Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Anything else that you want to conclude with?

John Miller: The thing that I’d share with you is I have a true passion for this. I came out of retirement to join HOL to focus on this STEM issue. K-12 initiatives are two generations away. Dr. Bared of Intel was quoted as saying that if they had to start Intel again, it wouldn’t be in the US, not because the intimation isn’t here but because the workforce isn’t here. My father and his father really differentiated the US economy through manufacturing. That’s gone today. In my generation and future generations, it’s been innovation that differentiated the US in the world economy.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What do you forecast will happen to these online universities that are charging almost full price or maybe 10% less than the physical schools?

John Miller: There’s an emergence of a new model that is far more cost-effective, that I think will become pervasive. An example is an organization called StraighterLine, which is a low-cost solution set providing students with highly cost-effective distance education in the general education field. They have articulation agreements with a wide span of four-year schools.

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about your business of working with a thousand universities and hundred thousand students. What does that business entail?

John Miller: That business focuses on supplying the lab kits that are required for STEM courses. What our company has done is develop a multi-solution package depending upon what experience the school and the instructors want to bring to their student base. Essentially, our scientists create the experimentation and intellectual property to fulfill the learning objectives that professors and instructors have defined for their courses. What historically has been done in the four walls of a lab now can be done in the students’ homes through the solutions that we provide. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 3)

John Miller: One of the challenges they have coming back into education is the whole on boarding process and preparing the employee to come back in. There’re a number of demands that really come into play here. When you start to think about regaining your study skills and the ability to do time management with the demands of, potentially, a family and certainly full-time employment, it becomes challenging. Our program, working with education, enables their on boarding process to educate and help these people coming back into education from the workforce, so they can continue to grow into these new roles on a career path. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Then what do you do to fill those gaps? Do you develop content modules to be delivered over the Internet around those skill gap areas?

John Miller: What we are in the process of doing with our clients is identifying the gaps and then, building a goal alignment. We go through a very detailed assessment on both sides. We try to identify what lines of business in their arena are changing, and what are the talent requirements that are going to be needed going forward. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 1)

There is a huge gap between industry and academia today. Learn more about the lay of the land and identify opportunities for entrepreneurship.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with giving our audience a bit of context about Hands-On Learning (HOL). What do you do? What major online education industry trends are you aligning with?

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: That’s true in general. Part of the error that the venture capital industry is making is to fund a lot of free stuff. This hides all the problems of whatever product or service they’re trying to sell. Entrepreneurs think that they’re doing great by offering something for free. Eventually, it doesn’t monetize. I’m more interested in companies that can deliver enough value so that they can actually charge for it.

Sari Factor: I agree.

Sramana Mitra: This whole MOOC thing, I don’t think it’s going to work.

Sari Factor: Good content costs something to develop. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How long has Edgenuity been around?

Sari Factor: Since 1998. It was called Education 2020 until the beginning of 2013 when we changed the name.

Sramana Mitra: How is your company funded?

Sari Factor: We were owned by an investment firm called Weld North. It’s a partnership between Jonathan Grayer, the former CEO of Kaplan, and KKR. >>>