Bizcuits | Look beyond and be inspired

Leanda Lee

It’s summer. Get out, I implore you. Travel. Go into the countryside, breathe the air, or go to a big city, one of those amazing cities with tons of character – it doesn’t have to be London, Paris, Tokyo or New York, but they’re good options if that’s where your heart takes you. Meet the people, visit iconic landmarks, learn history, eat the food, drink the wine. Stop for a while. Watch and listen. Listen to what people have to say, watch what they do. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone who knows more about something than you do, something you can admire and appreciate. Seek uncommon wisdom. Refresh your mind, refresh your spirit and come back with something to propel you forward, or just see things differently. Summer’s a fabulous opportunity to get out of that rut and maybe you’ll find that hole has magically been filled in by the time you get back.
I’ve just been to a conference in Singapore and I’ve been inspired. I was vaguely unenthusiastic about an e-learning conference and couldn’t quite work out how I’d come to be presenting there. I imagined technical talks about Big Data, learning analytics, and how to run on-line examinations but the discussions were surprisingly grounded in human behaviour. The keynote speaker presented us with “Our issues aren’t technological but more sociological.”  In a country where 85% of the population have smartphones and 3.3 devices each, to learn that consistently across studies over 80% of tertiary students prefer to read from print and that there are now pretty solid pedagogical explanations for this made me sit up. This was going to be fun – a conference that starts by questioning the rationale for its own existence.
I’ve listened to some great people with big visions, an eye to detail and the energy to see ideas though to implementation. And they’ve been fortunate: they’ve had resources at their disposal and the ability or passion to convince others of the value of their innovations, or had leaders with a similar vision. It’s easier when that happens. Too energy sapping without it. “The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle,” observed a member from the audience. And it’s true, oh, so very true.
Tertiary education is going to be big in the Asia Pacific. The massification of education is a positive change in the region as middle-class incomes and aspirations have given huge numbers of people opportunities not known before. Growth in the industry since 2000 has been substantial but future projections are astounding. Data from UNESCO and estimates from Melbourne’s RMIT suggest that by 2035 42% of global enrolments will be in this region with a population participation rate in tertiary education of 10% by 2033, the highest in the world (for reference, in 2009 North America and Western Europe sat at 6.01%). The infrastructural and intellectual capital needed to sustain this growth is going to be immense. Educators, you have a job.
Macau, you have an opportunity.
And this is where e-learning might become relevant. Technology in this industry gives an opportunity to extend beyond old ways and physical limitations in terms of space, infrastructure, and accommodation. In current implementations of technology “old models of learning are being questioned”. They have to be because we are no longer teaching to the top 15% of the intellectually able population. Learning requires face-to-face and other forms of interaction: Socratic learning, learning with others, learning through making, learning through exploration guided and structured by teachers, learning in and across settings. The Nesta Report out of the UK says use of technology is about linking to learning through other people and other places. Macau’s always done this linking and we’re now building educational capacity. We have the money and are required to diversify. With the right education consultants, we can build this industry. We can explore how best to assess student development, develop life and work competencies and graduate attributes. The system developed by the Hong Kong Baptist University, for example, and now given inspiration to seven other Hong Kong universities, might be a worthwhile place to start.
Macau, you have an opportunity.