Apple effectively teaches customers on $100/yr
The senior vice president of retail for Apple Computer Ron Johnson recently described to the Civic Caucus, a Minnesota policy group, how Apple successfully brings thousands of customers each year from inexperience to proficiency with their software, for a relatively small cost.
In the One-to-One program, for one hundred dollars per year customers get one hour per week with a Mac Genius. “The customers love it, and they come, motivated. They learn, go home and ‘study,’ and come back with questions. The staff are fulfilled.” And, for the company, the economics work. The Geniuses are paid approximately $12 per hour.
“We first tried lectures in the stores,” he said, “but it quickly became apparent that people had different interests, and different questions. So we readjusted, and went to the one-on-one format.”
So what could this mean for schooling?
Young people learn differently than they did in the past, Johnson said. They’re creating constantly, and communicating constantly. Then they go to school and have to sit in a lecture and eyes glaze over. The stores now have thousands of individuals and families that come in and learn how to do things, via a similar one-on-one learning process.
Johnson imagined: “What if a teacher were given 30 students and worked with them for 18 years? Each student has to be pursuing a mission. Give a student an iPad, an environment that lets them use it, and the teacher as guide.”
It’s this sort of restructuring that is needed, he pointed out, so the learning potential of technology can be realized. “We are often thinking technology centric. Instead, technology is the enabler. If you don’t call it the enabler, then you’re on the wrong track.”
Image: Apple, Inc.
August 30, 2010 - 9:28am
If you would like to see how this scenario might play itself, this article by Roger Schank is a good start. Here are his opening comments:
I see technology driving educational change in the following key areas:
· New role for teachers. The availability of courses delivered over the web will lead to a
shift in teachers’ responsibilities from teaching academic subjects to teaching social and interpersonal skills. All academic subjects will be taught online and, as a result, teachers will no longer be expected to be experts in these subjects. Instead, the role of teachers will evolve into one that combines the skills of a social worker, guidance counselor, and camp counselor. Teachers will move away from a role of authority figure to one of a learning facilitator or guide as well as providing one-on-one mentoring.
· New role for schools. The widespread availability of online courses outside of school will lead to a fundamental change in the role of schools as well. The schools’ most
important role will be counterbalancing the social isolation and alienation that will come from the increasing amount of time students will spend in front of computer and TV screens. The role of school will change to become more of a social and activity center where students learn social skills through participation in group activities.
· Centralization of curriculum and instructional development. The delivery of education via online courses will change the entire landscape of course development and
control of the curriculum. We will be able to realize tremendous efficiencies by developing top-quality courses once, rather than having every teacher in the country
repeatedly doing lesson planning for the same courses. The fiction of local control of education will become evident and a panel of experts instead of local groups of wellmeaning, but uninformed, parents will develop the curriculum.
Read the rest at:
http://www.socraticarts.com/schank/Vision_Of_Education.pdf
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