Which is one more bad habit to unlearn from school. Words do not have intrinsic definitions. If I hear the syllables “bea- ver” and think of a large rodent, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the syllables “bea- ver”. The s…

All the best,
Tom

Bravo and keep up the goods! My Italian is getting better already…

Thanks for the introduction! Thanks, everyone else, for the warm reception you’ve given us. What an exciting launch! We’ve got so many ideas and a real desire to innovate, always with the goal of helping students of Italian get the most of our lessons. We’ll be experimenting a bit with dialogue length and point of view in the coming weeks, and would love any feedback you have to offer.

Thanks, again!

Catherine

This conversation has been going on for years, really. For instance, I stumbled across a Web 1.0 version of this discussion, dated Feb 2001, discussing to what extent online programs could overtake traditional MBA programs. (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2024.html, if anyone is interested)

Before that, desktop publishing was going to empower a new generation of educators. I was excited about this so I went around asking professors what they would do differently if they could self-publish. This little bit of market research was underwhelming… All the best (IMO) professors in the sciences agreed that the curriculum was woefully outdated, but these professors couldn’t change a thing if they wanted to. Teaching loads, departmental budgets, AP courses, academic politics, you name it… there was just no way. Anyway, I quit that project and went to grad school–15 years later there’s still more stagnation than innovation.

I’m excited about the LanguagePods because they are approachable, inexpensive and demonstrably effective, but I’m wondering if Ken has ambitions on pushing into other disciplines as well. I’m pretty well convinced that only the richest universities have the resources to experiment with their curricula, but I know (first hand) there are too many impediments to doing so. So that leaves the other end of the spectrum… Ken by any chance are you still following this thread? What’s your take on the feasibility of moving into, say, business or science training? (Let’s call it training as opposed to education because we all agree we can’t really substitute the university experience with online training)

Since I’m a university professor, and one in a foreign language department, I’m fine with both worlds: university courses and independent learning. My own two cents is that my students today are really experienced in new ways. They text message everything, blog everything, wiki everything, iTunes everything, podcast everything, video tape everything. They also communicate and share things via facebook, myspace, twitter, flickr, youtube, wikipedia, etc. So, do I teach classes like I did 10 years ago, or 5 years ago, or even last year? No way, and the truth is that I love the experimentation of finding new ways to be more effective in helping students learn. We’re in a really interesting transition time and I have seen a lot of creative things going on, both in and out of academia.

At the same time, as compared to society in general, universities react slower to change. Part of it is a tempering, cautious effect. Over the years, although frustrating at times, I’ve also learned to appreciate my colleagues who are not the “early adapters” that I am.

So three cheers for ItalianPod and three more cheers for my university students who are helping us change how we teach.

But in terms of language learning I believe we are dealing with something special that can not be widely generalized to other subjects. I won’t be convinced of the threat to Universities of podcasting until Chinesepod or its like can successfully tackle other subjects (don’t hold your breath).

Let’s face it, when it comes to language learning we can teach language talking about anything. Anything! I can teach language talking about colors or shoe size. I can teach language talking about love or the price of coffee. There are really very few other subjects where such widely disparate subjects can make such great grist for the learning mill.

The real generic threat to the University is anything that undermines large classes and/or drives down the cost of learning. Any school that is built around something other than intimate social learning and extreme personalization is eventually going to be seriously challenged by disintermediating, low-cost, on-line instruction of which Chinesepod is just one of many.

In my opinion Universities will have to sharply define what role they play in the future. Do they really (as they currently do) want to expand towards post-degree part-time education? Some seem to be blinded by the bright shine of the money that flows in from “Executive MBAs” and similar offers.

Let’s face it: That is primarily selling the name of the University. It surely is not and should not be the core competency of an University. And if overdone it quickly has adversery affects on the quality of the actual University research and education.

In its core, the overlappings between Universities and private schools are not as big as one might think.

At least I am currently not afraid that my job might be endangered by some podcast based offer out there.

I certainly wasn’t suggesting that there now exists a better way to learn than a university. I also fully agree that the social aspect of a university is tremendously powerful and cannot be replaced. But, to follow on from Harold Jarche’s post, it seems to me that universities could solve some of the inefficiencies in their systems by adopting technology and the new media. I also think it is possible that consumers will start to consider the cost/benefits of a university versus the alternative ways to learn that may emerge over the next few years.

Ken

To spur on the discussion:
@standuke
“it is hard to forgive the inefficiency of their classroom instruction in light of the fact that most students are trapped in the least efficient classroom settings most of the time.”

The generalities “most students” “most of the time” are not very convincing. I have to stand in defense of the University experience myself. The majority of US graduates do not exit with a degree from the ‘top universities’.

Education in a University is less (in my mind) about the pedigree of the University and the price tag associated with it - instead it is the ability to personally interact with like minded Seekers. (”The Seekers” Daniel J. Boorstin book - excellent read). There are a lot of US universities that fly under the radar, but have great minded and highly interactive faculty.

I’ve attended 3 Universities, and have acquired many a great mentor (and some business partners) over the course of my stay.

@Ryan
Looking forward to both of those as well. FYI - there is a really great e-learning site at www.arabicpod101 .com. There podcasts are exceptional.