Education 2.0 & 3.0

I felt I ought to write this piece, after reading today that investment in e-learning is due to grow to 107 billion in 2015 & this Andreessen Horrowitz podcast on the ‘software eats the world’ theme – referencing education. Yes, I know I said it’s a zombie conversation, but with headlines as big as these, I just can’t resist taking another stab at it.

Why is there a problem with online education?

Because we’re throwing money at something that is broken. It’s broken for two main reasons: we don’t really understand learning – i.e. we don’t actually have a solid theoretical framework on which to answer simple questions like ‘what is good learning?’ ‘How do people learn?’ and secondly it’s broken because in the absence of a foundation, all manner of dysfunctional conventions which arose in the Victorian era are now being carried into the digital approach.