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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>I was interested in Stanford’s AI online class as much for the innovative learning model as for the class content. Of course MIT would have some kind of response:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-education-initiative-1219.html">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-education-initiative-1219.html</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The Stanford experiment was a critical breakthrough in education. Once enough people try out an online course, they will develop that kind of learning as a skill set in itself. That breaks the entire classical model of education as an exercise in getting to a class at a specific time, listening to one guy talk to a group of people, taking notes, studying for a test on a specific day, etc. It eliminates the very difficult and uncomfortable move into a dormitory on a crowded and dangerous campus away from one’s home. All that can be made far more flexible and cheaper, it can be dissociated with the minor league football franchises that the mainstream American colleges have become, it reduces education costs dramatically and creates a domino-effect of changes that will take years to see.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>