What happens when you redesign an online learning space from the ground up? I’m not sure but that’s what San Francisco-based Grockit has in mind. They’re flush with cash from a recent influx of funding and they’ve got attitude. While I think learning management systems alone are a pale substitute for the classroom experience, there’s nothing on the horizon that offers institutions a credible alternative. Could Grockit be it?
Investor Tom Ryan has hinted that Grockit was initially aiming to imitate the success of the Korean site, MegaStudy. If that’s the case, I’m dubious. MegaStudy is a money machine but it’s mostly lecture-based. I’m not sure that approach improves the quality of the learning experience for people. And essentially, test prep what Grockit already does. But stay tuned. If they really want to focus on learning as they say, this could be interesting.
I like Grockit’s mission – “to abolish Education and replace it with Learning” – now we will see if they can follow through with it.
Will Grockit simply be LMS 2.0 or something new? If it will be primarily lecture-based it won’t be anything evolutionary or revolutionary – but if it lets learners develop PLEs that fit them, then we might have something new to look at…
Always the elusive PLE … sigh.