In addition, I have searched for observations, analyses, and predictions about the ways that we will learn in the future. One of the key themes that keeps re-occurring is that some people have a difficult time learning outside the formal teaching environment ... outside of instructor-led, classroom-oriented learning. Some analyses point to that inability to learn as a key factor in while-collar unemployment that reared its head in the past decade. The following observation is typical of the comments one finds when people are interviewed about education:
"‘Look at what I do,’ says Bruce Johnson, a freelance computer programmer. ‘The technology I deal with comes and goes in a few years. Everyone knows people in their 40s and 50s who have lost a job and have no ability to teach themselves a new body of knowledge.'" (Source: Jonathan Kaufman, “Suburban Parents Shun Many Public Schools, Even the Good Ones,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 1996, p. A1)Perhaps it has always been true that people had to teach themselves certain subjects after they leave school. But it is clear that such self-teaching will be an increasingly important part of a person's professional life because 1) knowledge is exploding at an increasing rate, and 2) computing and communication tools are making it possible to apply that knowledge very, very rapidly. Therefore, as new knowledge arrives, old knowledge goes away .... as will the jobs of individuals who only possess "old knowledge."
The knowledge evolution and replacement speed is thus making it necessary for learning to be continuous. Listen to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on this topic:
"The explosive pace of development in the computer industry is unsettling for workers now but holds the promise of improved living standards ahead, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday. Speaking to the National Governors Association, Greenspan said evolving computer and telecommunications technology should 'appreciably raise our productivity in the 21st century certainly, and quite possibly in some of the remaining years of this century.' ... plant and equipment -- the daily tools with which people work -- is changing so rapidly that the skills needed to do the job can quickly become obsolescent. The Fed chairman noted that the nation's Gross Domestic Product is increasingly generated through the substitution of ideas rather than hard goods to create economic value. ... He said workers must be prepared to upgrade their skills continually to stay abreast of rapidly evolving technology. 'Education is increasingly becoming a lifetime activity,' Greenspan said." (Source: "Greenspan Says Computers to Boost Future Productivity," Reuters article, February 5, 1996)If education is a lifetime activity, do we stay in school all of our life? Clearly, that is not what it means. It means that we must evolve new ways to educate and new ways to learn so that individuals can make a productive contribution to society based upon existing knowledge at the same time that they are acquiring new knowledge. Online learning, via networks such as the Internet, will likely be the way much of that knowledge is acquired in the next decade.
This means that today's students, as well as today's managers and professionals, should learn how to learn a new body of knowledge outside of a classroom environment.
This means that education institutions and professors such as myself should learn how to provide a service to individuals who utilize computers and networks for lifetime learning. To that end, I continually experiment with a course titled Marketing and the Intenet that can be delivered via the traditional classroom model or an online model.