e-Learning - How do we get paid?

One of the biggest challenges for e-learning companies today is establishing perceived value for the products they supply. When the customer buys e-learning from an e-learning provider license agreements can be so restrictive and content so dry that the client is left wondering did I get bang for my buck. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that there is plenty of free e-learning resources on the web, some of extremely high standard, so why pay for it? The web has forwarded the freemium model to such an extent that there is really no turning back and industry really needs to acknowledge this and look at other avenues for revenue. This leaves companies supplying e-learning with a dilemma. How do we establish a revenue stream when clients don't expect to pay for it?


So how do we get paid?

The main way of getting paid in this market I believe is two-fold - look for non-direct revenue channels and differentiation. Non-direct revenue channels would include just charging for support. Differentiating would be to find a niche (personalisation, educational data mining, learner modelling) in the e-learning market and charge for it as a service, perhaps to some of the main stream e-learning providers.

In terms of the freemium model I think that this could be a great fit for e-learning. The freemium model could be used to give a sampler to learners and use the data build up through the sampler to provide for a learning experience that the learner is willing to pay for. The price point is key here and I suppose would depend on the number of users and the anticipated number that would choose to pay for the premium version.

I would be very interested in hearing other points of view on this.

National Business and Technology Conference

I had the pleasure of attending the National Business and Technology Conference on Friday. This conference is run by Nspire which is a student organisation in the University of Toronto. It may of been a conference run by students but it was one of the most professional conferences I have ever been to. The conference brings together students who are entrepreneurial in nature with leading Canadian entrepreneurs to help nurture the students entrepreneurial nature and learn from those that have made it. A brilliant idea - its little wonder that a lot of the students there have all ready set up businesses.

The opening keynote was by Anthony Lacavera, CEO and chairman of Globalive - a company who are just rolling out a company called Wind - Canada's newest cell phone provider. Lacavera spoke openly about how his business came into being and then took a lot of questions from the audience.

There was also a Entrepreneurship Competition with a top prize of $25,000. Students pitched their budding businesses to a panel of very distinguished judges. The prize money gives you a sense of the sort of sponsorship the conference brings in.

A great way to spend a Friday afternoon. Perhaps this is something Irish students should be doing?

Disrupting Class

I have just finished reading Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn and Curtis Johnson and just wanted to do a quick post about the book.

Christensen is a famed professor at Harvard Business School and the author of The Innovator's Dilemma. In The Innovator's Dilemma, Christensen describes disruption theory and its effect on the business world, innovation and entrepreneurship. In Disrupting Class Christensen et al. outline how disruption theory can be applied to the US K-12 educational system.

To summarize the book: Christensen puts forward a compelling case on how Technology Enhanced Learning is a disruptive technology which will completely change how we think of education - for the better, allowing for student-centric learning. For more information on disruptive technology or innovation see the wikipedia article at 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology

Although the potential power of technology in education is not new for anyone working in the area, how technology can be integrated into education to have maximum effect is something which we have struggled with for many year. Christensen believes the answer to this is where education technology sneaks up on the traditional educational sector as a disruptive technology.

The book starts by looking at how everyone is different and how all students learn in different ways. This is demonstrating through very clear and relevant examples. The book stops short of defining the different ways people learn, but just states everyone learns in a different way. The book uses Harvard Psychologist, Howard Gardner, classification of knowledge. Christensen advocates that education must be aligned to a persons brain "wiring" for learning to be effective. Also, within each knowledge type a person will learn better when a particular learning style is used. In order to cater for all students, every course would have to be customised along these dimensions (not to mention lesson pace). This is expensive, and a barrier to student-centric learning.

Christensen also outlines the characteristics of a disruptive pattern and what that means to the educational system. According to disruptive theory, if Christensen is right, by 2019 50% of all high school courses will be delivered using e-learning technologies. Christensen also believes we are just about to witness major uptake in e-learning in the educational sector. All of these conclusions are based on his disruption theory.

The book also looks at the outer limits of the educational system to see what else needs to be considered when looking at e-learning and how to maximize its effect on education. In chapter six the book looks at the astounding effect a child's first 24 months of life have on the rest of its intellectual life. Chapter seven looks at educational research and why it wont satisfy to allow for an acceptable predictability of the effects of an instructional approach given a specific educational scenario.

In chapter eight the book goes on to look at how change can happen. To do this the degree of agreement among people in an organisation must be plotted on two axis 1) The extent to which people agree on what they want and 2) the extent to which people agree on cause and effect. Where an organisation lies in relation to these two axis determines the best tools to use to invoke change in an organisation. The following chapter then looks at how the schools should be structured to allow for change. Examples are drawn from industry, for example the change required in Toyota to build a hybrid car.

A very good book, well written and thought-provoking. It outlines a feasible methodology that could allow for technology to empower human teachers become facilitator and coaches in the class room, where learning will be student-centric. I would have liked to see a bit more on the role of teachers in this new environment. The book concentrates on high school and primary school education, I would like to see a book for higher education and beyond.

The book is available from amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Disrupting-Class-Disruptive-Innovation-Change/dp/0071592067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246980066&sr=8-1