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We go to university to educate ourselves not to be turned into little corporate drones. Employers make demands on society and our universities. By the time students reach graduation, employers have changed their demands and whine the graduations don't have the skills they need.
It is employers who are failing to meet the needs of society, not society failing them.
It is time to tell employers it is time they grasped what education is, what it is for, why education is not their servant and never should be.
Let us stop the pretence. It is employers who must learn from universities.
But what on earth is meant by "multidisciplinary" or "interdisciplinary"?? Do you mean people who can work across multiple ICT platforms, applications and devices (which you imply in the article), or do you mean an IT professional who understands the economic and sociological impact of their work, or do you mean the educator who can combine history, politics, and technology in a discussion about how copyright is under threat in the Internet 'age'??
As ever, in principle, it's an admirable aim, but how to actually implement and achieve?
Great stuff as ever David. I wonder if current changes to the school system and curriculum are making learners more or less interdisciplinary? I have my own views on that...
If you've not encountered them before I recommend the exciting work done in this area by this American org HASTAC (pronounced haystack).
08 May 2012 12:32pm
Interesting to read some of the background to The Space Arts Council/BBC project, particularly the 'broadcaster in a box' toolkit. Looks like could have lots of potential for educational and eLearning perspectives, particularly as it's set up specifically so that ongoing maintenance can be handled easily.
It looks as though the BBC made the MHEG+ programming language and tools available as Open Source release - great stuff. A potential for a JISC Media project maybe?
By the way, the link to The Space is http://thespace.org/ (the blog link takes you to the Arts Council Browse News area rather than the site itself)