While Blackboard created a lot of angst in the e-learning community last year when they tried to enforce their patent on learning management systems, they are the dominant e-learning provider (helped by their WebCT acquisition) in the United States with ~80% market share. While I personally disagree with their use of proprietary, closed systems, they have a series of white papers that closely fit with our vision of the future of learning. Of particular interest (p.14-16 of this Leadership White Paper - PDF link):
A successful 21st century university is student-centered institution, unconstrained by time and place, that operates simultaneously, in a local and global context, constantly measuring and communicating its progress, and continually renewing its commitment to student, community, and the economic competitiveness of the country.
This also caught my attention:
The era of students attending one institution, being loyal to the brand and learning through a single set of offerings is over. Students surf life and options in the real world just as they do virtually.
The authors argue that these changes will require a new institutional mindset, redefined by (a) institutional flexibility, (b) student mobility, (c) pervasive technology and (d) seeing the institution as an investment, rather than as a cost center. Within these three pages, they also hypothesize ‘What if’ scenarios for students, faculty and administrators. For example, what if students could “access engaging, interactive activities and assessments that support course and personal learning goals, anywhere, anytime?” What if faculty could “spend less time on administration and more time on research, teaching and community?” What if administrators could “build alumni loyalty and provide students with high-quality, branded, customized, service-orientated learning and living experiences that they will want to return to throughout their careers as learners?”
While I can’t help but think that a group of consultants - independent of Blackboard corporate DNA - came up with this Vision for the 21st Century Campus, these three pages are very much in line with our thinking here.
Hank.
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Related links:
Blackboard Whitepapers: link
Blackboard patent details: link
Fellow Canadian, Steven Downes’ Blackboard patent discussion page: link
Ken,
this series of posts focuses on the requirements for the provider side. But learning always involves two parties. It is not a service where the service user can sit down passively and say “make me learned”. It is not a haircut.
The developments discussed here always presuppose idealistic learners that you only discover in small and rare biotopes like CPod.
I think that much more important than new teaching systems, new teachers, new teaching materials, new teaching approaches, and new teaching technologies are in fact *new learners*.
The learners will need to drive the change. If they are mentally to inflexible to actively look for alternatives, search for information, digest and interconnect it, and be willing to go beyond memorizing a manageable stack of lecture slides, everything will stay the same.
Henning,
This is actually Hank’s post, so I’ll let him answer you.
Ken