To my understanding future universities will fail to sustain if they fail to accommodate new technologies into their system.

Dear Rolando

Emerging technologies obviously are very important and there is no option for the universities except to use them. As you have rightly said

Learning communities – This I think is still evolving. The main tool is the LMS with a majority of them utilizing Blackboard. But we also need to get some free tools or some cheaper options if a large number of developing countries have to utilize these tools and make the learning process open, smooth and rewarding for the students.

Knowledge resources – This probably is reasonably well developed with various e-readers and e-books and e-library management. The development of iPad and other tablets should help a lot in the near future, if the universities embrace the tablet culture.

The certification of knowledge skills – This is an area that needs still a large amount human involvement and is not able to fully utilize the technologies.

Dear Nageswara, thank you for the important contribution.

The universities must integrate the technologies as a daily life/work tool for developing them because the young students think about technologies as something that underlies in everything that they do. The students cannot divide their digital life from their physical world therefore universities must match in that behaviour.

Dear Gil, thank you for the important contribution.

Still rural based university will still suffer with regard to emerging technology

It's important to combine the notions of

collaborative learning with the potentialities of digital

technologies that focus on the role of interaction, the

intervention of teachers in the collaborative space and

the collaborative construction of knowledge. The existence of virtual environments with online documents that encourage

collaboration and exchange is of fundamental

importance. We can share information

with others and work together, acting as organisers in the collaborative work or as a guide.

Technologies are effecting students. However, the chalk and talk policy is still the best method of teaching.

While moving from one room to another in your residence, you have to use your heaven given legs even though we have made a lot of advances in technology!

The universities make efforts to increase resources and technological tools virtual education but very little is done in the analysis of the individual student differences (styles) and non-technical skills for the use of technology, including the most important are the skills of self-regulation in learning.

In my opinion whole world need Free Internet Services for affordable/accessible HED specially techno. ed universally, so no third world country or rural areas will be deprived of HED. This notion I'm advocating at UNESCO level for the last three years which we should pursue starting from national level.

Creo que el rol de las universidades siempre será crear y transmitir nuevos conocimientos para el beneficio de la humanidad, con el uso pertinente de las tecnologías podremos, como universidades, aumentar la calidad en los aprendizajes de nuestros estudiantes, además podremos llegar a más gente y en forma más oportuna. La calidad de la docencia debe seguir siendo de excelencia, pero la llegada a los estudiantes a través de la tecnología, facilita mucho las cosas.

Saludos

Academic learning must be directed to the knowledge or to competence.

Programs to achieve knowledge are in general, very easy to digitalyze.

Skills and attitudes, two of the main components of competence are currently, very hard to compress into digital folders so are most evaluation procedures, even by using a very sophysticated and expensive technology.

This is very relevant to the health professions and the educational programs designed for its exercice, between others.

As in the Bologna space bachelors and masters must be adressed to the professional capacitation, in that area, as in others, exclussive distance programs appears to be unable to achieve that goal.

The true advantage of classic presential universities is the ability to provide skills, attitudes and values.

If they do....

The clever use of technology can enhance learning. I think that universities need to adapt to the change in technology and use it to augment in class learning.

I agree with you Nasser, I am sure we can use technology to augment classroom learning. There is so much research that shows good pedagogical use of technology can make a significant difference to student motivation, responsibility and as Joan mentioned higher levels of competency.

Hello Rolando and Colleagues,

Good day to you all.

The implications of emerging technologies for the future of universities, in my humble opinion, will entail universities rethinking their pedagogical practices to accommodate technology. I am sure that by now, we are aware of the transformative potential of E-Learning in education. Many more universities are coming on board with this initiative (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004). Brown (2005) noted that since the introduction of technology-based education, there has been a rapid improvement in student learning outcomes. Livingstone (2013), in his paper, outlines a number of implications of these technologies for the future of his University, the University of Guyana.

Such implications call for a major paradigm shift, a consciousness raising (Biggs & Tang, 2011). What is desperately needed is a will to act and a focus on meaningful change, change that would see a major improvement in student learning outcomes. Is this not what is desired? It must be immediately affirmed that E-Learning is not a technological whim. In fact, as established, it is an approach that seeks to convert any educational institution in a manner congruent with its highest ideals: the fulfillment of its vision and mission.

Regards,

Kerwin.

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Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for Quality Learning at University (4th ed.).

Maidenhead: McGraw – Hill/Open University Press/Society for Research into Higher

Education

Brown, M. (2005). Learning Spaces Design. In Oblinger, J. & Oblinger, D. (Eds.), Educating the Net Generation (Ch. 12, pp. 12.1 – 12.22). Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101l.pdf

Garrison, D. R. & Kanuka, H. (2004). Blended learning: uncovering its transformative potential in higher education. Internet and Higher Education 7, 95-105. Retrieved April 12, 2014, from http://anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonKanuka2004.pdf

Livingstone, K. (2013). Implications of introducing a hybrid learning approach at the University of Guyana. Baraton Interdisciplinary Research Journal 3 (2) 53-62. Retrieved April 30, 2014, from http://ueab.ac.ke/BIRJ/implications-of-implementing-a-hybrid- learning-approach-at-the-university-of-guyana/

OR

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259844447_Implications_of_implementing_a_hybrid_learning_approach_at_the_University_of_Guyana

Article Implications of implementing a hybrid learning approach at t...

I think that you are forgetting the obvious. Emergent technologies development and use quite frequently imply the convergence of scientific disciplines and/or technologies-including social sciences. This "convergence" in turn implies a progressive shift in university organizational design to a "transversity" model where disciplinary departments and careers/programs of study coexist with transdisciplinary/ interdisciplinary centers and careers/programs. This shift will  have effects on all components, subsystems and interactions of the universities' systems and all the core functions- teaching, research, extension and institutional management. 

This is a very interesting discussion and certainly one that is frequently encountered in many higher education institutions.

There are certainly big implications for new technology in higher education.  But every new technology from the printing press to the internet has always forced educators to rethink pedagogy.  What is perhaps different today is the pace of change, rather than change itself.

There are increasing possibilities for the co-creation of knowledge because of the connectivity of new media.  This has implications for the student - educator relationship and can mean a role that doesn't follow a traditional "educator as transmitter of knowledge" model.

It is also interesting from an organisational perspective.  New technologies can do away with the need for fixed places and times, it is therefore very tempting for organisations to see this as a cost saving mechanism, but I would maintain that if this is the primary reason for developing new educational strategies their adaptation will be flawed from the start.

Universities should develop sophisticated cognitive learning processes, before changing unrepertorio and expansion of teaching practices based on research, training and continuous professional self-assessment, learning partnerships, the development and use of collective intelligence and cultivation of a profession that values deproblemas resolution, risk taking, professional confidence, coping with change and engagement withthe continuous improvement. This also involves developing appropriate skills in the knowledge society that can promote community values, democracy, humanitarianism and cosmopolitan identity. This leads, develop dedication to character building of students with these attributes; help them think and act above and beyond the seductions and demands of the knowledge economy. It also requires teachers to work together in groups of long-term collaboration, to commit and challenge each other, as a concerned and committed professional community, to build a profession in which teachers can experience and become effective working with colleagues (knowledge management networks).