The Parable of The Cloud #educause09

If you happened to spend the week hobnobbing with the elite in higher education technology at the EDUCAUSE conference this week, you couldn’t get far from the cloud. Even though the Denver days have been spectacularly sunny and warm, this conference was under the weather of cloud computing.

If you want to know what I think of cloud computing, let me tell you a little story:

Years ago I worked for a big company in the learning division. For some reason, my boss sent me to meet with a director of finance to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding for some new learning technology system we wanted to build.

I gave our spiel, all the great things this system would do and how much money it would save the company. She just stared at me and asked: How much more money will we make if you do this?

I spent the next 10 years coming up to speed on what she was after:

If you want to save money, don’t spend it.

I like to label this bit of fiscal wisdom The Costco Contradiction. Which works like this:

Husband: Honey! Look how much money I saved by buying 800 rolls of toilet paper.

Wife: You did not save money, you spent money.

Husband: Yes, but think of how much it would cost to buy all this toilet paper at the regular grocery story.

Wife: Yes, but think of how much money you have tied up in toilet paper. We could have invested that in the stock market. You, my love, have financed toilet paper for the next two years.

Anyway, back to the cloud.

All the conversation about cloud computing at EDUCAUSE seems to come down to one thing: Think of all the money we will save.

And to that I would say: Think of all the money we could save by getting rid of IT.

That’s a bit harsh. But it does help to raise the big question,”What business are we in?” It’s not saving money.

So with all these cost savings on the horizon, I would rather ask the questions that will move us forward:

What can we do with a leaner, meaner IT on campus? What new services can we launch that directly support the research and educational missions of the campus?  Can we take those savings and lower tuition, making education more affordable? Can we reach disadvantaged populations? Can we restore our classic language department that we cut so many years ago to afford that data center we thought we needed? Can we change how we do business to meet the challenges of a changing world?

The cloud is an awesome thing. But right now, it just seems to cast a shadow on the issue of what higher education ought to be doing.

Death to the Dropbox

On Thursday, Patrick and I will present a poster titled, “Death to the Dropbox.” And by death to the dropbox, we mean, don’t use the dropbox.

Why?

Because online, student privacy has gone too far.

Even as more and more studies and common sense experience point to the importance of social interaction in online courses as a key success factor, we find more and more faculty eliminating conversation by asking students to turn in work privately. Once inside the dropbox, the instructor secretly pulls it out, surreptitiously grades it, then quietly slides it back into the dropbox for the student, and only the student to see.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, we find effective teachers asking students questions in class, having student present projects and papers, showing off work and performing in front of their fellow learners, experts and the teacher.

Private feedback has its place in education, for sure. But the vast majority of feedback can and should be public.

So we say, Death to the Dropbox!

The Future of Education