By Michael B. Horn and Curtis Lefrandt, AshokaU
When MIT launched its OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative almost a decade ago to provide free, open access to anyone, anywhere to the course material for its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, it created a stir in the education community. At the outset, many questioned not just OCW’s value but also the value of learning online more generally. At the time, online learning was still a niche offering in the landscape of higher education—and it had generally been the domain of the for-profit universities. Since then though, more than 120 universities have joined MIT’s initiative. MIT itself has had more than 100 million users access its content, and 1.4 million more are visiting each month. Over 30 percent of higher education students now take at least one online course, and according to a meta-study from the Department of Education, “Students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.” Online learning is coming of age and transforming the way we learn. And given that it bears the classic hallmarks of a disruptive innovation, that isn’t all that surprising.
http://ashokau.org/michael-horn-on-disruptive-innovation-in-higher-ed-teaser-for-the-socentchat/
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