Those within the public education field, still holding their grip on access to learning, where, when and how. In for a ride in the next 10 years, the entire education system that is. Why? To afraid that their 19th century industrialized education model will go the way of the do-do bird. As it should, when students are denied access to the gateways of learning, other than the classroom, of chalk board and chalk, and duly certified teachers.

If one wants to get a very good sense of the huge mind-shift wave that is rolling through the post secondary institutions these days, listen to Michael Ridley speaking as a major change agent to the academic librarians at Simon Fraser University last week. 

See full Simon Fraser lecture with discussions:
http://michaelridley.ca/2012/10/crisis-academic-librarianship/
Key statement Michael makes which applies well to most areas of university education is the the “librarian” is now being severely constrained and limited by staying in the library.  Michael is exhorting the academic librarians to actively take a much stronger formative roll in “content management and guidance” outside the physical library. This is not about pointing folks to the right index anymore or physical area in a building.  Just like undergraduate education is not about sitting around in large lecture classes. The times are a changing and we are just starting to build up a little speed.  One very interesting nugget in the lecture states that all the current worlds knowledge can be stored by recently discovered methods on a 4 gram piece of DNA. This means it is possible for everyone to have all known knowledge implanted in their bodies..what a thought.

Michael is presently on sabbatical from the University of Guelph and is a sitting member of the UofG’s Board of Governors. A slightly dated bio can be found at:  http://www.uoguelph.ca/~mridley/mridley.htm

Online schooling is like a large freight train with no brakes—there’s no stopping it!  It will save North America from these monopolies which employ droves of people, like Dr. Marian Small, who wrote math texts, although with no math degree, she has 0 qualifications to do this. (She must make a handsome sum as well for her bad math texts from taxpayers to boot!).  Online education will automatically give children the freedom of choice.  Over the next few years, it’ll be interesting to watch how all of this plays out.