In the April issue of CASE Currents, a publication by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, reporter John Pulley interviewed Social Technologies' analyst Gail Siegel about the future of virtual education.

The article, entitled "Now You See Them, Now You Do: Students in the Virtual Classroom Still Become Real Alumni," Pulley focuses on the fact that university and college development officers are now recognizing the philanthropic potential of alumni who have completed online programs. He writes:

"They realize, as well, that the educational experiences of those graduates are substantially different from the experiences of traditional students at brick-and-mortar campuses. Therefore, they are seeing to recast nostalgia-themed appeals that try to pull at the heartstrings connecting alumni with their alma maters."

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Color me old--though I get made fun of here at Social Technologies because I’m the youngest employee--but I was shocked to see this recent Pew Internet and American Life survey that shows Internet-speak is creeping into teens’ school assignments.

The survey revealed that in school assignments:

• 64% of teens have used “informal” chat-style writing
• 50% of teens don’t use proper capitalization and punctuation
• 38% use common Internet-speak abbreviations such as “LOL” and “OMG”
• 25% have used emoticons--yes, emoticons, those annoying symbols to denote mood :(
  

What?! In school assignments? These statistics do seem ridiculous. But, assuming they’re relatively accurate, imagine what the future of writing, grammar, and communication will be. What scares me is that the majority of my generation seem to find it acceptable to write "formally" in this manner. Will correct spelling and grammar vanish, replaced by LOLCat speak?

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A recent article in the New York Times profiled Randy Newsom, an enterprising young minor-league relief pitcher who came up with an innovative scheme to supplement his low income (about $8,000 for five months) as a bush leaguer: Twenty bucks would get you one of 2500 shares worth 0.002% of his career earnings. Newsom had sold 1800 shares before the SEC shut down his website in January. (Newsom had shortsightedly failed to register his website offering with the SEC.) After refunding the money he raised to his investors, Newsom plans to reintroduce the venture in accordance with regulations.

Such an investment--motivated as much by fandom as finance--is an extreme longshot to pay off (with $2 million in career earnings as the break-even point--and 90% of minor leaguers never making it to the majors). As fellow minor-league pitcher Jon Searles, who earned an economics degree from Wharton, notes:

Don’t get me wrong — $50,000 can be everything to a player in the minor leagues. But the risk of them committing 5 percent in perpetuity for a quick $50,000, there’s a break-even point where only players who aren’t characterized as prospects might do it. And rational investors will assess those percentages.

Although Newsom was forced to shut down his operation, I wondered whether this minor league entrepreneur might have unwittingly come up with the solution to the rapidly rising cost of a college education. Next fall, my oldest daughter will be entering college. Given the elite liberal-arts colleges to which she has applied, we anticipate that--without financial aid--the cost of her four years at college will be in the range of $180 to $200 thousand. And we have three other kids!

So, tongue planted firmly in cheek, here's the deal: If my daughter sells shares of her future earnings for a fair price (say, $90 for 0.005%), she could easily raise enough funds to make college much more affordable.

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Social Technologies founder Tom Conger offered insight into the future of college savings and pre-paid tuition plans in February at the annual College Savings Foundation conference in Miami. His forecast: the use of 529 college savings plans will likely grow in the coming decade as more people become aware of benefits and confidence grows in their permanence.

Conger offered provocative scenarios to help participants consider possible futures for 529 plans, a program under the US tax code that gives parents options for saving for their children's college education All 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, currently sponsor at least one type of 529 plan.

The popularity of the 529 plans has been growing in recent years as the public has become more aware of their desirability as a savings vehicle, said Conger, pointing to data that shows assets held in 529 college savings plans grew from $200,000 in 1998 to $69 billion at the end of 2005.

He reviewed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the educational savings industry through 2017. He then encouraged attendees to consider scenarios for their industry, including the following three possibilities:

Scenario 1: Education continues to internationalize
Scenario 2: Educational gender disparity increases
Scenario 3: Virtual education becomes the standard by 2017

What else is possible? For all the details, see this press release.

If you aren't aware of the emerging genre of serious games, you should be. To quote a recent Global Lifestyles brief on the subject mentioned below, "Serious games—games that provide players with opportunities to learn and understand complex situations or different points of view—have emerged as a distinct subset of video games. Creators of these games are taking the definitions of “play” and “learn” in new directions, often blending the two creatively."

Two items caught my eye recently on the topic: announcements about the second annual Serious Games Summit, coming up next month in San Francisco, and the creation of a new academic degree at Michigan State University in serious games design. While a lot of column inches and blogs have been consumed with discussion of sexier games like Second Life lately, the serious games movement has been spreading from a core of more political games into a more complex family tree of genres, as seen in the table to the left.

While serious games such as Darfur Is Dying and A Force More Powerful are among the best known examples, politics and advocacy are only two of the categories these games belong to. Interesting development is now happening in health care, for example, where serious games are being developed as both educational tools and simulators, and also for pain relief, as in the case of Free Dive, a game designed to distract young patients during painful medical procedures. (My children's' dentist has been on to this idea for some time, allowing his patients to play with Gameboys during some procedures to take their attention away from his tools and their throbbing teeth -- thanks Dr. Ed!) Serious games are also being used to help returning Iraq war veterans cope with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder by simulating the sensory stress of combat conditions in a safe environment.

Where do serious games go in the near future?  Two of the half dozen possible directions we identified are:

• Broader applications—In only a few years the spectrum of applications for serious gaming has broadened to include everything from aiding cancer research to learning how to topple a government. Growth will likely be strongest in applications for job training, education, and “advertorial” content.
  
• More commercial use—Commercial uses for serious games have yet to take off, but the ability to attract new customers via advertorial games with a serious edge will be a strong lure for business. Companies need to be careful treading in this area, however. The tool may cut both ways as some consumers take offense at the blatant mix of commercialism and "education". One can imagine a pharmaceutical company using a game that raises awareness of a health condition while touting a brand-name drug, for example.
  

A recent ABC news story noted that Stanford University is creating "the nation's first online high school program for gifted students.”

We advise our clients to identify leading indicators to help detect when the future is moving to one or another scenario. Those concerned with education should have their sirens or indicator lights set off by this announcement, as the move towards greater use of online learning has just accelerated.

Traditional-minded folks, when faced with this kind of indicator, will bring up the value of face-to-face contact in the learning experience. That sounds more and more like whistling past the graveyard. The march toward greater use of online learning continues apace, despite the quite valid point about the value of face-to-face. The convenience and flexibility of online options is just too strong. This does not mean face-to-face will disappear, but it will be increasingly partnered with virtual methods.