On the topic of education, to this day, we are all striving for and aspire to provide the best for our children at the great institutions. A degree from an elite institution such as an Ivy League, undergraduate or graduate - that appears to be the stepping stone.
But right under our noses, information, education, know-how is exploding through multi-media - be it podcasts, youtube lectures or TED talks. Massively Open Online Courses or MOOCs are being discussed widely. My colleague received a degree in Gerontology from the worlds #1 school (USC Davis) without once setting foot on campus. Is this is a historical inflection point?
We can argue for or against it - but in reality, it appears as though we have to deal with it! In communities where we have well established universities we struggle with how to accommodate these developments.
Recently the University of Virginia rebelled when a board member proposed introducing an online curriculum. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/20/e-mails-show-uva-board-wanted-big-online-push
Bill Gates wrote about Salman Khan, the creator of the Khan academy. This is one of the most prescient articles about education that is worth reading. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2111942,00.html
Another example is Harvard Professor Michael Sandel's lecture on Justice - that has been viewed nearly 5.5 million times! One of the most powerful lectures on ethics and moral reasoning you will hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY
In such a world, what is the value of college education - particularly when the cost of education has been outstripping inflation multiple times every year for nearly two and a half decades?
At some point, society is going to challenge the notion of a $300K college education (in the U.S), by professors interested more in research and less in teaching, when most of the content is all around us anyway. Or a huge donation to a private college in Indian circumstances.
(As a child reared in an academic household, in an academic environment, I say this with full awareness of the import of this point).
At my company, we have a relationship with Khan Academy called Better Money Habits. https://www.bettermoneyhabits.com/index.html
So I wonder where on a spectrum the Khan Academy development and other MOOCs lie. I was at an event recently that featured my colleagues, Sal Khan and the head of the NY City Library system and they were discussing the development of these new online access platforms and rethinking how to use public spaces such as the Library.
One statistic that is worth sharing right up front is how many users the Khan Academy has on a monthly basis - 10 million students who are unique users who use the site for homework help. Just as a quick introduction, the Khan Academy is an online educational organization that aims to provide 'a free, world class education for anyone, anywhere."
Last summer when I was doing my hobby research on WWI that I shared with this group, I used the Khan Academy to begin my reading. This year I intend to tackle WWII and will do something similar. The thing that strikes me with this approach is that traditional notions of capacity constraints are completely erased.
But in communities where there is no infrastructure, this could represent a way to leap-frog traditional environments.
The Economist magazine recently had a picture of an African Tribesman with a mobile phone in his hand. One can easily imagine, an African tribal child under a tree, rather in a class room, and learning of a mobile platform (donated by Bill Gates!).
At least in the US, the cost of education has risen at levels at multiples of inflation. And at least from the non-ranked schools, the job placement is not that great. Additionally, students leave college with extraordinary debt. At what point will parents switch over to 'free' education online, a degree/certificate be damned?
Those of us who might find online learning channels a flash in the pan, might think of Digital Equipment Corporation's founder Ken Olsen's sage prediction in the late 1970s, "There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home."
Today the Khan Academy is predominantly used for supplementing homework. A sort of a Kaplan course type offering (although free) to do well in your tests or exams. But as those 10 million kids get older and having grown up on this type of learning, create a new platform for their children that looks at Universities as wholly missing the point?
I am personally a child of the University Campus and would not trade that upbringing for any other. But I cannot help wonder if online learning presents a Guttenberg moment.
The invention of the printing press ushered in the Age of Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, the knowledge-based economy and spread learning to the masses.
Perhaps MOOCs will spread this revolution to far flung spaces that were not reached by the class room and usher in a new era of growth, innovation and prosperity.
We can argue for or against it - but in reality, it appears as though we have to deal with it! In communities where we have well established universities we struggle with how to accommodate these developments.
Recently the University of Virginia rebelled when a board member proposed introducing an online curriculum. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/20/e-mails-show-uva-board-wanted-big-online-push
Bill Gates wrote about Salman Khan, the creator of the Khan academy. This is one of the most prescient articles about education that is worth reading. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2111942,00.html
Another example is Harvard Professor Michael Sandel's lecture on Justice - that has been viewed nearly 5.5 million times! One of the most powerful lectures on ethics and moral reasoning you will hear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY
In such a world, what is the value of college education - particularly when the cost of education has been outstripping inflation multiple times every year for nearly two and a half decades?
(As a child reared in an academic household, in an academic environment, I say this with full awareness of the import of this point).
At my company, we have a relationship with Khan Academy called Better Money Habits. https://www.bettermoneyhabits.com/index.html
So I wonder where on a spectrum the Khan Academy development and other MOOCs lie. I was at an event recently that featured my colleagues, Sal Khan and the head of the NY City Library system and they were discussing the development of these new online access platforms and rethinking how to use public spaces such as the Library.
One statistic that is worth sharing right up front is how many users the Khan Academy has on a monthly basis - 10 million students who are unique users who use the site for homework help. Just as a quick introduction, the Khan Academy is an online educational organization that aims to provide 'a free, world class education for anyone, anywhere."
Last summer when I was doing my hobby research on WWI that I shared with this group, I used the Khan Academy to begin my reading. This year I intend to tackle WWII and will do something similar. The thing that strikes me with this approach is that traditional notions of capacity constraints are completely erased.
But in communities where there is no infrastructure, this could represent a way to leap-frog traditional environments.
The Economist magazine recently had a picture of an African Tribesman with a mobile phone in his hand. One can easily imagine, an African tribal child under a tree, rather in a class room, and learning of a mobile platform (donated by Bill Gates!).
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| Soaring college tuition in the U.S. |
Those of us who might find online learning channels a flash in the pan, might think of Digital Equipment Corporation's founder Ken Olsen's sage prediction in the late 1970s, "There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home."
Today the Khan Academy is predominantly used for supplementing homework. A sort of a Kaplan course type offering (although free) to do well in your tests or exams. But as those 10 million kids get older and having grown up on this type of learning, create a new platform for their children that looks at Universities as wholly missing the point?
I am personally a child of the University Campus and would not trade that upbringing for any other. But I cannot help wonder if online learning presents a Guttenberg moment.
Perhaps MOOCs will spread this revolution to far flung spaces that were not reached by the class room and usher in a new era of growth, innovation and prosperity.
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