Information Age Education is now publishing some books for the Kindle and Kindle-format readers that are available for computers, iPad, and other machines. See http://iae-pedia.org/IAE_Kindle_Books.

The most recent of these books is:

Moursund, David (2011). Introduction to Problem Solving in the Information Age.

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We are in the midst of a major turning point in our educational system. Years from now we will look back and try to pinpoint when the change actually occurred. The massive change going on now started years ago and will take many years to complete. What follows are very brief summaries two articles I read yesterday that capture the essence of what is happening.

Distance Education is Changing the World of Education

The new common core requirements have been adopted by 40 states. Publishers are developing instructional materials that are aligned with these requirements. The following article caught my attention:

Dillon, Sam (4/27/2011). Foundations join to offer online courses for schools. The New York Times. Retrieved 4/28/2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/education/28gates.html?_r=1.

Quoting from the article:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy, and the foundation associated with Pearson, the giant textbook and school technology company, announced a partnership on Wednesday to create online reading and math courses aligned with the new academic standards that some 40 states have adopted in recent months.

The 24 new courses will use video, interactive software, games, social media and other digital materials to present math lessons for kindergarten through 10th grade and English lessons for kindergarten through 12th grade, Pearson and Gates officials said.

From my point of view, the two most important points in this article are that some of the courses will be made available free, and that the courses are being developed at a cost of $750,000 each. Previous articles I have read indicate that the current cost of developing a high quality highly interactive intelligent computer-assisted learning course is in the range of $1 million to $2 million if one is creating a number of different courses.

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation or, the US Federal Government) could easily put up $80 million a year over a long period of years to create such courses and make them available free. At a Federal Government level, this is a “trivial cost. It is less than one modern fighter plane per year. Quoting from the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_aircraft):

To spread the development costs–and production base–more broadly, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program enrolls eight other countries as cost- and risk-sharing partners. Altogether, the nine partner nations anticipate procuring over 3000 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighters at an anticipated average Final Average Cost of $80–85 million.

Just for the fun of it, I did some computations on investing $80 million a year (one fighter plane), spending a million dollars to create a course and then spending $200,000 a year to keep the course up to date. Eighty courses would be created the first year, 64 the second year 51 the third year, and so on. The number of new courses created each year decreases, and more and more of the money is used for updating courses. However, eventually there would be approximately 400 courses. (It would cost $80 million a year to keep these courses up to date.)

Just imagine the impact of our precollege educational system having 400 free high quality distance education learning courses!!!! And if that isn’t enough courses, I suspect that our country’s military would not be significantly weakened if it bought two or three less jet fighter planes per year.

Proposal for Less Expensive Higher Education in Texas

Here is another recent article:

Mangan, Katherine (4/27/2011). Texas could offer a stripped-down degree for just $10,000, commissioner says. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-Could-Offer-a/127281/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en.

Quoting from the article:

Gov. Rick Perry's call for Texas universities to develop a four-year baccalaureate degree that costs no more than $10,000 isn't as far-fetched as it seems, the state's commissioner of higher education said on Wednesday after a staff member of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board presented preliminary strategies for developing a stripped-down degree.

Those strategies, which the commissioner said the coordinating board plans to pursue aggressively, could involve statewide online courses, more opportunities for students to spend their first two years in community colleges, and accelerated and self-paced course formats.

There is a growing possibility that some of the more highly populated states will begin to develop online courses and make them available free to students throughout their state.

Final Remarks

The economics of Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-assisted Learning (HIICAL) —as well as research supporting its effectiveness—are compelling. The cost of a half dozen fighter planes a year would provide a wide range of free courses at the K-16 level. If we think globally, the world can easily afford to provide such HIICAL courses in multiple languages and modified to fit the needs of educational systems in various countries.

We have long embraced the idea of free pubic libraries. Now, it is a modest but world changing step to provide free online courses for the world’s population.

References

Dillon, Sam (427/2011). Foundations join to offer online courses for schools. The New York Times. Retrieved 4/28/2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/education/28gates.html?_r=1.

IAE-pedia. (n.d.) Distance learning. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://iae-pedia.org/Distance_Learning.

IAE-pedia (n.d.). Federal approached to improving education. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://iae-pedia.org/Federal_Approaches_to_Improving_Education.

Mangan, Katherine (4/27/2011). Texas could offer a stripped-down degree for just $10,000, commissioner says. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-Could-Offer-a/127281/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Moursund, David (2011). We need to give more power and responsibility to students. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/we-need-to-give-more-power-and-responsibility-to-students-.html.

Moursund, David (2011). Using ICT to improve education: Consider three questions instead of two. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/using-ict-to-improve-education-answer-three-questions-instead-of-two.html.

Moursund, David (2010). Improving education: Ideas and dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved 4/29/2011 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/how-to-improve-education-ideas-and-dollars-from-the-bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation.html.

Moursund, David (2009). Improving education: A political agenda. IAE Newsletter - Issue 29, November 2009. Key ideas from the 2008 book: Christensen, Horn, and Johnson "Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns." The book explores how Distance Education is changing our schools. IAE Newsletter - Issue 26, September 2009.

Moursund, David (2009). Distance education and distance learning: a vision of the future of education. IAE Newsletter - Issue 25, September 2009.