Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Is Higher Education Evolving?

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
If higher education were like an organism that evolved, what would it look like? Probably nothing like this mixed-metaphor formulation: "the pendulum swing(s) faster between proprietary integration and open modulation to accelerate the clock speed for more effective and efficient knowledge creation and distribution?" Evolution isn't teleological; it isn't based on the imperative to "adapt or die". Rather, evolution is more a process of mixing an multiplying, aided by random mutations. If the environment stays the same, most mutations fail; if the environment changes, new mutations multiply rapidly to fill the new niche. In higher education, evolution would be aided by creating a lifecycle of things that grow, flourish, replicate themselves (with some variation), and then die. It is only when we create things that never die naturally - be they institutions or corporations - that we need to start talking about adapting. But adapting is a very different process, and has very different results.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 25, 2024 08:43 a.m.

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