The Learning Economy

There is an increasing consumer value on personal growth that is driving a diverse market for educational and learning products ranging from food, toys, and games to housing and travel. Think about it. We eat specific kinds of food or take supplements that will help sharpen our minds. We buy toys for new-borns that enhance their developmental and cognitive skills and games to enhance learning for children and even adults. More often than in the past, many of us book travel and social opportunities that expand our learning, whether it's about food, history, literature, wine, or any niche interest. Because we live in the "knowledge economy," knowledge is the crucial resource. The pervasive use of technology, the Internet, and social networking makes it cost-effective to serve niche markets with learning opportunities. The number of informal learning opportunities that will be available for an adult, yet less those for school-aged children, will be enormous. This will easily translate into a formalized system of production and exchange of multiple learning resources that will make up a learning economy. As a result, individuals and organizations from inside and outside of the formal public education system will be part of a diverse market of personalized, diverse, and niche learning opportunities for students. Organizations that once weren't considered part of the public education market now offer concrete benefits that are evaluated alongside the formal school system. In the learning economy, "school," particularly the brick and mortar version, owns only one part of the learning economy. This isn't hard to imagine. Parents are already exploring alternative educational and learning opportunities for their children. For instance, homeschooling has been one of the fastest growing education trends in the United States. Homeschooling provides an alternative form of education that allows parents to bypass the public school system by teaching their children at home. Online learning, or virtual schools, is another growing trend and is even being used by homeschoolers. According to T.H. E. Journal, more than 2 million preK-12 students take some form of schooling online right now--whether attending a virtual school for all their classes or just taking one or more courses through the Internet. "The number of students taking courses online will jump to more than 10 million by 2014," claims this article (Nagel 2009). Online schools provide enormous flexibility in scheduling and the type of courses offered--core curriculum classes, credit recovery classes, accelerated learning opportunities, and more rigorous classes or enrichment courses (Nagel 2009). Parents who want a public school option also are enrolling their children in charter schools. While more than 4,900 charter schools serve more than 1.5 million students (www.chartergrowthfund.org), this is still a small sector of public schools. Consider the array of enrichment services being offered directly to consumers--parents and students. Some were designed for enhanced or cultural learning and others for students with learning challenges. Numerous supplemental education services, such as Sylvan Learning Services, originally used to help students with learning challenges, are now being marketed as entities that can accelerate learning. Some product developers have suggested that "homework has been outsourced" as a result of the increase in tutoring companies across India that are helping American children complete their homework and prepare for tests (Rai 2005). Open source courseware, shared curriculum repositories, home-school community networks, and many other bottom-up activities are unbundling education from the traditional system and providing children and families with new ways to experience learning. A growing system of free and easily accessible online learning resources is supporting students, educators, and parents. Education companies, with over $80 billion in annual revenues, already constitute a large sector in the education arena. …