Mary-Lynn Bragg, Director of Campus Engagement, Ex Libris

In the last session of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) conference it became clear just how much education is changing for students in our higher education institutions. Maya Georgieva, Director of Digital Learning at The New School, one of the expert panel for the preview release of the much-anticipated Horizon Report, told us about the XReality Project at her university. There, they have created a virtual experience with the fashion design program, a partnership not initially obvious. As Maya Georgieva stated, “It’s not what you know; it’s what you create with what you know.” Dozens of people took pen to paper and fingers to Twitter to capture that phrase because it so aptly summed up what we’d seen over those few days. Education, and the production of knowledge, like everything now, is all about group work – putting everyone in charge of creating the experience as it happens. For students, the stakes attached to these experiences are very high and their expectations are as well.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) annual conference is where people passionate about the experience students have with technology in their classrooms come to learn and share with their peers. Working closely with Ex Libris customers, including many libraries who look for new ways to partner with their faculty, it was a great place for me to explore big ideas and have access to this external academic viewpoint.