Deseret News reports:

“Wiley is one part Nostradamus and nine parts revolutionary, an educational evangelist who preaches about a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free…

Higher education doesn’t reflect the life that students are living, he says. In that life, information is available on demand, files are shared, and the world is mobile and connected. Today’s colleges, on the other hand, are typically ‘tethered, isolated, generic, and closed,’ he says.”

Wiley certainly seems to be on the right track here. In recent years, knowledge has become more free flowing, less amenable to controls. While a $100 textbook may have seemed like an acceptable choice in the past, today most students can get access to the same information by searching the internet or reading OpenCourseWare material from other colleges.

Universities in some form will probably always exist. But, the way they relate to students, the material they choose to use, and the control they place on the flow of information (i.e. closed classes, mandatory teacher-written textbooks) are likely to change dramatically over the coming years.

photo credit: Justin Brockie

See Also: University of the People