I’ve been thinking about that Clay Shirky talk that I posted below for a few days now, and I’m starting to come to some conclusions. Here we go:
Conclusion 1)
These changes have just begun to affect higher ed. One example is open source textbooks, which should scare the publishing industry to death. Another example is free online classes being available to everyone, MIT is ahead of the curve here.
Conclusion 2)
i really have no clue how these changes are going to affect higher ed. I think that students will always want the on-campus college experience; at this point, that cannot be replicated elsewhere. But is it possible to recreate it? Absolutely! This ought to scare all of us working in institutions of higher learning to death. Listen again to what Shirky said “the institutions are being replaced with a collaborative infrastructure that is much less cost prohibitive”. The take home message: change is coming and you can’t stop it because you can’t COMPETE with it.
Conclusion 3)
We need to either get on board or get left behind. This is one of the reasons I blog, youtube and twitter; I want to be on the cutting edge of what’s going on in the world and be a leader in the revolution, not a follower. The world is changing and if it hasn’t affected higher ed yet, it will. The signs are there. Change is coming.
