 We'll be starting in just about two minutes Those who who are here early. Hello. Welcome. Hello, Vanessa. Hello, Paul. Hello, Dan, Kate. Hello, Rea. Hello, Tom Hello, Martha Hello, John. Hello, Barb. Good to see you all Just playing a little video clip assembled by a good friend of the program Roxanne Riskin We'll be starting in about two minutes and thank you Roxanne for assembling that awesome video Please in the text if you all could just say Couple of words of thanks to Roxanne a little bit of applause for going above and beyond to make that And while you're doing that, it's the top of the hour. So let's begin Welcome everyone. Welcome to the Future Trends forum for a very very special day I'm delighted to see you all here right now And I'm delighted that we can all be here for this special event. I'm brian Alexander. I'm the forum's creator I'm the co-host over the host and the cat herder for the Next hour and I'm really really looking forward to our celebration today To begin with let me just help introduce the forum to those of you who haven't been here for a bit or who are new here But also I want to just use this moment to quickly reflect back on everybody what we've done what we've accomplished and what you've all done together Now just to take your minds back five years ago to this day february 11th 2016 We had our first forum You have to remember that at that point we really weren't universally committed to videoconferencing Not everybody was hip deep in zoom Or shindig or teams or anything else video conferencing was a kind of nice to have extra And we decided to create something unusual we decided to create a A venue for people to discuss the future of higher education over video And we did this Launched in vermont or we had terrible bandwidth And we did this using a startup technology shindig and we've been going ever since It's just remarkable to think about how many people have been here What a variety of people have been here You know just how many faculty Researchers librarians technologists students presidents All from within higher education and beyond higher education government officials political candidates non-profit head startup funders and founders We've had critics. We've had boosters We've had all kinds of folks from literally from around the world And I'm just it's just astonishing to think about in fact here. I'm gonna go a little further still Right now The total number of guests that we've hosted is close to 300 Over time and the number of participants I'm actually having a hard time calculating it, but it's in the tens of thousands right now Which is truly amazing We have as of this morning 241 recordings on youtube So each of those is free and open for anybody to play with And on our email announcement list, we have nearly 8 000 people And those are all people who decided to be there They could all leave at any moment and we have that many there right now actively participating in what we do together I mean if if you look ahead and we're gonna do that today To where we're going next just think about the variety of sessions that we've all been Co-creating together and we have a session next week on e-learning with one of the world's Great scholars in the subject. We have a session on how to support equity and diversity in higher education We have two different University presidents one from the east coast and one from the west each talking about their very different ways of reinventing public higher education We have a guest who's going to be from mit talking about the science of learning And there's really it's an extraordinary glimpse of where high rate could be going in just these four sessions Now we've worked with supporters over the past five years to help make this happen And I want to thank a couple of them because they are stalwarts If you think about nizer in that in new york state One of the great things is they kind of offer us a model in that they were a distributed network They're a group that runs across that pretty large state working with a wide range of higher education They do also wide range professional development research And research that's a nice kind of model for that distributed network community that we're doing right now And we're grateful to them for their support And we've also been using shindig and we have shindig's founder and ceo on the call Steve Gottlieb and we'll bring him up in a bit But shindig has been terrific as a great partner helping us Really grow over the years and we've been pleased to watch them grow and develop as they move from strength to strength too Again, just for today if if you haven't been to the forum for a while or if you're new to the shindig technology Just to give you a quick primer where I am right now. This is the stage This is where we can host a wide variety of content including each of you. So here Let me just put up rock sands video because There we go See this is the one that rock sanderis can make if you didn't get to see it before And this is where all of our guests can be Now below us you should see around you up to 20 or so people at a time And this is what other people would call the audience What would I call the community or the participants swarm if you look around you right now? I'm logged in I can see folks like joe murphy. I can see rea kelly I can see julie meyer and each of those people is there and they usually represent one person So then several around the table and you could access any of them just by reaching out to them on a one-to-one basis Now if you want to talk with us today Simply reach down on the bottom of the screen. Click that raised hand button and that'll beam you up on stage So you can join us In fact, I'm going to put up a podium so that anybody who wants to join us Press that teal color button and appear here on stage with us Now if you want to type if you'd like to add more comments Just use a chat box already. We have a bunch of people who are applauding Roxanne or calling me a cult leader Um all in the chat box that works as well If you want to share a question by text because you can't do video right now. No problem. Just go down to the Q&A button as a question mark and type in a question and flash it up on stage We're really really grateful to shindig for making this available and for working with us so closely for the past five years And I also want to share Another crowd and updated list of that all the supporters on patreon To keep in mind that on patreon I've been working with these folks who've been giving us ideas answering questions floating topics bringing up themes for us to explore And the folks on this list have actually been contributing $10 or more a month to keep everything going Which is pretty amazing just to think about here. They just bring the So you can see them all folks like Vicki Tambolini, Collin Carmine, Ginny Kimmahan, William O'Shea, Cory S. Phil Long, Janet McClellan, Rebecca, Therese Davis, or sorry, Therese Travis, Cliff Lynch It's just been great to work with all of them and to have their support Now on top of that on top of that. Oh, hang on a second. Just mashed to lose my slides. We were bringing it right back And yes, um and frenzy points out boy. Have things changed indeed I wanted to make sure that we could recognize today the unusual achievement of where we are Now that videoconferencing is mandatory for most of the world now that we live thanks to the pandemic In this virtual environment or deeply than ever before I think what we've all done together through the forum gives us Something to be especially proud of we have a warm thoughtful Welcoming provocative community that lets us collaboratively explore the future of higher education I don't think there's anything like it in the world. I'm delighted to be there with you all Now today I had a few plans for things I'd like to do. I'd like to give away a few books My most recent book academia next I'd like to give away some t-shirts and by the way I don't know if you can tell this is a t-shirt here Logo created by rocks in look at that I'd like to have a chance for us to reflect on what we've done and a brainstorm the next five years So one of the themes of today is forward to 2026 Which is a long time to think about but not for you all because you were all already This great at being this forward-looking And we had her had a question that just popped up. I want to bring this up on the stage so everyone can see it This is from Ann Fensey at University of Maine. Hello Ann. Now the video chat is a normal But many of us have been advocating this for years What else have we been advocating for that will finally make it into the mainstream? Oh great question Ann great question I would love to hear from everybody else if you'd like to join her by answering this just You know press the teal button right here or throw some more questions up in the chat I'll just say that I mean online learning as a whole is something that's obviously really really taken off And hopefully doing it deeply and more effectively is something that will also take off What a great question. I hope you're staying warm with all that snow there as well Bob I can't get you a t-shirt or the beard, but I'm thinking about making some of these beards Myron as you know as a as a costume Accessory myron william says something really sweet. I just want to make sure you guys all can hear this This forum has been a great help to me as I move into leadership and distance learning Many of the people here have been great help off light as well and make my work more effective. Thank you Myron. Thank you. That's great to hear I think it's one of the benefits of a community like this is that we get to work together And really learn from each other. It's a fantastic networking environment Ryan I can see aha. There you are Ryan But I see your photo, but I don't see a video is your camera working I'm not getting any audio either Uh, tell you what ryan, uh, what let me just take you down off the podium for a second And why don't you just reload this page and then try again? Sometimes that really clears things up Oh, no problem ryan. Just reload the page. See how it goes. Joe. Why don't you join us appear on stage? We'd like to hear from you Martha adds One answer to the things that we've been talking about for years that have now gone mainstream is working remotely And that's definitely true Joe murphy. Hello ryan. Hello, uh, thank you and congratulations on Five years of something which I will again say I'm I am a I am a better webinar facilitator for watching how you do it and how many of your guests have done it So so thank you So in terms of This is kind of both a what else is going to go mainstream and maybe It's a suggestion. What else should the ftte community be Practicing so that we're more informed and more ready um Since since we're never gonna have to tell anyone ever again that video conferencing is a thing I wonder to what extent the answer might be Thinking about going back toward the written word um, and you know, I I think about the terrific work that you do with the uh with the future trends report um And I don't know exactly what this looks like for this community, but I wonder if there's Some way that we might be able to hone our skills on kind of report outs and Turns out forum discussion is not you know written forum discussion is not that easy and maybe Those are areas where as professionals we might want to think about Venues where we can practice that skill So we're a little more ready to Teach and apply it elsewhere But I was interested in the question about you know, what's to the extent that we've benefited from Practicing this skill. I wonder what the benefits of practicing what the what the next skill we should be practicing is Well, do you think it might be the uh Bringing new light to how to Manage and facilitate text-based discussions online Discussion boards. Thank you. That sums it up exactly. Yeah And I just mentioned discussion boards. I'm thinking of my class tonight But but also to think about blogging to think about other sources including discord Yeah Oh, this is a great idea Thank you. And don't go away. Let's stick around. Uh after all you have a great beard. So No, we should we should be inclusive of all levels of uh for the hilarity I think so We have a question from bob Klein He says I would hope that we would better understand and support the fact that people's lives don't go away while they work Things happen in the background now with remote communications and etc. Our lives are really happening in the background That's a great point Well, but and it makes me think of some of the fantastic people that we've hosted like sarah golder rad for example We've really drawn attention to the changing social dynamics of so many students And for the past year from both covet and black lives matter how we've really paid a lot more attention to equity And and how that works. Let me just put up another podium so people can join us as they like Julie pollard Notes as well another video meeting the more accessible geography is less of a challenge When it comes to international collaboration Will we see more internationalization of curriculums through global partnerships? Julie, that's a fantastic idea If you've seen any examples or hints of this, please Let us know if you want to join us either uh say more in chatter Especially join us up here on stage would be uh glad to hear that And tom hams recommends paradigm shifting All right now the thing about tom is that he tries to avoid being called on every time And what happens is I call on him every time and then I bring him up on stage And then I talk about his clothing and I talk about his background and then he says something actually very deep and thoughtful Tom good to see you. Good to see you Oh, I just want to show up something now that you're here check this out See this is a new feature of uh a new feature They have it as it right here. Well, you just ruin a complaint. No, this Is right. Uh, I like this a lot. It feels like a It gives people a picture if you You remember when tv went to hd and and and how many? Uh, you know newscasters and tv stars suddenly discovered that they weren't built for hd Same thing's happening here, right? Oh, no, no, I think uh, I think it's nice to see for you. That's good to see um So, uh, did you had did you want me to elaborate or what what? Yeah, what are you putting me on the spot for here, brian? Well, just in general purpose, but also you're talking about shifting. I'm going to go to fold that well, I mean, you know one of the things that I think is and I've said this before in the um Uh in in other conversations and other contacts here on the forum is that uh The you know, the pandemic has really forced us into Using time and space and tools in new and interesting ways Um, but I think a lot of times this paradigm is being you know, this is an unusual But the paradigm that we operate under is slow to adapt And in terms of things like thinking about what does it mean to be in class or not in class? What does it mean to be on when it comes to learning versus not on when it comes to learning? Um, you know, what does what do class sizes mean? What do sections mean? These are all You know questions that have become Let's say interesting to ponder I mean, I've always found them interesting to ponder but um That we don't just sort of shift back into the old normal Which honestly in many ways does not work well In a digital environment, you know, for instance to cite something really banal Um, you know, there's a lot of data that says you can't talk for more than 30 or 40 minutes in an online environment without, you know, completely losing attention You can't make videos for more than 10 minutes or so And yet we continue to have hour and a half long classes Or scheduled classes or or or even worse three hour scheduled classes And you really have to ask yourself as a teacher Where's the utility in that time? And and is there a better way to spread it out because you have more control over Time in a digital environment Then you do in a in in a physical environment in a physical environment You're limited by the facilities manager who says Tom has to be in this room at this time. It has 30 desks in it. That's his section size, right? And that's the thing that dictates everything else at that point And everything sort of cascades from that. Yeah, and that we've blown that up We really haven't in some ways We still have a lot of really dumb Thinking about some of these things the other thing about remote And melanie was i'm sorry martha was talking about being there, you know You know remote makes That a different kind of challenge than if you're sitting in a room with other people And again, it's a it's a time and space kind of thing Where, you know, you have to put a special attention toward You know reaching out and and connecting with your students in a way that was a little more Instinctual in a classroom environment, right? Um and and again that messes with okay, so Is it better for me to meet with a lot of students individually? Is it better for me to be in a in a zoom room with 20 or 30 students? I mean, which How What's the utility of that, right? So I've done two things in my classes. I've split them in half time wise and I've split them in half student wise So I have smaller groups of students who are only supposed who are only required to be there for You know half of the class time the rest of it's done on on a asynchronous online thing Um and that has two advantages and again That's much more difficult to pull off in a physical environment because you're being driven by constraints that have nothing to do with teaching and learning This is a great idea and this is something for us to explore So I was just going to say you reminded me of once I hosted the floor from Helsinki at a university Talked about physical constraints and the security closed the building I was in at the end of the hour So I was picking up my laptop and walking through the building and you could see the lights going off behind me as I was going out so Okay security first I was meant to be here, but But let's let's take a look at your time question. Um Kathy Pittman has a question and then uh, um that relies right It goes right to this She asks do you think this extra lines and technology makes it harder to unplug at the end of the day? I think we need to rethink what that means. I mean, I think you know the What I find is I break up my day into smaller chunks So I'll work really hard for a few hours in the morning and do a lot of the email and Asynchronous kind of stuff and updating sites and that sort of thing and then I do exercise I go out take a walk I you know, I I break the routine and then I come back and I teach and then I have lunch and then I teach again and then I you know, then I but I and then I it's Again, why why do I need to worry about a schedule of a building unless I have to meet people Yeah, you know come into a point where everybody's in the same place at the same time at the rest of the time I should work around what I need to do Right. Thank you and it requires a mindset of being able to turn it off. I mean to say, okay I'm gonna go do something else It's you know, and it a lot of times that's really helpful if I get stuck writing or something like that Taking a walk is the best thing to do You're good at that and you have a great eye for doing that Thank you. Thank you, Tom. Joe. Do you want I know you have some ideas about this about our overlays in technology How about this unplugging part? I will admit that one of the things that I struggle with is the degree to which Yeah, I think I think the degree to which Reliance on literally the same devices Creates a blurring between Between recreation and work and I think that is a problem Because I do not have the mental discipline That tom's referring to it's hard for me to Say I'm I am not at work and I'm not going to check my work email And I am not going to feel bad about the fact that I am Watching netflix and not doing work One of the biggest benefits that I personally have had has been returning to a regular phone call with my closest friends in the world We talk on the phone every monday night And one of the benefits of that I mean one of the benefits is I don't have to look at myself I'm not on zoom my eyes can look across the the room and probably get some much needed rest But Yeah, I think that there is and some of this is specific to our current moment I think there are some real problems in the ways that You know, I we we might need more Different devices to tell us This is this is where I am At work or at home, it's a problem that right now I'm sitting at my dining room table and that's that has messed up my meal planning because My dining room has somehow also become my office So so yeah, I think these are Very real problems and and now we're into you know architectural constraints, right? Who has a room that they can be in their office in Is Is another whole big problem someone was just on twitter saying having A private quiet space to do school work in Is an immense privilege That's why I have these I make my own private space, right? Yeah, I mean I I work in a fairly public you can sort of see behind me a little bit here You know, that's that's the rest of the house there And most of the time it's not an issue. You know, my wife is working downstairs We chose not to try to cram into the study together because it's just too tight So I I set up in the game room our kids don't really game very much anymore. They're getting too old for that Um, but if somebody's running the tv downstairs, it's a bit of an issue Which usually isn't an issue except in the evenings if I'm doing an evening thing Um, but I mean I can I if I need to shut out I mean I I had the same problem when I used to work in an office with an open floor plan. I mean, you know, and You have to put out headphones, right? We had a couple of good good comments about this in the chat Mark Corbett Wilson says recently overheard. We're not working from home. We're now living in an office Yeah, and then Martha Snyder says I'm in my closet, which is a closet slash office Uh This is this is a lot of fun. These are old arbitrary distinctions I would say I mean, I you know, you have these are mental Constructs as much as they are physical constructs Think about how much time you spend at the office goofing off in a given day Right. I mean how much actual productive time, right versus and then of course you factor in the amount of time You spend driving to and from said office and for some people that's considerable, right? And and all of that doesn't you know And I make that into productive time when I was driving because I would listen to podcasts and books and stuff like that and that that was that was useful but You know, of course I'm I'm way behind on all of that stuff now I put less than 7000 miles on my car last year I'm I'm literally thinking of going into my office and just assuming that any piece of paper that is still on a surface Since last march really needs to go into a hefty bag Can't be any way that's relevant to me doing my work anymore It can't or I was gonna say set them on the fire, but but the um, but I I wanted I wanted to bring Kate Montgomery into the conversation because we were talking about space before we mentioned international Dynamics to this and already in the chat one person said that I think the cloth this idea came from the prime minister of turkey You mentioned something great you were doing you were talking about um your SMU doing International curriculum. Can you say a bit more about that? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, can you hear me? Okay? perfectly, okay, perfect so We actually I work in a graduate liberal studies program We have doctors and master students And we do a lot of self-designed coursework and a lot of curricular innovation all the time so We usually offer study abroad Every summer this summer we're grounded And one of the courses i'm designing has to do with organizational culture and a virtual immersion that is Hopefully setting the standard for traveling next summer But then going forward I see that the pre immersion for a study abroad next summer may have a virtual immersion component before going study abroad so the days of Packing up studying abroad and these are shorter trips for an adult learner So that that's the audience that we serve we go for short bursts of time And I think that it's going to be a combination going forward where we're using some virtual immersion To augment and enhance the in-person experience. So that's something that I could see us working on Of course, we're knee deep right now. I just hung up with our study abroad offices Today actually to find out when the the bands the travel bands will be lifted for a university And that's part of the trick too You have to plan out so far And yet you you can't do it last minute But that that's part of the trick too We talk about we're not sure if the world going forward will ever Make us 200 comfortable not to have a lot of flexibility And contingency in place should we you know need to do whatever might happen And one thing that did happen last uh spring too I was supposed to go to England and scotland and I had some work in person with oxford And that got scrapped because of coveted but we were able to do A rework and do a lot of collaboration With zoom and that kind of thing and try to build out the work To the best we could virtually speaking Well, that's I'm sorry that you didn't get to go to The country that used to be part of the european union you were planning But um, I'm I'm delighted that uh, you you're describing this new phase this kind of virtual bridge Hey, uh, stay stay right there for a second tom. Do you want to come back to you a bit? um, but there's a whole bunch of people who just um just popped in to To say more about this dynamic and I want to make sure that we that we uh hold on to that because this is some rich stuff um Hope window from the syni system At the coil center. I wanted to talk about the syni project here. Can you can you say a few words about that? Sure. Can you hear me? Okay Okay, great. So What you were just talking about is and actually they were just celebrating it at a big meeting with ampe And mentioned actually your collaboration. I think We've been doing a virtual exchange with coil since 2006 and So, you know when the pandemic hit this Working together and having international student teams Collaborating on un sustainable development projects and problems and Having students work together and learn how culture sort of interacts with Working together has been actually an amazing retention tool for Um professors and for classes and for students and for them to Feel a little bit closer in the world right now because of the pandemic and you know We had a group in cancun who had a hurricane this fall And they were connecting with students from rochester who were dealing with police brutality And they came together and really had this incredible Opportunity of cultural empathy and humility for each other and and also working on a problem together and so I think that reimagining the space is is big and is happening and Um students, you know, if we just sort of get out of their way, they're already doing it and I think These kind of international opportunities are really where we need to go honestly just to make a Someone prepared to work in the 21st century. It's really all about being able to talk to your parts person in China or wherever they are and So doing this kind of work is also so much fun Connecting with people in other places. I know patrice who's also on the call She used to be a part of this too. So No, thank you so much for saying that I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree All right. Hang on while I have the two of you here speaking of fun Speaking of fun. You can't escape the idea of fun. So what I wanted to do now Is I wanted to actually just quickly pick one of you um to give A surprise present to And so I'm just randomly going through You know Everybody's here and let me see is kyle tuck here. Do we have kyle? I think we do Let's see if we can bring up kyle Hey kyle, would you like the free t-shirt or the free copy of academia next your choice my friend? Dizzy dizzy moment they could go either way you go either way Well, here it comes it comes to you kyle Absolutely after our call we will set this up and do a socially different distance mail procedure so that you can have The copy of the book. I'll follow up with you kyle to get the info about where you live and all kinds of other privacy violations Thank you kyle. See That's part of this is that this is fun, you know, this is we should be having fun That's a key principle of this and some of these webinars was dead dead dead dead Anti-fun pits into the discussion, but we have much more fun. Um, we also have more questions Kate this one's this one's from you or for you This is from uh, martha snider at the nova southeastern. He says when you're talking about virtual immersion Are you suggesting some sort of AR VR MR pre-experience? That's a great question and that's on the table and not necessarily we do have We have Reality like virtual reality labs at SMU that we could certainly take into account But at a very basic level it's it's recreating a little bit of a study abroad experience. It could be many tours it could be Um Conversations with folks at different organizational and educational settings say at Trinity College in Dublin or you know, wherever we might be Maybe getting into the big libraries of different parts of the world So it's not necessarily virtual reality, but it is virtual. Um, that that's not off the table though. I would say Thank you for the answer and that's a great question I'd love to see how these how these all blur and in just a few minutes We we shifted from talking about how to unplug and what not to use to how to use this to make the world together Uh, I think all of these are are really on the table right now There was a great comment from some a student recently or I'm maybe it was a professor saying, you know, it got to the point where They didn't even think of themselves as being working virtually And that was pretty amazing to That they just felt like they were working together whether it was getting to know each other in world of warcraft or working on their project in slack together or a google doc or whatever it was But they were just working. It wasn't thinking about it in terms of you know One dimension versus another There is this blending that is happening Hope you make a great Point there and and one of the challenges I'll have in delivering this Virtual immersion course in the summer is that it will be taught from a hybrid perspective. So I'll be in person Some students will be in person and then there will be some simulcast via zoom and so One of the tricks I think we all you know talk about zoom fatigue and that kind of thing One of the tricks is going to be to make sure that zoom and the simulcasting is conducted in a way The modality is very engaging and it has that experiential component As best as can be done with the limits of a hybrid scenario Or a simulcast hybrid scenario, so to speak Well, I think though that um one thing to that students are figuring out how to That they don't necessarily have to be on zoom to connect to each other and to work as a team and I sometimes we have a crutch of needing to be synchronous to make it all work but and sometimes the synchronous um Event or the time to meet is is to to get that trust going and then being able to do asynchronous and The fluidity of going from one to another Is is something that seems to The more people seem to be able to work together. They can sort of have that Fluid and I think what I see professors doing is that they're coaching their students how to do that and that's sort of like be this way in which We're all learning how to work in this more fluid realm So that you know when if you're working with somebody from India or Wherever even though the time difference is huge that there is There is ways in which that you can keep the flow going so Yeah, that's a good point In the in the in the chat reya kelly mentions that she had Her daughter is using computer gaming to socialize And that's an interesting example of flow as well I wanted to bring up One of the best writers and interviewers in higher ed period. I wanted to bring up jeff young From ed surge and partly I saw that could discover. He's growing a beard. My gosh The future trends ahead of the curve I had to I've learned so much from you brian Not not as much as I should have about the beard though You know because I've got some some distance to go there Hey, congratulations on five years. That's wonderful and You have Have been an inspiration to you know To me for sure as a moderator And as you know and as some of the people here in this group know you actually inspired me to copy you Which I am With all you know with with all respect from the beginning as we ran ed surge live as a monthly video forum and We actually are just kind of right now. We're sort of in a little bit of a break on that So we'd love to hear your ideas and hear hear some ideas about whether and how to continue that but but frankly you've You win you you got a great community here and you have You have gotten so many incredible guests and I will also just say you are Just a teacher and and someone who can just facilitate these conversations in a way that I think kind of sees everyone and includes so many people And I think you know, I think people appreciate that more and more with all the strife that we've been through this past year But you've been doing it before that so I don't know Um, I would I I guess though. I think you asked me that want me to ask you questions Which I always am happy to ask Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. I really love being on your programs And and I really really enjoyed it and I thought you did great So I'm I'm glad to see that and I'm deeply deeply flattered You'll learn Jeff one of the great things about a beard is my blushes kind of disappear That's that's handy. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Thank you. Um, can I just that kate? Hope you want to stay on the stage for a bit more Okay, whatever is easy Okay, okay. We'll go ahead. Go ahead Jeff. Just throw some questions our way Uh, sure. So yeah, and those who don't know me I'm at the at Ed Ed surge covering higher education and change and all kinds of of the kinds of issues you all debate here and and explore and we um, I'm curious brian And of course my first guest first question was going to be, you know, other than me who was your favorite guest But since so many of your guests are here I'm not going to put you on the spot like that. Um but I I do, um, I I am curious about What how your thoughts on what it is you're doing here have changed in the five years if at all because You know, my guess is that by doing it this often a you must have had moments where you're like, do I want to keep going? but you did And you probably did because it wasn't the exact same thing you did last year or last month And so what is it that it's changed about the way you think about what it is that this is about? Um I think a few things change One is that we perform more and more immediate As as events have happened. We we had for example one session right after charlottesville I don't know if it's now or for this with march slash fiasco And that shook people up. They really wanted to respond to that We had the new media consortium well down and people really wanted to respond to that and during this past year we've had This I think the forum served as a good venue for people to Talk about what was happening with the pandemic and then what was happening with racism and anti-racism And and so we you know, we're looking ahead And to do that we have to grapple with the present And I think that the present became a lot more immediate And and we we kind of became a sounding board kind of a reflexive membrane for people to To bounce off of and to project on to during events. I've actually been thinking about reserving one session a quarter just for live events like that And we may just do that Depending but that's that's one of the big changes I guess a second change is That on the one hand we spend more and more time immersed in more and more video both video conferencing as well as taking You know television and youtube and so on But our standards seem to get higher and higher and we we get get served a lot of terrible content I was just on a webinar yesterday and I won't name the source of it But participants weren't allowed to see each other you weren't allowed to talk to each other We couldn't see the number of people who were there and people called questions We couldn't see those questions And it was kind of like it was like being in restraints. It was it was like Being logged and not in a good way. It felt It was Frustrating and I think people see a lot of that And they want things to get better and our demands are higher because Then our needs are so much higher I mean, so I think I think those are two changes and that that keeps me hopping to make sure that the form of experience Does that make sense jeff? It does. It's really thoughtful. I love that membrane metaphor As a as a way of of kind of releasing pressure slash Kind of being part of a Of a system that that holds people together That's that's really that's really an interesting an interesting metaphor Yeah I'm curious hope. I mean you're you're in an unusual position Because it's uni system Isn't it never quite gotten to the system nests that the previous chancellor wanted it to It's still it still has the enormous collaborative Capacity and some parts of the syne system do a really good job of that like oil That's what 63 65 campuses for 64 camp racketed it. I was pretty good, right? I That's an incredible variety in research universe of these community colleges technical skills And they're just all over a pretty hefty distance, especially in winter Yeah, can I ask a version of just question deal? What what's changed for you in the past five years for that? I mean, has it been a greater need for that kind of network behavior? Or has there been any other transformation in that collaborative working process? I I also just wanted to comment when someone was talking about just you were talking about the that Event that you were at yesterday It kind of reminded me the way that we've put students into lms's and so they can't initiate anything They can't collaborate They can't oftentimes do all those things that we want to be able to do when we're in these kind of realms and I think with SUNY It's 400,000 students And right now I Sort of we're trying to at least with coil. We're trying to sort of Rethink how you think about international collaboration and not As part of sort of an education abroad and sort of that privileged Very few people that get to travel, but thinking more of it as something that is about Diversity equity and inclusion and how we all need to learn how to work together And however that would look on any of those different campuses and having the diversity officers of those various of our various campuses Recognize this kind of work and and and see it as sort of a first step of Of sort of thinking about the larger context of the world and how I think the pandemic and also what's happened with looking at systemic racism has Made people sort of you can take what's happening in the world and sort of open that up And then you also get to pull in all of these things that we're dealing with locally and See what's happening, you know with police brutality in the Dominican Republic and then how it Can be can be reflected back to us in Rochester, New York And for our students to see that they are part of this larger Landscape than just their county or their backyard Seems to make a huge impact and difference to them whether or not they travel at all or anyway But in terms of I think, you know, they the SUNY people think of themselves as a federation because Everybody is sort of has their own fiefdom and But right now it's really tough because Enrollments down everywhere and so people are scratching their heads how how do we keep enrollment going and what does that look like and How do we make it very vital and one of the big things we did with coil this past summer We had this thing called the learning commons the coil global learning commons Where students got to learn about storytelling and then they applied it to a UN sustainable development goal and learned about that with the lens on history or economics And then they took that and they worked with an NGO and They developed a product for the particular NGO that they needed and So the students were they had the responsibility of making either of a film a short video for Ghana to use now nationally to share accessibility or They they did plays so that for street theater to explain concepts and or all these different things so to me The students actually one of the things we heard back from the students was they were really excited to find out about You know all these things happening in the world, but also across the state of new york and finding out about students from different parts of their whole system that they didn't know about and Pause just a second. Um, because this is fantastic. I'm thinking why haven't I had you as a guest on the program before? What you've just done is you brought together so many so many strands and you've brought together this The sense of immediacy and urgency that people use video live video to talk about something that is happening to them right now So if it's in the dr or rochester new york police brutality for example or questions of diversity and equity And you've tied that nicely to to these questions of how we can actually use this well and make it work And then connected to the international aspect all at once. I I think that's I would say it's like Jeff she's talking about something It feels like she's outlining something that's emerging now that we don't have a name for but that in a few years We'll all expect It's funny because actually one of the one of our collab our coil coordinators sali mom meado from Portland state said in a way what coil does and doing virtual exchange is sort of like a invitation from the future to To have this kind of work and to be doing it in a fluid way Um, hang on. I need to pause you because speaking of the future. We have two directions here one of them is I need to find out who let's see Uh, we have kelvin kelvin bentley. I'm gonna have to get kelvin a shirt before we run out of shirts completely And he's gonna need that because he is something he was really good with fashion and we can you know, we can do that But the other I I mean if I could put to all of you this question Hopefully just turn this around and I want to ask all of you Uh, jeff if you could take the first whack at this, this would be great, but I want to hear from everybody How do we how do we make this? Um, what we're doing here. How do we make this more international? Transnational in a way we we've we've had guests. We've had participants from From parts of europe and from africa. We've had some from australia and uh, And nation but the form remains very very u.s. Centric and north america center How how do we globalize this how do we make this really more? more international Yeah, I that's a really interesting question 10 seconds to couple of purposes I mean you could try doing a couple different You could move the time a couple times and maybe have it kind of featuring, you know, like try to move it to accommodate some folks in different time zones, although people there's People will stay up if they or or get up earlier or whichever way To join you if they really need to I think people people here have probably done that for to be in collaboration So it's not absolute But I as one idea and to theme it so that you're trying to to actually Take your show on the road But just by moving the time zone you might get to china or korea or some other places We're really interesting things are going on I that was more than 10 seconds, but I'll stop talking I might have to disappear in a couple minutes to get to another meeting, but um, this has been so awesome. Thank you for having me Thank you, jeff. Thank you so much for coming I'm with rest of you all. What do you think? Oh in the chat people, uh, martha studders asking for more Connections and collaborations to invite people Hope wants us to talk with the coil coordinators. Let's do that. I'd be glad to do this Tom cautions us that we might be more insular mature things we should be sessions in other languages But thinking about that mature wondering What which language are really good? I want to do chinese We don't have any traction No, I think about um, I participate in an international interdisciplinary think tank and The road show idea that he was just talking about is interesting because in this particular sense um, when I participate and say if you've heard of the pie, um, the Basically the media of higher education and innovation. That's based in the uk Some of the topics that are interesting to those in say europe versus asia may look different than what our agenda items are here Or it might be a different framing of issues that are interesting here To maybe get some perspective from Folks in different parts of the world as to topics they would want to hear more about so if you have some um People that attend here maybe have some kind of a A researching of interest areas for them That could also be helpful, but for the uk it's like because they're six hours ahead It may be that you're looking at some events that happen at different times of the day and of course asia is You know in a different time zone as well, of course, so those are some ideas These are great ideas. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you I've I've hauled you as teacher for a long time. Let me give you a rest so you can get a chance to uh Relax a bit. Um, that adds that we should caption a foreign language Let me let me see what I can do about that. Um, we're thinking about captioning which is tricky Let me see what we can add Thank you. Thank you Elena. Yeah, esperanto. It's it's it's true. Um, it's Fine people, but it's just it hasn't scaled If you all want to really check into a great cultural artifact You want to find there's a horror movie from the early 60s starting William Shatner, which is filmed entirely in esperanto which is ASL Elena I've been thinking about doing this About doing a session with me. Good job. Is it wood outlet? What are you the? ASL campus in dc Gallaudet. Thank you. Thank you. It's in a french name in america. I'm always afraid for where it's been Maybe that would be something we should know Thank you I I have to think we're somehow this party A sign of the good part is they go really fast Um, and we are going really really quickly. We've covered a lot of ground We've uh touched a whole series of topics Before we go, let me just ask What else should we be thinking about for the next five years? Because I'm a futurist the future transform is about the future and we've got to look ahead Gotta look ahead further. So what does this look like in 2026? And I had a few ideas just to toss it to you one was the idea of Having a k through 12 version another idea was having an international version which we've been talking about Another idea is talking about us getting Some more sponsors and some more partnerships Oh, what else? What else do you think we should be doing? What else should we look like in in the next five years? if you want to join the Join me up here. You know how comfortable it is. Just press that button Tom tells us that everything's on the table. Well, yes, that's true Margie mentions newer technologies. So we're always looking for that always looking for that Oh, Elena brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant the biggest growing population in the us it's Uh, uh, uh, Hispanic and latino's population. So maybe we should have one that is in Spanish Thank you Martha has this great broad vision. She wants us to humanize education and partner in global education organizations If you have any contact you'd like us to pursue, please let me know I'd like to see that but a few ideas right now Ken and by the way, Ken and I really appreciate your point before about um, globalism and its shadow of Cloning was I really appreciate I didn't want to miss that But thank you and the partnerships. Yes Well, let me uh Or a vr session Sam you're you're ahead of me. This is something I've been thinking about Would be great to do this uh as as a vr event And there are a few different tools to to play with and to explore about that multiple realms Indeed Of global panels. We've done a couple of these in SM and I really should do more really should do more I like the sound of that All right. Well, we have time for one one more giveaway one more thing to hand out to folks and let's see Do we have david ron here? Is david the bus Let's take a look if you have david Hello, david I think what you get There's a copy of academia next shift right to your Ohio I'll contact you so I could figure out where exactly you live in Ohio and uh, and Get this to you ASAP Kate mentions a really important point I keep thinking about the large gap between how people like us use tech and how for most faculty technology Is still alien and scary This is true. This is true. It is a large gap. It's something that we really really need to bear in mind I'm wondering if we should do something like a intro to Good video work and maybe welcoming folks who are still new to it And try and show them some good techniques as good practices Tom mentions a student who is afraid of copy and paste Well, that's the thing about community college And good at higher education to get to educate everybody Friends, this has been fantastic. It's been an absolute treat just to spend this time with you Thank you. Thank you very much for each of you taking all this time with us But more importantly for helping make all of this happen Together we've created something Extraordinary something unique something very very special something that helps a lot of people Thank you all for Participating this two-week award for co-creating with us Please enjoy the rest of the day Above all stay safe Take care of yourselves and we'll see you for another great five years. Thanks everyone. Bye. Bye