In a post today by Seth Godin, titled The coming melt-down in higher education (as seen by a marketer), there is a list of 5 items about why higher education is in a melt-down like the rest of the economy.
His 5 points are all issues I’ve discussed over the past year.
Another huge issue that Seth could have mentioned is the mindset of higher education is limited to ‘now’.
Our children will not be signed up for land-based universitie
s when they go to college. Their classrooms will be virtual, their classmates will be diverse, their assignments will reach all corners of the world and their teachers will be students themselves.
The universities and colleges that dare to
step out of the box and focus on what babies born in 2005 and on will need will be the ones that survive.
The holy ‘degree‘ will be something that our children get because they want it on their walls because it looks nice, not because it does anything to enrich their lives.
The babies born today seem to know how to use a speed dial on the cell phone, turn on the tv and the stereo, place buds in their ears and select items on IPads. They click cameras, play with keyboards and smile into webcams.
These babies will not be satisfied sitting in a classroom looking at Powerpoints or reading static books.
- What will the baby face when he’s ready for college?
- Got Guts? Breaking the LMS Mold
- Online Innovations: Endless Possibilities?
- Cyberspace Classrooms: A New Reality
- An Education or a Degree?
Thanks Seth!
Happily ... after retirement 