So I am curious what others think of this. I found myself reacting negatively to this... the students are depicted as helpless, even apathetic victims of cruel heartless teachers and educational systems--or at least that's one possible take on this. Or I am just too over the hill??

Well, I'm not sure. The question is: is Kaplan doing anything that is really different? OK, so I can watch my prof on an iPod in the subway... Or I can take in a lecture on my sofa stroking my cat... is that fundamentally different? And more and more campuses are putting up lectures, materials on an anywhere anytime basis. So the interesting question here is: what would 'different' look like? Is it what Kaplan is doing?

Where Chrome OS could hurt MS: Google gives it away (free!). The biggest single expense in buying a Windows netbook is the OS license. If that goes away... well, then, a Chrome netbook is cheaper than a Windows netbook. Don't forget MS has an eco-system too, both in the cloud and on the desktop/laptop. Huge investments by everyone in Office etc. If I were a strategist for MS I would consider seriously your suggestion to give away the OS on some platforms. MS has so much cash it could easily afford to.

I agree too that it's not a matter of CMS *vs* web2.0. The task for the future will be indeed to get them to play to their strengths. The task of IT providers will be to blend them in a way that appears to the users to be a single cloud or service. Simplistic dichotomies don't do anyone any good. This one of CMS vs W2.0 echoes another one: teaching vs. learning. However much we want to encourage active learning practices in courses, at the base is the faculty member who is and will remain the master architect of the overall structure of the course. It doesn't help us to treat "teaching" as a kind of dirty word. Education happens best when teaching and learning happen together.

Here's one nay-sayer about Chrome OS: "An ice cube's chance in Hell of succeeding." For all the emotionism of this title, I don't think the author makes a convincing case for his thesis. http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/google%E2%80%99s-chrome-os-ice-cubes-chance-in-hell-succeeding-522?source=IFWNLE_nlt_openenterprise_2009-07-08

Amen! I agree. I also wonder about Bb's concept of its future. Not only does it seem stuck in a faculty-centric teaching model, its business model seems stuck as well. It is using classic, traditional ways to win the competition for the market: buy and/or sue competitors. I have to think that each time Bb buys a company that it takes time and resource to "ingest" the acquisition. Those resources could be spent rebuilding Bb in a way more suited to the read/write environments that students (and increasingly faculty) are expecting.

This nails it. I think Bb better take all this seriously, especially the opportunities and threats. I'd augment the "high costs" weakness with something like a line under threats: "on-going shrinking endowments and state appropriations forces higher ed to cut costs severely." Remember: it may take Dartmouth's endowment *years* to return to the level it was at the beginning of the fiscal meltdown. And that assumes a steady-state economy. In light of the cloud, I think Bb may have already hit its high water mark. Moves to the cloud will be accelerated by fiscal challenges: save the Bb licensing fees (which go up steadily at least 5% a year).

Agree 100%. So here's where we can say: 'Where there's retirement, there's hope.' This is precisely the area where I would expect Pres. Kim to set the institution on its institutional ear.

Ray, I applaud the launching of this blog. I think communication with customers has been a challenge, so any and all channels that can be put in place is a positive step. Bb has been a good product for us thus far. We're at 80% adoption, perhaps even more. What I don't have is any sense at all of the company's pedagogical vision. I was disappointed by the version 9 demos. It appears to me to be retooling the faculty-centric teaching paradigm with Ajax. Obviously I could be missing something, but right now I have no sense of whether Bb is even thinking about moving in the direction of student and learner centered tools, functions, and resources. Nor do I see the company reaching out to communicate this. So I think this blog is a good initial step. We all have a lot at stake in our implementations and given the unrelenting pace of technology change, knowing where the Bb ship is headed is vital. Malcolm Brown Dartmouth College

Jared, I think the lecture will not be disappearing anytime soon. Hence presentation capture will still be very relevant. Also in the case of Prof. Uhi note that he and colleagues took a long time to develop the Mathematica modules required for them to ditch the lecture. That means that faculty and their helpers will need to invest time and effort inventing new learning modules etc. If you think of how many presentation-style courses Dartmouth teaches each year, again we see that the lecture will not vanish soon. Finally there are faculty attitudes. Recently at a meeting when we announced the Techsmith deal some faculty groused about it. They may be a minority, but will that means dozens of faculty will resist departing from the lecture and resist embracing lecture capture. It's a piece of cultural evolution, and not revolution.

If Google beat Microsoft hands down in the Dartmouth sweepstakes, what chance would Bb have? We heard it today from Ellen Waite-Franzen: it seems that Google has an app or an API (or both) for everything. I think the days of the LMS as we know it are numbered. This is the LMS in general but especially Bb, since Bb seems to be good at generating ill-will and doesn't seem to have a clue about learner-centric curriculum. My guess is that what will happen to the LMS is the same as what happens to anything else when it comes into contact with the cloud: an thinning, sometimes dramatically so.

AppleInsider also has a post with additional info. One point they make: Amazon may be targeting the education market with this new device, for textbook delivery. About time! http://tinyurl.com/deeebd