Technology and the transformation of higher education

Technological, cultural and economic forces have been combining to push the adoption of instructional technology in higher education. These forces include:

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•Growth of student population-- Colleges have limited physical infrastructure

•Aging of the student population-- Colleges must be convenient and flexible, students are more outcome-oriented and less "college experience oriented"

•Changing economy -- information economy demands life-long learning and retraining

•Competition from private educators -- often totally on-line, they are laser-focused on advancing student employability

•Other knowledge producing organizations -- libraries, PBS and others are knowledge wahrehouses

•Shrinking digital divide -- while gaps exist, most of the population has internet access

•Academic currency -- students want easy transfer of credits

A group of Ohio leaders in Distance Learning examined the trends shaping higher education and distance learning and produced the Distance and e-Learning in Ohio: A Report of the Ohio Learning Network Task Force on the Future of Distance and e-Learning in Ohio, in April 0f 2004. Among the emerging trends are:
Where these trends are leading is certainly far from an exact science, however, Global Business Network enagaged in scenario thinking about the future of technology and education. A discussion of there methods can be read at the Learning Circuits Blog and a prsentation of the scenarios can be viewed at Macromedia. Here is a schematic that summarizes their findings:

Web of Confidence: Technology allows for creative individual learning experiences; knowledge in the network, not “wharehoused;” technology is a tool of creativity not information transfer, new models of teaching and learning emerge.

UChoose: Local control, patchy adoption of technology, problems with interoperability and competing standards. Faculty are free to develop courses on-line on an individual basis.

BTF: Economic or political shocks lead to fear of innovation. Established sources of power slow things down and exert control. We stick with a traditional model of education.

Virtually Vanilla: Traditional powers remain in control but embrace on-line learning (eg. “Microsoft acquires Harvard”). We replicate traditional education on-line, standardize offerings for economic efficiency and traditional accountability measures. Most current DL offerings through colleges fall into the Virtually Vanilla category.