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If we use this perspective to examine education we can consider how education may shift as a result of abundance. Traditionally in education expertise is analogous to talent in the music industry – it is the core element of scarcity in the model. In any one subject there are relatively few experts (compared with the level of knowledge in the general population). Learners represent the ‘demand’ in this model, so when access to the experts is via physical interaction, for example, by means of a lecture, then the model of supply and demand necessitates that the learners come to the place where the experts are located. It also makes sense to group these experts together, around other costly resources such as books and laboratories. The modern university is in this sense a solution to the economics of scarcity.

As a result, a ‘pedagogy of scarcity’ developed, which is based around a one-to- many model to make the best use of the scarce resource (the expert). This is embodied in the lecture, which despite its detractors is still a very efficient means of conveying certain types of learning content. An instructivist pedagogy then can be seen as a direct consequence of the demands of scarcity.

It may be that we do not require new pedagogies to accommodate these assumptions as Conole (2008) points out: Recent thinking in learning theory has shifted to emphasise the benefit of social and situated learning as opposed to behaviourist, outcomes-based, individual learning. What is striking is that a mapping to the technologies shows that recent trends in the use of technologies, the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 echoes this; Web 2.0 tools very much emphasise the collective and the network.

Anderson (2009) suggests a number of activities that characterise the open scholars, including that they create, use and contribute open educational resources, self-archive,

From my own experience I would propose the following set of characteristics and suggest that open scholars are likely to adopt these.

Leslie (2008) comments on the ease of this everyday sharing, compared with the complexity inherent in many institutional approaches:

I worked on “learning objects,” which can be characterized as educational materials designed with the understanding that they will be reused in a broad variety of contexts

humans are too “expensive

the “reusability paradox.

Nicholas Carr's (2008) article ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’ struck a chord with many people. Carr's (2010) argument, which he fleshes out in his book The Shallows, is that our continual use of the net induces a superficiality to our behaviour. He says this is felt particularly when trying to read a complex piece:

The issue of quality is perhaps more keenly felt when we consider teaching. I raised the idea of pedagogy of abundance in Chapter 8, and in such a pedagogy the content will vary greatly in terms of quality.

the question is not whether some people produce poor quality content, obviously they do and the majority in fact, but whether as a whole this system can produce high-quality content.

George Siemens (2010) has argued that academia should take ownership of the open education debate before it is hijacked, and given the above history, I would agree.

The loss of ownership of some of these core academic functions occurred not because of the technology but rather because the scholarly community failed to engage with it

commercialisation of education did indeed occur, but not because academics went along with it unwittingly but because insufficient numbers engaged with the technology itself.

you have to do social media to get social media. Given that many senior managers and professors in universities are not people who are disposed towards using these tools, there is a lack of understanding about them at the level which is required to implement significant change in the institution.