William Sams, recently appointed interim associate
provost for information technology and chief information officer at Ohio
University, has a rather dark view of the future of higher education.
In his world, campuses will be reserved for the ultra-wealthy
or athletically gifted because most college degrees will have been replaced by
badges earned through free online courses. In addition, Apple will buy Amazon
to become a learning resource giant, Google will deliver free online classes called
Evolving Personal Information Construct (EPIC)
where students can earn those badges, and all of it will happen by 2020. Sams
presented his observations in a web video called EPIC 2020 (embedded below).
“It’s not my sole objective to be right or wrong here,
but to get people talking about things that need to be discussed,” Sams told eCampus News.
“All of us are trapped in the paradigm of how things have been, the system
we’ve existed in all our lives. A lot of [educators] have a worldview that
makes it impossible for them to even see solutions to problems that exist
today.”
In the video, Sams predicts Congress will eliminate
Pell Grants next year, students will demand colleges only charge for learning
assessment, and new funding will go to free online learning platforms to fill
the void left by the disruption of traditional higher education. In addition,
Apple buys Amazon to create the world’s largest content-distribution site,
called Applezon.
“I see some of those things happening,” Martin Van Der
Werf, a blogger for The College of 2020 ed-tech site, told eCampus News. “They
won’t replace higher ed altogether, but serve some pockets of higher ed. The
video is almost a work of science fiction, and the value in sci-fi is that it
helps you image worlds that don’t exist yet. Sci-fi stories draw plausible
scenarios that make you think of what is possible, and that’s why this video
might be valuable.”
One of Sams’ projections is already starting to come to
fruition. On July 10, Google launched its first free online class, called Power
Searching with Google. Students will use Google+ groups to discuss class
materials and will earn a certificate when they finish the course.
