I was glad to read in this month’s edition of Fast Company Magazine in “Who Needs Harvard “ an explanation as to the movement of higher education in the future. In it, Anya Kamenetz provides a glimpse if not an entirety of thought provoking ideas on the current education system, the future with open content education and the movers and shakers in the industry. It’s no secret MIT Courseware offers an excellent education for free to people from around the world. While you don’t receive a degree, just rigorous training, the article got me thinking about how we used to learn, how we currently learn and how we’ll potentially learn in the future. We used to learn in a classroom sitting down in a desk somewhere while the teacher lectured. Sometimes a guest speaker would come. We still do. At Oregon State University, I took my first online course with students spread throughout the country. Today, my wife, Edith was taking her first online MBA class. Her material, almost all, came from Harvard or MIT. The papers were downloaded online and printed from our home office. In a world of mobility and connectivity, we receive our content via computer or mobile smart phone and thirst for information. To and from work we may listen to audio books (I’m currently going through “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt). During the day we’ll visit our Facebook page and chime in on our friends comments and thoughts. We may visit YouTube and watch and post videos. Potential MBA or Law School applicants might chat with admissions officers via Accepted (http://www.accepted.com/) all without leaving the comfort of their seat. But what sealed the deal was Professor David Wiley of Brigham Young University who argued, “If universities can’t find the will to innovate and adapt to changes in the world around them, universities will be irrelevant by 2020.” Is your school innovating and adapting to changes in the world? How? »Full article: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html

Originally posted on Posterous