Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (9780071592062): Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, Michael B. Horn: Books


"Dr. Christensen argues that the traditional government-run education system will in the near future be 'disrupted' by the innovation of computer-based learning. At first, online learning will compete against nonconsumption by offering classes in subjects where there isn't enough demand in any given school to justify offering a traditional course (such as a very advanced math one or an unusual foreign language). But eventually, He believes that the technology will improve such that computer-based learning will render the traditional model of education obsolete.

In 'Disrupting Class', he postulates that demand for computer-based high school classes will follow an S-curve that will start to 'flip' (significantly accelerate) in the year 2012. In the years between 2012 and 2018, Dr. Christensen projects that the share of online courses will grow from 5% to 50% of all high school courses. That timetable seems a bit ambitious to me personally, but I believe he's got the basic right idea about the growth in the demand for online classes.

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