Disrupting class

What Hacker News says

1. jonbischkeOct 2011
   I think article is essentially right on. It's very difficult to succeed in the education space and, at a minimum, it typically takes a long time to succeed. If you have the patience you can definitely make money in the space (witness Wireless Generation as an example) but there are very few quick wins.

   Education also really is several separate industries rather than a monolithic one. K-12 has a very different dynamic than higher education and those industries have a much different dynamic than corporate training. Consumer education, which I would consider to be stuff like Kaplan Test Prep, Lynda.com, LiveMocha, etc. is essentially another industry albeit with some overlap with the others. And consumer ed is probably the toughest one to make money in, at least in the U.S.

   One of the biggest challenges with education companies in the United States is that I feel we've almost been conditioned not to pay for education. Public K-12 education (which is the vast majority of consumption) is paid for by the state. Higher education is heavily subsidized by the government and when it is paid for by the consumer it typically comes in the form of student loans. And then we you become an adult your employer steps in and pays for the majority of your education/training.

   So while people will spend lots of money for clothing, entertainment, food, etc. it's tough to get people to pay out of pocket for education. The industry that is most similar in this respect is health care and end the dynamics in these two industries are much the same. I'd highly recommend that anyone wanting to understand these industries more deeply read Disrupting Class and The Innovator's Prescription, both by Clayton Christensen.

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2. czcarJan 2010
   One of the first things I would think about is charging.

   I am sure there is a definition for it - but the act of paying some money - whether it is incentivised by returning a percentage of the money dependent on commitment/progress etc, or is taken as a running cost, has the effect of increasing dedication/loyalty and filtering out the people who like the idea of learning it but aren't willing to actually learn (or so i hypothesize...)

   If you haven't - have a look at Clayton Christensen's "Disrupting Class", "The Online Learning Idea Book" - Patti Shank and "New Designs for Early Education" - by IDEO (its aimed at early childhood but some of the ideas revolving around increasing user involvement are really interesting). They delve into some extremely interesting ideas, not all relevant but theres some gold in them.

   And I have not done nearly enough research into it, but I believe an understanding of Game Mechanics and how effective Social Interactions work on web would probably paramount to the effectiveness of this web app (theres a tonne of this info out there - think zynga/gowalla for learning).

   Just my 2cents

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3. glenOct 2009
   This ship has sailed. States simply do not have the money to fund more programs to help strengthen our educational system. Even if they had unlimited funding, the problems are not a result of a limited amount of money, but rather arise from a variety of complex, systemic socio-political problems. Christensen, Horn, and Johnson (2008) have applied the disruptive paradigm to education and have some really startling insights in their book: Disrupting Class: How disruptive insights change the way the world learns. Definitely worth checking out if you are at all interested in transforming education.

   Krugman also highlights another problem. The financial crisis has resulted in real job cuts. Consequently, there will be less specialized classes, AP classes etc., especially in rural and urban areas. Christensen's point is that this is a great place to introduce an education based disruption. That is what we are doing at www.nixty.com. As a country, we have limited "teacher bandwidth" (David Wiley, 2009). Whether we like it or not, this bandwidth is going to continue to decrease. We need to find ways to harness the Web, informal learning, opencourseware etc. to create real learning opportunities for people of all ages and across different backgrounds. Many of these disruptive processes are already underway in the homeschooling and unschooling domains. It'll be interesting to see how they play out and impact the traditional K-12 and higher education systems in the coming years.

   We are looking for people interested in helping us solve these problems. If you would like to join us, then shoot me an email at glen at nixty.com

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4. glenJun 2009
   Couldn't agree more with this article. For a more rich analysis, I'd recommend checking out Disrupting Class by Christensen and Horn. All about how disruption is going to transform education.

   We are working on a startup that hopes to facilitate this wave. If you are interested in helping us beta test, then please sign up at www.nixty.com. Thanks!

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5. thredupFeb 2009
   Imagine that? Who loses when online instruction wins? Professors. This has been a problem for innovation in education for decades. Established interests have a seat at the table, but not kids. Did anybody ask students about their experience? The beauty of online learning is that it is a supplement to core instruction that can be paced to meet the needs of students. As a replacement to AP english it probably is not as effective but when schools cut out German, what's a kid to do? Clay Christensen notes this in his new book, Disrupting Class - I'd encourage anyone thinking about innovation in education (especially as it relates to online learning) to read this important book.
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6. hendlerNov 2008
   Read "Disrupting Class" by Christensen:

   http://tinyurl.com/6a9vmf

   Christensen is a business school guy, but he understands how technology can disrupt well established markets. In the book above he covers technology and education.

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