This is the presentation made at the UNC Faculty Showcase on November 2, 2012. It tells the story of Sakai @ UNC: Where we've been and where we can go...
10. Consider:
If you gave birth to a child in 2007, when she
takes her first breath, the iPhone is released.
By the time she sets foot on the school bus
for kindergarten, the iPad retina display is
released, e-books are common, and
instructors are teaching online courses to
classes of 160,000 students. That’s lot of
change in 5 short years!
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11. At the same time, Sakai at UNC was a
twinkle in our eye in 2007 and 5 years
later, we are completing our migration.
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12. The rate of (rapid) technological change
versus the (slower) rate of institutional
change creates a natural tension.
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13. Not only are there rapid technological
changes affecting our heroes and heroines,
but there are other dark forces...
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14. The rising cost of education calls into
question access and value.
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15. Year after year of budget cuts have left
state-funded institutions reeling.
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17. There is an abundance of freely available,
high-quality content.
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18. And while we thought we were taking an
innocent walk in the woods, we now
realize that we’re in the thick of it.
Education today is complicated and we
can’t walk out the same way we walked in.
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19. Further, learners today know how to collaborate
online quickly, cheaply & instantly if they wish.
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20. They expect to be able to participate fully in
their communities - producing & consuming.
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21. These changes can be unsettling and leave
us questioning our roles as educators.
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22. Our team shares this unease. We are
responsible for the campus learning system -
arguably the most important academic system
for higher ed institutions. There has been
dramatic change in this realm as well.
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24. This is a snapshot of a few selected systems.
1997 1999 2005
However, since April 2012 there has been a
dramatic increase of platforms released for
large scale online courses.
New technologies become “the new normal”
and all of our expectations are shaped by
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them. 2010 2011
Everything is changing...
2012
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25. Change is often hard to accept. It can be
scary. Some might believe the best approach
is to “hunker down” and hope the storm
passes.
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26. But look around. Doing nothing won’t get
you out of the forest. And going back doesn’t
appear to be a good option, either. Looks like
we need to build a path forward...
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28. This is one of the fundamental reasons we
moved to Sakai. While we can’t control the
rate of tech change outside, we can manage
the evolution of our learning platform in ways
that are fiscally and pedagogically
sustainable and responsible.
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29. There’s no place like home. We have the
energy, creativity & material resources
needed to be successful!
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46. Performance
Managing large classes
We are working with faculty who are teaching large
classes (hundreds of students) to identify problems
& solutions.
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