Taking Online Learning Offline: Now That’s High-Tech!

There’s a really interesting company here in Utah valley called Agilix that’s doing some intriguing work in support of the developing world. From today’s press release:

Agilix Labs, Inc. announced the extension of learning solutions to unserved and underserved markets with the introduction of its GoCourse Schoolmate product, a self-contained client-server learning system that supports education initiatives in situations and environments with limited or non-existent Internet connectivity.

“This represents an extension of our GoCourse platform to address the needs of the 95% of the Earth’s population that falls outside the reach of broadband access,” said Curt Allen, CEO of Agilix Labs. “Emerging markets will for the first time enjoy an eLearning experience that isn’t limited by the unavailability of Internet access.”

I know several of the people at the company, and they’re all great and they actually care. But it’s rare to see personal interest and commitment translate into dollars spent and product launched within a “for-profit” company. Kudos to the guys and gals at Agilix.

Anyway, it makes me wonder… is the future of open education taking the online offline?

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You’re currently reading “Taking Online Learning Offline: Now That’s High-Tech!,” an entry on iterating toward openness

Published:: Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Author:: david

Category:: open content

Andrea

August 14th, 2008
9:35 GMT

Hi Dr. Wiley,
I’m in the IPT department at BYU. I have read many of your posts but this is the first time I’m actually commenting. I really enjoyed reading this post since I just got back from Mozambique, Africa and am constantly trying to think of ways to help the people who have limited access to education. I’ve always been a fan of open education. I find this post so interesting, especially that last idea about taking the future of education offline. I definitely think that some of the affordances that the web offers us can probably be achieved offline. For instance, one of the affordances the internet offers is accessibility, but if you really think about it, only to those who have access to begin with. What about those with no access to the internet? If the future of open education is online, then it can’t really be open since that major population of people with no internet access will be denied access to education. In one of your other posts you talk about the problem of making data portable across social networking services, maybe taking open education offline could solve some of those policy problems. I like your idea because it’s made me think about open education in a different way.

iterating toward openness

Taking Online Learning Offline: Now That’s High-Tech!

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