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By Dr. Harry Tennant
Monday, December 6, 2010 Guest Post: Online Learning and the Growth of Disruptive Innovations
My first digital camera was a fixed focus Sony Mavica in about 1998 that took 0.31 megapixel pictures (640x480 pixels). I paid $750 for it and was thrilled with it! The pictures were poor compared to a film camera and the camera was ridiculously expensive. But the pictures were plenty good enough to put on web pages.
The reason that digital cameras replaced film cameras despite the inauspicous start represented by my Sony Mavica is that, being based on digital electronics, they had the opportunity to improve rapidly. Their price could fall and features improve at exponential rates following the technology improvement of microelectronics. In contrast, film photography improved at a much slower rate. Within a few years digital photography nearly completely replaced film photography. What does this have to do with online learning? Today online learning is primarily applied in specialty situations: remedial tutorials, early learning, otherwise-unavailable courses. But the rate of improvement of online learning may inherit the benefits of other online technologies: cheaper servers, better displays, better PCs, faster connections, better authoring software, ever growing communities of courseware authors, ever growing communities of potential students. Compare this with the expected rate of improvement in traditional classroom education. Who will win that race? Does the steeper learning curve of online learning compared to classroom instruction suggest that online learning will overtake classroom instruction like digital cameras overtook film cameras? The answer to that question lies in two sub-questions:
What do you think? Posted at 9:02 AM Keywords: by Harry Tennant , Online learning 5 Comments |
Guest post by 
This is typical of disruptive innovations. They start at relatively low quality, typically high prices and appeal only to niche markets. It was true of transistor radios (originally poor audio quality but portable!), calculators (fewer functions than sliderules, short battery life), mp3 players (awkward interfaces before the iPod), video recorders (expensive, heavy equipment compared to 8mm cameras), etc. The big difference with disruptive innovations is that they are on a steeper learning curve.|
Dan Martin said... In my opinion, classroom instruction will never be obsolete like the technologies you mentioned, but the online learning option will no doubt continue to grow. So much so that competition for funding (students numbers, vouchers, etc.) between so-called "in-seat" instruction versus online instruction may become at least as central to public debate than the more common public vs. charter schools debate is today. There will always be a place for "congregations" of instruction...in person! What will those "schools" look like in the future? That may surprise many of us. Online instruction will be one of the key factors pressing the issue...and hopefully progressing education of all types! Monday, December 6, 2010 11:53 AM |
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R. Jorczak said... Classrooms have been around a long time. People have a clear schema about classrooms, they know what to expect and how to behave in them. Such a schema is less established for online learning, but that can change rather quickly (as schemata have changed for the devices Dr. Tennant mentions). In my view, we need not concern ourselves about what will make online learning better or more acceptable or more ubiquitous any more than we needed to worry about what would cause digital cameras to replace film cameras. The change will be driven by economics and features. In less than 10 years, most formal learning will be online and classroom learning will be increasingly niche or boutique like. Monday, December 6, 2010 12:59 PM |
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Harry Tennant said... Most often the expected "disruptive innovations" in education turn out something short of revolutionary. Learning machines in the 1960s, programmed instruction, closed circuit TV, video recorded lectures, PCs, video disks, CD ROMs, Hypercard and so on. You probably know the list much better than I. So, here's the question... If you think that online learning is not just another oversold fad, why is it different from these others? What is it about online learning that will make it more cost effective or have a superior set of features? (When you say "we need not concern ourselves...," I agree when "we" represents educators. But I am in the business of developing such systems so I need to know which innovations are likely to be important and why. But only you educators can tell me.) Monday, December 6, 2010 1:51 PM |
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R. Jorczak said... In my opinion, online learning is simply different from, not necessarily superior to, classroom learning environments. Classrooms have some serious drawbacks, especially in terms of practical individualization. Online has a different set of issues, mainly having to do with mediation of communication. For either instructional delivery environment, the instructional strategy and methods matter much more than aspects of the environment. So, oversold technology cannot provide a learning revolution, only changes to instructional methodology and cultural values can do that. As I am a supporter of instructional technology and online learning, I will say that the goal is to find ways that the technology can better support evidence-proven methods and strategies. For example, online learning offers some advantages for peer collaboration via forums or wikis. Online learning, as you have pointed out, already is more cost effective, especially in the long run. Our economic system, and to a lesser extent our educational system, looks more at short term gain (and therefore short term cost). I have no solution for that problem. Cost advantages of online instruction, even in the short term, are part of the reason online is growing so fast. From a business perspective, you have to deal more with perception than results. Many intelligent white boards are being sold, without much (or any) evidence that they will improve performance, attendance, graduation rate, or even efficiency. I suggest that they are sold on another basis: the high interest of new technology and the appearance of being up-to-date with technology. Monday, December 6, 2010 3:44 PM |