A different kind of a university?

So, there I was mindlessly flicking the telly channels, and .... the way one ad started caught my attention.  If the market that the ad was aiming for were watching it, I can imagine them absolutely in agreement with the ad.

What was the ad for?  Kaplan University.  You can watch the same ad here in their website--click on the play button for the ad to start.

It is not that I am being an agent for that university, and nor am I advocating that we throw out the "standard" approach to education.  But, with every passing day, I am more and more convinced that with the phenomenal explosion of technology of a gazillion sorts, colleges and universities need to figure out how to adapt to the changing contexts.  (Yesterday was the big time celebration of Charles Darwin's birthday; so, we better keep in mind that those who don't adapt, well, ....)

What blows my mind is how we refuse to engage in such discussions.  Yes, even to talk about them, leave alone doing something.

And speaking of talent, here is one of my favorite talks from Ted.com.  The speaker is Sir Ken Robinson, and he, too, calls for a massive overhaul of the way we teach (though his focus is mainly on K-12, it has lots of lessons for us.)  BTW, if the embedded video does not show up in the email, then click on the link in the bottom of the email to go the blog post itself and watch the video.