Keynote speech
1 keynote speaker(s)
703 Martin Bean
Martin Bean – Vice-Chancellor Designate of the Open University
Scepticism about innovative technology is not new.
many funny quotes on how paper, ink, and pens are relied on too much and won’t supercede the then present ‘tech’
Thomas Friedman ‘The Changing Landscape’
- globalisation is a reality
- competition is global
- we work in a turbo-charged environment
- business goes where the talent is
Changing nature of HE
- Globalisation
- so many options out there, competition across the world
- Massification
- despite increase of supply, can NOT keep pace with demand with traditional brick and mortar
- Privatisation
- fastest growing delivery sector is private education
- india and china outpacing US and UK investment in HE and research
- collective challenge – need to educate citizens for new types of work
- STEM is key for a competitive workforce
- http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/hegateway/hereform/stem/programmereport.cfm
- innovation agenda is vital
- increasing importance of sustainability
- transforming information into meaningful knowledge
classroom like being on an airplane: sit down, put trust in the pilot, turn off electrical devices
many students have not known a world without: www, mobile phone, sms, video files, mp3s
UK homes: 70% in 2008 had internet
went up by 2 million into 2009
- learning in the workplace needs to become integral
- break down barriers between formal and informal learning
- got to put learner in the middle, learner-centric focus
The opportunity for technology:
- extending the reach of high quality education to all
- nurturing powerful communities of learning
- enabling relevant, personalised, engaging learning
- giving educators greater insight and more time
- agile, efficient, and connected learning systems
Making change possible – three key considerations (in order of importance)
- people
- process
- technology
when it fails, 9 times out of 10 it is because of too much time spent on thinking about the hardware/software than on brainware
change delivery models
- content creation
- consumption
- manipulation
OpenLearn -free learning resource
going multi-channel
producing a whole new generation of innovative/engaging content – not just repurposed material
education meets social networking
exciting, fast, disruptive, inhernatly social
SocialLearn
- http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/sociallearn/index.php
- http://www.open.ac.uk/sociallearn
- rich personalised resource archives
- learner selected mentors
- enabling people and processes to embrace technologies
- motivated learners create their own reuse models
- innovative learners create their own sharing contexts