A Model for Disruption in Education?

In what form might education disruption come?

I like technology. I love learning. So you can probably imagine how giddy I get thinking about the potential impact technology might have on learning. Not just how new tech devices can be used to augment the learning experience. It’s true, that does excite me. But I’m equally, if not more, fascinated as to how the rise and ubiquity of technology is rapidly changing the world we live in, and how education will evolve to best serve this new world?

Is calling it a ‘new world’ a bit dramatic? I don’t think so.

This is the first of a series of posts where I’ll chat about evolving scenarios that I think have huge potential to challenge current models of education and learning provision. These scenarios are based around new models of sharing information, and the dramatic changes to the workplace and economy. Changes that will come to the fore as a result of the mass adoption of technological advances.

These challenges to education might be direct and obvious, or indirect and less obvious. Though the less obvious changes might be harder to predict, they may change education in ways that currently seem unimaginable. It might have been easy to predict the mass adoption of the automobile. It would have been harder to predict the subsequent rise of out of town shopping centres and the changes they brought to the traditional high street.

Each of the scenarios I’ll talk about can be seen as either a threat or opportunity by the traditional learning providers. There’ll certainly be a wide range of new providers looking to make the most of the opportunity. Will the traditional institutions do the same?

Anyway, first up is the old favourite, ‘Disruption’.

Disruption is real and it is massive. Education is not immune.

I know I’ve probably set off all manner of klaxons with the ‘disruption’ buzzword. But there’s no avoiding it. It’s happening. On a massive scale. Education is likely to be caught in it’s path. But what form will it take? Can we get any clues from the acts of disruption already taking place?

Have a read of Tim O’Reilly great article about the ‘WTF Economy’ (after you’ve finished reading this blog of course).

A couple of excerpts;

“In San Francisco, Uber has 3x the revenue of the entire prior taxi and limousine industry.”

And

“Without owning a single room, Airbnb has more rooms on offer than some of the largest hotel groups in the world. Airbnb has 800 employees, while Hilton has 152,000.”

What we’re seeing more and more often is well established, well staffed, well used services having their current models of operating trashed by new entrants. These upstarts are using tech and masses of information to utilise new, low asset business models.

The General Model for Disruption.

Uber, Airbnb, Spotify and any number of other new companies, are comparable in that, to some extent they’re based on a similar model. A model that exploits the massive potential of the ubiquity of technology, connectivity and data.

In its simplest terms it’s a model of two parts. Occasionally, after some growth, a third part is added.

Part One – The Platform.

First, they use technology to enable the demand and supply parts of the transaction to get together with minimal involvement from the companies themselves. They act as agents more than anything else. Driver and passenger. Host and guest. Artist and listener.They can help countless consumers get the individual service they desire. It’s not just large, traditional suppliers that are involved. They also help small scale, niche, suppliers find the customers who most desire their product. Having a large number of suppliers is important. As many potential customers as possible should be able to find something that satisfies their need. And they should be able to access it when they want it.

Part Two – The Information.

Second, they use massive amounts of data and numerous, complex algorithms to ensure the most efficient level of service for both the business and the customer. We see it it in Uber determining where you’re likely to be going or calculating the right price to ensure enough cars are available, AirBnB looking to deliver the most appropriate accommodation in your search results, and Netflix recommending the best film choice or developing new shows that people will want to watch. Data is the driving force behind deciding what to supply, when and to whom. Customers can also be influenced by relevant nudges from systems that understand the needs of the consumer. Perhaps even better than they do themselves.

Part Three – The Creation.

And then, thirdly, when they have enough data about the market in which they operate they can then opt to become a supplier themselves. They let others take the risks of trying to sell a product/service/content. They learn what works. And they learn what doesn’t. They can then enter the market themselves. We can see this in Netflix using data about how we currently watch existing hit shows. They use this data to inform their homegrown production of new shows. Amazon, are doing a similar thing in media. They also do it in retail. For example, monitoring third party sellers in Amazon Marketplace to determine what sells. Amazon may then sell it themselves. Cheaper.

This combination of ubiquitous tech platform and data sets the foundation for them to reach a massive market, but with a relatively small level of resources. This makes them more nimble than the industry incumbents.

The Model for Learning

So what about education? What would a learning provider based around these principles look like?

They would put teachers and learners together. The teachers would provide the content. They would be the platform, delivering augmented learning at a large scale but with relatively few resources compared to traditional institutions. The teachers may not be the traditional large scale suppliers of learning. There may be small scale niche providers. There would be a lot of learning to choose from.

They would make massive use of data:
To make sure they are providing the learning people want, when they want it, perhaps even before the learner knows they want it. To discover what learning content works, and what doesn’t. To understand what methods of delivery work best. To effectively deliver personalised learning at scale.

Eventually, they would might even create their own content based on what they have learned from delivering other people’s courses.

The Contenders?

So is anyone doing this at the moment?

Certainly the MOOC platforms such as Coursera and Edx offer a good range of courses from a range of universities through their online platforms. But it is only universities who are providing the learning, and they’re likely doing it as a marketing tactic. Does that really satisfy the needs of learners out there? I’ll talk more about the changing nature of learners in a later blog in this series.

The UK social learning platform FutureLearn, a personal favourite of mine, offer a broader range of providers, including specialist organisations such as the British Museum and the European Space Agency along with a range of universities (full disclosure – I work for The Open University who own FutureLearn so I might be a little biased). This is great, but I’m still not sure it’s granular enough to satisfy enough learning needs. With the courses being offered for free it’s also a case of acknowledging that some of the courses are essentially ‘tasters’.

Udemy, on the other hand, approach things from another angle. They don’t deliver collegiate learning but claim you can ‘Find a course on virtually anything’.  They  offer an ‘online learning and teaching marketplace’ with a mission to help anyone learn anything. They really do put tutors and students together. At the time of writing they’re claiming 7 million+ students and 30,000+ courses. Of course, exactly what these figures include can be questioned, but it certainly seems there is an appetite for this sort of model if done well. And they’ve raised $113 million in funding. Receiving $65 million in June of this year (2015).

All of these organisations will be using data to some extent to help improve their products and increase their learner base. But I’m not aware of data utilisation to the extent we might imagine in the future. One organisation who will be using data to drive the uptake of their learning offerings is, perhaps surprising to some, LinkedIn. Their acquisition of online learning provider Lynda.com opens up a lot of potential in the area of delivering professional growth through ‘micro-credentials’.

So, there we go. A selection of providers who are somewhere near the model, if not completely there. There are others. There will be more.

Should Traditional Education be Concerned?

To go back to Tim O’Reily’s piece,

“What’s the future of education when on-demand learning outperforms traditional universities in keeping skills up to date?”

Will these new providers outperform traditional universities? Can they really disrupt the traditional model? Is there really a market for them? Aren’t learners satisfied with the existing models?

In my next blog I’ll explain how the future of work may well have a dramatic impact on the future of education through the change in demand for learning. A change that might be very lucrative for any learning provider fitting the model we’ve just talked about.

I’d love to hear you views on this model, or any other aspect of the blog, and let me know of other learning providers you think might potentially disrupt traditional education.

You can connect with me on Twitter @steve_p_uk or LinkedIn