I have a few investments in the web video space. Specifically, Tubemogul and Edufire . I am off to Tubemogul’s Board Meeting today and am always excited to dive into the quarterly data. I will post an update from the Company tomorrow. Today, I asked Jon Bischke, The CEO and Founder of Edufire, to update the landscape from his daily battles in the educational video space…..Thanks Jon:
I’ve had several conversations recently with people around the subject of online video in education (specifically higher education). I’ve received many interesting reactions ranging from “No one in higher education cares about video” to “Video will change everything about education”. So which is it? Admittedly, I’m biased but I’m going with the latter. And here’s why…
Does it make any sense for 5,000 teachers around the country to teach the same college algebra or macroeconomics course every semester? Of course not. Obviously, if you could take a class from Greg Mankiw or Tyler Cowen why would you resort to taking a class from some mid-level hack (assuming prices were similar)? The only reason 5,000 teachers are regurgitating the same subject in 5,000 separate classrooms around the country is because as little as a few years ago we didn’t have the technology for thousands of students around the country to learn from the same professor.
Enter UStream Justin.tv LiveStream etc etc etc
So why is higher ed largely pretending like these technologies don’t exist (OK, there are some pioneers out there but precious few on a relative basis)? I think it’s the classic case of The Innovator’s Dilemma. If you’re making money doing something the way you’ve always done it you’ll largely continuing doing it the way you’ve always done it. And that’s fine and dandy until a disruptive innovation comes along.
That disruptive innovation could quite possibly be online video. Why?
Scale.
When you have scale in education you have crazy stories like Megastudy and celebrity teachers like this guy in Hong Kong. Teachers making millions because they are able to scale their ability to thousands of students. It’s like Kobe Bryant playing at Staples Center or Jagger at Wembley. These guys make millions and are celebs because what they do scales.
Scale breeds competition. Millions of boys growing up wanting to be Kobe or Mick. Girls who want to be Michelle Wie or Taylor Swift. How many kids grow up wanting to be a famous teacher? That’s about to change. Sites like AcademicEarth and TeacherTube are putting teachers in the spotlight in a bigger way than has ever been seen. Companies like Brightstorm and Educator.com are creating new uber-platforms for the best and brightest of the teaching corps.
And this = all good. Because one of the ways this is going to help is that it’s going to lower costs for education while increasing quality. The winners (ultimately) will be students and teachers. The losers? Those that are maintaining the status quo. Want to know what the most profitable segment of education is? Freshman lecture mega-classes. Do the math. Stick 500 students in an auditorium, charge them the full tuition and then subtract out the cost of one professor and some lowly TAs and you have a recipe for ridiculous margins (Kevin Carey does a fantastic job describing this phenomenon in this article) and subsidization of most of the other (money-losing) parts of the university. Don’t think video will change the landscape for those classes? Yeah, and I have some newspaper companies to sell you who didn’t think craigslist would affect their mighty empires either.
Last week we announced online CLEP classes at eduFire (full announcement here). Through those live video courses and the accompanying exams you can gain college credits for about 80% cheaper than a place like The University of Phoenix. We’re only a small blip on the radar and like a lot of the other disruptive start-ups in the space, likely to remain tiny for a while. But over time many of these blips are going to grow larger. And as Christensen points out in industry after industry, yesterday’s disruptor becomes tomorrow’s disruptee.
Video, most notably YouTube, has changed the landscape for a lot of industries. The web is a fundamentally different and richer place than it was just a few years ago. And pretty soon, the highly disruptive force that is video is about to sweep through the education landscape. The effects of the video tsunami on education will indeed be very interesting to watch.
The bank crisis solved that.
Sorry Howard, you are riding from the same stale scale bandwagon.Your question reminds me – “if you can watch the most beautiful video online, why have sex with your own wife?”
Its not the same analogy. Its definitely a choice
definitely the same analogy. You are an investor, you dont care about people having jobs. You need scale. You are the Walmart guy that advocates crushing mom and pop stores.
Don’t package this as if you just came up with this genius, for real. This is the problem not the solution. The problem gets even worse. Soon you will find out that there are ten guys in China who are ten times as smart as Tyler (and ten times cheaper), then what?
I guess we will see. Thx Ben
people like you who will profit from scalability will move on to the next ride (hence the “will see” part), but the people who are being scaled will live the life of financial misery, you can’t just omit this fact from your post.
And as people lose the financial certainty, unrest and destruction of basic freedoms follows.
Hey Ben. Original author here. The thing that I’m most concerned about is what the overall impact of the changes will be and most importantly, will it be best for students. A world where any student can be in the class of a world-class Nobel laureate-type of teacher is a very, very cool world. Will some people be hurt with disruption? Perhaps. I think that’s always the case. The Washington Post just announced they were shutting down many of its local news bureaus. It’s not a fun time to be a reporter. But consuming news is more enjoyable than it’s ever been and it’s a great time to be a blogger.
I think the changes in education will be similar to what’s happened in music and news and what’s starting to happen in publishing (although education will take a bit longer for many reasons). We can, like many record label and newspaper execs, try to resist that change or we can realize that the change is inevitable and do our best to build new platforms that benefit as many people as possible.
Jon, did you write this? I followed your tweet to find this post anyway. Undoubtedly the disruption will impact every business in the similar fashion to journalism. But it is about time that the dire consequences of the disruption be considered. Because in the end “the scaled” could be impacted so severely that it could lead to violence. This is somehting that is unwise to dismiss with a slight of hand.Also the centralized educational model has severe pitfalls. Often people who gravitate to these position are not the best. Often the skill that is required for a Nobel is a very different form the skill that is required for teaching, this seems obvious. Even worse, crowd sourcing elevates mediocrity. A forward looking idea has no chance if it has to rely on popularity. This is a recipe for a streaming totalitarian thinking.Speaking of Chinese. Traditional apprenticeship models are build on the premise that you learn more from observing a master in real life than from what the master says (all martial arts disciplines are founded on this premise). Online video will not change this human quality.
Brilliant comment Ben – I wish it fit into 140 so I could tweet it
“Traditional apprenticeship models are build on the premise that you learn more from observing a master in real life than from what the master says (all martial arts disciplines are founded on this premise). Online video will not change this human quality.”
Thanks, but it even makes sense without tweeting.
Jon, I recently found out about eduFire and I love what you’re doing, as well as your inspiring writing. I think that no matter how much the technology delivery improves, there’s one major obstacles to online, self taught, or video-delivered courses disrupting traditional education.
Most jobs require a 4 yr degree as a qualifying credential, not because it’s necessary to the work being done but because companies can outsource proper evaluation of candidates. Right now most companies would hire a mediocre college grad over a highly skilled autodidact because it’s a statistically safer bet. If there was a way to accurately (and inexpensively) predict a person’s fit for a job, then the university credential would fall apart and learning would again become the most important thing. If this is ever developed, where companies can get better predictive results about potential hires than the general filter of “having a 4yr degree”, it would unlock tremendous value for workers, companies, and the economy. But it would be disastrous to average universities. Premium universities like Stanford, Harvard, etc will always benefit from their brand and networking opportunities, even if online education matches the educational quality, but the Southern Iowa Colleges of the world will be hurting every bit as much as Big Newspaper and Big Music are right now.
Sorry Howard, you are riding from the same stale scale bandwagon.
Your question reminds me – “if you can watch the most beautiful video online, why nave sex with your own wife?”
Its not the same analogy. Its definitely a choice
definitely the same analogy. You are an investor, you dont care about people having jobs. You need scale. You are the Walmart guy that advocates crushing mom and pop stores.
Don't package this as if you just came up with this genius, for real. This is the problem not the solution. The problem gets even worse. Soon you will find out that there are ten guys in China who are ten times as smart as Tyler (and ten times cheaper), then what?
I guess we will see. Thx Ben
people like you who will profit from scalability will move on to the next ride (hence the “will see” part), but the people who are being scaled will live the life of financial misery, you can't just omit this fact from your post.
And as people lose the financial certainty, unrest and destruction of basic freedoms follows.
Great post Howard. Always interesting. Yes you run into the “what school did you go to” problem – and yes – under mass adoption teachers will lose out, but great teachers will rise to the top of the heap. I have a recurring discussion with my old college room mate (now a professor of ancient history at University of Wisconsin Green Bay) about this topic all the time. Would I pay to have him give lectures and learn from his expertise on the subject – absolutely – he is fantastic teacher. But is that experience the same as being in the same room as him, going to office hours, engaging in Socratic discourse? Of course not. Video education can hammer in the basics – but it doesn't foster sharing, or intellectual discovery and discourse – or the critical thinking that is so important to the educational process. It is a one way street at scale – which is why it can be remedial – but never a real substitute for attending a physical school. Of course, perhaps there is a hybrid model – where you have a great lecturer and then a whole lot of very competent assistants (other professors of the same subject perhaps who have been rated as slightly lower by the interested group as a whole) and these professors lead smaller group sessions and answer questions 1-1 on the phone – or through e-mail. Then you have taken the physical limitations of the campus away – but left the small group and 1-1 interaction that make learning all the better. Jobs don't have to disappear necessarily – but people doing the jobs will be compared across fields and the best will rise to the top. Is that so bad?
Jon, did you write this? I followed your tweed to find this post anyway. Undoubtedly the disruption will impact every business in the similar fashion to journalism. But it is about time that the dire consequences of the disruption be considered. Because in the end “the scaled” could be impacted so severely that it could lead to violence. This is somehting that is unwise to dismiss with a slight of hand.
Also the centralized educational model has severe pitfalls. Often people who gravitate to these position are not the best. Often a the skill that is required for a Nobel is a very different skill that is required for teaching, this seems obvious. Even worse, crowd sourcing elevates mediocrity. A forward looking idea has no chance if it has to rely on popularity. This is a recipe for a streaming totalitarian thinking.
Speaking of Chinese. Traditional apprenticeship models are build on the premise that you learn more from observing a master in real life than from what the master says (all martial arts disciplines are founded in this premise). Online video will not change this human quality.
Not only can web video scale better than today's physical space, but the quality of online courses are better. A 12 yr study released this past summer found, “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”. See NYT's take on the study here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-…
One big opportunity for video education is personalization. We all have different learning styles. So, its silly to think that one professor teaching a single style can effectively teach 500 freshman kids. The web can (and will) personalize education content to each persons learning style. This will be another leap forward where online ed beats the choices we have today. See Christensen's latest book, Disrupting Class – he spends a lot of time on this topic.
Good post Howard! Let me know if you have any comments.
This is awesome and completely agree, but how do people get past the “what school did you go to” question? The pieces of paper that say you went to Harvard or Standford?
Haha..this video too i think –
Well maybe this thought is on a slightly larger scale, but continuation of a trend – and a new trend as well bode well for your thesis (with which I agree) going forward.
1) There has been a 40 + year correlation between home prices (the majority of one's wealth) and college tuition prices. Though real estate prices have recently undergone a major correction (collapse in some areas) college tuition prices continue their upward march. In a society where most people put their children through school by borrowing against their home – there has been a sudden disconnect. I expect education moving online to be a major trend over the next decade as a result.
2) Moore's law – This applies not only to semiconductors, but all of technology. The cost to move high quality video – to broadcast (2-way) – to anywhere – anytime has and will continue to support a move to HD video online – including this subset – online education.
http://twitter.com/A_F
Jon, I recently found out about eduFire and I love what you're doing, as well as your inspiring writing. I think that no matter how much the technology delivery improves, there's one major obstacles to online, self taught, or video-delivered courses disrupting traditional education.
Most jobs require a 4 yr degree as a qualifying credential, not because it's necessary to the work being done but because companies can outsource proper evaluation of candidates. Right now most companies would hire a mediocre college grad over a highly skilled autodidact because it's a statistically safer bet. If there was a way to accurately (and inexpensively) predict a person's fit for a job, then the university credential would fall apart and learning would again become the most important thing. If this is ever developed, where companies can get better predictive results about potential hires than the general filter of “having a 4yr degree”, it would unlock tremendous value for workers, companies, and the economy. But it would be disastrous to average universities. Premium universities like Stanford, Harvard, etc will always benefit from their brand and networking opportunities, even if online education matches the educational quality, but the Southern Iowa Colleges of the world will be hurting every bit as much as Big Newspaper and Big Music are right now.
Hey Ben. Original author here. The thing that I'm most concerned about is what the overall impact of the changes will be and most importantly, will it be best for students. A world where any student can be in the class of a world-class Nobel laureate-type of teacher is a very, very cool world. Will some people be hurt with disruption? Perhaps. I think that's always the case. The Washington Post just announced they were shutting down many of its local news bureaus. It's not a fun time to be a reporter. But consuming news is more enjoyable than it's ever been and it's a great time to be a blogger.
I think the changes in education will be similar to what's happened in music and news and what's starting to happen in publishing (although education will take a bit longer for many reasons). We can, like many record label and newspaper execs, try to resist that change or we can realize that the change is inevitable and do our best to build new platforms that benefit as many people as possible.
Not only can web video scale better than today’s physical space, but the quality of online courses are better. A 12 yr study released this past summer found, “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”. See NYT’s take on the study here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/
One big opportunity for video education is personalization. We all have different learning styles. So, its silly to think that one professor teaching a single style can effectively teach 500 freshman kids. The web can (and will) personalize education content to each persons learning style. This will be another leap forward where online ed beats the choices we have today. See Christensen’s latest book, Disrupting Class – he spends a lot of time on this topic.
Good post Howard! Let me know if you have any comments.
This is awesome and completely agree, but how do people get past the “what school did you go to” question? The pieces of paper that say you went to Harvard or Standford?
The bank crisis solved that.
Haha..this video too i think – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROlDmux7Tk4
Well maybe this thought is on a slightly larger scale, but continuation of a trend – and a new trend as well bode well for your thesis (with which I agree) going forward.
1) There has been a 40 + year correlation between home prices (the majority of one’s wealth) and college tuition prices. Though real estate prices have recently undergone a major correction (collapse in some areas) college tuition prices continue their upward march. In a society where most people put their children through school by borrowing against their home – there has been a sudden disconnect. I expect education moving online to be a major trend over the next decade as a result.
2) Moore’s law – This applies not only to semiconductors, but all of technology. The cost to move high quality video – to broadcast (2-way) – to anywhere – anytime has and will continue to support a move to HD video online – including this subset – online education.
http://twitter.com/A_F
Great post Howard. Always interesting. Yes you run into the “what school did you go to” problem – and yes – under mass adoption teachers will lose out, but great teachers will rise to the top of the heap. I have a recurring discussion with my old college room mate (now a professor of ancient history at University of Wisconsin Green Bay) about this topic all the time. Would I pay to have him give lectures and learn from his expertise on the subject – absolutely – he is fantastic teacher. But is that experience the same as being in the same room as him, going to office hours, engaging in Socratic discourse? Of course not. Video education can hammer in the basics – but it doesn’t foster sharing, or intellectual discovery and discourse – or the critical thinking that is so important to the educational process. It is a one way street at scale – which is why it can be remedial – but never a real substitute for attending a physical school. Of course, perhaps there is a hybrid model – where you have a great lecturer and then a whole lot of very competent assistants (other professors of the same subject perhaps who have been rated as slightly lower by the interested group as a whole) and these professors lead smaller group sessions and answer questions 1-1 on the phone – or through e-mail. Then you have taken the physical limitations of the campus away – but left the small group and 1-1 interaction that make learning all the better. Jobs don’t have to disappear necessarily – but people doing the jobs will be compared across fields and the best will rise to the top. Is that so bad?
If you will start charging for educational video on a massive scale, you will eventually encounter piracy the same way the movie industry does. The winning model would probably give away the free video and recoup costs via other channels (advertising, support or small group tuition)
If you will start charging for educational video on a massive scale, you will eventually encounter piracy the same way the movie industry does. The winning model would probably give away the free video and recoup costs via other channels (advertising, support or small group tuition)
Have we forgotten why we send our kids to college? It's not just to stuff their precious little heads with information, but also to somehow help them GROW UP. That's one of the reasons better schools are better schools. We want our kids to hang out and learn from the smartest and most accomplished kids possible. I went to Wharton, and the key thing was not that the profs were so great, but it was the motivating environment and peer pressure to work mightily that was the greatest lesson learned. Howard's observation about video's contribution to (and effect on) the future of education is absolutely correct. But let's not over steer. Video education is a tool, not a replacement.
Have we forgotten why we send our kids to college? It’s not just to stuff their precious little heads with information, but also to somehow help them GROW UP. That’s one of the reasons better schools are better schools. We want our kids to hang out and learn from the smartest and most accomplished kids possible. I went to Wharton, and the key thing was not that the profs were so great, but it was the motivating environment and peer pressure to work mightily that was the greatest lesson learned. Howard’s observation about video’s contribution to (and effect on) the future of education is absolutely correct. But let’s not over steer. Video education is a tool, not a replacement.
Brilliant comment Ben – I wish it fit into 140 so I could tweet it
“Traditional apprenticeship models are build on the premise that you learn more from observing a master in real life than from what the master says (all martial arts disciplines are founded on this premise). Online video will not change this human quality.”
Thanks, but it even makes sense without tweeting.
Great post! Many can condemn (because it's so easy) but I was immediately inspired by how professors could position themselves to be the rock star. Scale has the wonderful (some would argue castrophic) effect of getting rid of the mediocre. Professors now become a commodity thanks to online video technology. But the BEST professors become more valuable, not less. Become a rock star professor, or seek a new profession. Either way, technology is changing the face of education. Rather than decry its entrance into education, change your mindset and position yourself accordingly.
Great post! Many can condemn (because it’s so easy) but I was immediately inspired by how professors could position themselves to be the rock star. Scale has the wonderful (some would argue castrophic) effect of getting rid of the mediocre. Professors now become a commodity thanks to online video technology. But the BEST professors become more valuable, not less. Become a rock star professor, or seek a new profession. Either way, technology is changing the face of education. Rather than decry its entrance into education, change your mindset and position yourself accordingly.
I personally WELCOME the move to using video for education. There’s a website, MyChinese360.com, that is experiencing tremendous growth since it’s launch in 09/09 and expects to have 20K students by 2011. (Here’s my reference: http://webvideouniversity.com/blog/2009/11/25/profitable-web-video-site-of-the-week/comment-page-1/ )
For those who say college is a place to “grow up” what about the military or real life experience? Being in a college setting is not real life…you’re with a bunch of people that are all about the same age, you group with people who have similar interests and many college kids just rack up a ton of debt and get into a bunch of trouble. Put them into a situation where they have to work to pay their cell phone bills and study so they can get a better paying job and that’s real life.
I loved my college years, but it wasn’t for the education. I have a BS in Biology that’s done me little more than create 20K in debt and left me without any skills to get a biology related job. Not that I care now because my husband and I now run our own marketing/consulting company. My sister’s in the same boat and is now a receptionist with 4 years of college to pay off.
If my children can get an education from the true experts at an affordable price, which is really easily done when you have a teacher instructing many more students (and having aids doing the menial tasks like grading tests), wouldn’t that be an improved educational system?
Pretty much everything else has “evolved” in the past thousand years…transportation, distribution of information, building, medicine… Why are we holding on to an educational model developed in the 1100’s?
I’m ready to see the wave and have my surf board in hand… Thanks for an OUTSTANDING piece. Hope those who are too busy staring at the sun bathers on the beach turn around quick enough so they don’t drown! :o)
I personally WELCOME the move to using video for education. There's a website, MyChinese360.com, that is experiencing tremendous growth since it's launch in 09/09 and expects to have 20K students by 2011. (Here's my reference: http://webvideouniversity.com/blog/2009/11/25/p… )
For those who say college is a place to “grow up” what about the military or real life experience? Being in a college setting is not real life…you're with a bunch of people that are all about the same age, you group with people who have similar interests and many college kids just rack up a ton of debt and get into a bunch of trouble. Put them into a situation where they have to work to pay their cell phone bills and study so they can get a better paying job and that's real life.
I loved my college years, but it wasn't for the education. I have a BS in Biology that's done me little more than create 20K in debt and left me without any skills to get a biology related job. Not that I care now because my husband and I now run our own marketing/consulting company. My sister's in the same boat and is now a receptionist with 4 years of college to pay off.
If my children can get an education from the true experts at an affordable price, which is really easily done when you have a teacher instructing many more students (and having aids doing the menial tasks like grading tests), wouldn't that be an improved educational system?
Pretty much everything else has “evolved” in the past thousand years…transportation, distribution of information, building, medicine… Why are we holding on to an educational model developed in the 1100's?
I'm ready to see the wave and have my surf board in hand… Thanks for an OUTSTANDING piece. Hope those who are too busy staring at the sun bathers on the beach turn around quick enough so they don't drown! :o)
Hey Howard — just a nit, but your link to TubeMogul at the top of the post has a broken link (it has four w's “wwww.”
I'm a big fan… of you, and Jon :-)
Hey Howard — just a nit, but your link to TubeMogul at the top of the post has a broken link (it has four w’s “wwww.”
I’m a big fan… of you, and Jon :-)
I do think the use of video in education is a good thing. Continually building new, better bigger facilities isn’t of much use for a freshman English class. Why not save the money and make sure kids can get a good education?
Personalization on the college level, especially GE’s is pretty rare as it is, so I don’t see a problem expanding the online class offerings currently available everywhere.
I do think the use of video in education is a good thing. Continually building new, better bigger facilities isn't of much use for a freshman English class. Why not save the money and make sure kids can get a good education?
Personalization on the college level, especially GE's is pretty rare as it is, so I don't see a problem expanding the online class offerings currently available everywhere.
I do think the use of video in education is a good thing. Continually building new, better bigger facilities isn't of much use for a freshman English class. Why not save the money and make sure kids can get a good education?
Personalization on the college level, especially GE's is pretty rare as it is, so I don't see a problem expanding the online class offerings currently available everywhere.