This document discusses competing visions of the future of higher education. It outlines three main points: 1) past predictions about technology transforming education that both overestimated short-term impacts and underestimated long-term effects, 2) two major competing worldviews for the digital future of education that focus on either a knowledge economy or knowledge society, and 3) the need to "unbox" thinking about education transformation rather than just adopting new technologies, as real change requires transformative mindsets rather than just new skills.

2. @mbrownz

3. @mbrownz

7. Globalization
Population
Mobility
Demographic
Changes
Changing
Nature of Work
Unbundling
Artificial
Intelligence
Population
Growth
Openness
Costs of
Higher Education

9. 1. Past lessons
2. Competing futures
3. Breaking out of the box
Outline….

12. 1. Past lessons

14. “With the coming of the New Media, the need for
print on paper will rapidly diminish. The day will
soon arrive when the world’s literature will be
available from The Automatic Library at the
mere pressing of a button”
(Uzanne, 1994; cited
in McFarlane, 1997, p.173).

15. (Uzanne, 1894; cited
in McFarlane, 1997, p.173).
“With the coming of the New Media, the need for
print on paper will rapidly diminish. The day will
soon arrive when the world’s literature will be
available from The Automatic Library at the
mere pressing of a button”

16. “I believe that the motion picture is destined to
revolutionize our educational system and that
in a few years it will supplant largely, if not
entirely, the use of textbooks,”
(Thomas Edison, 1922)

17. “We will undoubtedly have lectures of every
conceivable kind presented to us right in our
homes, when practical television arrives,
possibly a year or two off.”
Short Wave Craft, 1935

18. Project
Plato 1960s
https://youtu.be/Wj8cW9fxuM8

19. The old
‘pump, pump, DUMP’
model of pedagogy

20. “In 50 years… there will be
only 10 institutions in the
world delivering higher
education and Udacity has a
shot at being one of them”
(cited in Leckart, 2013, P.28)
In a March 2012 Wired cover story, Sebastian Thrun
predicted:

21. “Technology-enhanced learning involves an ongoing
cycle of hype, hope and disappointment”
(Gouseti, 2010).

22. Gartner
Hype
Cycle

23. “Resilience requires
adaptation and evolution to new
environmental conditions, but retains core identity”
(Weller & Anderson, 2013, p.55).

24. On-Campus
in Class
Formal
Informal
Physical VirtualUnboxing

25. Off-Campus
in Class
Off-Campus
Out of Class
On-Campus
in Class
Formal
Informal
On-Campus
out of Class
Physical VirtualUnboxing

28. “We tend to overestimate the effect of a
technology in the short run and
underestimate the effect in the long run.”
Amara’s Law

29. 2. Competing futures

30. 30
http://futureuniversities.com
2018

31. 2018

33. Different interest groups
and stakeholders are borrowing
the same ‘languages of
persuasion’ to legitimize very
different agenda

35. • Threat
• Unbundling
• Re-imagination
Crisis •
Disruption •
Democratization •
TWO MAJOR WORLDVIEWS
COMPETING
DIGITAL
FUTURES

36. Knowledge Economy
• Threat
• Unbundling
• Re-imagination
Crisis •
Disruption •
Democratization •
TWO MAJOR WORLDVIEWS
COMPETING
DIGITAL
FUTURES

37. “And we’ve got to bring on the competition — open the
schoolhouse doors and let parents choose the best school for
their children. Education reformers call this school choice, charter
schools, vouchers, even opportunity scholarships. I call it competition
— the American way.”
Donald Trump, in his
book “The America
We Deserve”

38. Knowledge Economy
• Threat
• Unbundling
• Re-imagination
Crisis •
Disruption •
Democratization •
TWO MAJOR WORLDVIEWS
Knowledge Society
COMPETING
DIGITAL
FUTURES

39. “Education has a crucial role to play in laying the foundations
of a society that is more inclusive, participatory and
equal...” The President said “…the role of the university in
enabling citizens to develop the tools to address the great challenges
of our time – global poverty, climate change and
sustainability – was vital.

41. Education
in
Change
Education
for
Change
Navigating Through Entangled Narratives
COMPETING
DIGITAL
FUTURES

43. Photo by
Daniel Jensen on Unsplash

44. 3. Breaking out of the box

46. Transformative mindsets rather than
technical skillsets matter most in unboxing
better learning futures for all

47. Bolting or Unboxing?

48. @NIDL_DCU
Innovation Accelerator
Change Space
Ideas Lab

49. Further
Info
http://www4.dcu.ie/nidl

50. Business
Models

52. ‘You can’t just unbox something
and expect the latest shiny new
thing will transform pedagogy
because it looks good’

54. A conclusion is the place
where you got tired of thinking

56. Go raibh maith agaibh!
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom”
Francis Bacon