Educators like to think of this shift in learning as personalization using software that makes lessons intuitive and highly adaptive for each learner, but Cauthen challenges all leaders and instructors to view the end game and plan for a new reality. “If schools fully discover and adapt to consumerization’s ingenuity,” she writes, “it has the power to give back time that can now be turned to attention on students, to create more hands-on learning activities, and to guide students in the fullness of a digital learning experience.”
Consumerized learning is also an alternate delivery mechanism that has the potential to disintermediate on cost, immediacy, and effectiveness. Cauthen believes it’s time for schools to take advantage of this shift and cooperate with publishers to transform education.
“LeiLani has been asking essential questions as she investigates the educational system across the United States,” said Dr. Michelle Zimmerman, 2016 NCCE Outstanding Technology Educator and Microsoft Innovative Education Expert. “In approaching trends and gaps from a business lens, she is able to highlight areas that may seem obvious after she points them out but may have gone largely unnoticed or unconsidered from an education-focused lens. In three years of knowing LeiLani, I’ve gained new insight and perspective shifts, learned about broader trends, gaps, and predictions for future movement in digital content and strategy, and been able to fit together puzzle pieces I didn’t know I was missing before. She has a forward-thinking vision for the future of education, paradigm shifts, and organizational shifts—all with students at the center.”
At the end of the book, Cauthen does something unusual as a way to view her suppositions and theories concerning the future of education: she tells a fictional story about the future to illustrate where things can go for students, teachers, and schools. Meanwhile, Cauthen continues to travel throughout the country, leading discussions and keynoting on the transition of education to digital curriculum.
The Consumerization of Learning is available on Amazon or wherever fine books are sold.
About the Learning Counsel
The Learning Counsel is a research institute and news media hub focused on providing context for the shift in education to digital curriculum. The Learning Counsel’s membership is comprised of over 215,000 executive-rank educators. The Learning Counsel is also the home of KnowStory.com, the first special-interest-free and grass-roots social media hub for education with functions for students, teachers, schools, and publishers. For more information, visit LearningCounsel.com.
LeiLani Cauthen is the CEO and Publisher at the Learning Counsel. She has 20+ years of research, news media publishing, and market leadership experience. She travels the country delivering education leadership events and is helping define this century’s real change in teaching and learning.