroom

On 04/02/2015, in A/V -- audio/visual, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, ideas, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
A vision for some edupreneurs out there:

Please create a system whereby machine-to-machine (M2M) communications would be used to detect and display the names and majors of students within a given classroom — complete with the photos of those students that are actually there at that particular time in a face-to-face classroom setting.

The data from that information gathering would be sent to a holographic image that the professor could make larger or smaller. The professor could use gesturing to point to a given student to ask them a question. Once that student has been asked a question, the color around that student is changed to reflect that the professor has already called upon them recently. (The setting that controls how long this “who’s-been-questioned-recently” information is maintained could be cleared every X minutes/hours/days.)

For more introverted students, they could choose to use their own device to broadcast their answer to a digital/online-based means vs. answering verbally in front of 50-200 other students.

If the NBA & NHL can do this, what about applying this in education & training?

On 03/16/2015, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, business, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, formal learning, future, global / globalization, health, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, immersion, innovation, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, play, second screen apps, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, technologies for your home, training / L&D, transmedia, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

AUSTIN, TX – Virtual reality is featured prominently at South By Southwest Sports this year, from using it to better train athletes with Oculus Rift to how it could transform the fan experience watching basketball, football and hockey at home.
…
The NHL had its first successful test of a 360-degree virtual reality experience at its Stadium Series game between the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings last month, mounting cameras around the glass that filmed HD images in the round.

Excerpt:

When basketball lovers aren’t able to trek to stadiums near and far to follow their favorite teams, it’s possible that watching games on a bar’s widescreen TV from behind bowls of wings is the next best thing. This may no longer be true, however, as a wave of court-side, 3D virtual game experiences is becoming available to superfans with Oculus gear.

Earlier this month, NextVR showed off its new enhanced spectator experiences at the 2015 NBA All-Star Technology Summit with virtual reality (VR) footage of an October 2014 Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers match-up in Rio de Janeiro. The NBA also already announced plans to record VR sessions of the NBA All-Star Game, the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, and the Sprite Slam Dunk event and practice.

From DSC:
In the future, will you be able to “pull up a seat” at any lecture — throughout the globe — that you want to?

Alternatively, another experiment might relate to second screening lectures — i.e., listening to the lecture on the main/large screen — in your home or office — and employing social-based learning/networking going on via a mobile device.

Consider this article:

Twitter Aims To Hook TV Viewers With Radical New Mobile Service
Twitter’s TV Timeline lets viewers focus on one show while second-screening

TV-friendly social network Twitter is testing a new Social TV service on iPhones which provides users with content and interaction about only one TV show at a time.

The aim is to give users significantly better engagement with their favourite shows than they presently experience when they follow a live broadcast via a Twitter hashtag.

This radical innovation in Social TV design effectively curates just relevant content (screening out irrelevant tweets that use a show’s hashtag) and presents it in an easy-to-use interface.

If successful, the TV Timeline feature will better position Twitter as it competes with Facebook to partner with the television industry and tap advertising revenue related to TV programming.

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader [Educause & Jisc]

On 03/09/2015, in change, collaboration, communications, future of higher education, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, using teams, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader. Research report. Jisc and EDUCAUSE, March 2015.

Abstract:

Information technology is so much the fabric of the university that its presence is often not fully recognized. The focus in the IT organization has shifted from a tactical to a strategic perspective. With the demand for IT only growing, understanding how IT leaders can best lead in these efforts is essential.

In early 2014, EDUCAUSE and Jisc came together to address a common concern: Understanding the skills required by technology leaders in higher education was an issue often overlooked and one needing immediate attention. The two organizations convened a working group of 10 leading U.S. and U.K. IT leaders to define a set of desired technology leadership characteristics and capabilities, now and in the future. This report identifies 10 key roles played by the IT leaders, describes what each of these roles entails, and outlines the essential skills required to perform them.

The higher education information technology (IT) enterprise has become complex. No longer simply responsible for provisioning IT infrastructure and services, the IT department increasingly helps re-envision business and service models—all in a context of cost and accountability pressures.

From DSC:
It’s good to see the emphasis on strategy and the strategic use of technologies — especially given the increasingly important role that technologies are playing throughout the majority of — if not all — industries in existence today (not to mention the exponential curve we’re on vs. a gradual/linear trajectory). This is true within higher ed as well, as new alternatives/models/methods continue to creep up on traditional institutions of higher ed.

Interview: Kevin Carey, author of ‘The End Of College’ — from NPR Ed

Excerpt:

But author Kevin Carey argues that those problems might be overcome in the future with online higher education. Carey directs the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation. In his new book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, Carey envisions a future in which “the idea of ‘admission’ to college will become an anachronism, because the University of Everywhere will be open to everyone” and “educational resources that have been scarce and expensive for centuries will be abundant and free.”

…

On the term “University of Everywhere”
The University of Everywhere is the university that I think my children and future generations will attend when they go to college. … They will look very different in some ways, although not in other ways, from the colleges that I went to and that many of us have become familiar with. This will be driven by advances in information technology: So whereas historically you went to college in a specific place and only studied with the other people who could afford to go [to] that place, in the future we’re going to study with people all over the world, interconnected over global learning networks and in organizations that in some cases aren’t colleges as we know them today, but rather 21st-century learning organizations that take advantage of all of the educational tools that are rapidly becoming available to offer great college experiences for much less money.

From DSC:
Though Kevin discusses various items in this interview, I wanted to focus on the topic of online learning and leveraging the Internet for lifelong learning.

Whether out of fear, self-preservation, or for some other reasons, there continues to exist within higher education a group of people who still discount the power of the Internet to offer opportunities for learning throughout one’s lifetime. They poo-poo online learning for example, looking down upon it and assert that such methods can’t measure up to the traditional face-to-face based learning experiences. Never mind that the majority of these folks — it not all of them — have never taught online nor have they taken a well-executed, formal online-based course. They don’t realize how far various technologies have come to provide powerful, effective, highly-convenient learning experiences. They just continue to poo-poo it:

Only 27.6% of chief academic officers reported that their faculty accepted online instruction in 2003. This proportion showed some improvement over time, reaching a high of 33.5% in 2007. The slow increase was short-lived, however. Today, the rate is nearly back to where it began; 28.0% of academic leaders say that their faculty accept the “value and legitimacy of online education.”

Grade Level: Tracking Online Education in the
United States by I. Elaine Allen and Jeff Seaman (2015)

Meanwhile, the world continues to change, pressing needs continue to amass, technologies continue to emerge and morph, and many outside of higher ed are starting to care less and less about what those stuck in traditional higher ed even have to say. They’re beginning to design other alternatives. See below for some examples.

With that said, there’s also a sizable group of us who are working hard to innovate and to leverage the power of the Internet — who seek to reduce the price of obtaining a degree, to make quality education more affordable and accessible to the masses, and who seek to provide a balance of the liberal arts/foundational skills with the skills that are needed out in the workplace. Also see below for examples of this.

DSC: I write these reflections down to urge those of us working within higher education NOT to be like the Smith Coronas of the world, NOT to be like the Blockbusters and Kodaks of the world — who, to their very dying day, clutched tightly to their beliefs/strategies/business plans, not seeing the tidal waves that were approaching them.

————–

The New Normal — from edtechdigest.wordpress.com by Victor Rivero
A dearth in practical technology skills calls for an online boot camp approach.

Excerpt:

The ecosystems of many companies are changing as baby boomers retire and workplaces are filled with a strange and not fully functioning blend of digital immigrants, with fresh new academic graduates. In many cases these graduates have invested considerable time and money in traditional offline learning and have come out overqualified yet drastically under skilled.
…
Many people who make the switch are ready for change and want it to happen quickly. Online training through technology boot camps for example, means they can pick up key technology skills, and as a result make a total career change; transitioning from being unemployed to becoming a busy productive freelancer in a matter of months. As a result, offline learning is losing ground while online learning is gaining traction by the second.

From DSC:
Can those of us working within higher ed offer such bootcamps?

Doing so would not only help learners of all ages but would also create new sources of (sorely-needed) revenue. Perhaps these sorts of bootcamps shouldn’t have to be vetted through the normal committees and mechanisms — as doing so will surely keep us from providing the level of responsiveness as the increasingly-fast-paced world now requires. Perhaps we leave those decisions up to the relevant, knowledgeable faculty members who can then team up with innovative staff and administrators to create and deliver these offerings.

————–

Udacity kicks off enrollment for its Swift-focused iOS developer ‘nanodegree’ — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

Excerpt:

If you’re looking for a way to gain the skills necessary to get a gig developing for iPhone and iPad, but unwilling to commit to a full-time college or university schedule, Udacity might have the answer. The online education platform debuted something called a “nanodegree” last year, and enrollment for the iOS developer edition of the same just opened to applicants today. Enrollment is open to anyone willing to spend $200 per month to participate (with a one-week free trial included) and closes at the end of March 10.

————–

IDEO Futures

C-Suite TV

Yyieldr

Lessons Go Where

Class Do

NYC Data Science Bootcamp

Hands-On Data Science & Engineering: A 5-Day Bootcamp

User Experience Design Immersive — A 10-Week, Full-Time Career Accelerator in Boston

Flatiron School

Python Programming for Beginners — set your own price

Eleven Fifty

Cybrary.it

————–

Re-imagining Learning & Credentialing in a Connected World — from etale.org by Bernard Bull

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

What happens when we don’t think of these as three disconnected and unrelated learning pathways? What if we see this as representative of a city or region in which one travels on a lifelong learning journey? What possibilities does that create for us? Consider a model where credentials can be provided as people demonstrate competence through any of these stops along the way, whether it is the weekend workshop, the self-guided tour, the self-study stop, or a formal course. This is one of the interesting and exciting possibilities of micro-credentials and digital badges. Their affordances give us a greater ability to imagine such contexts, as evidenced by the cities of learning initiatives.

————–

ACE and Blackboard unveil research on alternative pathways to degree completion — from acenet.edu
Papers on Credit for Prior Learning and Competency-Based Education Practices to be Released

Excerpts:

New research released [on 2/20/15] will shed light on how two approaches to creating alternative pathways to college graduation for post-traditional students are working.
…
The first paper is “Credit for Prior Learning: Charting Institutional Practice for Sustainability,” which identifies and addresses some of the cultural barriers and successful strategies to institutions incorporating CPL.
…
The second paper is “The Currency of Higher Education: Credits and Competencies,” which explores the challenges in adapting the traditional credit hour to an information-age economy that relies on greater flexibility and productivity.

————–

Harvard Business School hopes to fundamentally change online education with its new $1,500 pre-MBA program — from businessinsider.com.au by Richard Feloni

Excerpt:

This week, Harvard Business School launched an innovative new online education program to the public that it thinks is so far ahead of free online courses that it’s worthy of a $US1,500 price tag.

The 11-week pre-MBA program called CORe accepts about 500 students and is taught in the school’s signature case-study method. The first official session started on Feb. 25, and applications are open for spring and summer sessions.

CORe is the flagship offering from HBS’s new digital platform, HBX, which aims to become a full-fledged branch of the school rather than a place to dump video recordings of classroom lectures.

————–

Constructionism 3.0 — from steve-wheeler.blogspot.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Listening to MIT’s Vijay Kumar speaking is always informative. Kumar has vast experience in research in online and digital learning environments, and he conveys his knowledge in an accessible style. He was keen to argue that the future of education has two fundamental characteristics – open and digital. His previously published book Opening Up Education explains the first in plenty of detail, but the second, digital, was uppermost in his keynote presentation at ELI 2015, the Saudi Arabian premier e-learning event. He said that it is at the intersection of digital and open that learning innovation occurs, and that education will be transformed if attention is paid to them both.

————–

Disruption: The Slow Boil Transforming Higher Education — from evoLLLution.com by Michael Horn

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

There are 37 million Americans like Joe who have some college but no degree. Many of them, like Joe, need to re-skill to be able to make a living. Many of them don’t have the time or money to be able to access a traditional certificate or degree program, even if it is online. In the language of disruption, they are non-consumers of traditional certificate and degree programs.
…
This emerging class of asynchronous online courses, both paid and free, is doing something similar by targeting primarily non-consumers—those not considering formal higher education (either again or for the first time). But these non-consumers are now improving their skills one competency at a time and certainly consuming education.
…
Traditional institutions of higher education are unlikely to fill this demand. Their institutions were not built to update and develop curriculum and short-term programs rapidly. Those best equipped to teach may be practitioners and real-world experts using online platforms that allow them to reach anyone instantly.
…
This is the sharing economy of education. Adults can choose the competencies they need, from pivot tables in Excel to training a new puppy, and learn them when they need them online, no longer tied to academic calendars or seminar dates.

————–

HEDLINE: Udemy’s Online Course Millionaires — from edukwest.com by Kirsten Winkler

Excerpt:

The top three Udemy instructors are currently:

Web Development – Rob Percival
Earnings: $2.8 million
Students: 120,000

Web Development – Victor Bastos
Earnings: $900,000
Students: 52,000

Personal Development – Alun Hill
Earnings: $650,000
Students: 47,000

————–

LoudCloud Systems and FASTRAK: A non walled-garden approach to CBE — from mfeldstein.com by Phil Hill

Excerpt:

As competency-based education (CBE) becomes more and more important to US higher education, it would be worth exploring the learning platforms in use. While there are cases of institutions using their traditional LMS to support a CBE program, there is a new market developing specifically around learning platforms that are designed specifically for self-paced, fully-online, competency-framework based approaches.
…
…my interest here is not merely to review one company’s products, but rather to illustrate aspects of the growing CBE movement using the demo.

————–

As a whole new kind of college emerges, critics fret over standards — from hechingerreport.org by Matt Krupnick
Competency education offers credit for experience, but who decides? Critics worry whether competency-based education is growing too fast for standards to be set.

————–

Are prestigious private colleges worth the cost? — from The Wall Street Journal by Douglas Belkin
A high-school senior, a recruiting manager from Deloitte and a college professor weigh in

From DSC:
Even the very presence of this article in the Wall Street Journal should greatly concern those of us within higher education and this increasingly-common question should elicit a response at each of our institutions. It illustrates the pendulum swinging away from the strong public support of higher ed. Such support is weakening, as the price of higher ed has increased. And similar to the line in Jurassic Park, people will find a way. If they can’t afford traditional higher education, alternatives are sure to appear. Several of the aforementioned items bear witness to this fact.

————–

Adaptivity Tops Gartner’s Strategic Tech List for Ed [Schaffhauser]

On 03/03/2015, in analytics, assessment, data related items, education technology, higher education, IT in HE, K-12 related, leadership, mobile learning, mobile technologies, research, social learning / networks, strategy, trends, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Adaptivity Tops Gartner’s Strategic Tech List for Ed — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Even as education spending is projected to inch up two percent this year to reach $67.8 billion worldwide, the way in which school districts, colleges and universities are spending that money is evolving to reflect the growing digital nature of teaching and learning, according to Gartner. In a new report, “Top 10 Strategic Technologies Impacting Education in 2015,” the business IT consulting firm ranked 10 innovations and tech trends that it believes the education CIO should plan for in 2015.

Many of the technologies aren’t emerging from within education itself, said Gartner Vice President Jan-Martin Lowendahl. They’re being “driven by major forces such as digital business and the consumerization and industrialization of IT.”

…

1. Adaptive Learning
2. Adaptive Digital Textbooks
3. CRM
4. Big Data
5. and 6. Sourcing Strategies and ‘Exostructure’
7. Open ‘Microcredentials’
8. Digital Assessment
9. Mobile
10. Social Learning

Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision – some sharp innovations here!

On 02/27/2015, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, Augmented Reality (AR), business, collaboration, communications, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, distance education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, internet, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, mobile learning, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), new media literacies, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, platforms, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, programming, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, tablets, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, telepresence, trends, ubiquitous learning, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Example snapshots from
Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision

Learning Spaces – Lernwelten: The largest international database on learning space development and global trends.

On 02/13/2015, in adult learning, colleges, community colleges, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning spaces, library / librarians, research, smart classrooms, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

“Learning Spaces – Lernwelten”. New database to view global trends for the first time! — by Professor/Dr. Richard Stang for the Learning Research Center at Media University Stuttgart; the database is curated by Stefan Volkmann

Excerpt:

Database structure:

1 Facet between introductory, visually inspiring, and theory & research materials

2 Physical Spaces & Institutions – schools, universities, libraries, adult education, etc.

3 Digital & Hybrid Spaces

4 Design and Architectual Aspects

4.2.4 Information Technology Integration

4.2.4.2 Mobile Devices

4.5 Service Design

5 Organizational, practical and methodic aspects

5.1 Policy & Strategy

5.2 / 5.3 organisational & cooperation structures

5.4 Project Cycle & -Management

5.5 Stakeholder-driven Innovation

6 Learning types and demographic change

7 Stakeholders – Learners of all ages, teachers, practitioners, designer, and decision makers

8 Languages – especially English, German, and Scandinavian

9 Countries and Regions

Also see:

Learning Spaces database released — from designinglibraries.org.uk
Media University Stuttgart, Germany, has released the largest international database on learning space development.
Excerpt:
From academic to public libraries, from schools to adult education – digital environments fuse with physical learning landscapes, and offer learners, as well as institutions themselves, unforeseen possibilities. However, realising this very potential requires radically new measures in project management, organisational structures and stakeholder interaction. The database will address all these issues by providing the most current and comprehensive range of resources on learning spaces, visions and trends.

Addendum 2/13/15:

The article therein mentions:

FLEXSpace
and
The Learning Space Rating System

I wonder if this is true for higher ed as well? “Running your company at two speeds” [Bossert, Laartz, Ramsøy]

On 01/16/2015, in corporate / business world, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, surviving, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Running your company at two speeds — from mckinsey.com by Oliver Bossert, Jürgen Laartz, and Tor Jakob Ramsøy
Digital competition may dictate a new organizational architecture in which emerging digital processes coexist with traditional ones.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The retailer’s board responded by creating a new budgeting and approval process in which projects supporting major digital strategic thrusts are now treated separately from the rest of the IT budget. Solutions like this, in our experience, are an effective means of addressing digital timing challenges. Many companies need to create a two-speed architecture—a fast speed for functions that address evolving customer experiences and must change rapidly, and a transaction speed for the remaining functions, where the pace of adjustment can remain more measured.

…

Make the digital dialogue more strategic
Solutions like the retailer’s work only if there is clear agreement on what constitutes a digital priority worthy of a fast speed. In our experience, that rarely happens, because far too often, the digital dialogue never becomes sufficiently strategic to galvanize top management. At the retailer, by contrast, top management brought its budgeting challenges to the board, which approved the new, two-speed ground rules. Top management has also begun revising its agenda to elevate the importance of discussing strategic technology initiatives, including comparisons between them and other major thrusts, such as entering new regions.

Achieving this level of dialogue often means changing mind-sets, such as the common one that IT spending is a “tax” required to “keep the lights on.” …Once it’s clear that certain types of technology spending are an investment in new business strategies, it becomes much easier to agree that the resulting initiatives should be implemented quickly.

…

Evolve the organization
When the IT organization is asked to release new digital functions on a faster deployment cycle, it requires new levels of agility and coordination that may require substantial organizational change.

Along these lines, see:

How administrators can enhance online learning programs — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Studying the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), Hoey and other researchers from Crown College, Fresno Pacific University, and Trinity Christian College examined the impact of administrative structure and admins on the outcomes of online student enrollment, number of online programs, and efficiency of online operations.

What the study overwhelmingly found was that both admins and admin structure have significant influence, which could help “private colleges gain a foothold in the competitive online market.”

…

However, since around 2007, researchers have noted a move away from the fully-integrated model to one where online programs are operated and administered by an entirely separate academic division.

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction [Dumestre]

On 01/13/2015, in 21st century, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, faculty, higher education, leadership, new business models, organizational change, psychology, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction — from insidetrack.com by Marcel Dumestre

This contribution can be accessed from insidetrack.com’s Leadership Series, but the actual PDF is here.

Excerpts:

He identifies four biases that short-circuit this process, which he terms as generalized empirical method. All of these biases are not only at play in our individual lives, they also can determine how well organizations operate, even universities.

The first bias is dramatic bias—a flight from the drama of everyday living, an inability or unwillingness to pay attention to experience.

The second bias is individual bias—egoism. Making intelligent decisions requires moving beyond the worldview created by oneself for oneself.

The third bias is group bias. This predisposition is particularly rampant in organizational life.

The fourth bias is general bias—the bias of common sense. This bias views common sense uncritically.

…
The deleterious effect of bias explains why very smart people don’t understand what seems obvious in hindsight. The disappearance of entire industries gives testimony to the destructive power of institutional blindness.
…
There is no magic formula, no uniform model to follow. Universities must do the hard work of analyzing the needs of whom they serve and recreate themselves as viable, exciting institutions suited for a new age.

The universities left standing decades from now will have gone through this enlightening, but painful, process and look in hindsight at the insight they achieved.

Addendum on 1/13/15:

Using Design Thinking in Higher Education — from educause.com by Holly E. Morris and Greg Warman

A vision for radically personalized learning | Katherine Prince | TEDxColumbus

Description:

Could we transform today’s outmoded education system to a vibrant learning ecosystem that puts learners at the center and enables many right combinations of learning resources, experiences, and supports to help each child succeed? Creating personalized learning for all young people will require a paradigm shift in education and a deep commitment to providing each student with the right experiences at the right time.

As Senior Director of Strategic Foresight at KnowledgeWorks, Katherine Prince leads the organization’s work on the future of learning. Since 2007, she has helped a wide range of education stakeholders translate KnowledgeWorks’ future forecasts into forward-looking visions and develop strategies for bringing those visions to life. She also writes about what trends shaping the future of learning could mean for the learning ecosystem.

Trend: Campuses moving from online to On-Demand — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Management expert discusses why the future for college campuses is on-demand, not just online

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

IT experts are calling it a super storm of forces that’s changing the way a campus ecosystem operates.

First, the very foundation of student expectations is changing, with requirements for education delivery models that are more flexible and accessible than those of generations past.

Second, the higher-ed market—thanks to the economy and possibilities available via technology—is reshaping itself under new requirements for competition, delivery, funding, and outcomes.

And it’s this super storm, say experts, that’s creating the need for new business processes and strategies to better compete and retain students.

From DSC:
I don’t have data to back this up, but I also have it that student expectations are changing. (It would be great if someone out there who has some resources in this regard would post some links to such resources in the comments section.) Anecdotally, the students’ expectations of today are different from when I attended college years ago. We didn’t have the Internet back then; we didn’t have personal computing devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops; we didn’t work collaboratively; there were no online-based courses; we didn’t have nearly as many choices for learning at our disposal.

But taking cues from society at large and from the trends in computing, people want to connect and they want to do so on their terms — i.e., when it fits into their schedules. So I can see this sort of phenomenon picking up steam, at least for a significant subset of learners out there. In fact, it’s an underlying assumption I have in my Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision. Many of us will seek out training/education-on-demand types of resources throughout our careers — as we need them. Heutagogy, lifelong learning, and rhizomatic learning come to mind; so does the growth of Lynda.com and the growth of bootcamps/accelerated learning programs (such as flatironschool.com).

Finally, the concept of “learning hubs” is interesting in this regard, whereby a group of learners get together in a physical setting, but tap into online-based resources to help them learn about a topic/discipline. Those online-based resources could be synchronous or asynchronous. But learners come together when it works into their schedules.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader” [educause.com]

Avoiding Sweet Briar [2 articles from evoLLLution.com]

Embracing failure to spur success: A new collaborative innovation model [Wilcox & Ray]

A vision for some edupreneurs out there: Leverage M2M comms for us w/in the classroom

Technology in Higher Education: Defining the Strategic Leader [Educause & Jisc]

Reflections on “Prepare for ‘the end of college’: Here’s what free higher ed looks like”; plus other related items

I wonder if this is true for higher ed as well? “Running your company at two speeds” [Bossert, Laartz, Ramsøy]

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction [Dumestre]

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