Yea, I know. The last two posts have sounded a little extreme right? That crazy guy with this site he calls awilum.com telling us that since this little iPod came out he hears the death knoll of the traditional university. Pretty easy to write me off, huh? Hey, universities have been around for hundreds of years, how on earth could they just go away? People HAVE to go to college to get a great job right? You HAVE to go to a live-format school in order to be able to pastor correctly right? No way are alternative educational outlets ever going to supplant traditional education.

Go ahead. Discount me. Close out of awilum.com and never come back. If you just don’t think about it all of the things I’m talking about will just go away. Besides, improving my teaching is hard, I’d rather spend my time playing golf or doing research. If I do research then I can get really famous and secure tenure. What benefit is there to me if I teach well or not? Sure. Just keep saying that to yourself.

In case I haven’t convinced you yet about the REAL threat (or is it really an opportunity?) of alternative educational outlets, think about this. A few years ago IBM started conducting training for their employees on the computer instead of in the classroom. Guess what? They are saving a quarter BILLION dollars. And that’s not the amazing part. They are saving this money ANNUALLY! Well, actually, that’s not the amazing part either. The really amazing part is that the employees who did their training on the computer instead of in the classroom rated their educational experience HIGHER than their collegues who took the live-format, traditional classroom experience. Wow. Wow. Wow.

I don’t get worried (or excited?) about hearing the cost savings of desktop education vs. traditional education. If something is good enough, people will find a way to afford it. What I get really, deep-down terrified (or enthusiastic?) about is that the people liked their software better than human teaching! If this doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will. You MUST–there is no option, there is no delay–you MUST radically change your teaching to produce an incredible, unique, mind-blowing, transformational educational experience for your students that they cannot get anywhere else, or people like me are going to eat your lunch. Sleep well…but tomorrow, you’d better be firing on all cylinders…and then some. Because I sure am. And I’m just getting started.