Gatekeepers vs. Gatejumpers

I came across this thought provoking post on Chris Brogan's excellent blog on community and social media.

Gatekeepers vs Gatejumpers

His post deals with traditional business and their non-traditional online business counterparts.

"Consider traditional mainstream businesses. They are the gatekeepers of what we consider the standard, the typical, the recognized. It’s really easy to look at this when you consider various media properties and their online upstart counterparts."

In addition to the list that Chris started on his own, there is a great list going in the comments section. The comments are a post in themselves with some excellent observations.

But, this got me thinking about the bigger idea of Gatekeepers vs. Gatejumpers. The traditional education establishment is the gatekeeper. As a gatekeeper that tell students where to learn, when to learn, what to learn, and whom to learn from. It is completely focused on teaching.

The gatejumper to this gate is a focus on learning. When the focus is learning, the question of where, when, what, who, and even why are quite different. Gatejumpers or those of us who focus on learning and use whatever means, technology and internet included, to make that happen.

Comments

[Chris Brogan...]

So is there a way to make a new road for education? We can argue that Phoenix did that with convincing the world that online-only degrees were real. That's certainly a gate jump, and I smile at all the other colleges who had to play catch up to someone who out-marketed them with a less-known product.

Curious if that would translate down into the K-12 universe?

[Rob Jacobs]

Chris, you rightly pointed out U of Phoenix as an example of a gatejumper. They certainly spawned and number of other such colleges.

The largest high school in the U.S is the Florida Virtual School. Many other states have created virtual high schools and state departments of education are beginning to set up or explore on-line high schools.

If the focus is on learning, gatejumpers like EduFire.com and other online learning and teaching sites are going to rise up to fill in the gaps that traditional schools can not or will not meet. Dirsuptive Technology!