Live Blog SXSW: Universities in the “Free” Era

Very strong 101 lecture on new models for universities. I will post the video later (2 hours left on upload).

Major problems with current universities:

Change happens 1 death at a time
TENURE is broken: 6 years = tenure and then there is little to no incentive to keep learning
imparting sacred knowledge
gate keepers

Old school professors:

lecture with notes
drinking from a fire hose
1 to many

New professors:

experience designer: guiding the students through interactive systems
Project manager: set goals and timelines (Brian: teach them to be PM’s)
Curator: helping students build the skills to search through the mounds of info online
Resource Allocator: Direct students to others for more information
Life Coach: Activating the students to take ownership
Validate: act as an emissary to the community promoting student and helping students find their connections in the community
Learner: listens to and learns from students (Rowe’s addition)

Ideas to improve the system:

Encourage team teachers
De-privilege institutional knowledge
reward failure (trying and improving is more important then getting the right answer)
Get rid of departments (? i am not sure i am board with this one)
Teach students to ask and answer questions
Contribute to the open commons! (more important the publishing in closed journals)
Hire people who get these ideas

Here is the talks description:

MIT, Yale, Stanford, and others put lectures online. Chris Anderson argues all university lectures should be free. From Academic Earth to TED, it’s free. So what is the value-add of a university education? What models of higher education will survive? How will universities leverage the social web to reinvent themselves?

PRESENTERS

Glenn Platt