Learning Innovation

If I ran an edtech company the first thing that I'd do is move all of our infrastructure to Amazon's Web Services (AWS).

Brian Kibby is president of McGraw-Hill Higher Education This e-mail interview was inspired by his 8/3/12 IHE Views piece "Digital Deadline". What I found interesting is Kibby's willingness to make strong statements in print, namely that in 36 months higher ed should be completely digital.

A colleague sent me a note today wondering if the news of for-profit EDU financial difficulties and the concurrent rise of the massively open online courses (MOOCs) are related. Correlation or causality?

What do you think of Pearson's purchase of EmbanetCommpass?

Why School? is part of the wonderful new TED Books series. Have you read any of these TED books? We are in the middle of a concise nonfiction renaissance, made possible by e-book readers, tablets, and new software platforms such as Atavist. The primary concern in Why School? is K-12.

First, I think we should take a moment to acknowledge the role that Michael Chasen has played over the past 15 years as a founder and CEO of Blackboard in changing our edtech industry. Many will disagree with me, but I believe that Blackboard has been part of accelerating a transition to active learning at scale, and the growth of the LMS industry has made possible the rapid diffusion of blended and online learning. Michael Chasen's role in bringing both capital and consolidation to an underfunded and fragmented edtech industry should not be minimized.

I have a colleague who does not have an office. He is an an edtech leadership role in higher education, with over 20 years of experience managing a large and complex organization. During the time in which I have known this edtech leader he has had a couple of different offices throughout his campus, as his responsibilities are distributed across a number of units.

What platform do you use for synchronous online learning? Adobe Connect? Blackboard Collaborate? WebEx? GoToMeeting? BigBlueButton? Skype? Google Hangouts? A new startup, Zoom.us, is determined to shakeup this market.