Thinking Out Loud
Table of Contents [hide]
UNIVERSITIES 2.0 - Do we need them?
What could they look like? The idea of University 2.0
Below you'll find some food for thought to get our minds started: feel free to comment and add your own...
End the University as We Know It
Mark C. Taylor, chairman of the religion department at Columbia, published an interesting an provokative article in the New York Times
"(The) mass-production university model has led to separation where there ought to be collaboration and to ever-increasing specialization.(...) And as departments fragment, research and publication become more and more about less and less. Each academic becomes the trustee not of a branch of the sciences, but of limited knowledge that all too often is irrelevant for genuinely important problems. (...) If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities (...) must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured."
The author proposes six major steps for reforming Higher Education; among these are:
- Restructure the curriculum: cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural.
- Abolish permanent departments, even for undergraduate education, and create problem-focused programs.
- Increase collaboration among institutions.
In a nutshell his teaching credo: "Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.”
Read the article here: NewYorkTimes - Op-Ed
What do you think about this article? Radical? utopist? euphemistic?
Share your comments, ideas here (if possible write your name):
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You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
Anti Teaching - a Universities 2.0 method?
Awesome Web ethnograph and Kansas State University Professor Michael Wesch on anti-teaching and how to engage today's students. Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions instead of giving the answers. Do you think Universities need more anti-teaching methods to sti mulate and harness collective intelligence?
Share your comments, reactions, ideas here (if possible write your name):
- Maybe it's time for a new way of interactive teaching. As Mr. Wesh stated, the face to face communication, teaching and the community in which we learn will stay the primary environment for learning success. The Technical University of Graz has tested some interesting approaches in new ways of interactive learning and uploaded a short (and also very funny) video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEozd5TJGi8 The results are impressing. I've opened a forums-thread about this video http://science-connect.net/?q=node/652 (Felix Montino)
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You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
How Universities are changing according to the European Science Foundation
A team led by Professor John Brennan of the U.K.’s Open University has just examined what we know about today’s higher education, and what we need to research further. In the report of the Higher Education Looking Forward (HELF) project, Brennan he and a multinational team of experts point out that universities are as affected by internationalisation and globalisation as other actors are, ranging from people and companies to whole countries. In the past, universities have educated national elites and produced skilled people needed for local or regional economies. Now they are producing people for the global economy, but their local mission continues. This can expose them to financial as well as academic risk, and can call for more financial and management resources than many universities have available.
The University of the Future - European Science Foundation
Share your comments, reactions, ideas here (if possible write your name):
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You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (HETL)
(by George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger)
Handbook_of_Emerging_Technologies_for_Learning.pdf
This handbook has been designed as a resource for educators planning to incorporate technologies in their teaching and learning activities.
HETL has been developed for a workshop delivered to Athabasca University faculty and reflects several years work with Peter at the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba.
Distance and online universities such as Athabasca, are well positioned to play a bridging role between tradition and emergence in transforming higher education. Universities that recognize the value of online learning and are able to "get the model right"1 will be well positioned to respond creatively to developing change pressures.
(To extend the dialogue on the concepts expressed in this book, and to ensure information is current, a wiki has been set up to solicit feedback, contributions, reactions, and present updates: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/etl)
Share your comments, reactions, ideas here (if possible write your name):
- I found this document one of the sharpest ones I have seen lately on the issue of learning technologies (Gunnar Bruckner)
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You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
What's happening on the ground?
The information above about University 2.0 may look very blue sky to many in African universities. So lets open some information about this sector ...
A critique of the role of universities
Yann Lebeau considers the political and social contexts and roles of universities in sub-Saharan Africa. Many "higher education institutions, and especially the major public universities (often of colonial origin), have often remained key sites for upward mobility strategies, critique and mobilisation on behalf of political change even in the face of authoritarian and corrupt regimes, in contexts of weakened national economies, and even when higher education (primarily encapsulated in public universities) fell out of favour of multilateral and bilateral cooperation agencies. In conclusion, the paper discusses current initiatives by international donors and development agencies to revitalise higher education in Africa, and ensure an 'expansion of tertiary institutions constructed as sites for personal advancement and private benefit' (The World Bank 2002) and how their managerial and cost-effective orientations may thin out the crucial public good dimension of African universities."
You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
Further Challenges
This paper reports on the the problematic situation faced by many African universities in an era of rising student numbers including challenges in the areas of funding, infrastructure, staff capacity, competition for student enrollments and sometimes limited strategic vision.
CHALLENGES FACING AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES - SELECTED ISSUES
Akilagpa Sawyerr, Association of African Universities
Sawyer recommends three key elements in a policy framework for revitalising African universities:
1) "It is absolutely essential to reassert the primary, irreducible responsibility of the state for the establishment and maintenance of an adequate higher education system, including universities."
2) "A key plank of the revitalisation of higher education in Africa and the derivation of the maximum social benefit from it has to be the restoration of the “public good” dimension of higher education."
3) "There needs to be negotiated and established a systems-level policy framework for the guidance of the strategic choices that have to be made by all players in the entire education sector."
He concludes that this is the right time for such a strategic intervention because "What is new is the acknowledgement by virtually all players that the present situation is untenable, that the conditions of yesteryear cannot now be replicated or restored, that no one has the simple correct answer, and that if appropriate, good faith effort and concessions are not made by all, the situation can only get much worse." Furthermore national governments and key donors are once again interested in interventions to revitalise universities.
You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
Development Needs
"The key question for Africa is how universities can be aligned to support economic development, the eradication of poverty and sustainable use of natural resources. Here research and knowledge, far from being ivory-tower pursuits, become critical to making poverty history and preparing countries to cope with disasters. However, to achieve this, research should be understood not only as a source of new knowledge, but also as a process that trains people to create more knowledge."
Africa needs research universities to fight poverty
Mammo Muchie
Mammo Muchie
You are also invited to contribute to the University 2.0 discussion forum we have launched
Progress: From a micro perspective
An example of an African University with a successful elearning project and an award winning Computer Science department with an innovative healthcare information project which uses mobile technologies:
"The Department of Computer Science at the University of Botswana has recently won a highly regarded Microsoft Research award. The award was announced by Microsoft to encourage researchers from around the world to pursue research in technology to improve health, education, and socio-economic conditions. The project, Integrated Healthcare Information Service through Mobile Technology in Botswana (IHISM), will investigate wireless and mobile technologies that enable users to access health information using PDAs and mobile phones. Only 17 out of 162 proposed projects have been awarded, with the University of Botswana the only one from Africa. Meeting the University’s vision to be leading academic centre of excellence in Africa and the world, this is a great success story."
Changing Universities with ICT – An eLearning case study from Botswana
"The Educational Technology Unit (EduTech) of the University of Botswana has managed to infuse learning technologies into teaching and learning processes successfully. Interest in e-learning continues to rise as the infrastructure becomes increasingly available and stable, and confidence of lecturers in using technologies grows through continuous support and training. eLearning has, however, reached a critical point – with the current technical and support infrastructure, further growth is limited if certain quality standards are to be maintained."
ICTs in Higher Education in 9 African countries
(PHEA Educational Technology Initiative)
In October 2006, the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) convened an Educational Technology Think Tank for Africa. Hosted by the Centre for Educational Technology (CET) at the University of Cape Town, the Think Tank played an advisory role to the Partnership. Comprising experts from the African continent, the Think Tank’s mandate was to help to guide the partnership’s educational technology initiative by providing intellectual input regarding possible strategies for supporting the innovative application of technology for the improvement of teaching and learning in the nine countries within which the partnership works.
ICTs and Higher Education in Africa
These countries are Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The Think Tank held its first meeting in November 2006 and concluded its work in November 2007. Phase 2 planning activities are presently underway.
In order to support the work of the think tank, CET commissioned documentation on the status of information and communication technologies (ICT) and higher education within the PHEA countries. This documentation comprised, amongst other data, country profiles of eight of the nine PHEA countries. The country profiles covered Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda, while data in the form of references was gathered on Madagascar. Although the reports considered the status of ICT across various sectors within each country, the focus was on the status of ICTs in higher education. These status reports are available in both print and web-based form. Print copies are available from the Centre for Educational Technology. The web versions can be downloaded as individual chapters.
Do you agree?
So ... is the idea of University 2.0 relevant to African universities? And if so .... then how do we start to move in this direction?
"All of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century" B. Obama, President of the USA, Cairo Speech 4 June 2009
(1 vote)
