The Calm Between Two Storms: my NERCOMP 2014 keynote

The Calm between Two Storms

Glimpsing the

Future of Education

and Technolog

y-

NERCOMP

2014

Plan:

1. Current and developing trends

2. Several possible futures

Spoiler alert!

Collaboration Social media Futures thinking Being open Attention to generations

Between two waves?After the Web’s first generation: Campus Web

presence The LMS The ERP Library-IT

ententes Desktops to

BYOD

Grappling with the future

Grappling with the future

Monthly environmental scan report

Trends identified, tested, projected

FTTE reports, January-December 2013

Education trends

More international students heading to the US

Non-US higher ed systems building up

Education trends

Northeast, midwest youth population vs debt

Alternative certification (competency, badges)

US job changes (manufact->service, 1->many, declining participation, automation)

Enrollment decline?

Education trends

Adjunctification rising

Athletics are doing just fine

Weaker .edu trendlines

shared academic services executive compensation

rising amid controversy challenges to internships possible intergenerational

tensions library budgets

Technology trends

digital video

cloud wars

augmented reality

automation and artificial intelligence

Technology trends

social media triumphing

Technology trends

crowdfunding growing copyright battles continue durability of Moore’s Law office versus Web office

Technology ecosystem

Beyond the PC

"When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that's what you needed on the farms." Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular…

"PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of x people will need them."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006526-56.html ; image via Wikipedia

Design for mobile *first *

PCs getting crowded out

Mouse and keyboard declining

3d printing mainstreaming

3d tv dying

Weaker tech trendlines

the limits of the Web

onshoring hardware production

Are ebooks about to plateau?

Nicholas Carr, linked http://bryanalexander.org/2013/08/15/have-ebooks-plateaued/

Teaching and learning and tech

Teaching and learning and tech

blended/flipped classroom

rise of the net.generation

gaming in education

Teaching and learning and tech

educational entrepreneurship

big data and data analytics develop

campus digital security threats growing

Uses of social media

Uses of Web video

Changes in the LMS world

Blended learning

Learning analytics

Changes in library role

Digital humanities (in classroom)

The rise of the Maker movement

MOOCs

Credit for MOOCs STEM vs humanities Sustainability? xMOOC vs cMOOC Liberal arts campuses entering

Changes in scholarship

Open content Possible divide growing

between research and teaching

Changes to the scholarly publication ecosystem

Rise of the digital humanities (as scholarly work)

The library role

A higher education bubble?

Continued cost/value crisis Student and parent anxieties

about debt and employment Grad school crises Bipartisan political pressure

Perhaps not

College premium persists

Debt closer to car ownership

Endowments returning, maybe (11%+ in 2013)

Delphi

Assemble experts

Probe for opinions

Rank and distill ideas

Reiterate

Horizon trends, 2014

Selected trends: Ubiquitous social media

Integration of online + offline teaching

Horizon trends, 2014

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less Flipped Classroom Learning Analytics

Horizon trends, 2014

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years 3D Printing Games and Gamification

Horizon trends, 2014

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years Quantified Self Virtual Assistants

Scenarios Stories about futures Event and response Creativity

Roles and times Emergent practices

and patterns

Scenarios to consider

1. Fall of the Silos2. Phantom University3. The Renaissance4. The Old Guard’s

Revenge

1. Fall of the Silos

Open…

ContentTeaching

AccessSource

Good things Global conversations increase, filter bubble pops

More access, more information

Lots of creativity

Good things on campus Information prices drop Faculty creativity, flexibility grow

IT “ “ “ Academic content unleashed on the world

Not so good things

Industries collapse Authorship mysterious Some low quality tech (videoconf.)

Some higher costs More malware + less privacy

How does this impact campuses?

Tech challenges Outsourcing and offshoring

PLE beats LMS Crowdsourcing faculty work

Information literacy central

Internet has always been open

Web <> money Online identity has always been fictional, playful

II: Phantom university

Post-tsunami Schools are rare and distant

Information is plentiful and nearby

The bubble burst

http://research.studentclearinghouse.org/files/TermEnrollmentReport-Spring2013.pdf

Learning

Information on demand

Instructors, peers “ “ Grading outsourced Multimedia: social, personalized

Institutions Function: content supplements

Faculty: adjunct rōnin

Accreditation: online, multiple, display-based

Institutions Library: media production camp

Professional development: via social media

MOOCs?

MOOCs?

No, MOOCsNo good categorical name:

…which sometimes indicates the future

Students spent more time in K-12 with online classes than face-to-face ones

K-12 as social center, working parent support spaces

Libraries are software Buildings without AR look

naked

III. Renaissance

Gaming world

Classroom and courses Curriculum content Delivery mechanism Creating games

Peacemaker, Impact Games

Revolution (via Jason Mittell)

• Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein, eds, Handbook of Computer Game Studies (MIT, 2005)

• Frans Mayra, An Introduction to Game Studies (Sage, 2008)

• Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin, eds. Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives (MIT, 2009)

Game studies as academic field

How is gaming used now?

Some impacts on campuses

Changes in hardware, software

Part of undergraduate life Learning content, both informal and formal

Career paths

Higher education landscape: Accreditation: drives project-

based, studio-style pedagogy Libraries: gaming production,

archiving Professional development:

distance, DiY Faculty multimedia production

is the norm

Most students identified with one+ game characters in K-12

Leading game developers are as well known as movie directors

Most of their work and school is gamified

IV. The Old Guard’s Revenge

How it happened

Economic growth returns to US (energy, medical, nanotech vs world)

17-22-year-old niche revitalized (K-12 failure)

Full-time faculty stabilize (AAUP-ALA strike)

Digital tech firewalled from class (i.e., tv + film)

Higher education landscape: Supplemental rather than

transformative tech Logistical instead of

pedagogical tech Academics include tech in

old structures (classes, publication)

Reconfigured to protect IP

18-year-olds were .ppt proficient by 5th grade

Schools <> digital life They find their parents’ recollections of life before the web are oddly charming

Scenarios to consider

1. Fall of the Silos2. Phantom University3. The Renaissance4. The Old Guard’s

Revenge

Back to the future

Collaboration Social media Futures thinking Being open Attention to generations

The bloghttp://bryanalexander.org

On the Twittershttp://twitter.com/BryanAlexander

The emailbryan.alexander@gmail.com