CIO Magazine Has Good Article About The Schoolhouse of the Future

This morning I am flowing positive energy after reading Chris Yeh's article on "The Schoolhouse of the Future" in the December 2010 issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine. This a nice article that brings together three emerging trends in learning that are rapidly becoming part of that "new world communications landscape" that I've personally been paying attention to and blogging about.

One emerging trend is what Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article coined as "crowdsourcing" in his article, "The Rise of Crowdsourcing". Since then the meaning of "crowdsourcing" itself continues to evolve driven by people defining it. (See wikipedia). One is example cited is using a "crowd" of people as a "source" of information contributing to a web-based Wiki. or community-authored information website, typically using a text type format. Wikipedia itself is a prime example of this. 

The second important emerging trend that the article acknowledges is the power of web video that fast-forwards innovative learning and it cites KhanAcademy.org as a shining example of this, where millions of people are learning by watching short 12 minute videos. Citing the power of web video for innovation is what I just blogged about..just yesterday..after getting ecstatic over Chris Anderson's web video-based TED Talk.

The third and newest emergent trend that Yeh sites is the development of learning "apps" for mobile devices. Actually if you publish your video learning content on YouTube you can already deliver mobile learning, but what the development community is interested in is mobile applications they can sell, so don't be surprised if you see more and webcasting and web conferencing companies also extending their capability to mobile devices. The folks at Ustream.tv are already tauting this..however the jury is still out as to whether mobile users using 4G networks have enough bandwidth to send and receive video of acceptable quality. Changes in codecs and standards are own their way that will of course improve the situation. 

In the meantime, it not too early to jump in now, especially when it comes to leveraging low-cost, almost no cost resources that already exist... with that special "secret sauce" that can make all the difference in the world... value innovation. Call if you'd like to learn more about developing the schoolhouse of the future...but doing in now... in a newly emergent new world communications landscape - 425-780-6872.