Innosight primer on virtual schools

The Innosight Institute is releasing case studies of online education. Note that the Innosight team is behind the book "Disrupting Class". The first case study they released is on the Alpine School District in Utah and deserves a quick read.

I found it fascinating from a number of different points. The first is to see a school district striving to meet the needs of home-school parents by marketing a product that they want. How many school districts use business-like responses to issues affecting student enrollment? Second, it is pretty fascinating to see how quickly they are able to get a virtual high school up and running (with K12 Inc). Third is that virtual schools really can save a considerable amount of money and still get results.

Innosight says that more case studies will be released quarterly and I hope so. It is a great primer on the online education market and should help further the cause.

Save the parents - digitze the textbook

Last week I paid $150 for a college Algebra 2 text book. There isn’t a used one available because this is the first of the new edition of algebra 2 text book because of all the radical developments going on in algebra right now – none of which I can find in any google search. With college expenses so high and technology making everything else much more affordable, why are we forced to shell out this kind of money for a basic college course?

It is 2009, our kids are used to reading everything online yet we still have new editions of college texts that they are forced to purchase. But change is coming fast and by 2012 we may be referring to text book publishers the way we talk about buggy whip manufacturers.

As Edutopia points out, economics are will drive this change. Publishers are going to have to find ways to create different revenue streams from their content. I don’t think open source will replace them but it is going to force them to radically change their business models.

The Website is LIVE!!

Please check out the brand new Scholarity website as it just went live so that you can really get a feel for what we are doing. This is 'game changing' software designed to provide a tutor-like experience for any student.

Let us know what you think! http://www.scholarity.com

Welcome - more to come soon