The Future of Course Mangement Systems

This one is a no brainer, because course management systems are not going away. Yes, I said it, despite what you read and hear they are here for the foreseeable future.

If course management systems are not going away, will they change? Yes, but not in ways that people think. Right now all you see, hear, and read about is that today’s students are "social." That may or not be true, but let's assume that it is for want of this discussion. People were social before Twitter and Facebook came along and will continue to be social when they fade away to be replaced with some type of "virtual reality" social tool, maybe a "my augmented life" app; hurry and trademark that, it could be worth millions some day :-)

Just because a student uses mobile or social technology to find out where their friends are or what they ate for breakfast has absolutely no bearing on teaching and learning. Do you think that an instructor is going to begin posting their whereabouts on Foursquare, just in-case a student happens to be in the vicinity and wants to confirm what the "c" stands for in the equation e=mc2? I doubt it!

Returning to the "social" part of the conversation, students were engaging in social activity when they played in the playground at recess. They were engaging in social activity when they picked-up the telephone and called a friend to see if they wanted to come out and play. They were socializing when they were using the AOL chat tool back in the day. Tomorrow they will be using something else, so what! None of this has to do with the classroom or learning. Yes, students can learn from one another, they learn how to play baseball by playing, observing, and interacting with friends. But the transfer of "new" knowledge does not occur without a content system expert being available to assist in the knowledge transfer! You know, someone who can fill-in the missing holes in the available data.

So what will a course management system of the future morph into? Here are a few possibilities:

1. Automatic "syncing" of course materials to any device or cloud storage service selected by the learner in a format of their choosing.
2. Resources, e.g., an uploaded document that uses the "intelligence" of the course management system to automatically "index" and link to external resources that expand upon the concepts contained in the uploaded document.
3. Course resources, files, and links that update themselves based upon the path a user takes though a course.
4. Courses that revise themselves, i.e., the organization of the materials based upon posts that users make to course discussion boards, blogs, journals, and to external resources like Twitter, Facebook, insert next futuristic app here, etc.!
5. Courses that "automatically" pull resources from other instructors at other institutions and insert them into the learning path for a user, based on their posts, that are monitored by "adaptive" technologies.
6. Your thought goes here . . .

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the course management system, i.e., the surrogate instructor is not going away. I'm not talking about a file repository but an actual teacher.

The instructor's role will become more important than ever, because someone has to help a "novice" make sense of the overwhelming sensor inputs and available data. The real question to ask is: "What company will be first to build a system that automatically adapts to a learner, regardless how they learn?" No, I'm no fan of learning styles, but resources, i.e., learning materials, in the hands of a content expert can and will make a difference. Couple that with adaptive technology and you have a win-win situation or merging of technology with mind, maybe I'm speaking to the "singularity" popularized by Ray Kurzweil; what do you think?

The Role of the University - Part II

If the role of colleges and universities are going to change in this brave new world, then what will this change look like? Let us begin by looking at how these institutions will need to change.

First, students will no longer value a degree in a particular area that may not exist by the time they complete their studies. Students enroll in a degree program with the expectation that a field of study will be there when they enter the job market. With the rapid pace at which change is taking place, that expectation may be nothing more than wishful thinking. How many fields can you think of that have been radically altered, if not eliminated in the past 5-years, 10-years, your lifetime?

In this brave new world, the community colleges are best positioned to confront this brave new world. The mission of the community college is to serve the needs of the local community. They are positioned to change rapidly to meet the needs of this community. For example, a new area of expertise is required to work with law enforcement installing and repairing surveillance equipment. A community college can rapidly fill this need with a certificate and/or training program to prepare individuals to fill this need. The community colleges are able to address the changing dynamic that technology is forcing upon society.

What about the major research universities? The research institutions will continue to operate but the business model has become outdated and change will be forced on them. Some research intuitions will be able to adapt to this change better than others, but not all are ready for this change. For example, future students that enroll in research universities will be looking for careers in university and education rather than skills to obtain a job in the job market. Why? Because it will become more and more difficult to justify the expense of a university education, e.g., $200,000+ when there is no guarantee that a job will be waiting for you upon graduation, let alone a career in that field!

What about the colleges in the middle, i.e., the small and mid-size colleges? Well these guys are going to be fighting over every student dollar. They will be competing for the same students, not just the physical students that reside on campus or commute to-and-from campus, but online students. Competition will not just be between these institutions, but the for-profits that have the marketing budgets to advertise to prospective students. How many small and midsized colleges have an advertising budget to compete in their own market against these wall street traded corporations, let alone online to attract students? I’d be willing to bet, not many!

So the real battleground is only now beginning to reveal itself. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will survive unscathed? Who will be closing their doors? The jury’s still out on this . . .

The Role of the University - Part 1

Having traveled the world and worked with thousands of colleges and universities I learned one thing, that change has arrived and the future is going to be a dog-eat-dog world for each of us in higher education.

It has become obvious to me that the university model, which has served us well for, in some cases, hundreds of years will change. This change is going to happen whether we want it to or not.

I’d like to shift this conversation to that of a student for a minute to make my point. As a student I know that I will be embarking on 4, 5, or more careers; not jobs in a field, but rather entirely different careers. With that in mind, do I really have the time to “waste,” my time and money on a college education? Wouldn’t acquiring “certificates” or similar experience in areas that prepare me for my “next career” better serve me?

If you think that the above may possibly happen, or are seeing this “sea-change” currently happening, then what is the future of a college or university education? Think about this and return tomorrow for my thoughts on the subject!

Games, Gadgets, and Gizmos

Do you have the latest app? Are your students using it to its fullest potential? Do you teach or has technology replaced you as the content expert?

See where I'm going with this? Yep, I said it; technology is not the answer to all of the problems we face as educators, in and out of the classroom.

Do you believe that the learners of today are that much different from you when you were their age? Probably not, they may be more distracted, but taken as a whole I'd be willing to place a small bet that when it comes down to how they learn that nothing much has changed!

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Seriously, what do you think? If today's learners are not much different than you and I, then we should be able to help them learn. Yes, help them to learn how to learn! It's the old story rearing its head; you know the story, give a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish.

Technology is fantastic at displaying and providing access to facts, i.e., content. But it does not and will not replace good teaching; at least not for the foreseeable future. That is, not until the software learns how to adapt to a learner and revise and rearrange the materials and lessons constantly, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, etc., will the technology compete with the teacher.

For now and for the foreseeable future we can count on one truism, i.e., "A Good Teacher Is A Good Teacher" and NO amount of technology can replace the experience of a good teacher, you know, one that knows how to teach!

My two-cents,
Carl

Why e-Learning?

What do you think?

Do you really think that we have moved past Dewey?

Administrators are still talking about attendance! They continue to discuss the need for the lecture. They continue to see the learner as the vessel that we “pour” information into. WTF!

I installed the first web server back in 1991 …. and education, for whatever reason has not moved on? I have! So have today’s learners. We will continue to learn in ways that confound and confuse until . . . .