How Futurists Reimagine Higher Ed
A quick and easy opportunity to get your finger on the pulse AND have agency in shaping the future
Yesterday, I received a “click here to vote for my ____” message. I despise this mode of vetting on a number of ethical concerns, though I also usually respect my colleagues who are reaching out enough to give them the click despite of my misgivings.
I am so glad I clicked this one. It turned me on to some exciting sharing.
The Office of Educational Technology is hosting a Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem design challenge. The driving question:
How might we empower people to design their own learning journeys so they can lead purposeful and economically stable lives?
The challenge drew proposals from dozens of teams and a panel of judges narrowed the pool down to the top 25 teams and their bold ideas. We, the public, are invited to “invest” in our favorite projects. After creating an account (sigh), you are given 1000 “coins” that you can invest in up to 500 coin increments, thus helping to signal to the judges which teams have the most public support.
Whether or not you choose to actively participate in the selection process (and donate a bunch of personal info to a government office), it’s well worth your time to peruse the submissions.
Each one comes from a team of people who are motivated to think big about the future of education and willing to think publicly. In just a few minutes, the synopses of the projects offer us access to a whole range of ideas about what the future ecosystems around higher education and lifelong learning in general might look like.
There are a handful of players that might already be inside your filter bubbles. If you know me or follow my writing, you won’t be shocked to learn that a bunch of these projects are playing in the micro-credentials/digital badge credentials sandbox. There are name brands that you’ve heard of, yet are unexpected stakeholders in this space (e.g. Jet Blue). And there are passionate change agents who are bringing diverse backgrounds and points of view to this challenge in surprising ways.
There are plenty of thought leaders talking about the future of education; this competition’s website shows us what the leaders with a bias toward action are actually trying to do about the future of education.
Check it out and please do respond with your own post sharing which futurists’ projects got your mind racing about the exciting times ahead of us!
Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please click to clap a bunch of times and recommend it to others!
In addition to following Noah Geisel here on Medium, you can find him at SenorG on Twitter. Some other posts you might like:
