A University Program for… YouTube? – – Macleans OnCampus

I was struck by this article this morning. Apparently a college is offering classes on Youtube. I don’t mean they will be putting videos on Youtube, I mean there will be classes offered on how to create for Youtube.

So what is your initial reaction? If you are a college professor at a serious school you might think this is a joke. I bet more than a few of you think this is a waste of money and resources right? This is from two colleges in California and Illinois, not exactly states awash in extra money. I have to admit my first impulse was to think that.

But actually this is a glimpse of the future.

In order for colleges to remain relevant in the coming years they will have to move to a more ala carte model. The four years and done model won’t work much longer because the costs are becoming prohibitive. Do you want to have a small group of students for four years or have a much larger pool of students for life?

I think colleges that will be successful will discard degrees as they currently exist and offer many more types of classes. Including ones on YouTube. The mark of the good college will be offering a class on a new technology two weeks after it hits the market. If you do it online you can serve the whole world and with enough students you can make it really cheap.

Look at the video games industry. Up till 3 years ago, games cost 50 dollars and had a limited audience because you needed a powerful PC or game console. If you sold a million copies it was considered very successful. Now with cell phones you can sell 100 million copies over night. With that many sales, you don’t have to charge 50 dollars. Games now for the iPhone typically cost between 1 and 5 dollars.

The trick now for Higher Education is to go for both quantity and quality.

A university program for… YouTube? – – Macleans OnCampus

youtube U heh

tags: education highered college

• In a partnership with The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and Columbia College Chicago, the YouTube Creator Institute will offer on-campus and online courses, helping students “hone their digital media skills and accelerate their YouTube careers.” Course work will range from cinematography to social media strategy.
• I wonder who the professors are going to be? Veteran YouTubers who have generated millions of hits with montages of adorable cat pictures? Or someone hugely popular, like Ray William Johnson?

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