I just left a 2-hour meeting with a group committed to shaping the mission and vision for academic technology.  It’s very encouraging because we’re all pretty much on the same page and believe that we need to communicate our values about teaching and learning before we begin to have conversations about applications, hardware, enterprise systems, open source, networks, and other things technology. It goes even deeper then that though. You can identify and communicate your values all you want but if you don’t have the support of the administration then your project is sure to sink.  We have support though - heck, our Provost is leading the charge!

At some point we will have to have a bigger discussion that addresses assumptions about learning and teaching and the neomillenials. I’m sure it will be…invigorating ;-) . I’m just brainstorming here but we might pose the questions below to help ease into the conversation to help reduce any friction between traditional approaches to education and the diverse ways in which learning occurs:

  • What will your class look like in 20 years?
  • What do you wish you could do?
  • What do you wish your students could do?
  • What is a generation in technology?
  • What is a generation for a building?
  • What is a generation in curriculum?

We’ll see where we land with this but in the meantime we’re turning the ship!