Technological advancements of the past few decades have fundamentally changed the social culture of learning. Mobile phones, personal computers, wireless Internet, satellite TV and radio, mp3 players, DVDs, smartphones — these innovations have changed the way people live and the way society interacts. With this change comes a responsibility for educators to adapt teaching methods and incorporate new technology into the classroom as a means of improving the educational experience.
In 1997, Peter Drucker, a self-described “social ecologist,” predicted that in 30 years, big university campuses would be relics [1]“Universities won’t survive,” he said in a Forbes magazine interview. “It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.” That was 13 years ago. While traditional university enrollment remains high, the current financial meltdown caused university endowment reductions in the past year, and online enrollment spiked at online for-profit institutions like University of Phoenix[2].
Society as a whole is drastically changing. In our new “participatory society,” individuals no longer want to be dictated to — they want to participate, and businesses are responding. Companies are setting up accounts on social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to have conversations with current and potential future clients. Many online newspapers allow commenting on articles or offer discussion boards to their readers as a means of engaging their audience and making people feel invested in their community. What used to be one-way communication — media source to audience — is becoming more and more a two-way conversation in which the audience is an equal participant and stakeholder. And technology is the platform that enables that increased participation.
The classroom should not be any different. If the purpose of education is to broaden horizons, why not bring technologies into the classroom that do so to a much greater extent than possible before? Technology can open up a world of possibilities for teachers, scholars, researchers and students. Universities on opposite sides of the globe can now use technology to collaborate on research and share ideas. Use of the Internet by both students and faculty goes beyond mere research; it becomes a composition tool and a vehicle for creating and sharing knowledge.
But advancement does not rest on technology alone. In the midst of historic technological change, education itself must also evolve. In a MacArthur Foundation report, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins wrote “It matters what tools are available to a culture, but it matters more what that culture chooses to do with those tools. A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends.” [3]
New media literacy should also be a primary educational goal. The profound way in which technology has affected the way we communicate with each other demands that students develop new media literacy skills for “working within social networks, for pooling knowledge within a collective intelligence, for negotiating across cultural differences that shape the governing assumptions in different communities, and for reconciling conflicting bits of data to form a coherent picture of the world around them,” according to Jenkins.
In order to prepare students for the participatory societies of the 21st century, it is crucial to take action on key aspects of American University’s educational infrastructure today. This infrastructure includes the computing and telecommunications resources of the institution, the human capital of our faculty and students, and the ways in which they intersect both in and out of the classroom. While American has been adept at taking measured steps forward in these areas, it is time to more fully embrace these new media technologies to ensure the success of students and faculty. We have identified four core areas for improvement:
Media literacy
Wireless and cloud computing technologies
Data visualization
Hybrid curricula and simulation
In the following consultant’s report, we offer a road map that can take our university to the forefront of higher education, where technology and ideas intersect to shape the minds of future generations. There are both immediate and long-term actions American University can take to improve and prepare for the 21st century learning society.
Here are specific recommendations from each core research area:
Media Literacy: The university is making great progress in keeping its students up to speed with new media tools. However, increasing the effectiveness of our social media strategy, implementing video channels on YouTubeEDU, YouTube and Videolectures.net, and exploring open source models for e-learning tools will further our academic mission.
Wireless and Cloud Computing Technologies: Although the university is making significant strides in rolling out its new 802.11n network within two years, more effort should be made to make that transition by September 2011. An explosion of “bandwidth hog” devices such as the Apple iPad could put serious strains on the school’s current a/b/g network. The university staff and officials should not lose site of the fact that cloud computing has a lot of potential as a learning/teaching/collaboration tool. Moving applications to the clouds could also create an opportunity to reallocate IT staff to develop innovative solutions to meeting the AU community’s technology needs.
Data Visualization: American should require all students entering the university to purchase a laptop meeting certain specifications so classrooms don’t have to undergo a major redesign to support data visualization. Appropriate support for faculty should be provided, including access to data, software, online tutorials and training, as well as to trained developers who can help guide them through the data visualization process.
Hybrid Curricula: The university should develop better technological literacy, which may include university-provided training and support for both faculty and students. In addition, it would be prudent to educate and survey faculty about offering serious games to students.
In order for students to succeed in the marketplace of ideas in the 21st century, they need to be literate in the language of new media. These new media literacies are not merely technological skill sets, but necessary social skills that will enable students to be “equal participants in the societies of tomorrow.” [4]
This report is available for print or download here.
Introduction
In 1997, Peter Drucker, a self-described “social ecologist,” predicted that in 30 years, big university campuses would be relics [1]“Universities won’t survive,” he said in a Forbes magazine interview. “It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.” That was 13 years ago. While traditional university enrollment remains high, the current financial meltdown caused university endowment reductions in the past year, and online enrollment spiked at online for-profit institutions like University of Phoenix[2].
Society as a whole is drastically changing. In our new “participatory society,” individuals no longer want to be dictated to — they want to participate, and businesses are responding. Companies are setting up accounts on social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to have conversations with current and potential future clients. Many online newspapers allow commenting on articles or offer discussion boards to their readers as a means of engaging their audience and making people feel invested in their community. What used to be one-way communication — media source to audience — is becoming more and more a two-way conversation in which the audience is an equal participant and stakeholder. And technology is the platform that enables that increased participation.
The classroom should not be any different. If the purpose of education is to broaden horizons, why not bring technologies into the classroom that do so to a much greater extent than possible before? Technology can open up a world of possibilities for teachers, scholars, researchers and students. Universities on opposite sides of the globe can now use technology to collaborate on research and share ideas. Use of the Internet by both students and faculty goes beyond mere research; it becomes a composition tool and a vehicle for creating and sharing knowledge.
But advancement does not rest on technology alone. In the midst of historic technological change, education itself must also evolve. In a MacArthur Foundation report, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, Henry Jenkins wrote “It matters what tools are available to a culture, but it matters more what that culture chooses to do with those tools. A focus on expanding access to new technologies carries us only so far if we do not also foster the skills and cultural knowledge necessary to deploy those tools toward our own ends.” [3]
New media literacy should also be a primary educational goal. The profound way in which technology has affected the way we communicate with each other demands that students develop new media literacy skills for “working within social networks, for pooling knowledge within a collective intelligence, for negotiating across cultural differences that shape the governing assumptions in different communities, and for reconciling conflicting bits of data to form a coherent picture of the world around them,” according to Jenkins.
In order to prepare students for the participatory societies of the 21st century, it is crucial to take action on key aspects of American University’s educational infrastructure today. This infrastructure includes the computing and telecommunications resources of the institution, the human capital of our faculty and students, and the ways in which they intersect both in and out of the classroom. While American has been adept at taking measured steps forward in these areas, it is time to more fully embrace these new media technologies to ensure the success of students and faculty. We have identified four core areas for improvement:
In the following consultant’s report, we offer a road map that can take our university to the forefront of higher education, where technology and ideas intersect to shape the minds of future generations. There are both immediate and long-term actions American University can take to improve and prepare for the 21st century learning society.
Here are specific recommendations from each core research area:
Media Literacy: The university is making great progress in keeping its students up to speed with new media tools. However, increasing the effectiveness of our social media strategy, implementing video channels on YouTubeEDU, YouTube and Videolectures.net, and exploring open source models for e-learning tools will further our academic mission.
Wireless and Cloud Computing Technologies: Although the university is making significant strides in rolling out its new 802.11n network within two years, more effort should be made to make that transition by September 2011. An explosion of “bandwidth hog” devices such as the Apple iPad could put serious strains on the school’s current a/b/g network. The university staff and officials should not lose site of the fact that cloud computing has a lot of potential as a learning/teaching/collaboration tool. Moving applications to the clouds could also create an opportunity to reallocate IT staff to develop innovative solutions to meeting the AU community’s technology needs.
Data Visualization: American should require all students entering the university to purchase a laptop meeting certain specifications so classrooms don’t have to undergo a major redesign to support data visualization. Appropriate support for faculty should be provided, including access to data, software, online tutorials and training, as well as to trained developers who can help guide them through the data visualization process.
Hybrid Curricula: The university should develop better technological literacy, which may include university-provided training and support for both faculty and students. In addition, it would be prudent to educate and survey faculty about offering serious games to students.
In order for students to succeed in the marketplace of ideas in the 21st century, they need to be literate in the language of new media. These new media literacies are not merely technological skill sets, but necessary social skills that will enable students to be “equal participants in the societies of tomorrow.” [4]
This report is available for print or download here.
[1]Robert Lenzner and Stephen S. Johnson (March 10, 1997) Seeing things as they really are. Retrieved February 22, 2010 http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/0310/5905122a.html
[2] Chronicle of Higher Education, For-Profit Colleges Change Higher Education’s Landscape. Retrieved February 23, 2010 http://chronicle.com/article/For-Profit-Colleges-Change-/64012/
[3] Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century: MacArthur Report, pg. 8.
[4] Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century: MacArthur Report, pg. 20-21.