Web-Based Lessons Enter Classroom
By Mary Anne Ostrom
10/19/02
Reprinted from San Jose Mercury News
(Copyright 2002 San Jose Mercury News)
What's the man who helped define the New Economy up to now?
An online start-up, of all things.
Prominent Stanford University economist Paul Romer, the leading proponent of New Growth Theory, now spends his days trying to prove in the business world what he's taught for years--technology, along with capital and labor, is the third ingredient underlying modern economic growth.
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"Technology in higher education is here to stay. By 2010, it's going to be hard to find a course that does not have some element of technology in it."
–Gene I. Maeroff, Author |
On leave from Stanford, Romer, 46, is sticking to what he knows best, teaching economics. His company, Aplia, is a Web-based publisher of teaching materials and interactive lessons for colleges. Its first product, "Principles of Microeconomics," is being rolled out formally this fall.
While dozens of e-learning companies have ended up in the dot-com dustbin, Romer spent several years honing his ideas in his Stanford business school classroom and, for the past 18 months, he's been quietly building the company with $11.2 million from his sole investor, Skandia, a Swedish insurance company interested in lifelong learning research.
Some might question the wisdom of leaving the Stanford Graduate School of Business at a time of economic volatility for a start-up based in a San Carlos neighborhood of auto-body shops. But Romer said he wouldn't have had it any other way, glad, he said, to have avoided the bubble mentality that technology would solve all problems.
He may have built his reputation by analyzing how technology drives economic growth, but Romer does not believe that the computer should take the place of the classroom. He is the son of Roy Romer, the former Colorado governor who is now superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.
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| COLLEGE AND THE NET | |||
| Internet use is a staple of college students' academic experience. Here are some highlights from a recent study on how students use the Net: | |||
| • | 79 percent agreed or strongly agreed that Internet use has had a positive impact on their college academic experience. | ||
| • | 46 percent agreed that e-mail lets them express ideas to a professor that they would not have expressed in class. | ||
| • | 73 percent said they use the Internet more than the library. | ||
| • | 48 percent are required to use the Internet to contact other students in their classes. | ||
| • | 68 percent reported subscribing to mailing lists on which they can carry on e-mail discussions about topics they're studying. | ||
| • | 58 percent have used e-mail to discuss or find out a grade from an instructor. | ||
| • | 65 percent who e-mail professors said they report absences via e-mail. | ||
| Source: The Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed 2,054 U.S. college students at 27 two-year and four-year public and private institutions between March and June 2002. The findings have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. | |||
"This isn't about replacing teachers with computers," said Romer. "It's about giving teachers tools to make students interested in learning and coming to class."
Based on the popularity of his Stanford classes, in which Romer tested computer-based content, he decided to build a business.
Drawing on his academic reputation as a marketing tool, and free trial periods, Romer now counts 8,000 students in 127 schools using his microeconomics program this fall. Just 1,100 pay, however.
Schools using Aplia include the Virginia Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and Oregon State University. Locally, Stanford, California State University-Hayward, and De Anza and Foothill community colleges do.
Next semester, Romer plans to add macroeconomics and eventually expand to other subjects.
Although the Internet was once touted as the cure-all for high-priced textbooks, time-crunched professors and bored students, few businesses built on the concept have survived. In large part, in-class teaching at colleges and universities remains unchanged from the pre-computer era.
"There's been a lot of hype," said Gene I. Maeroff, author of the upcoming book "A Classroom of One," which examines computers in education. "But technology in higher education is here to stay. By 2010, it's going to be hard to find a course that does not have some element of technology in it."
Several major players already have emerged. Smaller companies like Aplia may be most financially successful developing niches, Maeroff said.
Students in classes that use Aplia's program pay $28 a semester, purposely priced at about half of the standard economics textbook and about the same as study guides.
Aplia offers an entire course online, including homework assignments, in-class and at-home interactive sessions, readings and tests, all of which professors can customize.
Course-management tools allow professors to keep track of who has completed assignments and experiments, and instantly grade them.
In Roger Mack's economics class at De Anza, about 50 students last week simultaneously participated in an online mock trading experiment.
Even for an 8:30 a.m. class, students in the computer lab grew animated in timed experiments, buying and selling textbooks in a series of exercises teaching the efficiencies the marketplace. "Look how quickly you all found the equilibrium price," boomed Mack. "Markets are efficient."
Maria Ahmed, a Mack student, said she had struggled with such concepts earlier, but the experiments "have made it so much easier."
But some students said as useful as Aplia is, it's still an extra cost. Several said they had to also shell out $60 for a textbook.
Romer is more on a mission to change education than to make a fortune, say those who know him.
"He has to do something until the day when he gets the call from the Nobel committee," laughed Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future.
"He is one of the few economists who walks his talk. This is a well-managed company and has a great vision," added Saffo, "But this is about a passion.