new business models

From DSC:
Sometimes, the advice of the old economy no longer applies.

Growing up, our family had a wonderful neighbor named Dr. John Evans. He had worked for a large, successful company called Upjohn (in the pharmaceutical industry) for most, if not all, of his career. I used to mow his lawn. I remember him giving me some lemonade or pop on those hot summer days here in Michigan. On one such occasion, I recall him saying to me, “Danny…you just need to find a good company and hop on board. You can ride that train for a long time.”

That strategy worked very well for him. He had been with Upjohn for many years before retiring from that corporation. So that advice was spot on — for the economy and job market that he had known and participated in.

So, upon graduating from college, I tried to implement that strategy. My first job out of college was with a company called Baxter Healthcare (a large corporation that had just merged with American Hospital Supply and began laying off numerous people, as many jobs were then duplicated). Anyway, that employment lasted all of 4 years before all employees in our division of Baxter had to move to Florida or New York or lose their jobs. As I didn’t want to move at the time, I was forced to find another job. (I’m quite sure many people out there who were working in the U.S. in the 80’s and 90’s — the decades of some serious merger and acquisition activity — can relate to such experiences.)

Anyway, these memories came back to me when I recently read a sentence from Sarah Kendzior’s Nov 2013 piece entitled Surviving the post-employment economy. That sentence said, “If you are 35 or younger – and quite often, older – the advice of the old economy does not apply to you.”

Wow. That rang true with me. It surely resonated with my experience.

So, as the growth of contingent workers continues, I’d like to join many others in putting some new advice out there. My advice to folks — especially to you younger people — would be to take courses, subscribe to the RSS feeds of relevant blogs, follow people on Twitter, and build your personal learning network (at least in part) around the topics of:

Entrepreneurship
Running your own business
Creativity
Being able to adapt, pivot
Experimentation
Freelancing
Disruption
Learning how to learn
Lifelong learning
Identifying and following your passions
Futurism — and learning how to pulse check a variety of landscapes

That’s my 2 cents for now.

Major questions need to be asked — and addressed — due to these shifts [Christian]

On 03/17/2014, in 21st century, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business, career development, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, informal learning, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, new business models, pace of change, professional development, reinvent, robotics, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpts:

If Daniel Nadler is right, a generation of college graduates with well-paid positions as junior researchers and analysts in the banking industry should be worried about their jobs. Very worried.

Mr Nadler’s start-up, staffed with ex-Google engineers and backed partly by money from Google’s venture capital arm, is trying to put them out of work.

…

The threat to jobs stretches beyond the white-collar world. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) also make possible more versatile robots capable of taking over many types of manual work. “It’s going to decimate jobs at the low end,” predicts Jerry Kaplan, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who teaches a class about AI at Stanford University. Like others working in the field, he says he is surprised by the speed at which the new technologies are moving out of the research labs.

From DSC:
After reading the above article — and seeing presentations about these trends (example) — I have some major questions to ask:

What changes do those of us working within higher education need to make due to these shifts? How should we modify our curricula? Which skills need to be reinforced/developed?
What changes do Learning & Development groups and Training Departments need to make within the corporate world?
How should we be developing our K-12 students to deal with such a volatile workplace?
What changes do adult learners need to make to stay marketable/employable? How can they reinvent themselves (and know what that reinvention should look like)?
How can each of us know if our job is next on the chopping block and if it is, what should we do about it?
What kind of future do we want?

These changes are for real. The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee further addresses some of these trends and changes. See:

Addendum:

Also see:

Bill Gates: Yes, robots really are about to take your jobs — from bgr.com by Brad Reed

Bill Gates Interview Robots

Excerpt:

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates isn’t going to sugarcoat things: The increasing power of automation technology is going to put a lot of people out of work. Business Insider reports that Gates gave a talk at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, DC this week and said that both governments and businesses need to start preparing for a future where lots of people will be put out of work by software and robots.

Also see:

Make Work More Human — from Harold Jarche

The Power of Open Educational Resources [Wiley]

On 03/17/2014, in 21st century, copyright/ownership/NFTs, cost of getting a degree, digital learning, digital textbooks, new business models, open courseware and systems, publishing, by Daniel Christian

Excerpted slides:

This was a keynote address that was delivered
to the Maryland Distance Learning Association (MDLA), March 2014.

With thanks to Volkmar Langer for his Scoop on this.

Reflections on “TVs are becoming the next app battleground” [Adler]

On 03/01/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, global, India, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, media/film, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, second screen apps, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, television, TVs, by Daniel Christian

TVs are becoming the next app battleground — from by Emily Adler

Excerpt:

The app store phenomenon, centered on smartphones and tablets, has been the biggest story in software for the past five years.

Its next logical destination: the living room, via smart TVs and set-top boxes connected to the Internet.

…

The smart TV app revolution is inevitable: People spend four hours in front of their TVs in the U.S., and 63% of all global ad spending goes to TVs. The old guard, represented by cable and entertainment conglomerates, will not be able to fend off improvements like those that apps are bringing to mobile phones.
.
The smart TV revolution will not just be led by new TVs with built-in Internet connections, it will also result from consumer adoption of less expensive game consoles or set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV, which transform traditional TVs into smart TVs with access to app stores. At least 20% of U.S. consumers already have their TVs connected in one of these ways.

From DSC:

Keep an eye on the convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer.
.
Start thinking of ways that you could provide learning/educationally-based experiences with second screen apps. What would that experience look and act like?
.
If such “channels” come to fruition — and happen to coincide with MOOCs and advances in cognitive computing (such as IBM’s Watson) — the word disruption comes to mind.
.
The trick, then, will be to offer streams of content that are relevant, and up-to-date.
.
Such a platform could be used in learning hubs throughout the world, as well as in hybrid/blended classrooms — while also addressing lifelong learners from their living rooms.
.
Such a platform could take Communities of Practice to an entirely new level.

Addendum/also see:

A highly recommended presentation for anyone who is working in higher education!!! [Pres by Prof Steven Van Belleghem]

On 02/15/2014, in 21st century, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Reinvent the future –– an excellent presentation by Professor Steven Van Belleghem

From DSC:
Though this presentation is aimed at the corporate world, there are NUMEROUS lessons here for those of us working within the world of higher education.

Sample slides:

From DSC:
This type of presentation prompts me to ask why there isn’t more coursework being offered involving futurism…?

And within our current business offerings, are we applying enough emphasis on freelancing, entrepreneurship, innovation, and in pulse-checking a variety of landscapes?

Along these lines, see:

Need a job? Invent it — from nytimes.com by Thomas Friedman

Excerpts:

Every middle-class job today is being pulled up, out or down faster than ever. That is, it either requires more skill or can be done by more people around the world or is being buried — made obsolete — faster than ever. Which is why the goal of education today, argues Wagner, should not be to make every child “college ready” but “innovation ready” — ready to add value to whatever they do.

So what should be the focus of education reform today?
…
We need to focus more on teaching the skill and will to learn and to make a difference and bring the three most powerful ingredients of intrinsic motivation into the classroom: play, passion and purpose.”

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room

On 02/07/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, game-changing environment, global, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, second screen apps, social learning / networks, streams of content, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, trends, TVs, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room — from businessinsider.com.au by Mark Hoelzel

In the connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel.

Some key points:

In total, there will be more than 759 million televisions connected to the Internet worldwide by 2018, more than doubling from 307.4 million at year-end 2013.
Globally, shipments of smart TVs will reach a tipping point in 2015, when they will overtake shipments of traditional TVs.
Two tendencies dominate the connected TV ecosystem: closed and open approaches.
Despite platform fragmentation, HTML5 offers at least a faint hope for increased unification between connected TVs, just as it does on mobile.
How will developers and operating system operators monetise smart TV apps? Media downloads, subscriptions and — to a much lesser degree — advertisements will drive the dollars. Smart TV platform operators have begun experimenting with ads.

From DSC:
If in a connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel…then I say let’s bring on the educationally-related, interactive, multimedia-based apps!

A Cambrian moment — A special report from The Economist re: digital startups [Siegele]

On 02/03/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, business, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, entrepreneurship, higher education, innovation, new business models, pace of change, student-related, workplace, by Daniel Christian

A Cambrian moment — A special report from The Economist, by Ludwig Siegele
Cheap and ubiquitous building blocks for digital products and services have caused an explosion in startups. Ludwig Siegele weighs its significance.

Excerpt:

This special report will argue that something similar is now happening in the virtual realm: an entrepreneurial explosion. Digital startups are bubbling up in an astonishing variety of services and products, penetrating every nook and cranny of the economy. They are reshaping entire industries and even changing the very notion of the firm. “Software is eating the world,” says Marc Andreessen, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

This digital feeding frenzy has given rise to a global movement. Most big cities, from Berlin and London to Singapore and Amman, now have a sizeable startup colony (“ecosystem”). Between them they are home to hundreds of startup schools (“accelerators”) and thousands of co-working spaces where caffeinated folk in their 20s and 30s toil hunched over their laptops. All these ecosystems are highly interconnected, which explains why internet entrepreneurs are a global crowd. Like medieval journeymen, they travel from city to city, laptop not hammer in hand. A few of them spend a semester with “Unreasonable at Sea”, an accelerator on a boat which cruises the world while its passengers code. “Anyone who writes code can become an entrepreneur—anywhere in the world,” says Simon Levene, a venture capitalist in London.

Also see:

Required reading: The Economist’s Special Report on Tech Startups — from by Ryan Lawler
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
But where The Economist’s report could be useful is in helping those of us who follow this world every day to see the forest for the trees. In so doing, it we could possibly better understand the broader global impact that the spread of technology is having, how we’ve gotten here, and what the big trends are driving us forward. What it really means when software eats the world, as it were.

From DSC:

How might the explosion of digital startups affect curricula in higher education? What should those of us working in higher education learn from this?

“The End of Higher Education’s Golden Age” [Shirky] — & other curated items re: the pressures for change in HE

On 02/01/2014, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, changing business models, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education reform, education technology, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, IBM, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, publishing, vendors, by Daniel Christian

The End of Higher Education’s Golden Age — from Clay Shirky

Excerpts:

Interest in using the internet to slash the price of higher education is being driven in part by hope for new methods of teaching, but also by frustration with the existing system. The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists.

…

Our current difficulties are not the result of current problems. They are the bill coming due for 40 years of trying to preserve a set of practices that have outlived the economics that made them possible.

…

Of the twenty million or so students in the US, only about one in ten lives on a campus. The remaining eighteen million—the ones who don’t have the grades for Swarthmore, or tens of thousands of dollars in free cash flow, or four years free of adult responsibility—are relying on education after high school not as a voyage of self-discovery but as a way to acquire training and a certificate of hireability.

…

It will also require us to abandon any hope of restoring the Golden Age. It was a nice time, but it wasn’t stable, and it didn’t last, and it’s not coming back. It’s been gone ten years more than it lasted, in fact, and in the time since it ended, we’ve done more damage to our institutions, and our students, and our junior colleagues, by trying to preserve it than we would have by trying to adapt. Arguing that we need to keep the current system going just long enough to get the subsidy the world owes us is really just a way of preserving an arrangement that works well for elites—tenured professors, rich students, endowed institutions—but increasingly badly for everyone else.

4 platforms that will disrupt higher education — from hastac.org by Kevin Browne

Excerpts:

Straighterline
Udemy
Mozilla’s Open Badges Project
Pearson
The textbook publisher Pearson is now able to offer degrees of its own in the UK. If their venture is a success it will certainly inspire others to petition to do this and it will certainly spread to other countries.

The rise of alternatives to university continuing education (part 1) — from higheredmanagement.net by Keith Hampson

Excerpt:

Let’s be clear, we need these new learning providers. We are living through what appears to be a “jobless” economic recovery and people need a way range of options – at different price points – in order to quickly retrain themselves for a rapidly changing job market. A robust and diverse continuing education market is a priority for the 21st century and our government leaders and regulators should be crafting policy to make it happen.

Higher education technology predictions for 2014 — from masmithers.com by Mark Smithers

Excerpt:

In summary, we’ll have another contentious year. We’ll see big growth in higher education services from outside of the university sector, a continued gnashing of teeth from established providers. Some new services and platforms will emerge to cater for different forms of learning, MOOCs will evolve and improve and open badges will be hot. Look out for rhizomatic learning.

The New Normal isn’t what you think — from nextberlin.eu by Adam Tinworth (the quote below, though targeting at the corporate world, applies to higher ed as well)

Their yearning is doomed. There will be no return to business as usual. We have begun a process of continuous change that will last decades – perhaps for much of the rest of our lifetimes.

Related items:

Watson is coming for your (professional) jobs — from IEEE.org by John Niman
Excerpt:

Published on Jan 17, 2014 IEET Affiliate Scholar John Niman talks about IBM’s computer system, Watson and how AI may be able to take “Professional” Jobs.

Mass unemployment fears over Google artificial intelligence plans — from telegraph.co.uk by Miranda Prynne
The development of artificial intelligence – thrown into spotlight this week after Google spent hundreds of millions on new technology – could mean computers take over human jobs at a faster rate than new roles can be created, experts have warned

Addendum:

Transformational Change: The New Face of Higher Education — from cgi.stanford.edu by Irene Hecht

Excerpt:

Higher education is in the midst of a process of transformational change. For the department chair, leadership today must include breadth of vision and the skill to bring the single individuals who make up a department into a group that can think collaboratively about the questions facing their discipline, department, and institution. Chair leadership now depends heavily on the ability to create collaborative habits of thought and dialogue among a group of individuals, none of whom may have had experience in effective teamwork. Skill in this area will derive in large part from the chair’s ability to structure the department’s dialogue to be conscious of the connections among its members and the links between the department’s work and the institution’s goals. Ultimately, the habits of dialogue must also include consciousness of the transformational
currents in higher education as an enterprise. Subsequent articles will examine these issues as they pertain to faculty, students, pedagogy, and other key topics being remodeled in the transformational process.

Speeding up on curves — from educause.com by Bradley Wheeler

Excerpt:

Higher education faces a number of important curves, but I’ll focus first on just two:

1) The finance of higher education is increasingly moving from a public to a private good, leading to increasing cost and price pressures (particularly for state-supported institutions).
2) The increasing digitization of education and research favors greater scale while it also enables potential new substitutes for colleges and universities.

Transmedia Storytelling: Trends for 2014 [Pratten]

On 01/27/2014, in attention, communities of practice, creativity, digital learning, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), interactivity, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, love of learning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, new business models, new media literacies, online learning, participation, passions, personalized/customized learning, platforms, publishing, second screen apps, social learning / networks, social media, storytelling, trends, TVs, by Daniel Christian

Transmedia Storytelling: Trends for 2014 — from Robert Pratten, CEO at Transmedia Storyteller Ltd on Dec 06, 2013

Excerpt:

From DSC:
Something here for education/learning? With the creativity, innovation, interactivity, participation, and opportunities for more choice/more control being offered here, I would say YES!

Also see:

Simon Staffans: What 2014 holds for cross-platform content — from blog.mipworld.com by Simon Staffans
TV meets gaming; ad-funded transmedia; multiplatform finally valued… the biggest names in transmedia’s predictions for the year

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations [Lapowsky]

On 01/21/2014, in business side of he, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, disruption, innovation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations — from inc.com by Issie Lapowsky
With a new feature that resembles the college major, Coursera gets a new revenue stream–and becomes an increasingly attractive education alternative.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Coursera, the Mountain View, California-based provider of free, massively open online courses, or MOOCs, is launching a new feature called Specializations, the MOOC equivalent of majors. Rather than taking one isolated course for free, students can now select a sequence of courses, which they take in order, for a fee, albeit, a small one. Then, if they pass, students receive a certificate of completion.

“We heard from many students that they wanted help sequencing together courses in order to form more substantive programs of study than can be represented by a single course. On the flip side, we also heard significant interest from our university partners in offering course sequences,” Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng told me by email. “After discussions with our partners and several student surveys, we decided to proceed with this program, which we believe is the next stage in the development of MOOCs.”

…

Meanwhile, Specializations solve an equally big pain point for Coursera, namely that revenue’s hard to come by when you’re giving a premium product away for free. This way, students will sign up to get their identities verified, a service for which Coursera charges for each class, meaning Specializations will run students about $200 to $500. It’s substantially cheaper than a degree from a traditional university, and for those who can’t afford it, true to its mission, Coursera is offering students financial aid.

Also see:

Coursera Specializations: Focused Programs in Popular Fields — from blog.coursera.org

This vision is now reality.

Addendums on 1/22/14:

Georgia Tech MOOC-Based Degree Program Turns Away Nearly 2,000 Applicants — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

A totally MOOC-based master’s degree in computer science announced last spring has opened for business with about 375 students. The new program, being delivered by Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, claims to be the “first and only” one from an accredited university that operates entirely through a massive open online course format.

The degree program received 2,360 applications during a three-week period in October, about 75 percent more applications than are typically received for the on-campus program during an entire year. Of those, 401 students were offered admission, and 94 percent enrolled for the Spring 2014 semester. According to Georgia Tech, a couple of differences distinguish MOOC enrollment from on-campus enrollment. Whereas 88 percent of the MOOC students are United States citizens or permanent residents, about 90 percent are international in the on-campus program. Also, the average age of the MOOC students is 34.8, about 11 years older than their on-campus counterparts.

More Competition for Online Certificate Students — from insidehighered.com by Carl Straumsheim

Excerpt:

An online course provider will this spring introduce bundles of courses created by top-tier universities that can be completed for certificates. That description fits both Academic Partnerships and Coursera, and both programs are called “Specializations.”

The similarities are more than mere coincidence, as the two companies have since last summer discussed a partnership proposed by Academic Partnerships for its platform to use Coursera’s university course offerings. Yet Coursera’s Specializations, announced Tuesday morning, took Academic Partnerships CEO Randy Best by surprise. When the parties spoke last week, Best said Coursera “expressed that they were going to defer for now the idea of Specializations.”

HarperCollins, Google’s Niantic Labs, 20th Century Fox collaborate w/ bestselling author on next gen cross-media project, Endgame — from corporate.harpercollins.com, w/ thanks to @myweb2learn for the resource

Excerpt of Press Release (emphasis DSC):

ENDGAME is a fully integrated, multimedia experience that will combine a trilogy of young adult novels, fifteen original e-book novellas, YouTube videos, search and image results, mapping coordinates, social media, and interactive gaming in one revolutionary creative project. Each book in the ENDGAME trilogy will feature an interactive puzzle comprised of clues and riddles throughout the text.

…

“We are excited to work with James Frey and Full Fathom Five on this groundbreaking series,” said Brian Murray, President and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers. “This is a spectacular story that embodies the future of publishing—great content, interactivity and a multimedia experience.”

…

Google’s Niantic Labs is developing a location-based augmented reality game that will bring ENDGAME to life in the real world. The game builds on the success of “Ingress,” which defined a new category of entertainment that marries video games with the physical world. The mobile experience will allow players around the world to join in the battle to unlock the mysteries and secrets of ENDGAME. Google Niantic will also be publishing six ENDGAME novellas exclusively at the Google Play store. The game is expected to launch on Android and iOS devices in late 2014.

“James has a great vision for telling stories in an integrated way across books, film, social media, and mobile games,” John Hanke, VP of Product, Niantic Labs at Google, said. “We are delighted to bring our technology and expertise to bear on a project that is helping to define the future of entertainment.”

From DSC:
If successful, I’d love to see some applications of this sort of experiment applied towards education/learning — i.e. towards K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training/L&D departments. The experiment emphasizes where I think successful learning is also going — towards the use of TEAM-based content creation and delivery.

Reflections on “The Campus of the Future: Hybrid and Lean” [Winkler]

On 01/15/2014, in adjunct faculty, blended learning, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, distance education, education technology, elearning, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, hybrid learning, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, reinvent, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, staying relevant, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, UK, United States, universities, videoconferencing, virtual tutoring, by Daniel Christian

The Campus of the Future: Hybrid and Lean — from edcetera.rafter.com by Kirsten Winkler

Excerpt:

When people imagine the campus of the future, two main ideas seem to come up. On the one hand, the campus experience will be blended or hybrid, meaning that even with the majority of learning taking place online, there will still be demand for activities in a classic brick-and-mortar setting. On the other hand, the campus of the future will be more like a technology startup, focused on cutting expenses and running a lean operation.

Three recent articles in Education DIVE, The Times Higher Education, Slate and Inc. underline this trend.

The above article links to:

Internet mentors could supplant traditional lecturers — from timeshighereducation.co.uk by Jack Grove
Horizon Scanning study points to a ‘new kind of pedagogy’ in higher education by 2020

Excerpt:

Traditional lecturers may soon be replaced by networks of online mentors working for several universities, a new study predicts.

In the report, titled Horizon Scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020?, the Observatory on Borderless Education suggests that academic staff are likely to be employed part-time by several universities – often working remotely via the internet – rather than relying on a single employer.

…

With one undergraduate module, Forms of Identity, already taught via video conferencing to students at both institutions, the alliance “may be pointing the way to a new kind of pedagogy”, the report says.

“Undergraduate lectures, for example, may be delivered simultaneously to any number of participating institutions, either across a whole sector or indeed across borders,” it states.

From DSC:
With adjunct faculty members playing a significant role at many institutions of higher education, I could see a scenario like this occurring. In fact, even years ago I knew an adjunct faculty member who sat behind her PC all day, servicing students at multiple universities. I’m sure that this is not a rare occurrence. Plus, we are already above 30% of the workforce working in a freelance mode, with estimations of this going to 40% or more by 2020.

Learning hubs: (how I define it)
Places of blended/hybrid learning whereby some of the content is “piped in” or made available via the Internet and whereby some of the content is discussed/worked on in a face-to-face manner.

Questions:

What if learning hubs spring up in many types of facilities, such as in schools, libraries, buildings on campuses, corporate spaces, parks, cafes, other places? How might such a trend affect the possible scenario that there will be online mentors working for several universities?
Will these mentors make enough to cover insurance costs, retirement costs, etc.?
Will this be a potential model for lifelong learning? For learning-on-demand?
How might MOOCs — and what they morph into — affect this type of scenario?
How might this scenario affect how we teach student teachers? (Will it involve more efforts/endeavors like this one?)
Could this type of scenario also happen in the corporate world?

Last comment:

I’m not saying that this sort of setup is better than a seminar-like experience that has a dozen or so students setting down with a highly-trained professor in a strictly face-to-face setting. However, that model is increasingly unobtainable/unaffordable for many people.

“What changed in higher education?” [Zinny]; also, “MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers” [Shah]

On 12/23/2013, in change, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, open courseware and systems, by Daniel Christian

What changed in higher education? — from by Gabriel Sanchez Zinny

Excerpt:

Higher education is undergoing a number transformative changes, much as the banking, entertainment and travel industries have been doing in recent years. In those sectors, new technology and lower barriers to entry led to new players and increased competition.

The same forces are affecting education as well — but on an even more basic level. The entire model of the university is in the midst of a structural transformation. This is the argument of a recent report released by the experts at Pearson and the Institute for Public Policy Research, entitled “An Avalanche is Coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead.”

In his Forward, the economist Larry Summers summarizes the nature of this avalanche, writing that:

A new phase of competitive intensity is emerging as the concept of the traditional university itself comes under pressure and the various functions it serves are unbundled and increasingly supplied, perhaps better, by providers that are not universities at all.

Also see:

MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers — from edsurge.com by Dhawal Shah
Teasing out trends among the unabated growth of online courses

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In November 2011 I was taking one of the first MOOCs from Stanford. At that time, many new MOOCs were being announced and I started Class Central as a way to keep track of them and figure out what I should take next. The website gathers course listings through provider sites, social media, and tips from MOOC providers and users. The figures below are based on these data.

200+ universities. 1200+ courses. 1300+ instructors. 10 million students.

For the first time in history, courses that were limited to a small number of students are now open to the entire world–or at least those with access to the Internet. These courses are known as “MOOCs” (Massive Open Online Courses), a term that has now become a part of our everyday vocabulary. (It was recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.) Over the past two years, MOOCs have been embroiled in controversy with regards to their efficacy and role in relation to traditional in-person university classes. And it’s still not clear whether they have a sustainable business model.
…
The most popular courses, based on clicks within Class Central…

Trends in 2014:

Credit-granting MOOCs

Corporate-developed public MOOCs

Broader access to MOOC creation

Could MOOCs morph into a freemium model? [Christian]

On 12/18/2013, in business side of he, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:

Could MOOCs morph into a freemium model?

That is, a person might take a MOOC to see if they are interested in that particular topic. If they are, they might finish the MOOC. If they are really interested in that topic, perhaps the MOOC becomes the on ramp into a stream of content whereby the student pays a small amount for a subscription (could be monthly, yearly, up to a lifetime, other) to a constantly curated stream of content on that topic.

Just thinking out loud.

RealEstate-HigherEd-DanielSChristian11-1-13

streams-of-content-blue-overlay

Four radically different models in higher ed worth considering [Morrison]

On 12/17/2013, in 21st century, blended learning, education technology, experimentation, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, hybrid learning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Four radically different models in higher ed worth considering — from onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com by Debbie Morrison

Excerpt:

Yet there are few models in practice that offer face-to-face education experiences that are truly transformational. However, I suggest the four models presented here are worth pondering; two created from scratch, and two that changed within an existing framework.

To reiterate, the institutions discussed here are not virtual schools, each provides face-to-face undergraduate learning experiences where technology is leveraged to facilitate learning. The schools are also committed to teaching foundational subjects—courses from the humanities, yet each provides unique learning experiences that challenge the traditional model in some way. Each institution takes a different approach, though all encourage learners to choose a learning path, to be self-directed, to follow their interests, and establish their own learning goals. All seek to engage young people in learning, prepare students to think critically and to guide them to find their passion.

Learning Ecosystems

The Power of Open Educational Resources [Wiley]

A highly recommended presentation for anyone who is working in higher education!!! [Pres by Prof Steven Van Belleghem]

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations [Lapowsky]

The future of publishing? Applications for learning?

“What changed in higher education?” [Zinny]; also, “MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers” [Shah]

Could MOOCs morph into a freemium model? [Christian]

Four radically different models in higher ed worth considering [Morrison]

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