DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education
2010; Society for College and University Planning; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0736-0983
Autores Tópico(s)Global Education Systems and Policies
ResumoDIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education transforming of higher education continues. Can we see the light yet? Reviewed by Donald M. Norris Chelsea Green Publishing Company 2010 208 pages ISBN 978-1-60358-234-6 by Anya Kamenetz Anya Kamenetz has become a familiar voice in the blogosphere, channeling the experiences of young people getting started in the forbidding economy of the 21 st century. Her first book. Generation Debt: How Our Future Was Sold Out for Student Loans, Bad Jobs, No Benefits, and Tax Cuts for Rich Geezers - And How to Fight Back (Kamenetz 2006) analyzed the travails of Millennial in the workforce, years before the Great Recession turned bad conditions even worse. She followed with articles in Fast Company, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and her blog The Narrow Bridge (see anyakamenetz.blogspot.com). In late 2009, her article in Fast Company, Who Needs Harvard?, declared that free online courses, Wiki universities, and Facebook-style tutoring networks that enable do-it-yourself (DIY) learning were being deployed by a cadre of Web-savvy edupunks in a manner that could transform American higher education (Kamenetz 2009). This article was acclaimed by many champions of open educational resources and developers of Web 2.0-based approaches to learning and competence building. It also resonated with the legion of educators waging ongoing campaigns to change prevailing institutional cultures and practices. Kamenetz's latest book, DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, sets an even higher goal. Its purpose is to inspire people to think seriously about profoundly changing our approach to postsecondary education, personal learning, and employment. American model for universal higher education is acclaimed around the world. It has even become a sort of cargo cult for developing countries. But the author finds our current version to be too expensive, too complex, and too bundled. Moreover, American higher education is based on physical campuses that have been participating in a form of competitive arms race of campus amenities, expanded services, and proliferating administrative functions and staffs. author asserts that technology is key to transformation, enabling the learner to be placed at the center of the equation. Technology also enables the separation of experiences, resources, and functions (such as teaching, learning, research, socialization, public services, assessment, and certification of competence) that are currently interwoven in today's complex university. She identifies four trends as supporting this transformation: * 80/20 rule. By this the author means that there is much more to American higher education than the medallion universities and liberal arts colleges and their population of high-achieving learners interested in traditional learning pathways. great mass of students learn in unselective institutions, community colleges, and market-driven institutions, including the working adults addressed in Michael Offerman's blog The Other 85 Percent (see www.theother85percent.com). Most of these students would benefit from the transformation of learning options and pathways available to them. * great unbundling. Complex, bundled enterprises and professions such as music, film, and journalism are being deconstructed all around us, their old practices dissolved by the solvent of technology and new media. Similarly, unbundled, specialized learning competitors are appearing on the learning scene and are likely to increase dramatically in coming years. Traditional institutions will not disappear, buta wide array of fresh options will erode their appeal to certain types of learners. * Techno-hybridization. author cites research by the U.S. Department of Education stating that blended learning experiences are superior to traditional learning or fully online learning alone. …
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