{"id":33177,"date":"2012-10-15T17:13:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T21:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=33177"},"modified":"2012-12-06T11:26:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T16:26:24","slug":"the-need-for-more-experimentation-innovation-within-higher-education-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2012\/10\/15\/the-need-for-more-experimentation-innovation-within-higher-education-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"The need for more experimentation, innovation within higher education [Christian]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The need for more experimentation, innovation within higher education.<\/strong><\/span>
\nBy Daniel Christian for the CHFE12 MOOC
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week, I attended the 18th<\/sup> Annual Sloan Consortium on Online Learning in Orlando, FL (USA). After hearing Sebastian Thrun\u2019s excellent keynote address, I was very troubled by a couple of questions that kept arising in my mind (which I\u2019ll get to in a minute). It turns out that Sebastian had heard Sal Kahn at a TED talk a while back, where he learned of the impact that Sal was having and the pedagogy Sal was using.<\/p>\n

Now bear in mind that Sal was not in education. \u00a0He was working in the financial services industry, putting together training-related items for his nephews\/family members.<\/p>\n

Then bear in mind that Sal Kahn has arguably had one of the most significant impacts on K-12 of any individual in recent decades \u2013 and even on institutions of higher education (in terms of professors investigating or starting to use the flipped\/inverted classroom model).<\/p>\n

Then bear in mind that Sebastian Thrun didn\u2019t run his idea by anyone in Stanford\u2019s administration! His email out to some folks started going viral, and within days<\/em> the enrollment numbers were already in the thousands.\u00a0 (And at that point he got asked to drop by his Admin’s offices! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I wonder what would have happened if Sebastian would have first asked Stanford’s leadership for permission…? It may never have occurred.)<\/p>\n

Sebastian\u2019s and Peter Norvig\u2019s AI course went onto graduate 23,000 people (with an initial enrollment around 160,000). Then, there\u2019s the related Coursera organization\/endeavor — again, a business that needed to be created outside of the traditional institutions of higher education.<\/p>\n

So, recapping things:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n