Social media pioneer says technology will transform education

Well what do you know - somebody important says that "technology will transform education", this is according to Mark Schaefer writing in BusinessGrow.com. LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman sticks his neck out and tells us that technology will replace the “factory model of education” and goes on to declare that "Technology opens up the educational echo chamber by introducing the possibility of learning from a variety of experts and perspectives. It creates an opportunity for global dialogue, expanded connectivity, and the possibility of learning from the best teachers, wherever they may be”.

WTF is an "educational echo chamber"?

Image by Campbell taken from Morten Flate Paulsen's
book "Online Education".

Back in 1999, Cisco CEO John Chambers (no relation to the echo chamber?) is quoted as saying that "The next big killer application on the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error". e-Learning sales people loved this, and I heard it quoted many times myself in my last years with SmartForce. When I joined the then CBT Systems in 1989 a rallying cry to us all that technology was about to change education - the real pioneers of learning technology were people like Bill and TG of CBT Systems who did it with 5¼ inch floppy disks!

Reid Hoffman - you are about 22 years too late with your new ideas!