Education, like most everything else, is feeling the impact of a changing world in which connectivity, user-generated content, and individual empowerment are trumping top-down, hierarchical organizations and institutions.  This ‘Web 2.0’ phenomenon is changing the very nature of how folks learn, who learns what, when learning occurs, and who determines the quality of learning material. Steve O’Hear writes about how this is changing what we know about business, publishing, and compensation models.

In thinking about how these trends are changing something we call ‘the business of education,’ I am struck by just how upside down the world has become — even in the sometimes very traditional world of education.  In this blog series, I’ll dig into some of the places where these changes seem to be having an impact, and explore – hopefully driven by some of the conversations that evolve – just how changes in technology are changing the nature of the education business.

Several important changes in a Web 2.0-centric education world are worth noting.  Let’s begin with two basic ones:

• How do we define stakeholders - “students”, ‘teachers’?
• How does/should our economic model change?

First, the very definition of ‘teacher’ is undergoing a radical shift.  In a connected world, where learning occurs on demand and work-product is readily accessible,  ‘teachers’ are no longer limited by bureaucratic licensing arrangements, or historical definitions.   In fact, anyone who imparts skill or knowledge to another person can ‘teach.’  As  Jeremy Aldrich, a computer and French teacher is Harrisburg, VA, posted recently Defining teachers and students:

Interestingly, the roots of teacher and student come from processes related to, but not equated with, learning. I can teach for hours straight, and the students can study all year long, and at the end of it all there might be very little learning. In fact, that’s usually the case in our schools.

Of course, all this verbal gymnastics means nothing if it doesn’t change our behavior. Calling a garbageman a sanitation engineer doesn’t, by itself, make the garbageman think about new ways to make his community cleaner. But if the garbageman takes the title seriously and begins to think about what he’s ultimately trying to accomplish beyond picking up rows of trashcans every week, his vocation is a different thing from that of his co-workers. “Vocation”, of course, comes from the Latin vocare (voice). I’m not so much called to teach as I am to help people learn.

With on-line access to content and learning events, traditional licensure is giving way to learner ratings – letting the best teachers surface as true domain experts, versus people who have completed a degree requirement.  This change, of course, is shaking the core of traditional teaching institutions, who will necessarily have to re-think how they deliver instruction and who is ‘allowed’ to teach.

You only have to witness the huge growth of alternative schools, home schools, and on-line teaching environments to see this change occurring.  As life-long learning outside academic areas becomes a way of life in this networked world, teachers of yoga, physical fitness, the arts, etc are just as valued as traditional classroom teachers.

As  ‘teachers’ are re-defined outside traditional boundaries, so, too, are changes occurring in how teachers are compensated.  An online, web 2.0-enabled world literally puts teachers in a knowledge marketplace — a place where their content and services can be valued and paid for by end users.  No longer tied to just institutional ‘pay scales,’ teachers in this world can set prices for material or teaching events, based on real value to learners.  And the very best teachers (or domain experts) will surface, no longer buried by the traditional institutions and boxes we call ‘classrooms.’

When we first started the WeAreTeachers.com business, I did the obligatory ‘focus group’ work – talking directly to groups of teachers.  At the end of each session, I paid the teachers who gave me an hour or so of their time $100.  I was always amazed at the level of gratitude and surprise.  These teachers are simply not used to being paid for their extra effort.  One such teacher is an AP Physics teacher in a blue-ribbon high school.  She was especially grateful for the extra money, and told me why.  She is a single mom with two daughters, who waits tables each weekend to make ends meet.  The $100 would let her skip waiting tables one night and take her girls to a movie.  I remember that teacher often, and use her story as motivation to continue to build out the promise of  WeAreTeachers.  I cannot wait to see what this great teacher is able to do online.  I just bet her ‘business of education’ will be changed for the better, and her audience of students will grow far beyond her classroom walls!