Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education

Licensed under Creative Commons By-SA

Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Education

David Wiley, PhDDepartment of Instructional Psychology & Technology

Brigham Young University


This Is Your 11:20 Wake-up Call

Your institution will be irrelevant by 2020




“The World is Changed”

Galadriel, Lord of the Rings


It’s Actually Worse (or Better)

The World is Changing


Analog Digital

Music, Phones, TV, Newspapers,Movies, Journals, Communications,

Intelligence, Defense


Tethered Mobile

Phones, Internet Access,Employment


Isolated Connected

People, Content, Systems


Generic Personal

Cars, Computers, Mobile Phones


Consuming Creating

Radio / Podcasting, Newspapers / Blogs Movies / Vodcasting


Closed Open

Software (OSs, Applications), Data (Weather, GIS),

Content (Blogs, Wikis)


Then vs NowAnalog Digital

Tethered MobileIsolated ConnectedGeneric Personal

Consumption CreatingClosed Open


Education vs EverydayAnalog Digital

Tethered MobileIsolated ConnectedGeneric Personal

Consumption CreatingClosed Open


“Daily Divide” Is a Huge Threat

And the wider the disconnect, the bigger the threat to higher

education


But Wait! We’re Education!

Our historic monopoly is (gratefully) being challenged on almost every

front


Why Do Students Come?

Content, Support Services Social Life, Degrees


Content

OpenCourseWares, Wikipedia, Public Library of Science, Arxiv.org,

Google Scholar, Flat World Knowledge, etc.


Support Services

ChaCha, Yahoo! Answers, RateMyProfessor, Email, Instant

Messaging, Twitter, etc.


Social Life

Facebook, MySpace, MMOG,iPhone location-aware apps, etc.


Degrees

MCSE, RHCE, CCNA


The Monopoly Is Being Busted

Everything we provide is now offered by someone else


When Institutions Specialize

They usually provide better quality at a better price


Higher Ed, On the Other Hand

76% increase in cost over 10 yearsHow’s our quality?



Industries Failing Everywhere

Banks, Insurance, AutomobilesHigher Education?


A Bail Out for Higher Ed?

Utah 4% cut, Pennsylvania 5 % cut,

Massachusetts 5 % cut, Virginia 7 % cut


No Monopoly and No Bail Out

How can we innovate to stay relevant?


What About E-learning?


What About E-learning?

Quite innovative in 1995!


Characteristics of E-learning

Analog or Digital

Tethered or Mobile

Isolated or Connected

Generic or Personal

Consuming or Creating

Closed or Open


We’ve Only Changed the Channel

Our pedagogy and philosophy are as just as they’ve always been


The Polo Parable

A story about our move to onlineteaching and learning

Licensed under Creative Commons By-SAPhoto by e.dward

Licensed under Creative Commons By-SAPhoto by Christopher Henning


We’re Swimming on Horseback

And rather proud of ourselves,I must say


Online is a Different Place

The goals of teaching are the same,but the culture and rules in that space

are only sort of the same



We’re Celebrating the Mass in Latin

And our students are expecting charismatic worship with guitars, drums,

and “Amen!”s


It’s About Respect

Its about valuing culture and designing for it just as we would if teaching in Bangalore,

Beijing, or Barcelona


Some Say Learning Has Changed

Digital natives or millennials have brains that function differently


It’s About ATIs

In the “aptitude by treatment interaction” literature, the only individual difference that

matters is prior knowledge


Openness is the Cornerstone

Openness underpins everything interesting happening online and is “what they know”


Why Make Such a Claim?

Let’s ask Alexa what the 50 most popular sites on the web are…


Sites Where Anyone Can:

Share a video, share a photo, share a blog post, share their personal info, share their

ratings, share their files, share their expertise


Characteristics of E-learning

Analog or Digital

Tethered or Mobile

Isolated or Connected

Generic or Personal

Consumption or Creating

Closed or Open


Connecting

You can’t connect to something if you don’t have access to it


Personalizing

You can’t adapt or localize somethingif you don’t have the rights to modify it


Creating

You won’t be creative if there’s no outlet for your work


How Might We Open Things?

Higher Ed needs to figure this out




Materials Intended for Teachers

Teachers only account for 15% of users


Lecture Notes Courses

Around $15k per course


Video-based Courses

Around $30k per course


“Open 1.0”

Hundreds of universities around the globe sharing over 6,000 courses

(Will you show up on Google?)


Surely There Are Other Ways?

Sharing some experiments


Connecting and Openness





Personalizing and Openness




Creating and Openness





Being Even More Open





Character Classes

• Bard (Master of the lore, history, and politics of the field, know what's “out there”)

• Artisan (Has materials production skills in all the necessary Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools like HTML, video sharing, podcasting)

• Monk (Master of copyright and licensing arcana and defender of the university brand)

• Merchant (Deals with short- and long-term sustainability issues)


Education Will Eventually Be Open

And involve connecting, personalizing, and creating - just like everything else does


Will Higher Education Be Open?

Can your school find the institutional will to change?


Institutional Disaggregation

MIT OpenCourseWare, Western Governors University


Value of Integration?

As compared to“specialized pieces loosely joined”


Not a Technology Problem

Look around the Internet – not only do the technologies we need exist, they’re open source


This Is a Policy Problem

Higher education is behaving like the recording and movie industries


Policy To Defend Tradition

Rather than innovating


You Must Engage in Policy Reform

Ignoring the growing problem is not a strategy


“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

W. E. Deming



“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change

something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Buckminster Fuller


Student Learning May Suffer

The market will likely meet students’ increasingly unmet needs


Your Employment Will Suffer

When your institution collapsesas Googlers find better alternatives


“The last temptation is the greatest treason, To do the right deed

for the wrong reason.”

Archbishop Thomas Beckett (T. S. Eliot)


Innovate for the Students

To fulfill your sacred trust as a teacher


Thank You!

[email protected]

http://davidwiley.org/

Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education

Education

higher ed

higher education

digital tethered

openness sharing

connected

mobile isolated

creating closed

learning analog