Taking Online Learning Offline - High Tech Oxymoron

For the vast majority of readers, the phrase “Taking Online Learning Offline” has to represent the classic oxymoron. Add the fact that some folks are calling the step the latest in “High-Tech” innovation and you no doubt must be scratching your head.

GoCourse Schoolmate
But “Taking Online Learning Offline” (pdf file) is precisely what a Utah valley company called Agilix is doing. The company has begun offering an extension of an existing learning platform to areas of the world that lack broadband access.

The company recently introduced its GoCourse Schoolmate product. The self-contained, client-server learning system is designed to support education initiatives in regions where Internet access is limited or non-existent.

The company’s recent press release notes the need for such a product.

The new product “represents an extension of our GoCourse platform to address the needs of the 95% of the Earth’s population that falls outside the reach of broadband access,” states Curt Allen, CEO of Agilix Labs. “Emerging markets will for the first time enjoy an eLearning experience that isn’t limited by the unavailability of Internet access.”

GoCourse Schoolmate is designed to run on a single laptop or desktop computer and with multiple accounts available for both teachers and students. In addition, the system can be utilized in a computer lab or as part of a learning kiosk.

Taking Online Offline
As for the concept of taking online learning offline, we turn to Agilix VP of Marketing, Jim Ericson for further insight.

“We developed this product to address the needs identified by several local resellers in emerging markets,” notes Ericson. “While our partners will continue to deploy GoCourse under our hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) model, GoCourse Schoolmate provides them with a solution that promises inclusion and equality by extending their services to schools and institutions that don’t have broadband access and to learners that were previously too expensive to reach.”

As for the oxymoron of taking online learning offline, Allen adds:

“I realize it may be a bit startling for people to hear we are taking online learning back offline, but that is how we are going to provide a technology bridge for these learning communities,” offers Allen. “When broadband access becomes a reality, GoCourse will be there waiting to help connect these communities to the rest of the world.”

The concept has at least one blogger wondering aloud if “the future of open education is taking the online offline?”