The modern classroom, in your hand?

Leading up to the superbowl I kept looking for the next great commercial. The one that would make you sit up and stare at the TV and tell your friend cruching natchos on the couch next to you to be quiet. I didn't see any during the game, but there is one commercial that has gotten stuck in the recesses of my brain. Have you seen it? It is the one where the professor is talking to his class about how he has failed them. It is an expertly filmed little short that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It gives me pause, not because of the product they are selling, but because it voices an idea that has been lurking in education for more than a decade.

'With all of this technology why do we need physical classrooms?'

Kaplan, the company that put together this ad is selling an online educational experience. They are challenging the status quo that education is delivered via a facility, a teacher and a class. Many other schools and universities have started to challenge this idea as well, pushing to use technology to leverage the best teachers and reach to far more students. Some people rave about the opportunity to learn on their own time and in their own place, but is it effective? Does this type of learning have real merit? And, if it does, does technology undermine the need for schools all together?

I am still forming an opinion on this and plan to blog on it quite a bit in the future. This post is an invitation to each of you to take a look at the Kaplan ad (just follow the link) and send me an opinion on what you think, both of the ad and of the idea that maybe we don't really need classrooms at all!

Let me know your thoughts. Lots more to follow.