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Michael Barber predicted an avalanche of change for higher education. Steve Martin showed how to bring about change through the force of persuasion. Online Educa Berlinattracted e-learning experts from 98 countries. |
Two thousand e-learning enthusiasts from nearly 100 countries gathered in Berlin at this year’s Online Educa conference. Finns were well represented – the biggest foreign group came from the UK, the second from the Netherlands, and the third from Finland. Some Finnish organizations value this event enough to send teams of six or seven people.
Among the major trends discussed at the conference was the coming avalanche of change in higher education.Michael Barber‘s keynote speech pointed out clear evidence of forces pressing just below the placid surface of the academic world. University education costs have risen several hundred percent, yet at the same time the employment level of graduates has decreased. For example, in the UK last year, recent university graduates had a lower employment rate than people of the same age without university degrees. Popular massive open online courses, MOOCs, are pioneering new methods in universities, but financial viability is still a problem. Robert Cummingscaptured the current situation: MOOCs do not make us rich, but they can make us famous.
Getting Ready for a World Full of VUCA
Besides MOOC, the other popular acronym at the conference was VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), which describes the current situation of organizations in general. Success in a constantly changing environment requires vision, clarity, understanding, and agility, according to Edith Lemieux. Organizations in every field need to strengthen their ability to learn and to change.
This year the most attention focused on the educational use of video; Ville Venäläinen shared great examples from Finnish schools. A number of presentations also discussed educational use of Facebook. The most beneficial to me was Nick Kearney‘s talk: he defended such use of this entertaining service because learning should be easy and fun. Open sharing can increase transparency and trust among learners and instructors. However, one disadvantage of Facebook is that learners have great difficulty finding older materials and references in the continuous stream of updates.
So, Steve Martin – How Do I Accomplish Change?
A presentation on persuasion really got the participants buzzing. Steve Martin isn’t the American comedian, but like his namesake makes his points with humor. Martin says that people don’t understand what really affects their behavior. If we want people to behave in a certain way, we should tell them about others who are already acting that way. One of Martin’s points emphasized how context and impression influence the way people react to messages. Working with the UK tax authorities, he greatly increased tax compliance by replacing threatening letters with persuasive ones that emphasized how many taxpayers play by the rules. His book on persuasion has been translated into 26 languages.
My absolute favorite event on the Educa program was once again the Thursday evening debate. This time the question was whether the eliminating of formal degrees would improve lifelong learning. Debaters Jef Staes, Donald Clark, Sue Martin and Philip Ellaway delivered sparkling speeches in support of their viewpoints and greatly entertained the enthusiastic audience. More conferences should have such thought-provoking debates!
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Nick Kearney believes that education can change: “Shift happens”. Finnish attendees at the conference included online learning specialists from FCG, InnoOmnia, colleges and universities. |