Time15 July 2012 Issue No:230
The times they are a changin’, and I’d like to suggest they are changing
in a way that has massive implications for education: sources of
credibility – once the domain of expensive degrees – are becoming
democratised, decentralised and diversified, writes Michael Ellsberg for
Time.
In the past, there was pretty much one way to gain credibility: get some letters after your name, from as fancy an institution as possible. Now, in 2012, I’ve seen dozens of young people who don’t even have college degrees use the following tools as sources of credibility in the business world: a track record of having started one or two successful businesses, even if they were small; industry-related blogs with well-written, lively, detailed posts that receive many comments and tweets/likes/shares per post; an impressive About page on a well-designed personal website; and large, legitimate, real followings on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media networks.
Clearly, any discussion of higher education needs to distinguish between two basic and distinct concepts: learning, on the one hand, versus credibility about having learned. While learning has always been available around us, inexpensively, free (or even paid on the job), until recently sources of credibility have been highly centralised, and highly expensive. There was basically only one source: higher education.
In the past, there was pretty much one way to gain credibility: get some letters after your name, from as fancy an institution as possible. Now, in 2012, I’ve seen dozens of young people who don’t even have college degrees use the following tools as sources of credibility in the business world: a track record of having started one or two successful businesses, even if they were small; industry-related blogs with well-written, lively, detailed posts that receive many comments and tweets/likes/shares per post; an impressive About page on a well-designed personal website; and large, legitimate, real followings on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media networks.
Clearly, any discussion of higher education needs to distinguish between two basic and distinct concepts: learning, on the one hand, versus credibility about having learned. While learning has always been available around us, inexpensively, free (or even paid on the job), until recently sources of credibility have been highly centralised, and highly expensive. There was basically only one source: higher education.
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