Over the past quarter century new digital technologies have transformed nearly every sector of our economy—in each case creating abundant access, choice, interactivity and personalization for consumers.
The one industry remarkably absent from this transformation is higher education. As COVID accelerates a long overdue transformation of our market, and it’s time for those of us in the academy to imagine what abundant access, choice, interactivity, and personalization could look like in the context of higher education.
In this talk I will draw on my prior research into the transformation of the entertainment industry, and my current research into the delivery of online education to address five key realities facing the academy today: 1. Our current system of higher education is a significant impediment to social mobility and social justice. 2. The problem is systemic — and therefore we are unlikely to solve it from within our existing "scarcity-based" system. 3. Digital technologies give us an opportunity to create a new system of education based on abundance. 4. This system isn't _for_ everyone, but it should be available _to_ everyone. 5. To fully participate in this change we must rediscover, and embrace, our core mission as educators: to create opportunities for as many students as possible to discover and develop their unique talents, and use those talents to make a difference in the world.
