Cathie: What did you think of the provocative keynote we heard at CoSN by Mark Horn, co-author with Clayton Christensen of the recent best-seller “Disrupting Class” ?
Elliot: Provocative is a nice way of putting it; the dread from the educators in the room was palpable! If Horn is right, teachers would lose their jobs, en masse.
Cathie: Slow down and tell me what you mean. And easy on the doom and gloom – we have enough of that already.
Elliot: “Let’s start at the very beginning; that’s a very good place to start.”
Cathie: And now you are quoting the Sound of Music; spare me, please.
Elliot: At least I didn’t sing the line! Horn and Christensen’s central thesis, in a nutshell, is this: America’s current educational institution, with its 1 teacher to 30 students’ organization can’t provide learners with low-cost, highly-individualized support; but, online, computer-based learning can provide just such economical, individualized instruction. Online is a disrupting force in Horn and Christensen’s terms.
Cathie: And the kicker is historically a “disrupted” institution can’t change itself; rather, another institution arises to provide the new services. Mini-computers disrupted mainframe computers; Prime, Data General, DEC, etc. put CDC, Honeywell, etc. out of business.
Elliot: Personal computers disrupted mini-computers and the likes of Apple and Dell put Prime, Data General, DEC, and other companies like that out of business. CDC and Honeywell couldn’t make mini-computers; Prime, Data General and DEC couldn’t make personal computers.
Cathie: And now the cellphone computers, made by HTC and Nokia, among others are threatening to put Apple and Dell out of business.
Elliot: GM, Chrysler, and Ford were disrupted by Honda and Toyota, and Honda and Toyota are now being disrupted by KIA and Hyundai. Christensen, in his original work, the Innovator’s Dilemma, has identified a seemingly inexorable process that is applicable to all types of technologies.
Cathie: If America’s educational institutions are going to be disrupted by online education companies, can our current institutions change themselves to provide economical, highly individualized instruction, or must they perish and be replaced by other institutions?
Elliot: As I said, the dread in the room was palpable. It’s not clear that parents, superintendents, teachers, and unions are willing to make the hard decisions that are necessary in order for the current institutions to adapt to the new demands.
Cathie: So, I hope this blog doesn’t frighten our readers; why would they want to come back and read our next post?
Elliot: I WILL start singing; that will fix things.
Cathie: You big goof.
I think online classrooms really should be a fear for the classic school form. As someone who started university by attending real classes and wasting my time sleeping while a dull teacher whined on about useless information that was years out of date, I was able to finish my degree online around my schedule while working a very exciting job that helped fill in needed areas of knowledge based around that degree.
While I'm not sure k-12 will ever be replaced with online schools, I'm not sure that they will not be completely augmented by the online experience. Both of my children attend a public school that uses technology and online resources daily using smartboards. The teachers allow the children to drive this while they sit back and moderate. It's only used for certain areas right now but I'm not sure that it will be that long before it becomes a huge part of every subject. Since a lot of the things they do online are available to my children at home as well, I find that my kids use these resources here too.
Sitting at a desk with a book and paper is boring and we have always known this but there has never been a better way until now. Allowing kids to really get involved with animation and videos is powerful and makes them almost forget they are learning.
I've commented on a few posts so far but I did want to take the chance to thank you both for what you have done so far with your research in education and the areas that you have pushed. I'm glad I was able to find your blog(thanks to Cathie's brother) as it allows me to share my voice on these subjects as well which I feel very passionate about. Keep doing what you are doing :)
Posted by: John Hornbeck | 05/10/2009 at 12:33 PM
Thank you for your support, John. You are always welcome to post your thoughts in this blogspace!
Interestingly, when I was coming up, books and paper were not nearly as boring, at least for some us. Now, it is clear that dead tree products are indeed dead for the kids. The Greeks decried the move from spoken to written language; there are folks who decry the move from paper to digital. Change.
Our public schools must change and adopt the media of the attendees - or face extinction. It's not complicated.
That said, a human teacher is critically important - at least for some children. Dewey talked about an emotional component to learning. Teachers help children with that emotional component. I fear that online courses, even with a human mentor participating, may not be able to foster that human contact.
We shall see since online education is happening and will continue to grow.
Posted by: Elliot Soloway | 05/17/2009 at 10:40 AM
An interesting and informative article. Thanks for your support.
Posted by: Computer Support | 08/20/2009 at 03:08 AM