CLAC 2010: Five Futures for Higher Education

Five Ways of Looking at the Liberal Arts Campus

in 2015CLAC Conference 2010

Dickinson College

Lookingback,lookingahead

Futuresresearch

• Pew/Elon reports• Horizon Report• Prediction markets

Also:• Future of Everything• Educause Evolving

Technologies Committee• sf: Vernor Vinge

• NITLE Network• Environmental

scanning

trend extrapolationone key form of futurism• default assumption is

quantitative arc• allow us to look for qual

possibilities• Examples–OS balance–# of courses in CMS–Moore's law keeps working

Photo: graphene using thermochemical nanolithography supplanting silicon

trend extrapolationsize of data• 5 exabytes of data online in 2002• 281 exabytes in 2009• call it 11240 in 2015

broadband increases

social media content, diversity increase

trend extrapolationcontinuing trendlines for ubicomp• # of mobile devices

3d, non-keyboard interfaces growing steadily

internet of things• addressable

objects (IP printers, etc)AR

trend extrapolation

campus-related trends• ebooks grow

trend extrapolation

campus-related trends• cyberinfrastructure grows: sciences,

humanities• digitization continues: scanning, imaging• CMS platforms

…assume all of these for today's scenarios

Scenarios Stories about futures• Event and response• Creativity

• Roles and times• Emergent practices and

patterns

Scenarios

Jamais Cascio: thinking is the important good• open up multiple outcomes• intersections of trends can power new stuff• not Black Swans, but flexible enough thinking to

better enable us to think through BSes

Caveats

• Overlap and interconnection• Lots of gaps – that’s part of the plan• No value judgments• No probability assessments

over tohttp

://prezi.com/egocbx3gha-y/liberal-education-in-2015/

or

http://tinyurl.com/39zeqyd

• Pew/Elon Imagining the Internet, http://www.elon.edu/predictions/

• Future of Everything, NERCOMP/AC, http://www.academiccommons.org/futureofeverything

• NMC/ELI Horizon Report, http://www.nmc.org/horizon • NITLE Prediction Markets, http://markets.nitle.org/ • Graphene developments,

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/25547/?nlid=3120&a=f

Credits

• Exabytes growing, Marisa Mayer, http://www.slideshare.net/PARCInc/innovation-at-google-the-physics-of-data

• Tanagram military AR, http://spill.tanagram.com/2010/05/24/precise-overlay-registration-within-augmented-reality-a-glimpse-into-the-technology/

• Connexions, http://cnx.org/ • Black Swans: Field Museum Library, gnuckxcc0,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34409164@N06/3209135920/

• Great California Shakeout, http://www.shakeout.org/media/index.html

• Uncredited photos: mine

Credits for Prezi

• XKCD, http://xkcd.com/750/ • Democratized curation,

http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2010/06/06/democratized-curation/

• ebooks outselling print by 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/sony/7798340/Sony-ebooks-to-overtake-print-within-five-years.html

• Beloit Mindset list: http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/ • Facebook Quora: http://

mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100531/facebook-moving-to-answer-the-quora-question/

• Episilon Aurigae crowdsourcing, http://mysite.du.edu/~rstencel/epsaurnews.htm

• Jesse Schell, Is Your Life Just One Big RPG? http://e3.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702668/dice-2010-video-design-outside-the-box.html

• HP CeNSE: Sensor Networks and the Pulse of the Planet, http://www.slideshare.net/hewlettpackard/hp-cense-sensor-networks-and-the-pulse-of-the-planet

• Twitterati: Joanne Golas, Owen Kelly, Chris Seller, David E. Robinson• Other humans: Mike Sellers, NITLE

staff, Todd Bryant, Ed Webb, Robert Renaud, Howard Rheingold

…and thanks to CLAC for the opportunity.