Beyond 100,000 Educational Websites

Yesterday, I did a rough estimate.  In 2010 there has to be at least 10,000 main educational websites and another 100,000 sub-sites in the United States aiming to serve educational aspirations.  I am not going into my logic here how I calculated the number.  It really does not matter.  Let's just agree there are a huge number of websites attempting to serve educational related objectives across sectors including industry, military, agriculture, labor and education.  Over fifty years ago, I recall we use to go into gasoline venues and get FREE maps.  My dad collected hundreds of them as we traveled all over the United States.  Today, are the educational related websites scattered throughout the internet like the maps distributed by Texaco, Exxon, Shell, Hess an Mobil?  Are we really achieving the goals of helping people navigate and get to their destinations?

We have billions and billions invested in this web infrastructure keeping many employed. These web destinations attempt to serve consumers with educational content and applications that are designed to help them decide on formal education opportunities. Whether it is information used to further one’s aspirations, such as landing a job or gaining exposure to areas of interest or assessing one’s competencies, we have so much available online to help individuals expand their knowledge, acquire skills and challenge their minds all through a browser. It's mind boggling.

All these websites I mention are used across 50,000 high schools and thousands of companies by millions and millions of people every day, and they are ignored by millions and millions who are the primary target audience as our nation globally competes across world markets hungry for innovation and educated human resources able to excel in the knowledge universe.  These thousands of websites reflect our virtual online abundance – like the corn fields in the mid-west that farmers harvest to feed the world. In other words, they reflect our society’s priority on formal education attainment and credentials.

From public policy architects to higher education leaders, the industry reflects the ivy tower orientation that dictates people must come to it and not the other way around. This is not intended as a criticism, but a declaration that our efforts are evolving on the web to serve consumers with more agile forms than the legacy of education mediums which are limited by physical presence and delivery because not everyone fits into a single learning style or can follow traditional forms of discovery. Brand is becoming less important as more emphasis is placed on how we serve the consumer’s needs and help them achieve their aspirations.


Like many, I feel fortunate we have so many resources devoted to informing consumers of their options and reflecting the diversity of choices available. Yet, there are many who are underserved, poorly served or not served at all by this infrastructure and investment. Institutions generally make the assumption that learning is centered on the institutional practices formally developed around seat time and not learning outcomes directly. We have used courses as a surrogate. Learning units framed by time and grades are not easily comparable because they abstract the outcomes published in various forms ranging from syllabi to meeting objectives. We have developed general education requirements and major specific requirements segmented by how institutions organize specialties.

The debate rages on about this. Meanwhile so many people check in and check out educational opportunties.  Often, they become to realize difficulties they did not expect.  Many do not like the formal educational framework offered, the structure and rituals imposed to achieve formal credentials based upon lecture formats and artificial environments that have difficulty engaging people over a long period of commitment and cost. Or they are not connected at all to educational attainment initially sought, seeking to rebel against the values society places on the importance of formal education and those that control it – the ones who have passed through the front doors of achievement and want to reinforce its relevance because of their past investment.

Still, many just don’t want to follow the masses or are not ready to change or venture beyond their comfort zones. They want independence and control of what they do, learn, play and on what they work. As I ponder this entire web infrastructure, I am left questioning how we could do more to reach people who just don’t see the value or can’t get past their confusion because they checked out so long ago or just do not want to fit into what the Academy offers or don’t know how to find what may be a better fit given the volume of choices and the complexity of sifting through the surface attributes that attempt to distinguish perspectives.

How do we help consumers get re-engaged? Can social networks and media bring them back into formal educational programs and help overcome their reluctance? Do we need to? Or, can we tailor our educational delivery system to fit a more agile framework of teaching and learning? Can we step outside of the formal structures of traditional education delivery? Can we leverage the power of the web to serve consumers and their personal needs rather than the conveniences of how the Academy tries to deliver within a framework designed around economies of scale and the scarcity of knowledge assumed?

Self-paced learning, gaming and the evolution of powerful composite tools with flexible formats will continue to evolve as alternatives to formal education delivery and credentials. How we value the meaning and respect what one can demonstrate without formal bridges across institutions, is another challenging area to think about. People have different learning styles, and a variety of learning formats are available today. We don’t learn everything in the classroom, just like we don’t all consume the news from a newspaper, radio or TV show. Nor, do we only learn things at work. We learn by interacting, like reading instructions on how to construct a toy or by listening to a neighbor’s guidance on how to plant a tree.

Institutions often focus on the convenience of knowledge delivery through small classes, assessing and grading comprehension. Even though most are not-for-profit, the basis of delivery is still governed by economies of scale and breakeven conclusions. Assessing and comparing where someone is in an artificial group called a class is random. Assessing and comparing where someone is across a community and where they would like to be, is where I think we need to go next. These are questions that could be answered through the rich content and resources we have spread across these thousands of websites – bringing what is relevant to a person in a just-in-time format and metered to fit their needs. Does this mean we oversimplify?

Like the games we play on the Xbox and Wii, I feel the various levels have to be inviting and increasingly challenging to the player. We could all post our scores to see how well we are doing against the “world” of players, a form of a credential. Can we compare the achievement of learning from a game like we can with a formal course of instruction? There are a lot of things to ponder as we continue to expand the knowledge universe and economy by being focused on what we can do, not just from what we know. Games can achieve both, by bringing content into context and challenging us to do something with the information we are provided – like adjusting our golf swing when we know the wind speed and direction. How we build the next generation learning tools will be more about continuing the evolution of innovation that focuses on the learner, not about the content or how we currently want to delivery it in units isolated. We want to see how things fit into our world, and what can help us succeed. These are just some thoughts as I am left pondering the venture beyond the fixed views we often find ourselves debating when we consider incremental initiatives that may impact a sector of the market because they are underserved or underrepresented or underperforming according to traditional methods.