teachers will soon be celebrities
That technology is changing the way we think of education is a fact that few can deny, especially in 2012. As we look ahead 10 years from now, one potential implication of the use of technology and the break-down of traditional institutions of learning, such as universities, could be the emergence of the superstar teacher.
What do I mean by the superstar (or celebrity) teacher?
Imagine for a moment, that everyone student in the world who is interested in learning about a particular topic is able to access content created by the best teacher for that subject. Students in Vietnam tuning into Physics lectures by Einstein; or taking philosophy classes from Daniel Kahneman. Daniel Kahneman instantly goes from being able to teach 500 students over 10 years, to teaching 50000 students every year !
Hard to imagine? Dr Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University delivered an AI class to 160,000 students in the Fall of 2011.
The best teachers of any, and every subject in the world have a massive opportunity to reach each and every student interested in learning from them, through the use of simple broadcasting tools. This will give rise to a new class of celebrities, teachers !
Teachers are no longer required to restrict themselves to teaching primarily at elite institutions to have a great impact on society, but rather aim to reach a global audience with their product. This also changes the fundamental economics of education and the opportunity for outstanding compensation for outstanding educators !
To wrap, I want to add that Dr Sebastian Thrun recently resigned from Stanford to launch his own platform to deliver his courses - complete with lectures, grading, and classrooms. Salman Khan of the Khan Academy is another prominent example !
The celebrity teacher will enjoy the same kind of following, fame, and fortune as leading Hollywood artists. Sebastian is one of the first celebrity teachers !
College costs twice as much as it did 10 years ago
Earlier today, I started to wonder how expense it has become to go to college these days. As Mona and I were chatting, we conjectured that the increases were tiny if we were to consider cumulative inflation over the same period.
Best way to find out was to dig into the data, so here we go:
Chart 1: Tuition fees data from Virginia Tech & UC Berkeley
Well, it is pretty interesting to see that VT increased its In-state tuition from $2537 in 2003 to $5254 in 2011; an increase of 107%.
During the same period UC Berkeley went from $2928 in 2003 to $6696 in 2011; clocking a whopping increase of 128%.
technology person, i work 
