Penn State Learning Design Community Hub

Recently the Economist Magazine published a report on how technology will shape the future of higher education. The report is based on an online survey and subsequent interviews with representatives from the corporate world and higher education conducted over July and August of this year. The Economist partnered with Apple and the New Media Consortium, the folks whuo put out The Horizon Report, to make it happen. The aim of the study was to see what how corporate executives and educators perceive technology influencing higher education in the coming years. You can download the report here: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Future-of-Higher-Ed-(NMC).pdf. The report is a worthwhile read.

One of the interesting pieces of information to come out of the report include the belief that collaboration between universities and the corporate world will increase and that it will be the corporate world driving this. And, the quality of the university's technology will be a key factor in whether or not a businnes will chose to partner with a specific institution. According to the report, businesses are looking for universities that not only produce students who are knowledgeable in their field but also who are equipped to leverage technology in the workplace. Not in the report but commonly known to us is, we do know potential students are chosing universities in a large part based their technology.

Other emerging trends include the rise of both cross-disciplinary education and cross-univeristy education. The belief is that the 21st century university will be a global entity where students will be able to customize their field of study through inter-disciplinary work and by selecting the appropriate courses from any of several institutions.

This model presents any number of challenges to us. Challenges that require a rethinking of the entire university structure from students chosing a major to faculty tenure and rewards. Not to mention how learning materials are delivered and how student progress is measured. It makes it an exiting time to be in the field and have an opportunity to shape the outcome.

Related links:

The2008 FACAC Survey Report (uploaded here)

The Horizon Project Wiki