Technology and the Transformation of Education (Infographic)

This infographic by the Online Learning Consortium deals with changes in online learning. It describes how online learning has made education and earning a degree more widely available for everyone. Traditional four-year colleges are claimed to be unable to meet the demands of the number of graduates needed by the workforce, and “70.8% see online learning as critical”. The claim is a study published by the Online Learning Consortium. The changing education system is described pertaining to elementary students learning keyboard skills instead of cursive handwriting and high school students with broadband access. It is claimed that higher education needs to adapt. Also, there are claims that the federal government could save money because online learning is less expensive to fund. There is a claim that 60% of jobs will require post-secondary education, and that workers will keep learning throughout their careers. The latter I must agree with, but I know there to be a huge gap in medium skilled workers currently due to everyone wanting to go to college, so I have some doubts about this. They claim that online learning is a great way to increase revenues for schools. Another survey funded by the Online Learning Consortium finds that 74.1% of academia finds that online learning is just as good or better than face-to-face instruction. Well, why do we even have classrooms anymore?