Technology in education has two faces: one of transformation and one of hype. The printing press revolutionized access to education, and in the process an explosion in scientific inquiry was born. Teachers could finally produce and communicate content to a growing number of students entering an industrial revolution. Classrooms emerged as a great solution to disseminate content and augment interaction with faculty and other students. Traditional apprenticeships with experts polished the student to perfection.

Within a short period of time, the industrial workforce ballooned and with it the student body. The need to scale student to teacher interactions encouraged us to turn to other technologies: radio, television, computers, and the World Wide Web. Individually, these technologies couldn’t increase the ratio of experts to novices, or significantly add to their real world experience. The “educational transformation” hype emerged around these technologies and they didn’t deliver as their evangelists claimed…