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Russell Mickler, Principal Consultant, has over 17 years of professional experience leading and managing IT organizations.
Education: Free for All
Written on August 11, 2009
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I’m taking a class with other instructors right now and we came across the issue of the future of education.
My message wasn’t typical: the economies of scale afforded by online learning will make it the more desirable modality for teaching. Administration burdens will go down; the number of students self-servicing their education will go up – so, school administration will be disintermediated. Further, consumers will come to expect an online component even when attending onground universities. As materials can be easily replicated and copied, then the delivery of education becomes more like delivering any digital content, subject to Moore’s Law, which will bring the marginal costs down to zero. The future of education is tailored to the interests of each specific student, available anywhere at any time – even to the most impoverished of society – and free. Totally costless: both in delivery and in receipt. What could possibly be unique and not digital, thus difficult to replicate, is the instructor: methods, style, experience, to bring the issues closer to the student. That could possibly be offered at a premium. But, in the next 25 years, I would suggest an 80/20 rule will be in play: 20-percent of post-secondary education will be tuition-based and offered online and onground; 80-percent will be exclusively online, and either a combination of free/tuition-based.
A good discussion and some interesting support came out of it. An article from FastCompany discussing “edupunks” trying to transform the system, and, examples like WikiVersity and MITCourseware. Generally speaking, the only differentiator that universities will be able to provide will be the talent and skills of its adjuncts and professors. I’m looking forward to that bidding war (grin).
Over the next decade, I think we’ll experience a dramatic earthquake of change in post-secondary education that revolves around choice, self-service, free, digital distribution and replication, and mobility. These forces will dramatically alter the accessibility of education and truly make learning available to all. Whether or not that educators and administrators are prepared for the change, though, is another matter entirely.
R