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Education was a major theme in President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address. From K-12 through higher education, he laid out the ways in which the world has changed, how our current system is failing students in many ways, and what he proposes to do about it. A few of the key points he made: Only 30% of kids in the US are enrolled in a high-quality pre-school; it should be universally available Between now and 2020, our economy will need millions of new jobs in science and engineering By 2020, nearly 2 out of every 3 jobs will require training beyond high schoolRead More →

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This is the second in a series of posts about the pillars of the revolution in education.

The most critical pillar of our educational system is obviously learning. Education without learning is like a car without wheels: it’s not going to get you very far. So let’s pull apart this first pillar of education and see where new technologies and online opportunities are having an impact.

For this discussion, I’ll define learning as the process of knowledge acquisition for an individual, through whatever means available and independent of the benefits it provides (either to the individual, employers or society). The facets of learning can be broken down using process as a lens:

learning_facets_hex

So what’s happening with technology in the different facets of learning? A few generalizations seem clear at this point:

  • Technology is impacting almost every facet of the learning process in a fundamental way, and more deeply than technologies have in the past
  • Questions about scalability, student-teacher interaction and online assessment must be addressed; fierce debates rage on these topics and more regarding the best approaches
  • Effective integration of technology in the learning process will require training and support for educators, but it’s often missing due to time and budget constraints
  • The political and economic realities of educational institutions create inertia and foster an environment of antagonism between edtech entrepreneurs, educators and administrators; collaboration will be a key to success
  • Progress is being made in the realm of guiding principles (e.g., the Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age), but serious disagreements still need to be resolved, political and otherwise
  • Change may come slowly, but it is coming, and the pace of change has accelerated

Let’s dig a little deeper on technology and its impact on learning, using the facets above as a guide.Read More →

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Pillar10-History-French-Revolution-Delacroix

The Internet is spawning revolutions across all facets of society, and our traditional education system is the latest industry to face its disruptive power. In the following series of articles, I’ll provide a simple model for thinking about the education revolution, break things down into manageable chunks, and explore some of the business innovations going on with online learning and the so-called edtech revolution.Read More →