There's a great article at Slate right now called "Groundhog Decade" that details how the movie industry is failing to learn from the decade of market disruption that's just occurred. A money quote:
If the studios were smart they'd go to the mat and create a massive one-stop shop for TV and movies, find a price point they can live with and then set programmers loose to make the thing as easy to use and ubiquitous as possible. Instead they've been wasting their time strong-arming the cable companies to help them on a new crusade against illegal downloaders—an unwieldy process that doesn't address the root problem and won't work.
My takeaway is that, like many media outlets the movie industry would be better off if it embraced the disruption as what it is; change. Instead of having articles, posts, and tweets about how to thwart the New York Times pay-wall, what if they went to an National Public Radio model of funding? What would this embracing of disruption look like in education?
We've all heard a lot about how education is going to be disrupted by technology. Most involve someone from outside of the education world invoking specters of fear by citing the rapid change in technology, mentioning flip thinking, and a reference to Khan Academy.
There are those who fear change in any profession. But could with disruption come realignment?
At the end of the school year I often stand outside the school with my fellow teachers to bid farewell to our students. It's a great way to end the year, to bring things to a close. Without fail we often notice that the students that are the most reluctant to leave are the students who like to spend more time in the hallway than class. The students who refer to school as a prison have tears streaming down their faces viewing the prospect of nearly three months of freedom. These students are mourning the impending loss of their friends, their community.
Some of the students that are the most challenging students in schools still see it as their community. Some of the technologies that challenge education use social media; technologies that create and cultivate community.
Where some fear disruption I choose to see an opportunity for realignment.
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