[p2p-research] Universities Irrelevant by 2020?

[Ryan Lanham]

Well, Michel, I think you know or know of George Siemens.  He and Stephen
Downes and others aren't saying things all that far from what this guy Wiley
is saying.  If you had asked me in 1990 whether GM could be on the verge of
bankruptcy and irrelevance, I'd have said you were delusional.  I'm sure the
horse shoe-ers on Main St. in Palo Alto in 1905 thought they had work for
life.

Acceleration is real.  In labs now they are move terabytes a second through
wireless.  IBM has said Moore's law can go on for at least 2 more
decades....extrapolating (looking at what Microsoft is planning for in their
labs) you are talking about enormously fast machines with incredible data
absorbing capabilities...no use in building them if they can't be built at
prices people can afford.

Something's got to give?  Who needs a library?  Who needs a lecture hall?
Who needs a dorm? It might all become an exercise in "those were the days"
type sentimentalism for the past.  Are universities become Disneyland?

Ryan


On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> In 11 years? Ryan, that is delusional ...
>
> It takes generations for this type of change to occur
>
> we're barely starting to talk about peer and self accreditation, there are
> no sedimented practices yet
>
> of course, more and more people, like us, will learn more and more outside
> channels, finding universities irrelevant for learning (which is why I'm
> hesitating so much to do a phd, the only benefit being social recognition,
> not learning per se), but for the mass of the population, and the mainstream
> institutional world, there will be a long mutual adaptation, until new trust
> forms are sufficiently developed for general acceptance of learning.
>
> one should never confuse one's own situation, with the general reality;
> things will change, and sometimes non-linearly, but I think it's a very safe
> bet to say universities will be there in 2020; not only that, seeing from
> Asia, there growing like hell, (just as newspapers by the way, there's no
> crisis here, on the contrary)
>
> Michel
>
> On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 7:16 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I'm not the only lunatic....
>>
>> This from Kurzweil's group...
>>
>>
>> *************************
>> Universities will be 'irrelevant'
>> by 2020
>> Deseret News April 20, 2009
>> *************************
>> Universities will be irrelevant by
>> 2020 in a world where students
>> listen to free online lectures on
>> iPods, course materials are shared
>> between universities, science labs
>> are virtual, and digital textbooks
>> are free, says Brigham Young
>> University professor of psychology
>> and instructional technology David
>> Wiley....
>> http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=10454&m=44482
>>
>>
>> Ryan Lanham
>>
>>
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