Re: The business of education

Interesting recent exchanges involving Tony Hirst, Stephen Downes, and Martin Weller about elearning business models. Tony got things started with a post called Education 2.0 Business Models that reviewed various advertising, sponsorship, affiliate, subscription, licensing, and data vending possibilities for SocialLearn. In reply Stephen praised the overview but then said “I guess my overall reaction is disappointment at the thought that people still do not see the social value of providing learning for free, and must seek still to ‘monetize’ e-learning initiatives.”

As you might expect, that comment stirred things up. See Martin’s post offered “in the spirit of debate,” Stephen’s rejoinder, and Martin’s suggestion that they continue the discussion off-line at an upcoming conference (both here).

If you haven’t already read the exchanges, do so. It’s an important topic engaged in a lively, informed, and even-tempered way by all involved.

But it’s too important a topic to leave off-line. So I’ll jump into the fray here in hopes that we can continue the public discussion and, perhaps, get others involved also.

To Stephen: Learning for free. It’s a great vision. But how on earth do we get there? We need nuts and bolts to move in that direction. How about providing some?

To Martin and Tony: SocialLearn (slides, video here) seems a remarkable idea given the constraints of working within an existing institution. But the vision (“make the education system adapt to the learner”) just doesn’t get it right. Stephen’s vision goes for the jugular. His may not be a vision that can blossom within the Open University (I have no knowledge here). But how about using “learning for free” as a way to expand the business models you consider? It’d be a marvelous strategic planning exercise.

1. NIXTY» Blog Archive » Re: The business of education — June 2, 2008 @ 10:45 pm

   [...] Downes, Martin Weller, Tony Hirst, and Gary Lewis have all been having an intriguing discussion on the business of education. Martin started it off [...]

2. Glen Moriarty — June 2, 2008 @ 10:53 pm

   Thanks for the post and the encouragement to continue the dialog. I agree that this is too important to drop. I’ve added my thoughts here:

   http://nixty.com/blog/2008/06/02/re-the-business-of-education/

3. Martin — June 3, 2008 @ 5:13 am

   Hi Gary, yes you’re quite right, we shouldn’t take the discussion offline.
   I would argue that the vision of sociallearn isn’t ‘make the system adapt to the learner’ it’s more like ‘enhance all your learning.’ I believe in it being free for the learner, like Stephen, but I accept that given our current society, someone has to pay somewhere if we want education to survive. Quite who,and how this is done is the big question!
   Martin