For several years, education reformers have speculated about the effects of disruptive technology on the higher education establishment. With the unveiling of Apple’s new textbook initiative perhaps those effects will start to take shape; iBooks 2 for the iPad provides interactive, downloadable textbooks for K-12 and postsecondary students at a fraction of the cost of traditional texts.
In The Innovator’s Dilemma, which Jane Shaw discussed here, Clayton Christensen suggests that disruptive technology will fundamentally alter the way that students pursue higher education—perhaps destroying many traditional institutions. And suddenly, new experiments are springing up.
For example, MITx makes courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology available to people around the world. MIT’s latest innovation is to make these courses into a credential by providing certification for those who master the MIT material. MIT has also made the open-source software infrastructure on which MITx is based freely available to educational institutions around the world.
Last year, a free online course in artificial intelligence offered by Stanford University attracted more than 100,000 participants. Now, one of the professors who taught the course, has left Stanford to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes.
Other experiments include the use of the Rosetta Stone program to teach foreign languages in college settings and the emergence of a free online university.
Burck Smith, president of StraighterLine, a company that offers low-cost online college courses, is worried that higher education may be able to keep disruptive technologies out through regulation. Yet Smith has just come up with his own method of certification—letting college students show their abilities through the Collegiate Learning Assessment.
Whether we anticipate disruption or evolution, change is on its way. And OnlineEducation.net is showing us how it might happen with the following infographic. OnlineEducation.net is an information source that promotes online colleges; it is owned by the marketing firm QuinStreet.com.
Via: OnlineEducation.net