NETWORK TECHNOLOGY, DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS AND THE FUTURE OF THE ACADEMYMark Smithers

Online Education Services

@marksmithers

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The views presented here are mine and do not represent the views of my employer.

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DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS

It’s been interesting watching this unfold in music, books, newspapers, TV, but nothing has ever been as interesting to me as watching it happen in my own backyard. Higher education is now being disrupted; our MP3 is the massive open online course (or MOOC), and our Napster is Udacity, the education startup.

FORECASTING THE DEMISE OF THE UNIVERSITY

"Universities won't survive. The future is outside the traditional campus, outside the traditional classroom. Distance learning is coming on fast.“- Peter Drucker, Forbes magazine 1997

DEFINING DI

Christensen describes disruptive innovation as:

“Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream”

“Disruptive technologies bring to market a very different value proposition than had been available previously. Generally, disruptive technologies underperform established products in mainstream markets. But they have features that a few fringe (and generally new) customers value. Products based on disruptive technologies are typically cheaper, simpler, smaller and, frequently, more convenient to use”

DEFINING DI

THE DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

DIAGRAM

MOOCS

MOOC DEVELOPMENT

MOOC CRITICS

AND FINALLY

THOMAS KUHN

Peter Sloep has described the difference between MOOC protagonists and antagonists as being an example of Kuhn’s ‘incommensurability’.

MOOC RETENTION RATES

http://mfeldstein.com/emerging-student-patterns-in-moocs-a-revised-graphical-view/

STANFORD AI 2011

“Peter and I taught more students AI, than all AI professors in the world combined.”

- Sebastian Thrun, 2011

http://lesschmidt.net/moocs-near-the-peak-of-inflated-expectations/

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Licensed CC 3.0 http://www.openeducationweek.org/oer-dossier/

OPEN BADGES

#OPENBADGES

CRITICS OF BADGES VIEW THEM LIKE THIS

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…WHICH IS, OF COURSE, ELITIST CLAPTRAP

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SOCIAL PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION

THE FUTURE

MESSY

DISPERSED

GROWTH

SUSTAINABLE

LEARNING IN THE WORKPLACE

SOME IN UNIVERSITIES QUESTION WHETHER YOU CAN DEVELOP CRITICAL THINKING

SKILLS IF YOU DON’T GO TO UNIVERSITY

…WHICH IS, OF COURSE, ELITIST CLAPTRAP

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WHAT SHOULD UNIVERSITIES DO?

WHAT DOES A UNIVERSITY DO NOW?

The three purposes of the University? – To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.

I have sometimes thought of it [the university] as a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking.

- Clark Kerr

THE MULTIVERSITY

COMPETE

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ADAPT

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SPECIALISE

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RETREAT

CAN THE UNIVERSITY CHANGE?

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DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS

In the academy, we lecture other people every day about learning from history. Now its our turn, and the risk is that we’ll be the last to know that the world has changed, because we can’t imagine—really cannot imagine—that story we tell ourselves about ourselves could start to fail. Even when it’s true. Especially when it’s true.

- Clay Shirky, 2012