Online education is lurking — from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity by Daniel L. Bennett
Our friend Jane Shaw of the Pope Center wrote an exceptional essay about how online education is lurking in the background, waiting for its moment to revolutionize college education as we now know it. The full piece is worth reading, but here are a few excerpts.
The Iceman Cometh — from the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy by Jane Shaw
One theory suggests that higher education institutions will experience the fate of industrial dinosaurs.
Christensen’s unique discovery was that even when existing companies see clearly that a new “disruptive” technology is coming along, they can’t stop it, adopt it, or control it.
Because they are caught in a web of their own traditions and ongoing business relationships, they cannot incorporate disruptive innovations—even though they are good at the kind of innovations that lead to better performance for their traditional customers. Such companies are often well-managed and much admired, with farsighted leaders who see the technology bearing down on them, but they remain frozen in place and the freight train runs them down.
Christensen has since written about K-12 education in this light, but the lessons are even more apt in higher education. Many colleges and universities are trying to tame the new technology—primarily, online education—but they may not be able to muster the forces to avoid disaster.
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How does Christensen’s “disruptive technology” apply to the university setting? Most people would agree that such a technology is lurking on the Internet in the form of online education, a technology that could revolutionize education. But (shades of fire and ice) we don’t know how it will happen. Here are some ideas.