The New Classroom

So the right question to ask is: Who will be the Southwest Airlines of online education – delivering what customers need, but doing so much more cost-effectively? It could be a private-sector university. Or perhaps a very innovative traditional university with a clear vision of educating and granting credentials to millions of qualified students from around the world, along with a willingness to throw aside its existing model. Either way we arrive at a conclusion that refutes the Times: it will not be MIT, Stanford or an Ivy League institution. Their impact is likely to be limited to the extent other universities opt to incorporate their content into new programs – equivalent to today’s textbook publishers. And just as many people who can afford to pay much more actively seek out Southwest over traditional carriers, rather than cementing their leadership, the coming revolution could very well change up the pecking order in higher education for the first time in the history of the Republic.

- Elite universities won’t upend the online learning market (essay) | Inside Higher Ed (via infoneer-pulse)

I see libraries of the future, those that survive, as acting like high-tech services companies, mini Googles focused on a particular demographic and physical footprint. Like Google providing, as best it can, a massive variety of services, I see the university library doing the same. This Google Model would require more than the cool Google offices and transparent walls (we have some of those in some of our buildings). Instead, it needs small, agile teams focused on doing really good work and recognizing the value created by supporting a broad constituency.

- Future U: Library 3.0 has more resources, greater challenges | Ars Technica (via infoneer-pulse)

It’s just a matter o time until we see the same meltdown in traditional college education. Like the real estate industry, prices will rise until the market revolts. Then it will be too late. STudents will stop taking out the loans traditional Universities expect them to. And when they do tuition will come down. And when prices come down Universities will have to cut costs beyond what they are able to. They will have so many legacy costs, from tenured professors to construction projects to research they will be saddled with legacy costs and debt in much the same way the newspaper industry was. Which will all lead to a de-levering and a de-stabilization of the University system as we know it.

- The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon « blog maverick (via infoneer-pulse)

College is not trade school. Who’s really complaining? The people really who are pissed off are the 22- and 23-year-olds who thought were going to get out of school and get some swell job and now have to figure out where to get it. It’s spoiled brats who thought they bought their ticket. It’s an absurd one-to-one expectation to think that a college degree guarantees a job. That’s not the reality anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long while.

- Using Standardized Tests To Develop Flexible Minds | Fast Company (via infoneer-pulse)

Today knowledge is ubiquitous, constantly changing, growing exponentially… Today knowledge is free. It’s like air, it’s like water. It’s become a commodity… There’s no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn’t care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know.

- Creating Innovators: Why America’s Education System Is Obsolete - Forbes (via willrichardson)

Ms. Morgan borrows the phrase “free-range learning” to describe students’ behavior, and she finds that they generally shop around for content in places educators would endorse. Students seem most favorably inclined to materials from other universities. They mention lecture videos from Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology far more than the widely publicized Khan Academy, she says. If they’re on a pre-med or health-science track, they prefer recognized “brands” like the Mayo Clinic. Students often seek this outside content due to dissatisfaction with their own professors, Ms. Morgan says.

- ‘Free-Range Learners’: Study Opens Window Into How Students Hunt for Educational Content Online (via world-shaker)