Learning outsourcing hits the classroom

The learning outsourcing that I know about deals mostly with the learning administration. When your students call the enrolment office, little do they realise they are being served out of India or the Philippines. It is common for multinationals to either group their learning administration and IT where is is cheap, or to outsource that purely operational side of learning to others.

In last week's Data News (a local IT magazine here), I read that learning outsourcing has hit the classroom training. It is actually cheaper for IT administrators to get their Microsoft, Cisco or other certification by flying all the way to India and do the courses and exams over there. With the airline fee and hotel included, that's still cheaper than earning the title in the local country.

So now learning outsourcing gets very physical...

I know what you're thinking...

In the arts centre STUK here in Leuven there's a special installation by artist Christoph De Boeck. You can actually listen to your brain. Here's how it works: the visitor puts on a new technical innovation made by Imec on his head. That device measures brain waves and sends those signals to hammers that hit metal plates on the ceiling.

The reason I tell this in my learning blog is because of what I read at the end of the corresponding newspaper article: Imec lists as a potential use for its device, next to all kinds of medical usage, e-learning. The device can see when you are distracted and at that moment the course may react with an interruption or engaging activity. Fiction? Soon reality?