Posts tagged Economic
How YouTube is Part of a Global Economic Transformation
Feb 2nd
The Internet may have grown up first in the United States, but it’s a global phenomenon now. The same can be said for the fast-growing body of educational content on the web. YouTube announced a new batch of partners that were added to its Education Channel today and noted that nearly 80% of the viewership of educational content on the site came from outside the United States. Less than 70% of the site’s total traffic is International, so the educational content is disproportionately viewed by global audiences.
Both YouTube and iTunes U are serving up huge quantities of educational content to a world already in the throws of a 50 year revolution in global education. In some ways they represent exactly the kind of education that a new world needs, too: learning that augments existing education and fosters life-long development of non-routine analytical and interactive skills. That’s a recipe for good times.
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YouTube now hosts more than 500,000 educational videos, on a wide variety of topics. The new mobile-friendly iTunes U also offers 500,000 educational resources and says that 60% of its viewership comes from outside the United States. This global consuption of US-created online educational content may be the newest chapter in a radical transformation of global education over the past 50 years. Life in this world is not like it used to be just a few decades ago, and the availability of world-class education on-demand, at almost no cost, is likely to help things change all the more as this century unfolds.
Global Transformation
“During the past 50 years, the expansion of education has contributed to a fundamental transformation of societies in OECD countries,” wrote the authors of this year’s lengthy report Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators. (500 page PDF, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
“In 1961, higher education was the privilege of the few, and even upper secondary education was denied to the majority of young people in many countries. Today, the great majority of the population completes secondary education, one in three young adults has a tertiary degree [Colleges, universities and polytechnics] and, in some countries, half of the population could soon hold a tertiary degree.”
In other words, it’s not an uneducated world gaining its first access to the information available in these free online education repositories. What’s happening is augmentation of already historic global education levels.
Below: The United States used to be the most educated society in the world. That’s no longer true. Click to view full size. From the OECD.
“Half a century ago, employers in the United States and Canada recruited their workforce from a pool of young adults, most of whom had high school diplomas and one in four of whom had degrees – far more than in most European and Asian countries,” reports the OECD. “Today, while North American graduation rates have increased, those of some other countries have done so much faster, to the extent that the United States now shows just over the average proportion of tertiary-level graduates at age 25-34.”
“It has become increasingly evident that to realise human potential in today’s societies and economies, lifelong learning is required, not just an initial period of formal schooling.” – OECD
The OECD recognizes that formal education has a meaningful connection to economic development, but that the two are not equivelant. “The level of education that an adult has completed may be a proxy for the competencies that contribute to economic success, but it is a highly imperfect measure,” the report says.
“First, each country has its own different processes and standards for accrediting completion of secondary or tertiary education. Second, the knowledge and skills acquired in education are by no means identical to those that enhance economic potential. And third, it has become increasingly evident that to realise human potential in today’s societies and economies, lifelong learning is required, not just an initial period of formal schooling.” (emphasis added)
That lifelong learning no doubt contributes to the global audience that amasses around this educational content online. For a high school teacher to be able to give their lectures not to 30 students at a time, but to 100,000 viewers around the world on YouTube has got to be a powerful opportunity. If many of those viewers are adults, so be it.
What’s hot? Non-routine analytic and non-routine interactive skills. Those are things that a good YouTube or iTunes U video about world history or global ecology can help improve.
Learning new information that helps inform our understanding of the world is, in fact, growing more important for economic well-being than the development of routine skills.
According to a presentation (10 page PDF) by Francesc Pedró, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Research and Information, OECD, the last 50 years have seen a dramatic change in the types of skills in demand in the workforce. A trend began, at least in the United states, as far back as 1985: demand for “routine manual skills” has held relatively steady, demand for non-routine manual skills has plummeted. Demand for routine cognitive skills climbed through 1970, then fell. What’s hot? Non-routine analytic and non-routine interactive skills.
Those are things that a good YouTube or iTunes U video about world history or global ecology can help improve, your non-routine analytic and interactive skills. More than for just economic well-being, those are skills that positively impact quality of life in many ways.
Disruption
“A new phase of education change awaits the world, for those who embrace it,” writes radical Canadian educator Joe Bower in a summary of last month’s 2012 International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) in Malmö, Sweden.
A central message of the 25th ICSEI conference was that change brings challenge but also opportunity, with the need to find new means of collaboration, participation and networking to reshape education for the shifting demands ahead. A whole range of papers and presentations from 450 delegates from over 50 countries set an optimistic tone, with strong commonality in themes of respect, trust, new power relations and moving to evaluation as joint enterprise. In presentations from Iceland to Malaysia there were common threads of renewing teacher professionalism, establishing change via collaborative networks, and emphasizing systems perspectives through linkage and understanding, rather than prescription and grading…
“The central message of ICSEI 2012 was of strong common issues facing schools and their communities in far separated contexts, with global similarities in connecting responses. A few countries stood out in stark contrast, chastising schools and denigrating teachers, seeing change not as opportunity for partners in prospect, refashioning and renewing learning, but as a threat to be sanctioned in audit prescription. But whilst those systems are shrill and close at hand, a more pervasive and positive way forward was signposted in Malmö to a new responsible professionalism, embracing complexity and change, more loosely configured in uncertainty yet promise.”
Good luck, teachers of the world, keeping up with the Internet. It’s great to hear that so many are embracing change, surely caused by technology, as an opportunity and not a threat.
That’s the kind of life-long learning that professional development has always required but that will go on in a global context for perpetual learning with increasing access to high-quality educational content online.
That’s a recipe for a very different world than the one we lived in last century.
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SEO Positive Reviews Impact of the Economic Crisis on Business Development – PR Web (press release)
Dec 27th
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SEO Positive Reviews Impact of the Economic Crisis on Business Development
PR Web (press release) As part of its annual company review, SEO Positive evaluates whether the economic downturn has had an impact on the growth of its business – with surprising results. Like any SEO company, SEO Positive Limited is constantly looking at ways to improve … |
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Bank of England Using Google Search Tracking for Economic Insights
Jun 14th
In an attempt to better understand the behavior of UK citizens, the Bank of England has started tracking search trends on Google. The bank has high hopes that this will improve the speed of economic reporting, especially as it relates to mortgage …
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Bank of England Using Gogle Search Tracking for Economic Insights
Jun 14th
In an attempt to better understand the behavior of UK citizens, the Bank of England has started tracking search trends on Google. The bank has high hopes that this will improve the speed of economic reporting, especially as it relates to mortgage …
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Google Reports $64B Economic Contribution to Businesses
May 18th
Google is taking a moment to celebrate small business week (this week, that is), which may seem a little odd at first glance. After all, the company is so massive that everything they try to do (and every tiny mega-million company they buy out with blinking) seems to result in a federal injunction. But Google believes they’ve made a fairly specific contribution to the little guys: a $64 billion impact in 2010, to be more exact.
That figure comes from estimates on what sites earn (or the more general economic activity that nonprofits see) based on theirAdWords spend. For every $1 spent, claims Google, a site sees $8 in economic activity through either Google AdWords or Google Search. The company levies a specific example in the company Everblue, which was established by two veterans and an entrepreneurial friend who wanted to help the U.S. become more energy independent through using more sustainable architectural practices. By using AdWords, Everblue was able to quadruple in size.
Perhaps more importantly, Google’s figures from this year are a full 18% higher than they were last year, indicating a substantial increase in the total advertising and profitability for those who advertise. A full website has been set up explaining the details, providing examples, and otherwise bragging at google.com/economicimpact.
[via the Official Google Blog]
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Reports $64B Economic Contribution to Businesses
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Google Touts $64 Billion in Economic Impact
May 17th
Google has just released information touting the beneficial impact the search engine giant has had on the U.S. economy – a benefit to the tune of $64 billion in 2010. Coinciding with National Small Business Week, Google is positioning this figure in terms of the impact it has had on local communities and small businesses through its search and advertising tools.
This $64 billion figure marks an 18% increase from the data Google released last year. According to Google’s calculations, for every $1 a business spends on Google AdWords, they receive an average of $8 in profit through business that’s generated via Google Search and AdWords.
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Google “shows the math” on these calculations, based on a formula devised by its chief economist Hal Varian. This formula is based on two assumptions: that businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every dollar they spend on AdWords and that businesses receive an average of 5 clicks on their search results for every 1 click on their ads.
Google has provided a map with a breakdown of activity by state with the dollar amount and the number of businesses, website publishers, and non-profits that were impacted. No surprise, California leads the way with $15.2 billion in economic activity for some 288,000 businesses.
The reminder from Google about the good it does for the economy follows news last week that it was being investigated for illegally displaying ads from rogue online pharmacies.
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SEO as marketing tool: Search optimisation still nascent in India – Economic Times
Mar 29th
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SEO as marketing tool: Search optimisation still nascent in India
Economic Times Enter SEO (search engine optimisation) experts. A microsite was created for used cars only and the traffic redirected to it. A map was created based on user's location. For instance, if there was a user in New York city, the map would list out used … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
