The rhetoric of those involved does not hold up. Still, recently it became public; Harvard and MIT are selling off edX, to firm 2U. Why? Instead of listening to what they themselves try to claim, here is how to understand it. Is it perhaps about actively trying to avoid to make an important strategic choice? … Continue reading Harvard and MIT just sold edX and decided to cross the river…to get water
Category: The business landscape
Please: let´s skip the depression-phase – a third attempt post-covid
What if students don´t come back to Campus the upcoming years and prefer to meet each other at other places instead? What if teachers then lose their high level of energy? What even if managers themselves loses faith in the future? But then, here is a headache pill that could help us avoid all that. … Continue reading Please: let´s skip the depression-phase – a third attempt post-covid
How Wannabes can outperform the existing platforms
Competition in the e-learning-market has undeniably, so far, not been very fierce. It has been excellent to become a successful education platform without knowing much about education. How long will that hold? Spice Girls show the way for the next step. It´s possible for any unknown teacher to take it and outperform the existing platforms. … Continue reading How Wannabes can outperform the existing platforms
Digital students and customers are not the same as IRL
Let´s not do the same mistake as record labels did. They did not understand their own customers. Streaming substituted piracy and iTunes, not CD-records. They should have understood that customer preferences changed. Here is an example of what easily happen in digital education. It was a great learning-event I developed. But I failed with it. … Continue reading Digital students and customers are not the same as IRL
Typewriters understood digital education long before us
How did we manage? Power Point is actually difficult to learn. Still we ones did. We have even managed to integrate it into our working-process. Same thing with typewriters, classrooms ... and next. Well, all these are a bit different. But, are they really? Here´s what we can learn by not focusing their big differences. … Continue reading Typewriters understood digital education long before us
Try a different structure instead – a second attempt, post-COVID
Why do universities just get stuck with the idea of online education vs offline education, ending up with some kind of hybrid-solution as the middle ground? We can use digitalization for something far more interesting. We can use digitalization to restructure a business. Here is an unspoken of example of what we actually could do. … Continue reading Try a different structure instead – a second attempt, post-COVID
How, not if, prices will permanently fall
NYU professor Scott Galloway has gone bazooka: "Margins on education are unreasonably high". However; don´t worry. The methods described in this post are spreading, price levels will fall. They will even drop sharply. On permanent basis. But it´s not because of Covid or digital tech. It´s because of smart people, people like Galloway, understanding disruption. … Continue reading How, not if, prices will permanently fall
The first step to post Covid: offices, classrooms, Twitter
What about life after Covid? The discussion has begun. How do companies think? Educational actors? Students? Teacher? Plans are needed for the autumn. The future of the education world is at stake. Imagine no-one will go back to the offices and classrooms. So how will it be? Here is the answer. It lands on Twitter. … Continue reading The first step to post Covid: offices, classrooms, Twitter
Curating will soon be more fun than lecturing
Students bribe teachers. Already well known. But how about the opposite? Well, the most prominent management guru on the planet...Harvard-professor Clayton Christensen…actually suggest us to do it. Is he plain crazy? What if we don´t want to? Other solutions? This post provides the answer. It all comes down to curating. It’s an interesting growing profession. … Continue reading Curating will soon be more fun than lecturing
1000 pictures, million words
Gary Larson have always been good at boiling down thousands words into one single picture. It’s an art in itself. His core competence. And this time I wonder, if this is not a picture we all can agree to smile at...perhaps describing the digital ongoing development of education vs how we did it before digitalisation. … Continue reading 1000 pictures, million words
Go high five, go low beyond, avoid the middle
Whoopsy daisy...imagine perhaps a Chinese teacher now suddenly starts cherry-picking your best students. I mean the ones you had in your own local class-room. The ones you today educate digitally. But on the other hand...whoopsy daisy, if you instead started to teach these Chinese students yourself. Here is how to can win this whoopsy daisy-game. … Continue reading Go high five, go low beyond, avoid the middle
It’s quiet – handbok for the explosion
When an area starts to become digital it's usually pretty quiet, almost nothing happens. In retrospect, we instead tend to claim that the area exploded. But we don´t here any explosions. So how do you know whats actually going on, right now, in the E-learning field? And how should you care? Here is the answer. … Continue reading It’s quiet – handbok for the explosion
Education changes in waves, not as a straight line
How important is E-Learning really? Is it going to make a real impact? Are we in an inflection point, or not? Well, we've heard that talk before, without the educational world changing fundamentally. Why would it then happen this time? Here is a slightly different answer to these questions than you might have heard before. … Continue reading Education changes in waves, not as a straight line
Congratulations; you are just about to outperform Neil Armstrong
Change. Different. In addition, a world full of digital technology. So how are we going to relate to all these digital changes that education is going through right now? We may not have sign up to become an “educator”, or a “learner” for that matter, at all, for that very reason. Then how about this? … Continue reading Congratulations; you are just about to outperform Neil Armstrong
The real reason to care about big Edtech stepping into the stock market
It's boiling. Udemy and Coursera, are currently planning for their billion dollar IPOs. But why bother, really? You may just be a teacher, a single person who likes to learn things, a university, or a private education company. Though that's when you really should care. This post explains why, and most importantly how, to care. … Continue reading The real reason to care about big Edtech stepping into the stock market
The admission-process: time to rethink it
No teachers, classrooms, lessons. But stay as long as you like. Can it work? Of course. If you seriously consider what you’re learning system is supposed to deliver and then creates it with that target clearly in mind. Here is an example on how to do it. But it comes down to the admission-process instead. … Continue reading The admission-process: time to rethink it
Agency’s: becoming one, not to use them
Compared to universities; CAA and Endeavor are very different kind of actors. And even though they are big well-established companies they seem to be totally un-known to most universities at this moment. But they are, at least will become, very relevant for the university’s future. Here is why, and in what way, universities should care. … Continue reading Agency’s: becoming one, not to use them
Why teachers soon will stop recording themselves
It is a development that was expected. It has been cooking for a very long time, so don´t be surprised if it soon is arriving. Right into your own laptop. And it will totally change the way you feel about all "these videos" you have worked hard on the last couple of years. During the … Continue reading Why teachers soon will stop recording themselves
What could happen if bringing the learners, and their smartphones, to a train-station
One might claim Corona to be a starting point, but that is actually wrong. Change of education due to digital powers is a discussion we have had for, like ages. So Corona has only been one step further into a journey that has been ongoing for long. But still; the door that now opened is … Continue reading What could happen if bringing the learners, and their smartphones, to a train-station
Zoom 2.0 just arrived, here is what 3.0 will look like: heavily different
What´s the end-game in the ”Zoom-business”? It´s not Zoom. Not Microsoft Teams. Not Google Meet. It is not even Cisco Webex. They all are just wrong. So, stop thinking about all these solutions. Here is what to put the eyeballs on instead. And what will happen the upcoming years with this business. One obvious reason … Continue reading Zoom 2.0 just arrived, here is what 3.0 will look like: heavily different
Why do we all just play along … as if we knew what an exam is?
If we just think of it for a second and compare it with another industry: things get rather interesting, and not the least fishy. Yes, why are actually things the way they are at this moment? That has an historical explanation. But how will it then be further on? Here is a suggestion on how … Continue reading Why do we all just play along … as if we knew what an exam is?
What permanent changes Corona-parents will leave behind
Future is about what "will" happen, not about what we think "should" happen. At this moment we are still in Corona-times. What is then reasonable to imagine will happen post Covid? By looking at "different" kind of parents interesting perspectives becomes visible. The thing is; they are to be found all over. And they matter. … Continue reading What permanent changes Corona-parents will leave behind
Why Moore’s Law is far more important than all single E-learning-tools
Ones upon a time: vinyl and CD-records. If you were like me: two records per month. Costed 30 Euro. Back home: maybe 500 records. Became about 5000 songs. But today: 10 Euro per month, a streaming subscription. Access to 30 million songs. Lets apply that thought experiment to education and see where we end up. … Continue reading Why Moore’s Law is far more important than all single E-learning-tools
How to make online-education gazillion times more social, interactive and live than off-line-education ever can be
The typical situation for learning is not thousands of participants – MOOC´s. It is smaller groups, 30-100. Still, imagine you cannot meet physically, Corona-times could be one reason. Then here is what you can do. And please note; it can become way better in doing exactly everything that off-line-education is claimed to be great at. … Continue reading How to make online-education gazillion times more social, interactive and live than off-line-education ever can be
The future campus: Disneyland, Woodstock, Soccer, or closed?
What´s the best way to see the future for the physical part of a university? How should a Campus look in a couple of years? These benchmarks reveal interesting options, don´t just knock them down. But sometimes we can´t wait. So, don´t miss this great opportunity. Decide instead on style, take action and keep them. … Continue reading The future campus: Disneyland, Woodstock, Soccer, or closed?
Un-independent MOOCs matter
Netflix give us movies made by others, and at the same time; movies they make by themselves. They do well, but it is a balance act one easily might lose. Here is a lesson on that, for the MOOC-provider, its users and suppliers, to chew on. Based on how Goodreads, Amazon and Google handle it. … Continue reading Un-independent MOOCs matter
