In response to Dave and George’s request for thoughts about the future of education, I offer the following parody. This twisted view of the future of education is completely undesirable, and yet completely possible. What will you do to prevent it from happening?
Just heard from my friend Bobbi Kurshan, the Executive Director of Curriki, that she will be leaving that post on March 1st. I wish her well. Curriki will be looking for a new ED shortly and will very much continue to stay active in the OER space (much like Hewlett has continued to do after Mike, Cathy, and Phoenix left). So, unless I’m missing someone, the list of OER leaders who have moved on in the last few years now includes: ...
The hype continues to build around Chris Anderson’s upcoming book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Malcolm Gladwell’s review “Priced to Sell: Is free the future?” in the New Yorker rubbed me the wrong way. Apparently, it rubbed Seth Godin the wrong way, too. In his response, Malcolm is Wrong, he speaks plainly so that no one can misunderstand: [Malcolm’s] first argument that makes no sense is, “should we want free to be the future?” ...
In my science fiction tale of the future of the open education movement, the OpenCourseWars, I predict a time when the federal government creates a funding pool to support the creation of open courses to which the public would have free access: In the most unbelievable part of the history of openness in education (for me as a native West Virginian, anyway), West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd announced that his current term in office would be his last. (I think he was like 108 at this point.) His final piece of legislation would be a third Morrill Act that would support the land grant institutions in creating OCW-like projects to provide increased access to educational opportunity to the general public. The so-called “Byrd Bill” passed, creating a small pot of dedicated monies for public schools to draw on in order to support their OCW initiatives. ...
Here are my slides from the Dean’s Lecture at University of Saskatchawan on Thursday. Had a great crowd out for the talk and a great time giving it. Regular readers will recognize material in the second half of the talk, but the first half contains a photo-only version of the Trucker Tale followed by some historical analysis ranging from roughly 1000-1600. This new historical analysis looks at lessons learned by the early church in its struggle to control access to the scriptures. I’m still building and expanding this argument, but I think there are many useful things for publishers (who try to control access to research) and university faculty (who try to control access to teaching and learning materials) to learn from the church’s encounter with the people’s demand for information and a new technology called the printing press. Comments welcome. ...
Even though I’m on vacation, things with the potential to completely transform the way we teach and learn come along so rarely I had to share. It’s called Google Wave. Check out Tim O’Reilly’s writeup, “What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today?” and the Google Wave homepage.
About a year ago, I finished 2005-2012: The OpenCourseWars, and thought it quite a fun exercise to try to forecast where things are headed. A few months ago Trey called me a futurist, and I chuckled. Then the Deseret News called me Nostradamus, and I cringed. Perhaps I let what others say about me influence me too much, but I have been spending more and more time thinking about the future of the movement. ...
It’s not just these guys in suits who react this way when they learn about Twitter and Facebook… Most of the university administrators around the globe who hear my talks react the same way! =)
Here’s a draft of a chapter I am writing for an upcoming book on open education. It’s (supposedly) written from some time decades in the future, and is part autobiography and part history. I’d love any feedback you have… ...
So I’m sitting here in the annual Hewlett Foundation Open Education Grantees meeting thinking… what is the future of open education? Where is it going? I think there is only one answer: localization. ...