Top five applications for video in higher education — from Cisco
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Also see:
Using VoiceThread to give students a voice outside the classroom — from The Chronicle by Shannon Polchow, an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of South Carolina Upstate.
Ten tips for personalized learning via technology — from Edutopia.org by Grace Rubenstein
To challenge and support each child at his or her own level, the educators of Forest Lake Elementary deploy a powerful array of digital-technology tools. Discover what your school can learn.
From DSC:
Their first tip got my attention and I agree wholeheartedly; the following graphic relays my viewpoint/hope here:
Blockbusted: A Netflix Knock-Out, Bad Metaphors on the Path to the Movie Monster’s Bankruptcy — from Fast Company – Technology by Austin Carr
The Blockbuster age is fading, and at last the company is preparing for bankruptcy. In the past two years, the shrinking video-rental store has struggled to stay afloat with $920 million in debt, drowning all the while in revenue losses of $1.1 billion. The LA Times reports that Blockbuster executives and senior debt holders have entered discussions with major movie studios for a “pre-planned” bankruptcy mid-September.
But for everyone other than Blockbuster’s sunny faced spin masters, bankruptcy was about as surprising as another Rocky comeback. Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar business was unviable in the digital world, and competitors Netflix and Redbox took every advantage to pick apart the dinosaur’s carcass. The company’s numbers have signaled extinction, too, with value withering from $8.4 billion when Viacom purchased it in 1994 to total market value of $24 million today. Continuing the Mesozoic metaphor, here’s why bankruptcy hit Blockbuster like a surprise asteroid.
Netflix Who?
From DSC:
And I would add the questions:
In a presentation I created last year (see Section II), I used Blockbuster as an example of an organization who completely discounted the disruptive impact of technology..and now they are paying the price (along with much of the newspaper industry).
There IS a lesson here for those of us in higher ed.
I’ll end this posting with the following quote/excerpt:
“This is a pattern we see over and over,” he said, of the many parallels he could draw to Blockbuster’s financial troubles. “If a company is not able to keep up with the changing needs of its customer, it will become irrelevant,” he said.
Ultimately, it was these words which may have saved the company. Blockbuster was not able to keep up with the changing needs of its customers.
Blockbuster has become irrelevant.
Relevant addendum:
New Business Models for Higher Education — from David Collis, Yale University [via Educause]
Collis assesses the new higher education marketplace, replete with distance learning courses offered online. He reviews the business models of dozens of for-profit Internet based firms entering the higher education market, compares their strategies with those of traditional colleges and universities, and projects the effects of the new entrants on established institutions. Collis concludes that the new firms will move more quickly along a technology-enabled learning trajectory, which in the end will put them at a distinct advantage when they move from their most common point of entry — the corporate market — into the traditional higher education realm.
— Resource from Scott Meech, and his resource-packed 8/14/10 presentation here.
