Higher Ed is still playing catch-up – will it ever be on par?
In the article I link to below, Diana G Oblinger, the President of EDUCAUSE offers the Higher Ed community some insights such as this one: we’ve moved on from the Information Age and are now in the Connected Age. Such a statement will come as quite a shock for many Higher Education Institutions and policy makers in Governments around the world. In the article, Diana highlights the areas in which the educational setting is widely connected – learners, faculty, institutions and to that extent, I think the article is right on the money. But here’s the scary thing – if this is news to many in HigherEd (and alas it is for far TOO many) then not only are they playing catch-up, they’re already going to be missing the ALREADY EMERGING step that is BEYOND ‘Connected’
And that step is ‘Context’.
Being connected is becoming increasingly irrelevant. There’s reams of data available to almost anyone who wants it, extending (though not wholly) to almost every part of the globe. Data is said to be ‘everywhere’. We carry devices that can connect us ‘anywhere’ – we can access whomever and whatever pretty well 24 hours a day, 7 days a week consistently around the world.
Beyond Connected is Context. We are already seeing user groups ask about data and being connected in CONTEXT to their personal situations, to what they are witnessing, to what they are doing, to what they need THERE and THEN. The emerging skill set is around ‘what does this mean?’ and ‘how can this be useful?’ or ‘dangerous?’ or ‘important to share?’
If Higher Education Institutions focus on ‘Connected’ they’re already missing the point. That boat has sailed. What they need to do, ought to do, must do in my opinion, is shift focus to Context – ‘in what way can what we do be relevant and useful to the immediate contextual needs of the individual?’ That is the thinking behind MOOCs that started some five or so years ago with the likes of Stephen Downes – long before other well know institutions discovered them.
From Connected to Contextual. Can HgherEd make the leap? Here’s the EDUCAUSE Article on ‘Connected’
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of ‘future strategy’ and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single ‘home run’. To that end I’ve recently considered sporting bodies and local…
Read More >Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field…
Read More >Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I’m in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek…
Read More >Every now and again you have an opportunity to listen to some rare insights to an industry sector. These opportunities are typically rare because the insights need to come from someone who not only ‘knows their stuff’, they need to be able to translate their knowledge in a way that the average person in the…
Read More >The ‘Supertax’ debate is an interesting one and as expected, both parties are heavily invested in their own outcomes. One thing the Mining Companies understand is that the tax will lower the size of their profits in boom times for the resources sector – they’ll still be raking in billions, its just that some of…
Read More >As more organisations look to gain an understanding of how to both identify and prepare for their potential and desired futures, Design Thinking is on the current radar screen as a skill set likely to provide significant value. On the 25th to 27th of may you can attend a highly interactive and practical conference on…
Read More >One of the current affairs TV programs did a story recently on the efforts by NSW police to crack down on ‘hoon’ drivers through a specific squad targeting them. The Victorian Police recently announced a similar project with the squad headed up by one of Victoria Police’s most effective senior officers, Inspector Bernie Rankin. Unusually…
Read More >Lewis Hamilton, the former automotive Formula One ‘number one’ had his car impounded on Friday night for alleged ‘hoon’ driving, having been spotted by police spinning his wheels at a busy intersection in St Kilda. Whilst many character witnesses have already jumped to his defence, with one interesting observation from Mark Webber suggesting we have…
Read More >Following on from the highly rated ‘Skimming the Cream’ forum in Brisbane on the 9th of February, members of the Young Dairy Network and SubTropical Dairy groups reconvened to consider the impacts of Climate Change on the dairy sector in Australia using the high-impact ‘Accelerated Scenarios process’. The ‘2030 Dairy Scenarios’ brought together the members…
Read More >Queensland is one state that leverages its weather to the hilt – and the fact is the ‘Sunshine State’ earns its reputation. The odd thing is that in the past week I’ve spent in the Gold Coast experiencing the warm, humid and often wet weather it has occured to me that Queensland might be missing…
Read More >