Disruptive Ideas

I have been reading the Disruptive Innovation book the last few days. I find the business models it describes interesting, but so far I haven't found much new in the author's comments regarding disruption in education. I guess I thought he was going to talk about some really new ideas, but so far (and I am only 120 pages in, so it may yet come)he has really only talked about online courses--more or less what already exists. Of course, he is talking about ways it will naturally improve with more use. Still, I haven't really read anything in that book yet I would consider truly new.

What I did like and what I will say is a new idea for me is the idea that disruption comes from marketing products (ideas, etc) to NON-consumers. I thought the business examples he gave illustrated his point well and I like how he is starting to identify non-comsumers of education. Really they are non-consumers of certain aspects of education, or non-consumers of certain courses.

So I guess the question then becomes for me who is non-consumer of reading and how can I market reading to them? How can I use computers in new and different ways to individualize reading instruction for kids on my classes? This question comes at a time when the structure of my reading classes is being drastically changed as well. Instead of every day for a semester, the powers that be are looking to go to a yearlong A/B schedule or even a 3 week block schedule. How can I combine the schedule changes with some innovative online learning options? I don't know--more thinking is in order. Wish I knew HTML and could write my own programs.