Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Not Just What But Who You Know Matters

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The major value proposition offered by top tier universities isn't knowledge. This is available anywhere. Nor is it even top-flight professors. Great teachers and researchers can be found in institutions large and small around the world.No, the value proposition is access to the network of contacts, influencers, and collaborators. Access to networks matters, and it's this gap that isn't addressed in education reform programs ignore, to the detriment of participants. As this story states, "advantageous connections, formal and informal mentors, peer networks, and exposure to professions and professionals reside in exclusive networks that children access by sheer luck of the draw. It bears noting that schools are not causing these gaps. Rather, by design they do little to resolve them." I've taken to calling this "The Yale Advantage" and one of my objectives is to render it quaint.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 12:58 p.m.

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