Stanford and Its Discontents
Hack Education offers some interesting news. Two more Stanford professors are leaving Stanford to deliver massive online courses in their specialty area.
Who cares? I do, you should too, and here is why. First, consider that over the next 20 years or so a huge amount of value added around the globe will emerge from better design and use of technology. That means the world needs an influx of really smart new talent coming into tech industries on an ongoing basis. Those people need high quality training. That means in turn, those who are good at teaching tech can and should connect with growth markets. And as we see above, they are. More will follow. A new global market where high powered teachers will become celebrities. George, Brad, Angela and the rest will have to make room for them.
There is a second reason. As the costs of connecting via video continues to fall, we will see more and more experiments to use video and video platforms for education/marketing. Think of a thousand TED’s every day producing conversations about learning. Then consider the webimar phenomenon.
So the Stanford start ups are just the start of something really big. Hold onto your hats!