LTDC Online News

Dr Diana Oblinger – President & CEO, Educause

First we will look at today’s context in which we find ourselves.   What do today’s student’s look like – multi-tasking.  The network changes everything. organizing and spontaneous connections.

Collective intelligence – knowledge is created – as a process not a product

Technology is not just a computer – we have gone mobile – use mobile devices to do so much more than before

Educational Imperative – post-secondary is the new baseline – human capital paramount – students need more flexibility that traditional universities

Educational Readiness – US ranks 11th among OEDC countries in % young adults with a HS diploma

Cost, Demand, Quality – cost are raising – government support is declining – demand for education is growing worldwide -

Questions to ask - Accommodate increasing number of students – more flexible higher educational institutions -

Changing the rules – Internet for participation

Hints of the Future -

• Emerging educational environment – unlimited resources – research is conversational – digital environments – interdisciplinary is growing – research by non-scholars – distributed access to resources
• Educational Value – challenging ideas & people – active support – real-world activities
• any space is a learning space – shift is towards learner – learning complexes
• Learning beyond the classroom – educators can be faculty, advisors, SA staff, peers, web sites, community
• Information Abundance – anytime & anywhere & any medium
• Information Fluency
• Define, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create, communicate (cognitive, ethical, technical)
• Remote instruments
• Haptic devices – feel while interacting with virtual environment
• Visualization – to much information to pull it together
• Virtual worlds – experience
• Role Playing – case history, practice
• Communities – nanoHUB, science gateways, learning modules, lectures, podcasts, activities with distributed resources
• Cyberlearning – NSF Cyberlearning Report 2009 – access to educational resources, mentors

New Models

• Shared and distributed resources – virtual computing labs, custom environments, on-demand resources, used for students learning, distance education, multiple campuses, k-12
• Adaptive testing – personalized learning plan constantly recalibrate based on results, tailored to you (Knewton)
• e-Mentoring – on-demand, 24×7, flexible schedules, shared experiences, WISE: support for women in engineering
• StraighterLine – transfer to partner colleges
• Peer2peer University – open educational resource model, learning groups, online certificates of completion
• Digital collections – access without need to maintain collections on campus
• Self-publishing – lulu.com allows more voices and is small, non-profitable markets
• Open Educational Resources – Flatworld knowledge, Connexions
• Applications that live in the cloud – “Consumerization”, available on-demand

Infrastructure

• Networks matter – people! virtual orgs
• Distributed resources – TeraGrid
• Data Collections – large collections of data, central repositories of data
• Computational Science – application of data and models and simulations
• Co-Laboratories
• Leveraging investments – find common themes
• Infrastructure of the future – above the campus, distributed shared resources, FIM, social & Professional networks, collaboration tools
• Policies are needed -

Creating the Future

• Principles to remember – not about the technology, interactivity, knowledge construction, formal & informal, adoption
• a shift in emphasis – ownership- access, individual – collaborative, campus – above the campus

Q&A