 All right, it's the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody. Welcome to the Future Trends Forum I'm so glad to see you all here today. My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the forums And for the next hour, I'll be a guide Solicitor moderator and seniors. We try to explore the future innovation and higher education But before we do that, let me just introduce the program explain now what it is how it works where it's open then I'll introduce this piece yet So to begin with, I just want to let you know that the forum has been going on for more than four years We're in fact starting our fifth year right now. This is something that I think we should all be very very good proud of The forum is a discussion day that you know, this is all about conversation about the context for it's exchange of ideas questions answers pushback and celebration Well, it's not about presentation. It's not about it's not a webinar up to say it's all about conversation It's all about what you all would like to do with a say where I guess each week Now the forum is part of an ongoing research project that approach the future of education Now this is a multi-media multi-modal attempt to wrangle the future of education So this includes this forum. It also includes a blog. It includes a book club It includes a monthly trends analysis and more so if you're interested in that Just go to future of education dot us to learn more Now we do this work with the help of some generous sponsors I'd like to acknowledge them before we proceed to begin with nizernet from new york state Is a nonprofit that helps that states colleges and universities do great work online together We're very pleased with them and their work and we're delighted. They can support us We're also grateful to shindig for making available the technology that we're using right now So before we go further, let me just take you on a quick tour of how this works for the right toward your participation Where I am right now and where this slide is for just a minute called the stage And it's called back because everyone involved in this kind of thing can see and hear what's going on stage This is where a guest can be and this is where you can be too. I'll say how to do that in a second Right below us. You should see around the up to 18 or 20 different people that's right In fact right now, I've got 34 people who are all signed in I think the best is the precipice swarms You can see different people you can mouse over them to learn more about them So if you uh mouse over a little petal, you'll see they musically know college Like your academic something you can find out more by clicking on him and asking Hello mo picking on you right now If you you'll see an either and there should be a chevron button Let's do a page between different areas Now next to them will see a couple of buttons So one of them is button for purchasing the book that will be discussing today So I'm sure the authors and their publisher would be delighted if you clicked on that button Now below that is where the real interaction happens. You should see a few different buttons lined up One of them is a raised hand icon and one was a question mark So if you click on the question mark, that'll give you access to a little box where you can type in a question or a comment Easy as that and I'll get that and when the time is right I'll flash it on the screen so that everybody including our guests can read it and I'll read it out loud So everybody including our guests can hear it Now that works really well, uh, if you are in a position where you can't use video Say you don't have a camera your bandwidth isn't sufficient or you don't feel comfortable with it But if all those conditions aren't met and you are comfortable you've got a camera You're ready to go click on the raised hand button That tells us that you want to join us appear on stage And the minute that's ready I'll just click a button and you'll appear right alongside us and get to ask face to face Questions of our guests. Um as easy as can be So those are the two really big ways either using the The question mark for the text question or raising the raised hand button to join us on stage And if you're a twitter user, and I think some of you are I know some of you are Just use the hashtag And you can throw questions out there I'll be checking twitter as we go and if I can I'll squeeze out some tweets as well But that's often a good way for people in the conference to be able to shout out What they see is most exciting and interesting And sometimes there'll be people who can't make it say They're lacking bandwidth and they'll follow the tweets and then they'll tweet questions at us Which is pretty exciting So all this is to say we have the technologies for you to participate. This is a community effort Not one that is driven by myself, but by your questions your needs your thoughts We're really grateful to shindig for making the technology available We're also grateful to our supporters on patreon if you don't know patreon. It's a crowd funding Service that lets you support some creative ongoing work And here lets us support our work in the future of education So people contribute as little as a dollar a month and in fact if you look at this slide You can see people who contribute ten dollars or more a month people like michael hoggins Shreve van doeper, Matthew B. Henry, Gene Kimhaan, chris johnson, david jay gary kim We're really grateful for that a lot and we can't do this without them And if you'd like to join them, just go to patreon.com.com.com and i'll send it Now One quick note just as a little bit of self promotion If you haven't already seen it my new book has just come out So you get academia next with futures of higher education and down-topping university exams Highlight publisher will be the lighted if you grab one or grab several and we'll always have to talk about it now So much for an introduction now speaking of books like to introduce This means guests the authors of a terrific brand new book a learning realization of higher education My guests are wonderful important people in the whole space of higher education They're very very accessible. That's how much they won't bite And they will in fact Be here to answer your questions and your thoughts. So let me first introduce my colleague And good friend eddie maloney Eddie is at georgetown university where he is a professor and the executive director of the candles program Eddie greetings. Hey, brian. How you doing? Very good to see you you as well How are things there? Things are good. Where are you? You're not you're not on campus. Are you? No, I'm actually at home right now Very nice. Very nice. It's rainy here in dc. So good. They don't commute into campus Even rainy here as well. My uh cats are very disappointed with this and they hold us all personally and irresponsible So brian, uh, I've noticed that your voice kind of goes muffled in and out. So I'm not sure Sometimes I can hear you and sometimes I can't I'm not sure if everyone else is having that Effect as well. Um, can you hear me now? I can hear you now. It may just be a proximity question I'll make sure to speak a few inches closer than the mic if anybody else is having issues with this Please say something in the chat To give people a sense of I'm not sure if I'm the only one. I can't see brian anymore. But now I can see But I um, I I guess I may have fade out for a second there I mean my question was to introduce you to people give people a sense of who you are and what you do Could you just tell people what you're going to be working on for the next year? What are the big issues the big projects the big topics that are missing your mind? Oh, that's a great question. Thanks for throwing one out that I hadn't really thought about what am I going to do with my life? That's what you're asking brian. That's just for 2020 Um, so as brian knows, uh, we we actually just launched a graduate program In learning design and technology. It's a program that brian teaches in We're really lucky to have him teach a number of classes. Our students absolutely adore brian It is a program that I am really excited about growing and thinking about its next stage It's not about three years old. We've got some wonderful students I see in fact one or two of them are online here today One of our a couple of our graduates as well as current students We have So in the next couple of years, we're going to be really kind of refining the curriculum thinking about what it means to take that program online So a lot of interesting stuff that's happening in that space as we kind of think about the work that we're doing In learning innovation not just about how we have an impact on campus Universities at our university universities across the world today But how we help train folks who are going to be doing that work for generations to come It'd be enormously ambitious and completely appropriate given your background expertise and wonderful skills Thank you. Thank you. Love to hear that. Let me bring on board your co-conspirator Let me bring on board josh kim Josh is coming to you from darkness where he is the director of online programs and strategy. How are you doing josh? Hi, hey, good to see you both up on the stage Oh, glad to see you So I asked any question and I'll ask you the same question To introduce you to people josh besides saying this is a man who writes more than any other computer on earth He writes a daily column somehow for inside high red. It's on set for years. Which is mandatory reading But besides that, what are you going to be spending your time on over the next year? What's going to be uppermost in your mind? Um, well, I'd say a couple things the first thing is eddie and I are talking about what our next book will be already Yeah, yeah, because um, you know, one of the most gratifying Elements and we talk about this in the book is my day job. I'm a administrator at darwin I I work to try to develop new low residency and online programs. I'm in lots of meetings It's very gratifying. We're doing great stuff. It's very exciting But um, what what really gets me going and what's really exciting is the scholarship and Trying to figure out how to carve out of life as a non faculty member To do this kind of research. It's a real challenge. It's a real joy. So that's what I'm thinking about from the next year That's a lot. That's a lot. Most of you present as the enormously ambitious gentleman I'm um, it's a pleasure to hear that Um, but before we talk about your next book Um, and I approve of the way that you're charging ahead with that Tell us more about learning innovation and the future of higher education To begin with, let me ask what's what kind of reception has it gotten? What kind of feedback will kind of push back? What kind of support have you heard from readers? Uh, well, that's a great question. It's actually just out. So it came out on tuesday At least officially some folks had it early if you ordered it on amazon for some reason it came a couple weeks early on amazon, but If you ordered it through johns hawkins, which we know a lot of folks did It actually probably hasn't even arrived yet at many people's offices So we haven't had a lot of feedback direct feedback out of what we've done a couple of podcasts A couple of conversations with folks and had some feedback on the ideas that we've been sharing In that space and we're excited to hear what people are thinking about the book Well, let me ask the two of you, um, I mean thinking about the book then and uh, congratulations on its fresh appearance And I'm I'm glad that we can be this cutting edge. The book is fresh out the presses and you get that that new book smell That's right But uh, you know thinking about this one of the topics that you raised that both of you've been exploring for years The question of creating a kind of discipline Learning innovation and learning design and eddie. We've had you as a guest in the program talking about that And I wonder in in 2020. Where do you think that stands? Are we in the cusp of creating such a discipline or a professional field or has this mutating dissenting us? I'll jump in here In in researching the book when we tried to uh float this idea that what we're doing Has the contours of an academic discipline And we we try to sort of talk to a lot of people and almost everyone thought that we were crazy To say that they thought basically this is a terrible Yeah, can I If I could just jump in um and both to kind of offer a slight counter to that but also, you know Sort of suggest that some things are happening that would um That are new including your book brine and our book and books that are coming out in this space that I think are Contributing to this conversation We actually did hear from from some folks who were concerned that we were trying to reconstruct An academic model that might you know be on its way out or might have certain kinds of limitations So, you know, we try to think about an interdisciplinary field as a way of not quite countering that but Acknowledging that what we're talking about is the intersection of a number of different fields And because of that intersection how they're kind of coming together in a particular space That they're that that intersection asks a set of questions forces a set of Questions that are not being asked in each of those disciplines that sit around that I mean one of the things that we heard As we talked to folks we've interviewed folks for this book Is that we had many as josh said who said, you know, I don't want to do that that actually Make would make my job a little bit more difficult I'm already able to kind of push boundaries and if you start to create additional boundaries will be harder for me to do my work We also heard from folks that they felt like that discipline already existed And so why would you try to argue for something new to come into being? I would say the the third and probably just as common Response that we received was yeah, we really need this This is something that would allow us to kind of think in this way that no one else is doing this We haven't thought about it in this way And so the fact that there are three or more different responses to that question to me is actually fruitful It says that there is something that needs to be explored We don't have agreement on this and that's a good thing We all kind of approach our work in different in different ways from different directions We think about this work both from a scholarly perspective and from a practical perspective. It's applied But it's also It's necessary to have a research basis through all sorts of questions That come out about this work not just our book but your book and the books in this in this space about How is data driving these questions? How are we making decisions? Are we you know as we saw yesterday just in an echo chamber or are we actually trying to push the thinking forward in good ways? You know the fact that people are asking those questions and pushing on On this work in good ways is actually really fruitful from a disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective It means that there are questions. We need to try to answer together There are questions that we can explore together There are problems that we have that if we can come together around methodologies or we can even challenge Methodologies together that there's an opportunity to do something If if every if everyone said it's done great or if everyone said it's needed, but you know, we don't know why But everyone said don't do this. I think you know that would be an easy easier place to be But I think we're actually in a really nice kind of moment of tension where we're trying to figure this out productive interdisciplinary attention Here you go Oh, thank you. Those are both great answers to this and before I can ask any more questions people have already started firing up their own so let me just quickly add Fred Beshears and tested person asked this question You both where are you since the organizations like schools may someday know more about us than we know about ourselves Would this be an ideal intelligent tutoring environment? well, I I'm not sure. Um, it seems like there are a couple of different pieces that would be required for it to be an ideal tutoring environment Presumably some sort of form of AI not just the data What we would know but how we would employ that data or Or at least a set of systems in place to use that data Um I don't know if that would be an ideal tutoring environment quite as in I've read Hariri's work. It it's a little scary to me to think about that as the ideal tutoring environment quite frankly, but Well, that's one answer very good Josh, do you want to jump in on that? I would press on that actually one points this you've raised both of your very whole series of terrific topics Um, let me just remind everybody Of floor is yours. So if you would like to ask a question like Fred just did You can just hit that question mark button and you can type away or if you want to join us on stage You just simply click the The raised hand button and then you can join us on screen. It's just easy as can be The what I wanted to push on a little bit was the questioner of faculty support So as you mentioned, we have in the United States the majority of faculty with the ponderance Agents and yet a lot of faculty support structures are aimed at tenure track faculty Are we experiencing something like a two tier method of faculty support? And if so, is that the way we should go forward or should we do something different? Yeah, I think it's um, it's it's hard to argue that there is not um, a bit of a well, maybe a significant cast system Um in in higher education today Um, what the solution to that is I think uh, is is an interesting problem. It's an interesting challenge there are are certainly I think important things about tenure and what that brings to the individuals who hold those positions um, and to In in some sense to argue for greater support for people without tenure Pushes the needle away from tenure as a possibility Rather than pushes the people without tenure toward the tenure space, right? So the the tension does not seem to me at least as it's been played out Over the past 10 to 15 years be moving in the direction of let's provide tenure for everybody It is let's reduce tenure for for more and more folks Um, and you know when you get into that place, I don't think you you do anything necessarily to Support and help contingent workers in in this space. Um, that that doesn't necessarily become Uh, you know what I would see as the as the outcome though It needs to be clearly we're not doing our job In higher ed if we're not supporting the people who are doing The most important work at the institutions Teaching and helped helping to develop and inform the students who are there So it's it's a I think it's a significant problem If I felt like I had the perfect solution for that, uh, we would have written a different book I understand I appreciate what you just said If you're new to the forum we've been looking at the question of academic labor for several years now Um, we have another question that's come in and we push this up on the screen This is from the awesome Nate angel Especially with hypothesis and they'd asked if learning science tells us the most effective method is one to one Human to human future right? How do you think of digital as supporting and or changing that hypothesis? Yeah, I like this one. Yeah, um, you know the uh, for the famous, um Uh, little bit of hopkins student instructional a lot And how do you finish a model? Yeah How does how does digital support or change that hypothesis? So brian, I think has uh gone dark again It's ghosting us. Um, I do think uh In any can any educational environments, um, you know, there is a There's an ideal There's an ideal that you know, we could imagine playing out in terms of a particular kind of learning engagements that Is it has all sorts of other challenges related to it and scale would be one of those things It's a wonderful thing to imagine all learning to happen In one-on-one engagements you can imagine, you know the kind of tutoring model, but even Even one to five or one to you know, a reasonable number of students would would would be a better than one to 400 or one to 5 000 Can technology solve that problem? I think it can Help with the scale problem and help to mitigate some of the engagement problem Um, you know, it's obviously only going to At least in my mind, it's only going to get us part of the way between the two of those things The deepest richest teaching and learning engagements and what it means to scale To teach the most number of students once we take away that or once we sort of look more carefully at that one-to-one model You know, we have all sorts of issues and challenges with equity and access Um, you know, that that's it's it's a sort of idealistic model in a very very limited kind of way Um, and certainly does not does not scale out well So technology in my mind kind of helps from the scale end of the problem helps you kind of Move move in toward the deeper and learning deeper learning engagement And there are there obviously some some other ways in which technology can help But I don't think it necessarily solves that problem of the one-to-one engagement It just complicates it a little bit in some ways and provides a way of broadening that scale Interesting interesting. Well, those are good answers. Um, thank you very much And thank you for a terrific question. They work with hypothesis because they're a terrific project I just want to shout out to that And your pun use of hypothesis in your question That was perfect. It's like he's the director of marketing. That's right. Um, so let me just uh, Ask everybody again, um, it's that easy to ask questions and you can tell that uh, it's that exciting for uh, Eddie and uh Our josh to be able to answer them. So, um, please give us your your comments and questions as we go Um, let me ask you in the course of your work Where have you found academic institutions doing this right? Where are the real leaders that are actually supporting these kind of Transdisciplinary questions. We're the ones that are actually institutionalizing this kind of Yeah, and I would all I mean part of your question bryant who is the institutionalization of this work I think as josh is saying we found a lot of really exciting things happening at a lot of places some with deeper Kind of connection to the institution and the structures of the institution If I don't say a lot of this work is happening in kind of pilot phases. It's happening in these these interspaces between things rather than it's kind of fully institutionalized across the Across the school. So one example of that is, um, you know, very few schools That I know of actually have built this into say promotion and tenure processes or are using it as a way of trying to address the question you asked earlier About contingent faculty members and how we actually support those there There are a lot of pockets of trying to think about the learning problem And how we engage with our students better and we have some really amazing examples of people who are just doing incredible work, but You know, it's not as deep and as excuse me Part of the institution at most schools To actually be part of the full structure that's been in place for a long time And you know I'm sure at some point we'll talk a little bit about innovation and disruption and what that model looks like In terms of institutions and there are a lot of different ways of thinking about that and a lot of people come down in different perspectives, but That problem of how you you institutionalize something or how you create versions of This that will have that kind of feedback move at the institution to create change Is a huge challenge and so one Concern we have with the interdisciplinary field is to do what josh was just saying to be able to share this information Across institutions another is to give it a kind of footing at an institution where it's recognized As an important part of the work that needs to happen in this space So their resources and time energy And attention are given to that work Not just at a particular moment of crisis or anxiety like the mook scare But in fact something that becomes part of the institutional of dna and activity of the institution We have a quick question on that for both of you. Um, this is uh, From um, Daniel Bondo seems to technology. What kind of work precisely are you referring to? Scholarship of teaching and learning Do you want me to go joshi? You want to tackle that one? I we're trying to figure out how to alternate here or I didn't say So I think uh, the scholarship of teaching and learning solar work is actually is an incredibly important part of this work It's um, it's one of the places where a lot of really interesting Research is happening in the teaching and learning space from a disciplinary perspective It's incredibly important part of the part of the work. I would say it's it's kind of a pillar of this space um, but actually what we're talking about and what we're thinking about is how Questions of teaching and learning so a lot of the work that's happening in in um in the solar space Questions of technology and innovation questions of analytics and data big data And kind of critical history and understanding of where higher ed those kind of four areas How they're coming together in this kind of interdisciplinary space And in doing so What we're interested in is not just what's happening in the classroom, which a lot of solar work tends to focus on But what's happening across the institution? How is the institution? How is higher ed as an as a ecosystem? Let's say Actually helping to think about this changing work and thinking about the changing attention to teaching and learning So it's full spectrum in that sense and um, you know, I sort of engage in with solar work There while there are a lot of projects that are cut across You know multiple departments and so on at institutions A lot of it is still importantly and necessarily and wonderfully centered In the classroom what's happening. Um, and so it's a it's a key pillar of that work. I would say it's it's part of not the not the whole That sounds almost like a social movement go bernie. I don't know yet. Maybe Well, we do have somebody here from new Hampshire. So like that's right Uh, we have a for you brian fermant Oh, no, I'm talking about uh, josh there in there We have a video question coming in for a fair dishears Oh fred hi What a unmute yourself I just unmuted myself. So my question is what do you think of teen teaching where students are? Yeah I'm having to take a stab at this josh you want to uh, so I I think you had a really wonderful Long question with a lot of different pieces, but in terms of teen teaching. I think there it's an incredibly valuable experience both for the students and for the faculty members and in that sense I think we all learn a lot. I'm I'm team teaching a class right now I team teach often brian in fact Just came in as a as a third member of our class last week And in that engagement of having multiple perspectives for our students. I think can be incredibly important If this was not part of your question, but one of the things that I think Is so important about that is students get an experience of different ways of thinking about the material And the questions at at play and in the in the course at that time So often today we're struggling with with with difference and actually engaging In you know what we might call respectful or civil or engaged dialogue. It's it's something that is You know, we have very very we have fewer and fewer examples of in public discourse in the public sphere But when you team teach you have really a wonderful opportunity to to show students What it means to engage with a colleague who you respect But who you might differ with Who you might actually approach the problem with in a different way brian and I got into a very very short But I kind of interesting conversation about definitions of science fiction for example You know, what are the characteristics that that define that genre? And I think we both probably disagree on that and that's a that's a wonderful thing for the students to see I know that doesn't get quite at the heart of your question about groups and group dynamic, but To me, that's one of the great values of team teaching Thank Yes, thank you Thank you friend. Thank you for that. Yeah, a great story. Thank you We have We have even more stories that are coming in and more questions. Let me quickly bring up one from rps Which takes us back to an earlier point Wondering, how do you think the rising cost of education specifically for your colleges? The impact access to education and the adoption of business learning Yeah, can you see this on the screen here? I think you scared brian away again I think the um one of the things I expected you to to bring up josh Which we've talked quite a bit about and I know is something of great interest to you is low-cost online Degrees which might be one way of starting to think about how you address the economic challenge Certainly not the only way and it's certainly not going to Solve the problem completely But it starts to You know open up other alternatives or other options um and at kind of The base of that question and the base of you know the interest in low-cost online degrees Um is you know a question of equity and access institutions Right now I have to do this. I think a lot of work in Paying attention to to certainly institutions like i'm the one that i'm at The one that you're at and um institutions that have to pay attention to equity and access in ways that I think they're They're starting to do but um, there's a lot of work to do there And so I don't have a you know a good answer on the cost Degree but this is where we start to explore the question and the problem And this is you know what we're arguing needs to happen And we're arguing that that needs to happen from a learning perspective Not from the perspective of policy first Or insta or you know kind of the traditional structures of an institution forced or technology first as the kind of disruption model Is arguing which we're saying that you you really need to stop and pay attention to the question of What are we here for primarily? maybe first and foremost if not only To help students grow at this particular point in time in their lives help them learn Not just to be to learn to to get a career but to become lifelong learners And how do we do that in the best possible way? How do we make that as equitable and accessible as possible? And those are those I think are important questions to ask and to try to explore From that perspective of learning not not simply from policy or economic perspectives alone How the different parts of this conversation where you focus on technologies or specific pedagogies, but now We also shift to the grand strategy on how campuses do their work across all kinds of domains We have a another question of more questions to come in And this is from Kirk here So needs focus up on the stage In the spirit of human eyes are well for amazing folks like michelle papansky block What is the right balance of how much professors should be human with their students? We bring it up again I must correct me if i'm wrong, but it's kind of at the Core of that question is how much should faculty share or how much should they be open with their students about say Struggles that they may have with health issues or say depression or something that might help them engage with Other students that help to support them and their well-being is that kind of the Core of that question what it means to be human with students. Um, I don't know why I put uh human in air quotes To be human with students Yeah, you know, I I think there are a lot of important reasons why that is an incredibly effective pedagogy We know students Learn better when they they are in healthy Both physically and mentally healthy when they're in their best possible Space to be able to to learn and Whatever faculty members can do To help them get into that space. I think is is incredibly important and valuable to do You know a lot of initiatives at georgetown that pay attention to health and well-being Of our students as well as of our faculty to try to make sure that that Is part of what happens in the classroom and they've been incredibly effective programs The kinds of stories that come from those programs that experiences that the students have Engagement that the students have with their faculty members who are willing to share that But also the engagements that the students have with the health professionals on campus Engagements that they wouldn't have had if the faculty members weren't willing to be open and and engaged in that way Hmm It's a great question And if you'd uh, Kurt if you want to follow up with that, um, please just click the raised handbook. If you'd like to join us Yeah, I'm sorry if I answered the wrong question. I'm really good at that Oh, no problem. I think that was a great answer We have another question that's come up a whole stack of questions Some Charles finley for a feature is that rapid change in technology. No professions requires provision for faculty learning How do we prepare faculty to use new technology of the field so learners are prepared for the future? Oh, great answer great answer For really really wish really wish question Charles if if you want to follow up on that again, uh, either If you're if you don't have a camera, just give us another text question if you'd like to talk about And we have A follow-up question from the angel and so I want to bring bring that back up Uh, so you see this he asks um an edu here in oregon is closing after a drop from 85 or 8k to 5k students The growth was from early success of online programs. They couldn't sustain How do you see online affecting educational sustainability? Um, so that I'm assuming you're talking about concordia. Um, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah, so, um, which Grew incredibly quickly and then seems to have run into competition from other institutions that are kind of bringing online To the fore and that certainly makes that a challenge. Um, right. Would you mind keeping that question up? I'm not sure I started to give context to the answer. I'm not sure I understand the question How do you see online affecting edu? Um, well I saw in the in the group chat there was a comment about the failure of technology And it seems to me that you know, there are a lot of arguments to make One way or the other about the effectiveness of technology and the value of technology in higher ed and You know, there's a lot of great wonderful work that has happened to think about technology going You know as far back as the book and further as you know having a particular kind of impact on On on higher ed. Does online effective use sustainability? Well, I don't think it can do anything But affect the sustainability of a lot of institutions The fusions are going to have to change for to adopt and recognize that the world at large is changing that you know is Maybe a little bit different than what happened with the The advent of the internet and it's you know, sort of infusion throughout higher ed But technology continues to be part of how we engage with the world and how we gauge with information And online is now going to become a modality that everyone is going to need to be Need to understand is part of the teaching and learning environment. We can't sort of ignore that that fact If you do, I think that'll have a particular kind of impact on the sustainability of that institution If you ignore that online is happening whether at a blended or hybrid level or fully online courses But if you you ignore it, then then that's to your peril If you invest fully in it and you don't recognize the value of residential education or you don't understand The need for students that certain kinds of experience as well I my guess is that that will also have a an impact on the sustainability of your of your institution To I think you know that in any institution of higher education It is an important balance of a variety of different complex forces Now online happens to be one of those new forces that everyone is going to have to figure out how to balance And then you just assume you replace something with online Or you just assume that there's let's keep our head in this, you know Hide our head in the sand and not pay attention to online. I think all of those things are to the peril of those institutions That's you know, however successful they are. No Please zoom please Excellent, I have to agree. Um, I'm also conscious of time and we have about eight minutes left I want to make sure that everyone who has a question or a thought Can can chime in we have The question from the arc fridrick and we just bring that back up on on stage Uh on the screen rather He asks, uh, is there any role anywhere for opms in higher education? Well, I think I think josh, uh gave uh one version of the answer of josh, and I argue about this all the time But we I think we generally agree that there are things that institutions of higher ed can do well There are things that are core capacities For higher ed that they should do themselves and there are things that it makes sense to partner With industry that that can do those things More effectively or better and I think part of the approach that most Schools, I would hope would take is to try to really identify what those core capacities are and not to give those up And josh mentioned strategy Thinking about where you're going what you're doing not letting an external company Determine your strategy for online not letting an internal company um Actually take away your capacity to understand how to move forward in teaching and learning and innovation Uh, but are there things that opms can do? Absolutely. Um, you know most institutions don't do Uh student recruitment in a particular kind of well way. Well, uh, you know marketing is often a challenge for example So there are things that opms can bring to that are those opms. Are these digital marketing firms? I would argue that if you get the right digital marketing firm and you build the capacity internally You're better off than trying to work with an opm that tries to bundle that packaging even when it, you know suggests that that it's pulling that out but You know, sure. There are things that opms, you know can do Well, at least there's a question that came in a few minutes ago that actually fits that perfectly Let me just flash this on the screen Just from gen dick at philips cadmium over asks. Have you encountered any institutions? They're doing good job of fostering professional relationships between faculty and structural designers Well, I I actually Don't want to talk too much about georgetown But I do think we do that well at georgetown and one of the reasons that we we do that well Is that um our instructional designers are our learning designers as we call them Are excellent at thinking about the kind of full spectrum of engagements from for teachers for faculty And students whether that's face-to-face or hybrid or online Whatever scale and when you're working with faculty Not just in an online modality, which a lot of instructional designers are there's sort of they're pigeon-told into this one space Faculty are going to see those instructional designers in a very limited way But if you're actually working with them in terms of faculty development and instructional design across a full spectrum Your your partnership with them is is so much more Significant it's deeper it's richer and they come to rely on you and and work with you in ways that are hopefully transparent, hopefully engaged, hopefully you both learn from each other But you build a kind of trust in a partnership that I that I actually think it's harder to do with an opm And harder to do if the instructional designers are just focused on online It's one of the reasons we do what we do at georgetown That's a great answer. Um, and I have a question that that should delight you Eddie Uh, put this on the screen now. This is from uh when mark kazitska a former student of yours There's now a team lead at penn state university doing learning development Mark asks to what degree do you see the demands and shifts in soft skill? Hey mark. How you doing? I'm gonna I'll continue to read the question since Brian just froze To what degree do you see the demands and shifts in soft skills shaping how Now the question is gone. So I I lost that Technology is being adapted and utilized particularly in higher education So mark was a student in our learning design technology program. We thought doing amazingly wonderful things at penn state It's great to hear from you mark I We talk a lot in the program and I think we talk a lot in in our center about the importance of building relationships that there's You know so much of the work that we do Like what faculty members do with students is build relationships that help all of us learn And so the soft skills that I'm assuming you're referring to mark are really I'm about making making sure we're good at building those relationships that we learn how to do that That we foster those relationships. Uh, some of us like myself are introverts and so those relationships, you know Are a little bit more difficult to manage Some of those are extroverts and we're really engaged in being outside and in building those relationships But we're you know, kind of whatever part of that that spectrum you're on It's important that you understand that you're not there simply to provide a product But that you're there to actually build a learning relationship Um between you and the fact members between you and the students and between the fact members of the students You're you're triangulating them I'm not sure if that answered your question mark, but um It certainly seems to me an incredibly important skill as we go forward. We are We don't often like to think about ourselves in this way, but we certainly are a relationship field I think we are a great question mark. I'm glad to see you here. Uh, let me Since we're the last minute, let me just ask one quick question for the two of you to wrap this up with Which is what's your next book going to be about? Here you go, josh Fantastic. Good luck for both of you um Um, if everyone wants to buy your book, uh, we can grab learning innovation in the future of higher education Uh, this is uh, as you can tell a rich and important thoughtful book With a great deal to you on there are a lot of implications for higher education Gentlemen, both of you congratulations on the publishing of this and I wish you all luck in its reception as well as in your next book Thanks, brian. Very much appreciate it A quick question before we go. What's the best way to keep up with both of you? Well, as you said josh is all over inside higher education And we have a joint post that we publish every wednesday. So that's probably a good place to start And I really recommend that for both of you. Um, and for everybody here. Thank you. Thank you both But don't go away. Uh, let me just mention we have a few things on deck uh for next week. So first of all, uh On february 20th, we'll be working with derrick brough at vanderbilt who has a wonderful new book out called intentional tech Uh, derrick is a wonderful wonderful instructional designer a very deep thinker in terms of the intersection of education technology Really looking forward to our conversation If you'd like to catch up on our previous programs You can just go to tiny url.com slash f t f archive and you can grab a whole series of videos Searching back almost now four plus years And if you want to keep talking about all these great issues by innovation technology education soft skills We have a whole bunch of channels for this. We have a slack group. We have linkedin group We have a facebook group and of course on twitter. We are f t t e I'd be delighted to hear from all of you there So in the meantime, keep the conversation going. We'll see you online and thanks for all the great questions See you next time. Bye. Bye