Harold:

While I agree with adoption of technologies which enable more student empowerment, I sometimes fear that we are forgetting one of the primary purposes of teachers, textbook writers, instructional designers, and others who over time have served as guides in the learning process.

A good teacher has learned how to best present the particulars of a body of knowledge to accelerate the learning process for their students. For example, a Spanish teacher knows that to try to learn the language without a solid grasp of the difference between ser and estar is nearly a hopeless proposition.

Course Developers in corporate settings are being pressured to develop programs, traditional to workflow embedded, that increase student retention and application to their work with less and less instructional contact.

Pure democratization of educational resources, in which students are "enabled" to learn whatever they want, whenever they want, has the potential downside of slowing the learning process as students have to find their way to the "good" knowledge on their own. If I need to learn something fast, I'd rather have a good teacher (or book or authoritative website)than to be left to try to Google my way to the right answer. Of course, I'd probably use Google to find that teacher (or book, or authoritative website) so I clearly believe that more freedom of choice is good, but I wonder if there is a point of diminishing returns.