Over the last few years, I’ve spent real time digging into the education technology space (“EdTech” is the portmanteau I’ll be using, as “buzzwordy” as it sounds). There are a number of reasons for my interest in it: the promise to make teachers’ lives easier, the promise of improved educational outcomes, the promise of bringing the best education to every person in society, and so on. But the single biggest one is that I’ve always loved learning and anything that encourages learning in any form makes me very excited.
Protected: Lawrence Osborne of Arabia
Protected: A Big, Wry Beating Heart
EdInnovation 2013 Reflections
Some observations: predictably, MOOCs permeated the discussion in every way possible. Most directly, there was discussion of MOOCs lowering the cost of colleges. This is something that is highly unlikely, at least until brand name matters less and credentials matter more. Parchment, a credentials exchange, is trying to become the system of record for everyone’s qualifications (transcripts, etc.), but the market is very far from having 1) a standard way to assess knowledge from MOOC courses and 2) corporations comfortable with MOOC certifications when making job offers. No one had a sense for when this would happen but the sense is that it will.
Some Work of Noble Note 