The notion of a Google University is not a new one, but recent interest among some universities to embrace the use of YouTube for hosting instructional content has brought things into a slightly different focus for me.

UC Berkeley was the first to jump in and set up a YouTube channel for distributing content, and they have recently been joined by MIT, USC, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, Texas Tech and Auburn. More are sure to follow. On the surface this seems like a great way of sharing learning resources as well as a marketing tool for colleges and universities to show a different web presence…participating in some of that YouTube love.

Another interesting wrinkle here is that it has not been made transparent by YouTube just how other interested universities might become involved in offering their own YouTube channels. The Chronicle recently reported that calls to the YouTube brass about gaining additional information about how to get involved in YouTubeU have gone unanswered. Club membership seems to be a bit restricted at this point, but why all the interest? Perhaps exclusivity is fueling the the desire to join…

Google, with its vast resources, really seems on the verge here of being able to open up Google University. And if McDonald’s can grant GEDs, it seems quite conceivable that a GU could offer some pretty compelling degree programs. It could provide its students with unlimited web-based access to some of the most amazing library collections in the world (Stanford, University of Michigan, Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, Cornell….etc.), a suite of web-based productivity and learning tools (Gmail, Calendar, Pages, Docs, blogs, Maps, Reader…and not to mention Search) and now an emerging collection of full video recordings of courses and lectures from some prestigious universities. Wow!

It is not difficult to imagine or envision a scenario where you could enroll for a Google Course. Courses could draw upon the vast collection of resources, pulling and re-assembling the best learning content to suit the needs of individual learners. The idea of having an intelligent tutor embedded in the web browser that is evaluating decisions, links, and responses to learning content…in real-time…and serving up a multimedia buffet of resources that seemed to be just in time to support that next cognitive step. In such an environment the learner could always remain in that zone of proximal development. Hmmm…a long shot? Maybe.

What might such an arrangement mean for traditional notions of courses? Degree programs? Institutions of higher education? For learning?

Would such an environment be desirable?

We tend not to think about this until the numbers of faculty showing up for a particular workshop dwindles to almost zero. Then we start scratching our heads, wondering why more folks don’t “see the light” that we see. Workshops often work well for the early adopters. As a group, they are easy to work with because they are already interested in learning and exploring, and come to the table with a strong dose of being self-directed when it comes to technology.

For those of us involved in faculty development, I think early workshop success can be misleading and can lead to a false sense of success, reinforcing the perceived need to run workshops and training sessions. Don’t get me wrong, workshops are a necessary evil. They serve an important function of providing initial introductions to new tools, act as conversation starters, and provide faculty with the important opportunity to network with colleagues. But these are largely hit-and-run events, and can’t sustain adoption of new practices on a larger scale.

At the same time, the world in which we live, teach and learn in is becoming increasingly complex. Change is rapid and the sheer amount of information generated is overwhelming. Early adopters of technology innovations – instructional technologists included – often pick this stuff up quickly and then move on to something else. The question becomes how we can sustain our enthusiasm and interest in a particularly useful technology while it takes time –sometimes several years -for the second wave and late adopters to also find it of value? Bill Buxton, a Principal Scientist at Microsoft Research and the author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, recently talked about the concept of the long nose of innovation. In this piece he describes how much innovation is often of low-amplitude and takes place over long periods of time, sometimes as much as 10 years.

I think this creates a bit of a practice dilemma for the instructional technologist working with faculty members interested in exploring technology to support learning. As we take the time to learn about the next emerging tool – Twitter, Ning, Facebook, blogs, podcasting wikis, etc. – we forget that the vast majority of faculty we encounter in our work will not likely adopt these tools for years, if at all! By the time the long nose of innovation runs its course, entire new chapters of internet history will have been written. From this perspective it seems that most technological innovations in education are limited to the early adopter, constraining potential change on a wider scale.

With the mad rush to the “next best thing” how can we pay more attention to and provide more support for the deliberate consideration of the instructional value of these tools to the folks who don’t see it the way early adopters see it? It takes more time. Change is slow. Workshops and online tutorials are not for everyone. The idea of “bringing it to scale” may not have a logical and linear progression, that includes a neatly designed workshop series, or community of practice, or whatever, that will bring along others to engage in similar practices.

Has the pace of innovation outstripped our capacity to exist simultaneously at multiple points on the adoption curve? Perhaps we need to slow down a bit ourselves, find a balance. A balance between engaged participation, deliberate reflection, and importantly a continuous and embedded critique of what we are exploring. I guess it’s that last part that seems to come late in the game…usually just before we head off exploring the next greatest tool that will change education and learning…forever.