Coursera CEO Richard Levin: Democratizing Learning Takes Time | Stanford Graduate School of Business

"The former president of Yale University and now CEO of Coursera, a high-profile online education company based in the heart of Silicon Valley, used the word ‘'disrupt'’ or 'disruption' only five times during an hour-long interview. And, when he did, it wasn’t to herald a tectonic shift in higher education ... 'It’s going to be a long time before there’s a really revolutionary disruption in traditional education. The idea that we’re going to completely disrupt the educational system as opposed to just reaching more people who are outside it or improving the experience of those who are inside it is probably just a little early,' he told a group of Stanford Graduate School of Business students at a View From the Top talk in October. Nonetheless, Levin says that changes are transforming online education, with a renewed emphasis on broadening its reach beyond its traditional audience of relatively affluent college graduates ... Powered by plentiful bandwidth, the rise of mobile technology, and more sophisticated, complex technological tools, Coursera and its competitors are working to attract a broader and more diverse audience. Nearly one-third of Coursera’s users watch videos of lectures on mobile devices, and by the middle of next year all of the company’s content will be available on tablets and smartphones ..."