Presentation on Openness, Localization, and the Future of Learning Objects
David Wiley, Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning at Utah State University.
This 36 minute presentation discusses how tags, blogs, RSS and Google have usurped much of the earlier work done with repositories.
Much of the case he makes about the challenges and opportunities higher education faces in an increasingly digital, mobile, connected world is contained in a statement to the US Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
“How, specifically, is higher education to respond to its changing environment and the changing nature of its core areas (content, research, expertise, and credentialing)? “E-learning” (at least as commonly conceived) is not the answer. The university experience must align more closely with its societal context and participant base. Higher education must continue its efforts to become digital and mobile, while working to become significantly more open, connected, personal, and participatory.”
He argues that the move to greater openness, exemplified by initiatives like OpenCourseWare at MIT rather than closed, proprietary systems, shows the way forward.
“In order to realign itself with changes in society and in its student base higher education must find the will to innovate in the areas of openness, connectedness, personalization, and participation. I believe that openness is the key to enabling other innovations and catalyzing improvements in the quality, accountability, affordability, and accessibility of higher education.”