This paper presents a patterns-based model of the evolution of learning and competence-building technologies, grounded in examples of current practice. The model imagines five simple stages in how institutions use "expeditionary change" to innovate more nimbly. It builds upon three assertions. First, the pervasiveness of web-based knowledge-sharing in higher education's communities, observatories and social networks makes it easier to: introduce relevant technologies, find people doing similar things, learn from their experiences, find and collaborate with early adopters of learning technologies, hear about relevant innovations, and discover and exploit news of opportunities, threats and trends. Second, expeditionary change based on such knowledge-sharing facilitates transformations in: production functions for learning, roles of faculty and mentors, business models, patterns and cadences of interactivity, use of open resources, and the roles of learners. Third, those transformations make it easier for disruptive forms of higher education to emerge; for example, dynamically updated curricula that address emerging and important knowledge gaps, and thereby increase students' employability. (Contains 1 figure.)