Think about how you now “consume” your favorite entertainment.

It’s not enough to merely “watch” Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Westworld, or The Walking Dead.

No.

You binge watch. You stream.

You follow the show’s Twitter accounts. Lurk their Facebook pages. Troll – or be trolled – on Reddit, and the show’s sub-Reddits.

Obsessing over every leak, spoiler, and clue, as to what will occur next in the storyline; divining Instagram and Snapchat feeds like ancient augurs, sifting through entrails, teasing out possible glimpses of things to come.

We no longer sit back passively, and absorb.

We engage. And we participate.

We create podcasts. Create YouTube Channels. Write blogposts. Follow the latest recaps.

Our entertainments are now multivalent experiences; where being unengaged, means being left out.

Where FOMO – the fear of missing out – makes – or breaks – the success of multimillion dollar enterprises.

What does – or can – this mean for education?

De minimus, we need to consider that we now exist in an engagement – and more importantly, experience – economy ; those institutions, and individual instructors, who embrace this new reality, will substantially differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Holistic learning environments, and experiences, will be normative, and not the exception.

Classes constructed as learning communities will be able to leverage the zeitgeist and prevalent behaviors that the rising cohorts of digital natives possess, and will be able to imagine pedagogies and methods not possible a few short years ago.

This will necessitate changes in the way we construct courses… changes in the way we assess mastery over materials and concepts… and changes in the way we evaluate and reward educational professionals in their tenure and promotions journeys.

It’s exciting to realize that this is not only now possible, but moreover, quite probable.

The question is – who will be the leaders in this New Engagement?