FORECASTING The Present & The Future

Janet Poley, President
American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)


Cornell University
November 29, 2000

Text Only (Outline) View


  1. FORECASTING The Present & The Future
    Janet Poley
    President
    American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC)
  2. Developing Global Learning Communities
    • Worldwide Relationships - Interconnections Growing - families, education, businesses, communication, transportation
    • Worldwide Digital Divide
    • Language and Cultural Issues
    • Ethics Is Key
  3. Learning Oriented Policies in A Bandwidth Crazy World
  4. Why Build GLCs
    • Knowledge Is World’s Best Hope
    • Greater Participation Enriches Possibilities
    • Maslow Had It Right - building from basic human needs to self-actualization
    • Cooperative Structures Must Be Built Together
  5. Growth in DE
    • Fastest growing segment in higher ed
    • On-Campus market large
    • Movement toward “one price” per credit
    • Estimated to be $2 billion by 2003 (Merrill Lynch)
    • Not just a matter of learning environments

  6. Global Transformation through Learning
    • We Are In Transition
    • Affordable Global Access Is Important
    • Focus on What We Can Do with New Telecommunications Options - Not Just Networks
    • Communication and Understanding that Communities are Built on Relationships

  7. The Four Ethical Issues
    • Privacy
    • Accuracy
    • Property
    • Accessibility
  8. State of the Global Net
    • Increasingly wireless-U.S. lagging
    • More languages - English 51% over-all:78% of websites-96% e-commerce
    • Developing countries lag (Africa)
    • Venture Capitals shifting outside U.S.-14 of 46 in U.S.(Europe, Asia-Pacific)
    • Open Systems:SCORM,IMS,XML,WAP
  9. Global Consortia
    • Organized Efforts Can Lead the Way
    • Developmental Approach Is Key
    • Laboratories for Experiential Learning
    • Long-term Linkages
    • Trust Takes Time
    • Creative and Collaborative Problem Solving Become Possibl
  10. Brian Hawkins:Educause
    • New Markets Smaller than Predicted? Where,What language,Willing to Pay Public-on-campus residential course demand increasing Understanding economics/cross-subsidies is critical Institutions cannot participate effectively alone

  11. Cooperation Essential
    • “Already we see consortia emerging among institutions aligned as strong competitors in a submarket - more will be formed.”

  12. Partnerships
    • Success may come through non-profit and for-profit partnerships creating the new learning environments
  13. The Technology
    • Less Obtrusive
    • Convergence
    • Appliances
    • Unbundling
    • Learning Environment/One Piece
  14. Hawkins Continued
    • Significant Market
    • Shakeout:process driven by partnerships & consortia and ultimately the marketplace
    • No untold riches here
    • Colleges and universities will be buyers
    • Alternative models will continue to emerge
  15. The Digital Divide
    • Rural/remote
    • Underserved
    • Largely income based
    • Currently getting wider
  16. ADEC Vision No More Back Roads
    • Reach into communities less than 25,000
    • HBCUs, Tribal Colleges, Hispanic Serving
    • Developing Countries
  17. Internet 2 and 3?
    • Convergence - text, audio, video
    • Aggregation - teaching templates, middleware, business processes -many will be gone - 2-3 surviving models
    • Business models - no magic answers yet - private sector is poised
    • Labor question and international partnerships
  18. Next Generation DE
    • XML
    • Sharing of Learning/Electronic Objects-Open Systems - Interoperability
    • Collaboration - Improved Tools - Both Synchronous and Asynchronous
    • Network of Servers - Caching - Getting Over the Ditch
  19. The High-Applications
    • High-quality video/audio distribution
    • Interactive collaboration environments
    • Visualization of remote data
    • Remote control of instruments
    • Multimedia enhanced e-business applications
  20. Digital Universities
    • Digital Universities
    • High Performance Internet Applications
    • Intelligent Collaboratories
    • Digital Technology
    • Transfer Systems
    • Information Engineering Applications
    • E-Commerce and Business Processes
    • New Business Model
  21. New Applications
    • Virtual clinics, laboratories
    • Net-based virtual auditoriums
    • Animations
    • Streaming and teleconferencing
    • Internet voice telephone
    • Revived MOOs and MUDs
    • Graphical virtual reality
  22. Best of On-Line
    • Learner Centered
    • Learner Motivation Critical
    • Learning Environments/Resources only one part
    • Communication with Faculty and Peers Critical
    • Assessments - Cont/Summative
  23. New View
    • Less Canned
    • More Design
    • Big Opportunities for Software
    • May Really Be More Like CAD/CAM
    • Things We Are Doing Now with Blackboard,WEB-CT etc. -Resources
    • Convergence with Administrative Systems
  24. Improving Access and Applications
    • Bandwidth offers “realism” with instructional potential for more concrete and complex symbols and visuals
    • Bandwidth offers “voice” and affect
    • Two-way offers active engagement and adaptation to learners
    • Synchronous offers immediacy and responsiveness
  25. Creating Success
    • “The most successful educational organizations - the ones that others will want to emulate - will be establishing design sensibilities that create new ideas for marketplaces as well as marketplaces for ideas.” Michael Schrage Educom Review

  26. The Full Motion Video Myth for Learning Applications
    • Television & Internet Convergence
    • 50 Years of Television Research - What Makes A Difference?
    • Sight, Sound, Text, Cueing
    • Content,Packaging,Dissemination, Manipulation,Terminals
    • Attribute Analysis, Virtual Reality

  27. Framework for Successful Change
    • In Colleges/Universities top-down bureaucratic,centralized corporate strategies don’t work and are counterproductive
    • Scarce resource today is not Bandwidth, but people who can create and innovate in the knowledge age
      R. Birnbaum
      How Academic Leadership Works - Jossey Bass
  28. Maslow Had It Right
    • The more evolved people get, the more psychologically healthy they get. More enlightened management policy is necessary in order to survive in competition, and the more handicapped an enterprise with an authoritarian policy will be.
      A. H. Maslow
      Maslow On Management - John Wiley
  29. Successful Collaborative Outcomes
    • Competence
    • Shared, Understood Goal
    • Mutual Respect, Tolerance & Trust
    • Creation and Manipulation of Shared Spaces
    • Multiple Forms of Representation
    • Continuous Communication
  30. Collaboration (cont.)
    • Formal and Informal Environments
    • Clear Lines of Responsibility but Not Restrictive Boundaries
    • Decisions Not by Consensus
    • Physical Presence Not Necessary
    • Selective Use of Outsiders for Insights
      Michael Schrage
      No More Team