Disclaimer 1: I went to college (and graduated). I learned from passionate professors and got involved in plenty of activities (business case competitions and dragonboat team). I also got an MBA (this one I do regret).
Disclaimer 2: This is part of my 30 day challenge. I will focus more on writing and shipping every day versus heavily researching. Take all I write below with a grain of salt.
COVID has been a catalyst for tech adoption and disruption. Working remote is the new normal, online collaboration tools lead the way in SaaS, your grandmother knows what TikTok is, your parents actually use TikTok, ghost kitchen networks are a default business model, mom & pop shops are on GrubHub, everyone has deployed an ecommerce play, and the list goes on.
What happened to education? It migrated to Zoom. Most of the markets shaken up by 2020 were upgraded and became more efficient. Education got a major “I want my money back” type of downgrade. Not to hate on Zoom, they became the most important piece of software in 2020 (thank you Zoom). It is just not a great alternative for online education.
Let’s talk about some things that are wrong about the current state of education:
- Zoom is not a native solution for online courses. Currently, it’s more of a workaround to approximate the auditorium experience.
- Easily cheated. Have you seen the 101 ways in which you can trick professors into thinking you are present?
- You can decide what % of professors out there were just reading slides and clicking next pre-COVID. In those cases, that’s all you get in a Zoom class. A shared presentation and a voice reading it out loud. No class discussion. No serendipity.
- Very monotonous. You are not walking across campus, getting coffee and finding a seat. You move from your desk to the floor. Or bed. And click on the next Zoom link.
- At best, there is but an attempt to adapt class formats to digital form. They are not digital first. Digital transformation is not about forcing a square peg into a round hole.
- Most tuition fees remain the same. Talk about bang for your buck.
- Schools were also where you networked to actually get a job.
(List to be continued tomorrow, on 3/30).
Toodle loo
