About Learn From Anywhere
Distance Education is the "wave of the
future," so they say. Unfortunately, its promise has largely gone
unrealized. Dr. Richard Jensen founded Learn From Anywhere to establish a
model by which that promise could be realized.
So, what's wrong with how Distance Education generally works? After all, many schools offer online courses, and there are some third-party content providers. So, what's wrong with existing models? Here are some of the problems:
Motivation to create online courses is low
Most schools offer to pay a one-time fee to Course Creators, and usually this fee is absurdly low. Why would a professor spend six months or more developing a quality online course (working over and above his/her other responsibilities) just to sell that course to the school for, say, a flat $1,000?
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by paying Course Creators each and every time anybody in the world uses a course they created. We pay ongoing royalty income rather than a flat fee.
Schools "reinvent the wheel"
How many schools around the world are offering, for example, basically the same Introduction to Music course? Dozens? Hundreds? And why do they all do this? There are many reasons, but the primary reasons include: (1) Each school wants to "eat all of their own pie," so to speak. So, even if a school's faculty isn't top-qualified to produce a particular course, the school would still rather have it done in-house and get all the revenues that course generates. (2) A course created in-house is a "known quantity" insofar as the school knows that that course satisfies particular requirements. (3) Faculty come and go, but a school wants control over the courses it offers.
Learn From Anywhere addresses these issues by (1) LFA doesn't cut into a school's "pie" at all. Schools still get the same registration fees from students as always. Schools are still the degree-granting institutions. (2) LFA provides only the highest-quality courses, developed by top teachers and professors. LFA provides profiles of its Course Creators, detailing their backgrounds and credentials. Just as faculty decide which textbooks are appropriate for their courses, faculty can decide which of LFA's online courses are appropriate to satisfy a school's course requirements. LFA is, in effect, providing online textbooks (including quizzes, assignments, and other materials). (3) Whether faculty come and go, a school can have confidence that the quality of LFA's courses remains the same. In fact, the superb materials we offer will help even new teachers do their best. We support teachers, which is a good thing for any school!
Teachers are less motivated to teach online courses
Because schools realize that there is less "work" in "teaching" an online course, schools pay much less to online course teachers. So, teachers often add their online teaching load on top of their regular load just to earn some extra money. When teachers are less motivated quality often suffers.
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by paying teachers over and above whatever their schools pay. Every time a course is taught through LFA, both the Course Creator and the course Teacher make money! This encourages teachers to take advantage of our top-flight course materials, and it adds to their motivation.
Third-party content-providers are unknown quantities
Look at other third-party content sites and the same problem appears. You have no idea who created those courses, you know nothing about the qualifications of the Course Creators, and so you must carefully research each course in question to determine its quality and applicability. Even if you are satisfied with course x, what do you know about course y? This is a primary reason why teachers and schools attempt to control distance education in-house.
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by prominently displaying the backgrounds and qualifications of each of our Course Creators. You can look at one of our courses and immediately see that the person who created it is a qualified teacher of that very subject, that the course is within that person's area of competency, and that the person has an advanced degree in that very subject. Furthermore, you can know that we at LFA review submitted courses for quality. So, the only courses we post for your use are those that have been created by top-flight teachers and professors.
Schools struggle to create/maintain their own distance learning site
Let's face it, school politics and funding constraints make creating a centralized distance learning hub a nightmare for most schools. It is not trivial to set up, secure, and maintain a distance education server and all of its related software. Furthermore, a school also grapples with different departments wanting their own software or themes. Trying to get everything coordinated to satisfy everybody is often next to impossible. And even if a school can get that far, the same issues continue to exist, which means that what worked last year is up for grabs this year. Even a running system requires ongoing support, and that is not free! Faced with all the complications, many administrators (particularly those at small or private schools) just throw up their hands, and overworked IT departments are slow to take on yet another burden.
Learn From Anywhere solves all of these problems. We don't cost schools one red cent, and we provide all the infrastructure, security, maintenance, and support staff. Sure, any school can throw up an instance of Moodle (the software LFA uses) and start "providing" distance education. But schools quickly find that running an instance of Moodle is just the tip of the iceberg. LFA supplies the entire iceberg, and this at no cost to schools.
Summary
We believe in teachers and professors. They are the foundation of the educational process, and we are committed to empowering them and paying them like nobody else does. We believe in distance learning, and we believe that our model provides for the highest quality online courses possible, benefiting schools, teachers, and students.
So, what's wrong with how Distance Education generally works? After all, many schools offer online courses, and there are some third-party content providers. So, what's wrong with existing models? Here are some of the problems:
Motivation to create online courses is low
Most schools offer to pay a one-time fee to Course Creators, and usually this fee is absurdly low. Why would a professor spend six months or more developing a quality online course (working over and above his/her other responsibilities) just to sell that course to the school for, say, a flat $1,000?
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by paying Course Creators each and every time anybody in the world uses a course they created. We pay ongoing royalty income rather than a flat fee.
Schools "reinvent the wheel"
How many schools around the world are offering, for example, basically the same Introduction to Music course? Dozens? Hundreds? And why do they all do this? There are many reasons, but the primary reasons include: (1) Each school wants to "eat all of their own pie," so to speak. So, even if a school's faculty isn't top-qualified to produce a particular course, the school would still rather have it done in-house and get all the revenues that course generates. (2) A course created in-house is a "known quantity" insofar as the school knows that that course satisfies particular requirements. (3) Faculty come and go, but a school wants control over the courses it offers.
Learn From Anywhere addresses these issues by (1) LFA doesn't cut into a school's "pie" at all. Schools still get the same registration fees from students as always. Schools are still the degree-granting institutions. (2) LFA provides only the highest-quality courses, developed by top teachers and professors. LFA provides profiles of its Course Creators, detailing their backgrounds and credentials. Just as faculty decide which textbooks are appropriate for their courses, faculty can decide which of LFA's online courses are appropriate to satisfy a school's course requirements. LFA is, in effect, providing online textbooks (including quizzes, assignments, and other materials). (3) Whether faculty come and go, a school can have confidence that the quality of LFA's courses remains the same. In fact, the superb materials we offer will help even new teachers do their best. We support teachers, which is a good thing for any school!
Teachers are less motivated to teach online courses
Because schools realize that there is less "work" in "teaching" an online course, schools pay much less to online course teachers. So, teachers often add their online teaching load on top of their regular load just to earn some extra money. When teachers are less motivated quality often suffers.
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by paying teachers over and above whatever their schools pay. Every time a course is taught through LFA, both the Course Creator and the course Teacher make money! This encourages teachers to take advantage of our top-flight course materials, and it adds to their motivation.
Third-party content-providers are unknown quantities
Look at other third-party content sites and the same problem appears. You have no idea who created those courses, you know nothing about the qualifications of the Course Creators, and so you must carefully research each course in question to determine its quality and applicability. Even if you are satisfied with course x, what do you know about course y? This is a primary reason why teachers and schools attempt to control distance education in-house.
Learn From Anywhere solves this problem by prominently displaying the backgrounds and qualifications of each of our Course Creators. You can look at one of our courses and immediately see that the person who created it is a qualified teacher of that very subject, that the course is within that person's area of competency, and that the person has an advanced degree in that very subject. Furthermore, you can know that we at LFA review submitted courses for quality. So, the only courses we post for your use are those that have been created by top-flight teachers and professors.
Schools struggle to create/maintain their own distance learning site
Let's face it, school politics and funding constraints make creating a centralized distance learning hub a nightmare for most schools. It is not trivial to set up, secure, and maintain a distance education server and all of its related software. Furthermore, a school also grapples with different departments wanting their own software or themes. Trying to get everything coordinated to satisfy everybody is often next to impossible. And even if a school can get that far, the same issues continue to exist, which means that what worked last year is up for grabs this year. Even a running system requires ongoing support, and that is not free! Faced with all the complications, many administrators (particularly those at small or private schools) just throw up their hands, and overworked IT departments are slow to take on yet another burden.
Learn From Anywhere solves all of these problems. We don't cost schools one red cent, and we provide all the infrastructure, security, maintenance, and support staff. Sure, any school can throw up an instance of Moodle (the software LFA uses) and start "providing" distance education. But schools quickly find that running an instance of Moodle is just the tip of the iceberg. LFA supplies the entire iceberg, and this at no cost to schools.
Summary
We believe in teachers and professors. They are the foundation of the educational process, and we are committed to empowering them and paying them like nobody else does. We believe in distance learning, and we believe that our model provides for the highest quality online courses possible, benefiting schools, teachers, and students.
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