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’
You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is…
Read More >Some of Australia’s leading futurists gathered in Melbourne in March to provide a specialist Futures approach to addressing the Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra. The outcome of that Summit and the development that subsequently followed has led to the creation of the report ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’ that has worked through each of the ten…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will meet with eminent ABC radio presenter Jon Faine on Wednesday the 16th of April to discuss the outcomes of the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra on the weekend With a focus on the future of Australia it would be only natural…
Read More >A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a…
Read More >As preparations continue for the Prime Minister Rudd’s ‘1000 heads’ ideas summit in Canberra in April, a group of Australia’s leading futurists are gathering in Melbourne this weekend for the ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’. The futurists attending the summit work across Australia, in corporate, not for profit and Government agencies in a variety of fields…
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Read More >Marcus Barber offers his thoughts on How to Stop Japanese Whaling in its Tracks and suggests that raiding boats won’t do the job. Instead he suggests that the key to negotiating with the Japanese is to have the Japanese people do the work. And to encourage them to do so we must begin to talk…
Read More >If an ‘Inconvenient Truth’ raised the profile of global warming to the general population, it appears that a willingness by political leaders to take appropriate action to mitigate the possible ramifications is still very much lacking. It is such a pity. No one who holds the Global Warming scenario close to heart wants to be…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will join Tim Cox on 774 ABC as part of the conversation hour next week Tim is filling in for Jon Faine whilst he takes a well deserved break and Marcus will join him for the conversation hour kicking off at 11am on Thursday the 13th of December, where they’ll discuss…
Read More >At the AustForesight 2007 Conference, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber and fellow Futurist Steve Tighe presented their take on what is required to enable futurists to be seen as more relevant to the Corporate world. Drawing on their shared experience as facilitator and client, they detailed the journey of foresight and futures across the past 50…
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