[p2p-research] Universities Irrelevant by 2020?

[Michel Bauwens]

The car industry is different, dependent as it is on cheap oil, but outside
of the US it is in difficulty, but not yet dying, the middle class dream of
owning a car is alive and well in Asia

but an institutional setting for learning, where people congregate and
people specialize in learning, transmitting knowledge, augmented or not by
p2p learning, that's a different matter for me

I follow downes and siemens, and never heard them say universities would
disappear in 11 years, rather, I see them patiently working on constructing
alternatives

It would be of interest to have their view on the future of universities as
well as a timescale, so I've cc'ed them just in case,

Libraries by the way, are also experiencing a revival, even in the U.S.;
again, their function will change and they will adapt, but I see few signs
of their disappearance, they still have very important social roles to play;
remember that only 1 billion or so people are wired for the moment,

Michel

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 9:22 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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>>> p2presearch mailing list
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>
>


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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