Clayton M. Christensen, an author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns , finds schools respond to advanced technologies in ways similar to businesses.

"... established organizations are trapped in the(ir) industry’s architecture, through webs of “interdependencies,” such as the compensation system for sales forces and the expectations of existing customers, who do not want to bear the cost of adopting innovations that initially are inferior to what they were used to getting, he said.

This book changes the conversation about using teacher certification, performance pay, and other closed system tactics to increase public school academic performance.

Using an S-curve model, these authors forecast that by 2017 to 2020, online learning will account for 50 percent of high school course enrollments. S-curve mathematical models are accepted ways of predicting business activities.

They anticipate online high school enrollment to rise sharply within four years, based on current projections of supplies of qualified teachers and costs of traditional and computer-based learning.

Tablet PC educators will find this book instructive for ways to support and expand their adoption of mobile PCs to increase learning rates of more students. I especially like the use of the Dayton Hudson adaption of new technology in retail business as a useful model for public schools to spin off online and other advanced tech units that address learning.

This book follows the same general logic used to formulate the mass market of independent learners.

(Read a review by edweek.)

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