Innovating the 21st-century university
In the current issue of EDUCAUSE Review, Anthony D. Williams and I have a 6,000-word essay discussing the urgent issues facing universities, that left unresolved, would see intuitions of higher learning going into a death spiral akin to what we see happening to encyclopedias, newspapers, and music record labels.
For fifteen years, we’ve been arguing that the digital revolution will challenge many fundamental aspects of the university. We have not been alone. In 1997, none other than Peter Drucker predicted that big university campuses would be “relics” within thirty years.
Universities are losing their grip on higher learning as the Internet is, inexorably, becoming the dominant infrastructure for knowledge — both as a container and as a global platform for knowledge exchange between people — and as a new generation of students requires a very different model of higher education. The transformation of the university is not just a good idea; It is an imperative, and evidence is mounting that the consequences of further delay may be dire.
January 31st, 2012 on Social Media Week
The debate on the role of social media and change is over. Over the last year, many have questioned just how important social media are in helping activists achieve social change.
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January 23rd, 2012 on The Huffington Post
Surprisingly it is a city in the emerging economies that may have discovered a key to success — Bogota the capital of the South American Country of Colombia. And it turns out the best way to transform a city for the digital age is to use those same digital tools to engage the population in reinventing their own municipality.
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January 16th, 2012 on
This weekend I had the pleasure of addressing the Biennial Convention for the Liberal Party of Canada, Canada’s historical party. After three consecutive defeats, the Liberals are faced with the opportunity to reinvent themselves and become Canada’s first 21st century political party. Here are some excerpts from recent news coverage: The Toronto Star: “More so [...]
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January 15th, 2012 on CBC
Earlier in the day Saturday, the Liberal party was told it is at risk of being bypassed by a new generation unless it takes part in the technological revolution that is underway.
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January 12th, 2012 on Reuters, The Huffington Post
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December 21st, 2011 on
In many countries civic engagement by young people has been growing for years, but as evidenced by the November 2010 Federal Elections in the United States, around the world voting among young people is declining. Governments and democracy run the danger of becoming irrelevant.
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Head of State Advisory