Harold,

Great post. As a refuge from the corporate training world, I have to say that most adult learners don't want to come to another class, no matter how wonderfully developed we think it is. And when I think about the intense "mass marketing" we had to do to fill a few seats...I suspect we spent more time marketing than actually training.

While we will continue to have mass training for certain things, much of it will be social in nature. What might social mass learning look like? While it's true we get lots of junk mail, does anyone actually take it inside the house? Mine goes immediately into the recycle bin in the garage...Apparently without mass mailings, the US Postal Service would fold...

Now that I work in the K-12 world, I see a lot of similarities. Kids, certainly by high school and often before, are ready to forge their own learning path. As more colleges abandon the SAT, GRE, etc., other admission criteria will emerge. It's an exciting time to watch it unfold.