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BYU Prof. Says University Classrooms Will Be "Irrelevant" By 2020
dragoncortez writes "According to this Deseret News article, University classrooms will be obsolete by 2020. BYU professor David Wiley envisions a world where students listen to lectures on iPods, and those lectures are also available online to everyone anywhere for free. Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free. He says, 'Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.' In the world according to Wiley, universities would still make money, because they have a marketable commodity: to get college credits and a diploma, you'd have to be a paying customer. Wiley helped start Flat World Knowledge, which creates peer-reviewed textbooks that can be downloaded for free, or bought as paperbacks for $30."
Right after the paperless office is perfected.
If everyone in the world has access to the information then why bother paying for the degree?
As long as I can prove my understanding of the knowledge then why should I pay a particular university to vouch for me?
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
I don't know what kind of classes he's teaching, but when I was in school asking questions and having some sort of discussion as part of the lecture was just as important as the textbook.
Hearing perspectives and having those perspectives challenged and evaluated by your professors and fellow students is an integral component of the college experience. I doubt listening to iPod lectures would be nearly as useful.
Giving out information for free is a great idea, but the electronic media can't replace human interaction.
This does seem likely.
"What!" you scream. "No way. This doesn't sound like effective education."
But I say, "Ah, does that matter? It's cheaper, and the current generation is probably universally going to grow up to go to college, so resources will be strung out a bit more."
All of my classes use Blackboard or Moodle, I barely take paper tests anymore (all online) .. and I regret buying 3 of my books because all of the text is online. I just finished up Cisco Netacad which had everything online, and am currently taking Redhat Academy. Not to mention, about 2 weeks ago I had a virtual lecture in Second Life!
I still think going to class is essential however ... in some cases if I don't at least sit myself down in a class I begin to lose track and miss out on some of the more convenient information.
www.squizzi-designs.com | graphic & web design
Books and lectures are going to be digitised, but the one thing we truly need teachers and professors for will not change: Answering questions. Everybody understands information in their own way, and therefore, it takes a human being to pick up where the books and lectures leave off.
Unfortunately, most college professors do not interact with students. Lectures were made obsolete by the invention of the book thousands of years ago, but still today we have professors lecturing from yellowed notes.
I hope technology will finally force them to change their ways, but I doubt it will.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
It won't happen because if one could get a certified education from any on-line source, then the existing universities will be largely offshored, just like much of IT. The existing universities will rig the certification system to only license on-shore universities using the excuse of "human interaction" and other buzzwords. Unlike us programmers, the universities both have more political power and will exercise it to protect their rears.
Table-ized A.I.
Hadn't we heard this all before? `TV is going to replace lectures.` God knows they probably said the same thing about radio replacing the classroom.
Science labs - biology especially - can't be taught digitally. You need to go out and do. Chemistry is another lab that can't replacedThat Dr. Wiley thinks they can shows more his ignorance of subjects outside his own.
And when it comes to lectures, there's just no substitute for human interaction. I've seen people at both my current institution, and my alma matter offer their entire course on MP3, video, and other media formats. Making a purely un-scientific guess, 95% of students don't use them as a replacement, but as a supplement to lecture. People seem to prefer the face time, and the ability to ask questions.
We're social mammals. Classes are sticking around.
http://www.phoenix.edu/
It's been going on for quite a while, actually.
Classrooms won't be obsolete though for quite a long time though, because I doubt listening to a lecture on an iPod will give you a better experience than being in a lecture hall. We will use classrooms until they have helmets that we can put on and be given the info we need for life.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
* BFA, Music (Vocal Performance), Marshall University, 1997. (Voice Teacher: Paul Balshaw)
* PhD, Instructional Psychology and Technology, Brigham Young University, 2000.
* Postdoctoral Fellowship, Instructional Technology, Utah State University, 2001.
Judging from his brief bio, this is something he'd like to see with little or no evidence to back it up. Good luck, man, I didn't find much backing this up other than you would like it.
Wiley is one part Nostradamus and nine parts revolutionary, an educational evangelist who preaches ...
You said it, not me.
My work here is dung.
Sounds like colleges are finally preparing kids for the real world.
Colleges and universities don't just provide information. They provide information in a particularly form, with someone to ask about the information, and test to verify that you know the information. Then, after all that, they provide a certification to prove to potential employers that you know that information.
Yes, you can learn all the same info without them, but you have collect the data yourself from various sources and have the drive to actually learn all of it. You can take all the tests you want, but without an institution to administer the test (to prevent cheating) and certify it (so that it's not just your word that you passed), you just have the information.
Don't get me wrong... I place a lot greater stock in someone's ability and knowledge than I do in an institution. But I also know if an institution's word is a lot easier to trust than an individual's.
All of the information in college/uni classes has been available in book for for as long as they've been using books to teach from. Nothing has -ever- stopped a person from simply buying the books and teaching themselves. iPods have nothing to do with it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I sort of agree with what the professor is saying. Already, lectures are available online (including the very awesome, Hulu-like site, Academic Earth), and the use of iTunes to distribute lectures is already taking place.
Despite the usefulness of these technologies, I only think these things expand the reach of the classroom, but I definitely don't think that classrooms are going anywhere anytime soon. The use of websites and iTunes to reach people is no real difference than what books have done for a very long time. The people who are going to take time to watch the videos would have read the books.
Additionally, I *highly* disagree with the idea that "today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed." I went to an engineering university, and the amount of technical stuff going on there was absolutely awesome. All you had to do was attend one of the many seminars, working groups, or even a classroom to see amazing work that students were doing. Being around other students also spurred my own ideas towards various projects.
Last of all, I'd argue that the teaching received in the classrooms really is very little about the college experience. Sure, someone may be able to "learn" a lot about physics from a podcast, but he or she is going to have little real-world experience. This, to me, was the most valuable experience I received from my college career.
Basically, I think these technologies will help reach more people, but they aren't going to make the current world obsolete.
...where will I sleep?
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
The more the students sort out their own education via social networks and free coursewares, the more time we researchers and lecturers have for doing research and not having to punch information into undergrads....
A friend of mine is teaching maths for final year environmental science students. One of them, confused about sines and cosines, asked "What is this 'trig' stuff?". Remember, these are _science_ students. If they want to learn trig by joining the Facebook We Love Trigonometry group then whoop-de-doo, as long as you do some assignments (online) and the quality doesn't suffer then it's go go go. Maybe we can even demolish these ugly student halls of residence and they can all stay home with mum and dad for three years, which, given the current economic climate, is where they'll have to stay after they graduate...
This is a BYU prof who doesn't seem to have ever set foot in a university because he just doesn't get it.
And you're really going to believe a guy who can't even create a powerful robot?! Psh.
When will people learn that you go to college to prepare for life, not just a job or career. You go to learn how to be self sufficient, to go to bed so you're not dead for classes, to show up, and generally learn to be an adult. College is an environment where a lot of people fail at that at first, but most, by the time they graduate, are capable of living on their own and holding some sort of job. College isn't just basic engineering or english or math, its basic life. If their parents can afford it, kids need to be out on their own in a forgiving environment like a dorm or college community where they do their own laundry and feed themselves.
On the other side, merely showing up to classes, paying attention, and doing homework is another large part of being an adult. Meetings and work do not happen "whenever you get to it", I'd be sad to see classes go by the wayside if only because what you learn outside and around the class is just as vital in the long run as what you learn in class.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Some good points in the article don't get me wrong. Right now I am going back for my 2nd master's degree. Being a little wiser now then my first time around I know one of the most important things (besides knowledge) is networking especially in this economy.
Seeing a prof. face to face or going for a few beers after class helps build a strong network one can leverage.
I'm not sure the pure online experience will allow for such strong networking. I know a few people who have done the pure online degrees (Univ. of Phoenix) when I ask them about their class mates, networking, etc. pretty much the answer I have received was there was none (or very little).
So it will be interesting to see how that aspect plays out.
Seriously, I thought it was all about the social stature, earnings potential, open culture, plentiful recreational substances, and sea of prospective sex partners. Classes are when you sleep.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
They could even use WoTC as a digital distributor; they seem to be pretty goo- ermm wait...
Buy stock in Adobe!
If that was true we would already have a very large amount of MiT level engineers and Harvard Business school level people walking around thanks to iTunesU. The fact of the matter is that while sitting through a lecture can indeed be useful, where you actually learn the material is through the homework assignments and meeting with professors during office hours to review confusing topics. I'm not denying that the occasional luminary could pull it off and learn something entirely on their own, but the average student needs that safety net that the classroom provides.
Is it possible to Learn to social dance online? Reference the many YouTube Videos and online dance syllabi.
blong206b
Nothing beats human interaction. Anyone can listen/watch a lecture recording, but participation requires genuine human interaction.
The only thing that can really provide that is VR tech so good it fools the brains that it's real. Our understanding of how the senses really work is nowhere near there yet.
.: Max Romantschuk
I once had a profession with a similar idea. He thinks that you should go to the University, buy all the required textbooks, and show up 4 years later to get your degree. One student asked him, "How will they know if you really read the books?" The professor replied, "They don't care now."
Wiley is, according to TFA, a professor of psychology and instructional technology. He is not listed among BYU psychology faculty, even visiting. The department he belongs to is called "Instructional Psychology and Technology", which is academi-bloat for "education". His bio is sparse, not stating what his psychology background is. If he has any, it is almost certainly 'soft' psychology, rather than nuts & bolts research. Since one of his interests is in technology, I recommend he visit a working neuroscience lab. The width and depth of technology used in such work will certainly spin his wheels. But he'll also see the situations in which hands on research can't possibly be simulated realistically. As much problem solving goes into designing and getting running as into answering the question of interest -- things go wrong and the student has to learn to make them go right.
To his credit another of his interests in in intellectual property law and open source licensing. That doesn't erase the fact that he's speaking outside his own box when he claims face to face education is doomed.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
No more classrooms! Where will students sleep?
We're gonna breed a mutant race of sleep deprived zombies.
What's the world coming to
Community colleges are already moving a lot of their classes online and I expect to see the trend continue. What I see at the Ivy League level, though, is a shift toward group learning: interacting with the other students is the "value" that your tuition pays for. At a practical level, there are plenty of parents who would pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to see their daughter dating an Ivy League boy rather than a community college boy.
One point that's worth making, though, is that the technology to do videos/movies rather than in-person lectures has existed for many decades - but most college lectures are still delivered in-person. At least for content based courses that are taught thousands of time per year (for example, introductory biology) video/movie lectures could be produced that would be far superior to all but the best in-person lectures (for far less than the cost of paying all the biology lecturers).
So why haven't video/movie lectures taken over? In a word, institutional reasons. As an example, there's a huge number of people with biology PhDs and these people need jobs. The amount of both private and public funding for biology research is far less than what is necessary to give jobs to even a small fraction of biology PhDs - so the biology PhDs create a make-work system of giving (the same) in-person lectures (over-and-over) to small classes all throughout the country.
If the government was willing to put up more money for research or to put up money for a standard set of introductory biology video/movie lectures then everyone would be much better off. We'd get cures for diseases sooner and we'd get better biology education. As it is though, all the biology PhDs have put together a make-work system that at least keeps them off the streets.
I absolutely concur. It's also worth noting that being forced to sit in a room with other students and hold discussions is an immensely valuable experience. Otherwise, you might as well purchase a textbook, study on your own, and avoid the cost of tuition.
If the entire class is essentially available for free digitally (save the actual exam), where is the motivation to create quality study materials? I'm sorry, but book profits are what drives newer and better textbooks into the book stores every year. Will this be a world where the prestige of the position and school you work for as a professor is dictated not only by your lectures, but also by the study material you contribute to the collective? I suspect it might be.
Bitter, "Jack"?
I love open content and use MIT OCW and other materials to prepare and teach my courses. But I don't think virtual labs will ever compete with real labs. In reality, your magnetic field measurements are complicated by the NMR coil upstairs and you have to explain why. In reality, data point number 7 does not fit the line. Even with random number generators, virtual labs disconnect measurements from reality and are not a valid substitute.
I've taught physics labs both ways and the students are happier with real labs and the learning outcomes are much better with real labs.
Dissect a pig on an iPod? Nope.
Build a robot through a webinar? Not that either.
Get good critique on a sculpture as I make if from an art-teacher 3 time-zones away? nope?
I suppose I could make a remote-operated microscope, but who will work the petri dish.
I suppose some fieds perhaps. Other require work in the field (anthropology for example) or in a lab (biology, physics) or in a group (music performance) or at an event (equestrian) or "on the job" (medicine).
You can learn valuable information for little to no cost now but that doesn't replace other valuable parts of a college experience. When you don't need a classroom you don't need to physically attend a college which sounds nice initially. The system he's suggesting doesn't create many significant networking opportunities and connecting with peers to build future job prospects is very valuable. In general technical folk don't tend to see the full utility of this but it is good to know people in your field.
While it is likely to reduce cost I doubt it will reduce price in a meaningful way which means we'll be effectively trading convenience for value.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Consider: Academics have long had full access to journals, books, great libraries, and even peers in their departments. But still we go to conferences, and can be tremendously stimulated by them. Why is that? We've read the books and papers of the more interesting presenters already. We've even corresponded with a few. Despite all this, the right conference is uniquely valuable to focusing and improving our craft.
It's the human factor - the full experience of the character of those who are having the best success. There's a contagion that happens in the presence of good minds. Some of that happens through papers, books, correspondence. But there's far more that comes across only in the presence of the person.
We can recognize that and still expect that many mediocre professors may well be replaced by online coursework. A brilliant book is often better than a drudge at a podium. But the great professors, in person, will never be supplanted - not before telepresence has advanced to where it qualifies as "in person" too.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Most people scoff at degrees from an online university... because anyone can cheat their way through any test of knowledge. I teach at a major university and the idea of labs on a computer is horrific! I myself took a molecular genetics lab on a computer. While the simulation was wonderful, it was ultimately useless... you can not teach lab techniques on a computer, period.
I thought college was supposed to teach you social interaction. Isn't that what you need to shell out 100K+ to prove? That you are able to be a paying participant in society, and that you can interact with others?
We've had distance learning for thousands of years---it's called "books".
The reason courses work better much better than just trying to read the book is the human interaction, especially the chance to ask questions and feedback. Unless your distance learning setup provides that, it will be no more successful than
telling people to read the book.
Of course, you could do courses to a remote location by teleconferencing (with some difficulty), but it will still take the same
amount of instructor hours/student (or more).
It is usually thought that the campus experience is more than just attending classes.
The problem is, he assumes that classrooms are just places where the prof broadcasts, you receive, and then you leave. In bad classrooms that's true, and if they go the way of the dodo, the world might be a better place.
But if he's going to argue that classrooms will be different, I'd agree: the 500 personal lecture hall that feels more like a train station, as discussed in Murray Sperber's Beer and Circus , is probably an anachronism. But the classroom where one exchanges ideas, responds to other students, and the like is still very much necessary, and perhaps even more necessary than ever because it's a place free of distraction, at least relatively speaking. I would expect the value of intellectual jazz to go up, not down, thanks to podcasts and what nots.
Finally, I'm reminded of something Paul Graham wrote in Cities and Ambition:
(Emphasis added.)
The ultimate high bandwidth experience isn't going away by 2020.
Bill Gates also said the he didn't understand why anyone would want a GUI or that we would never need more than 8mb of ram. So take predictions for what they are worth... SQUAT!!!!!
Funny you should mention. We're already there.
Here at University of Texas, the lectures are irrelevant in the sense they don't really help. You're expected, for every single class, to go to lecture for attendance and then study about 8 hours outside to try to understand the material the professor should have explained but instead just read of the slides.
I'm trying to get laid in the dorms, but, I cannot seem to so why in God's name would I want to go to some online college where there's no dorms and I have an even less chance of getting laid!
He's saying this for the headlines- he knows it's not possible. I'm a huge proponent of tech in education- it's been my career for close to 15 years, and it's simply not in the realm to do this now or in the near future.
The list of objections is just huge:
How do you do science and engineering? These are hands on fields that require a large amount of very expensive (and potentially dangerous) equipment. Claiming you can do it in a virtual lab experience is about as sane as claiming that getting good at MS Flight Simulator means you can pilot a 747. Yes, you can learn a lot with a virtual lab (and I push their use whenever appropriate), but it's simply not the same. Virtual courses work great for history or philosophy, not so much for organic chem.
How do you do student research? You don't have the facilities at home, and you can't afford the books/journals/database access to get to the data you really need. This is changing slowly with things like PLoS, but until publishing there gives you the same bennies as Nature or Science (and J. Org. Chem...) you're going to need those too for any serious work. A university library is a very different animal from the thing in your local town, they cost a fortune to run and the internet is nowhere near a substitute.
A huge amount of learning involves inter-personal interaction, either with other students or students to professors
A huge amount of getting a job after graduation involves inter-personal interaction, either with other students or students to professors. These two are critical. Businesses expect people to be able to work in teams- sitting behind a computer reading, watching some videos and taking an online test really isn't an amazingly useful skill. The networking you do in higher ed really is critical both to learning and to long term job/social life prospects, and virtual is going to be a pale substitute for a long time until Beer-Over-IP becomes possible. (He even admits BYU is going to survive simply as a place for Mormons to meet potential mates.)
Finally, he seems to conflate two totally separate things- virtual universities like U. Phoenix and online course material postings like OpenCourseWare. They aren't the same- U Phoenix is a real university, with professors, dedicated courses and the like. (It's worth noting though that their course listings are *very* sparse- outside of business courses they offer almost nothing.)
He's right that universities need to change but they already are changing, and a lot more rapidly than most people think. We already are using virtual textbooks- my seminar course (along with many others) doesn't really have a textbook, but instead a series of postings on electronic reserve. This is hardly uncommon- we've been doing it for years. We already use wikis and blogs in courses to facilitate sharing. We're working (against entrenched copyright holders) to find ways to distribute and edit/mash audio, video, print and electronic content. We already use message boards and Skype to connect language learners with each other despite distances. Yes, tech is changing education, but the school I work for has been here for 177 years, survived everything from a Confederate attack to allowing women and blacks into the ranks to the advent of high tech and I'll put quite a bit of money that it'll still be here long after anyone reading this is dead.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
.... 2019! bang! He is essentially saying, "Once I retire there is no one who is worth listening to in person and all professors will become irrelevant. Come on. Face it. I am the greatest prof of all time and after me it is not worth going to the univ. Just stand in line and buy my book."
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
stupid prediction, 1980s style: computers would reduce the use of paper in offices
fact: paper use in offices has gone right on up, as people seem to print all sorts of crap, as my boss who prints out articles for bathroom reading can attest
stupid prediction, 1990s style: the internet would render cities obsolete
fact: cities have continues to grow, as life in the country is pretty boring, although real estate prices in manhattan are finally beginning to follow the rest of the country down (but not in the tank)
stupid prediction, 2000s style: university classrooms are obsolete
MY prediction: 18-21 year olds are interested in socializing and sex. if you cut their legs off and left them in a desert, they will claw their way to the nearest coed dorm, and then slough themselves to university classrooms the next day, since they need somewhere to sit and update their facebook page on their netbook
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dude! This guy is at BYU. You know the place whose Code of Conduct requires its own web space. All of those details about life that you need to work out have been decided for you already in intricate detail. If I had to go to BYU I would be thinking that it is time to set up a virtual campus too.
...If their parents can afford it, kids need to be out on their own in a forgiving environment like a dorm or college community where they do their own laundry and feed themselves.
Part of being an adult is not depending on your parents for money.
Nothing prepares you for the "real world" like balancing two part-time jobs and classes.
While the classroom may go away, I hope the campus doesn't. A lot of people will say that some of the best times of their lives and best friends they ever met were from college. While keeping track of your buddy's twitter feed and facebook status is the new "friendship", I don't think it has quite the camaraderie of midnight frisbee golf.
I hope not. There are a few pieces that are critical in education that are very difficult to do with distance learning:
1- make relationships with students and teachers. Sometimes the relationships with other students or teachers are what makes the difference in life.
2- the moral component is very hard to teach with distance learning. I'd rather nuclear chemistry or even computer science be taught within a moral framework- because it is easy to use great knowledge for the wrong purpose
3- subtlety of expression- sometimes lost in distance learning- actually it is lost in large classroom sizes sometimes as well.
I could not possibly see myself going back to a brick and mortar institution for an advanced degree.
Better hope where you do want to go is in state.
I recently spent some time looking for online classes. Courses for real credit are far and few between, unless you want to spend big bucks.
I actually found a few courses I was interested in, but if the college is out of state, you are faced with out of state tuition. This can make the price hundreds of dollars more expensive per credit hour.
With the Internet, this is an artificial barrier, like DVD regions.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
In May, I'll have completed my Master's degree entirely online through NC State's Engineering Online program. Since most people have already mentioned the negative aspects of online classes, I'll mention some of the positives.
First, it's incredibly nice to be able to rewind, pause, and replay portions of a lecture. It's also very useful to be able to play older lectures. And, it's nice to be able to watch lectures when it is convenient for you, especially if you are working full-time.
The lack of direct communication during class is easily mitigated by having an online, voice enabled office hours system. Most people don't show up for a professors' office hours, period.
Certainly, I don't think online courses can be applied to all classes, but from my undergraduate experience, many of my science/engineering courses were simply large auditorium lecture halls with little to no interaction anyway. So there goes class participation.
Some people might mention the lack of personal networking. Quite the opposite, I've met more full-time employees at other companies who are also in a distance program than I ever did in my undergrad, where I was mostly networking with other jobless, inexperienced students. If anything, I've observed that the distance students, being full time, tend to have higher averages as a whole than the 'live' classroom sections, mainly because most of us have years of practical experience in the field under our belts.
So, all in all, do classroom learning if you can, but for many classes, you won't really get any benefit.
Titus Barik
I spent much of my childhood as a "bad kid" in school. I hated going and the teachers hated me. I was not welcome by anyone in the class. I hated learning by the pace dictated by who ever designed the curriculum. But I loved learning and loved reading up on different subjects. I barely managed to get a high school diploma and get into community college where I just gave up and stopped going.
Years later I am one of the more handsomely paid programmer analysts in major corporations. I am well versed in political science, literature, economics, and of course technology. Even in a recession I don't have job security issues because I can deliver results for my employers.
I've always wanted to get a university degree just to prove those teachers who hated me they were wrong. I've ended up pursuing a degree at Athabasca and after two years I love it. There are no classes and it's all up to the student to get course work done on time and exams passed. It required strict discipline compared to traditional universities that clearly don't want anything to do with me. I find people who need "class time" lack the discipline to actually read a textbook and figure out things on their own.
To all those people who blather on about the importance for class time and teacher face time, please, shove it up your arrogant ass. Not everyone learns the same way. Some people are self-motivated and don't need hours of group discussions to figure out what the textbook has all ready clearly spelled out.
As we move further into the future, learning will be a life long process that does not stop with graduation. If you want to stay competitive in the work force you will constantly need to take courses. Online course work is perfect for disciplined working adults who can't stop for four years to have classroom "face time".
I think the college system is really showing its age. . . .
I know from personal experience I have learned very little in college. I found the entire process just a regurgitation of meaningless facts. I have yet to graduate, however I am starting some classes this year to hopefully get that stupid piece of paper.
I feel the high prices of colleges and universities are unwarranted when most of the teaching is done by TAs and not the professor themselves. I found my college experience was go to class, go over what I was assigned to read the day before, learn nothing but was in the book, and then do it again.
Critical thinking, problem solving, getting to the grit of the understanding was never pushed in any class I took. It was always this process:
1) read chapter at night
2) listen to TA read chapter back to us in the morning and assign next chapter
3) regurgitate information on test
4) profit!
I wish I could find a college that actually challenged me to learn new ways of thinking, or challenged me to do something other than memorization.
It seems the professor has seen this process and said 'hey, we aren't teaching you anything anyways, so you might as well just get it without having to show up to class'. I can whole heartedly agree with this sentiment. Virtual classes are just as good as having a know nothing TA try and teach a concept they just learned the year before.
This is far from being an artificial barrier. A good portion of the in-state / out-of-state difference is contributions from the state's general fund towards the college. Why would taxpayers in Colorado want to contribute towards the education of a student in Virginia taking an online class 'at' a Colorado state school?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I find the difference between the two, certification programs and universities, is that for the former you're required to remember a body facts (which may or may not change) and in the latter you're required to understand the material and apply it to new situations. The difference is subtle but important. Having a certification informs your employer that you are a replaceable cog; that you have the exact criteria to do the job, no more no less. A university education (at least at the higher levels) would tell the employer that you have some body of knowledge but also the capacity above and beyond the minimum. This would allow them to invest in a partner rather than a replaceable cog.
Now my views on this are probably limited, but that is my impression of what the two types of programs offer. Particularly from seeing all of the TV programs which advertise 'Get your degree in x-months to get a high paying job'. It all seems focused on teaching you the 'what' of learning instead of the 'how'. Ah but, maybe some ITT Tech graduate will prove me wrong.
I don't get it - what would be a "respectable title" in order to comment on the future of instructional technology? Something other than a PhD and tenured position in Instructional Psychology and Technology?
Seriously, I live in Utah... I had a friend that transferred to the University of Utah from BYU. She was studying psychology but BYU had removed many of the chapters on human sexuality. I didn't believe her and she produced one of the textbooks. The chapters had been cut out of the book with a razor blade.
She was a mormon, but transferred schools because she couldn't imagine going into psychology without an understanding of basic human sexuality.
If the whole teaching experience went virtual then could 100,000 students listen in on a single teacher, the best in the field? With such a following, could these teachers break free of the university and become little Joel Osteens? Then the better teachers become mere assistants helping with questions in smaller collaborative settings? And all the mediocre to horrible teachers get the boot? That seems the most efficient route and if no one resists, it may be what the educational system slowly evolves into. This won't replace classes that require hands-on learning. It won't be optimal for a class that traditionally was interactive. It will be a fine substitute for all those classes that are 100% lectures though. You'd also gain by learning from the best, possibly at a lower cost too. Just a taught. Not like it's ever going to happen.
I just think it's insane how youtube and wikipedia has transformed our daily lives, but higher learning is still being held back. My professor would password protect his website so no one other than his students could access his material. Now I know he had a reason for that, but what if he chose to share his knowledge with others? What if his knowledge was so good that people would pay to subscribe to it?
Yeah, whatever...
Open Universities / Correspondence Universities have been going strong for a hundred years already.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Have you actually been to college? In college I learned how to procrastinate, how to pull all-nighters and still manage to take a test the next day, and how to avoid classes that I deemed unnecessary. As for learning self sufficiency, I lived in a dorm where food was prepared for me and bathrooms were cleaned for me.
The most important thing I did learn was how to teach myself, because most of my professors weren't there to teach and weren't much help. This valuable lesson has helped me greatly in the real world, because nobody is going to hold my hand in the corporate world either. Everything else I learned in college, I've had to unlearn.
The "at home" biology and chemistry labs will be awesome. Particularly fun lab exercises: dissection, analytical and organic chemistry, molecular biology and genetics. Even my small liberal arts college had a NMR. Come to think of it, that'd be fun to have at home.
If by classrooms we're only talking about lecture halls where the information flows in one direction, then yeah, I could see this possibility. After all, students still need to attend things like labs, exams, and some other types of interaction, right? I could even see some back and forth communication working better online (async vs sync). I think the biggest hurdle isn't technology, but of the inability for many to express themselves (or understanding others) through the written word.
/worst/ ABA accredited school. Note that before potential students can even take the real bar, they had to have passed the baby bar too. That success rate is currently clocked in at 14.3%:
Doing recent research in online schools for graduates, I ran into another problem: professional acceptance. I couldn't find one online law school that is even state accredited, let alone ABA accredited. Without backing from theses types of institutions, technology is the least of their worries.
Even if the schools were accepted, look at the success rate of Concord Law School:
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/Statistics/JULY2008STATS.pdf
Concord Law School has a 44% pass rate. This is a little bit better than half as good as the
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/FYX/FYX0810-Stats.pdf
I'm not certain 11 years of technology advancements is enough for some of the degrees out there.
One very large state school and one mid-sized private school and I can honestly say that the entire thing could be put online and with better results.
The notion of "college" is something most people who have never been there or who were there years ago seem to place in high regard. It simply isn't that way anymore. Kid's don't care for much but to sit behind a laptop or PC screen and IM/Web Surf anyhow in class. Very little discussion or interplay happens outside of the computers even *IN* classrooms and dorms. (well in dorms a bit more physical interaction occurs)
College is a sham now, ridiculously expensive antiquated textbooks, ridiculously expensive, cramped, and sub-standard living conditions (the last university I worked for started putting kids rooms in the floors kitchenettes... no shit), wasted time and effort to go to a classroom where most everything is disseminated (Powerpoint) and worked on on computers.
It is as obsolete as physical media and just as physical media no one wants to let go and embrace the change. I actually agree with the 2020 guess, and hope it happens.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
The only classrooms that will be made irrelevant are the bad ones in which professors simply stand at the front, lecture, and ask "does any one have any questions?" Classrooms and laboratories that encourage student participation and require hands-on activity will never be made irrelevant. If human contact was that unimportant, then nerdy 14 year olds would stay home and play Halo with each other over the internet instead of sitting on the floor sharing a bowl of Flaming Hot Cheetos. Humans are social creatures. They like to hang out together, whether its learning, playing, or working.
Okay, Mr. Smart Enough to Teach at College - just how the fuck do you expect to teach hands-on hydroponics classes with just a book? You need other things for a HANDS-ON CLASS, podcasts and books aren't going to hold one drop of water or support a plant.
This 'teacher' is suspect if he fails in such a simple step of logic.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I don't get it - what would be a "respectable title" in order to comment on the future of instructional technology? Something other than a PhD and tenured position in Instructional Psychology and Technology?
He's commenting on University Classrooms. Not instructional technologies. Universities are businesses and although he works at one, he apparently has no clue about how they run as businesses nor how they market themselves and what they actually provide. He does not address accreditation. Why? Because it directly counters his argument and stops his prediction dead in its tracks.
... you know like one step below professor.
Also he's an associate professor
Although "University" of Phoenix has been around for a while, it doesn't make it any good. Let me tell you folks a little story and I'll try and keep it brief. I had a two year degree from a local business school in Computer Science. I had some nice networking courses and a couple programming courses already under my belt with my two year degree. Well I took off a couple years to work, cause I gots to pay the bills. Well summer 07 I decide I am going back to finish my Bachelors. I start looking into the "University" of Phoenix. I talk to the enrollment and placement counselors and they give me all this nice info on how it's more convenient and I will love it cause Computer Science majors love "U"oP. Having a weird schedule I decide that I really don't need classroom help. I'm going back for programming, that's all on the computer anyways right? Oh how very wrong I was. The first class that was required was.... How to Use the Internet. I shit you not. They said they had students sign up for their Bachelors, in Computer Science mind you, that weren't internet savvy enough to take classes. WTF????? I write it off as some sort of a pre-req and move one. The next course I take is....Intro to Computers. This I can understand because some people don't take any computer stuff til year 3, but I had a class called the same thing on my transcript that I got an A in. Again I am told it's not optional. At this point, I'm stating to get kinda tired of the class and am thinking about leaving. Next up....Intro to Business Systems. This had nothing to do with computers by the way, it was a class about how businesses run. Yeah..... that was what I want to pay for, business courses. I again protest and get the same tired, well you have to take it. They then tell me they don't let me ever choose what to take, they determine it. I wouldn't have taken an ACTUAL PROGRAMMING COURSE til I was almost done. There were only 5 "programming courses" in the curriculum. Intro to JAVA 1 and 2, 2 HTML courses and an SQL course. That was all. Nothing on C, VB, COBOL anything else. They didn't even like do a course where anything about any other language was mentioned. At that point I had blow about 5 grand for four classes so I left. That place was a fucking joke. I learned more this year doing blended courses at a brick and mortar school than I would of the whole time I would have at "University" of Phoenix. In any case folks, just dont go there. It isn't worth your money. Just my two cents.
...an experimental education AI predicted that professors will be obsolete by 2030.
I'll be interested in seeing how he (and similar visionaries) plan to map science lab work into a virtually located education.
With no classrooms the idea of skipping class will default to skipping home and...well...I live there!!
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K. Trout
The best schools will still be brick and mortar, because the best teachers will still want to interact with their students in person. I might peg community colleges at being the first to take a hit from online competition, except that their low costs and geographic convenience make them just as easy to attend and more rewarding intellectually because of the face-to-face interaction. We are social animals; technology will not change that.
Online is probably a sensible option for professional degrees, continuing education, certifications, etc., but I really don't see the best and the brightest skipping four years of University just for the sake of convenience. There is a huge difference between a degree and an education. It's much harder to get an education when one is still immersed in one's own familiar world.
... BYU Prof. David Wiley Will Be "Irrelevant" By 2020.
So you're saying that people need to go to a university to learn how to do things like make food with a microwave and use a laundry machine? Also, didn't you have to get yourself out of bed to go to school before you were 18? (and pay attention, and take notes, etc.)
I'm not saying going to a university is a bad thing, just curious why more people don't pick up basic life skills as they grow up.
I gained more through the social interaction with others at university than I did through the actual education experience. There is more to an education than learning your chosen subject. Unless you are some social misfit who will never need, or want, interaction with others. I spend more time at work discussing, negotiating and encouraging people than I do actual coding. I don't think I would be as able to do this had a simply sat in front of a computer for those 3 years. I might have a functioning liver, however :o)
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
The more likely scenario is the university will adopt a diploma mill attitude.
That isn't to say the University experience should be dead. There is much to be gained by bringing people together physically as well as virtually to improve the learning process. At school you often learn as much from fellow students as you do from the professors. And lets not for get the research that good universities do.
However there is little place in the modern world for a room where you sit and listen to a person "spout" knowledge at you. It is probably the case that that was NEVER a good approach to teaching anyway.
Think Deeply.
There's a difference between knowing and using. I "Know" how to juggle but I can't do it, haven't practiced it enough yet. Most people "know" how to live on their own, college is where you practice it.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
More homework, more pre-recorded lectures, even higher tuition, and a professor who really doesn't have to do any teaching and can spend more time sleeping with students. Everybody wins.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
University professors tend to be resistant to change. This is why 99% of classes feature enormous lecture halls, a mode popularized by the ancient Greeks, when there are other lecture styles that have been proven to be more effective. There are countless other examples of universities being lower on the learning curve.
2020 he claims, but how long will it take for universities to actually implement video classrooms, and what motivates them to do this? There are a few universities that have published lectures on the internet, but in most cases it's unnecessary.
Perhaps general introductory courses can become obsolete due to their very generic qualities, but higher courses and graduate courses will still need to be taught in person. Each university tends to teach its students in different ways, choosing which subjects might be important from an infinite wealth of information, and no one can agree on which way is best. Thus, it will take much more than a mere 11 years for classrooms to become truly obsolete.
And as someone else pointed out, I don't know of a single truly paperless office, yet such a thing was supposed to become reality a decade ago.
Course materials are shared between universities, science labs are virtual, and digital textbooks are free.
Maybe for math and CS, but I doubt that power systems labs for EEs and chemistry labs are going away any time soon. As for course materials - they can't even get professors to use each others notes. Free textbooks? Why would a professor lock out this potentially lucrative (either by writing it himself and selling it on Amazon or by kickback from the publisher) revenue stream?
This article is made for Slashdot - plenty of naive speculation and possibility, but absolutely clueless when it comes to reality.
That is all.
I suggest we pause our studies until 2020
In order to presume that robotics will advance sufficiently in 11 years to support remote science labs - well he should at least have to take a control systems course.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
And the United Federation of Planets will bring peace to the Universe...
Maybe with an attitude like that, BYU will be 'irrelevant' by 2020
Did anyone manage to find the video that TFA didn't bother linking to?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I imagine if college is teach a world without set times for tests, classes, and meetings, that most industry is going to head that way, too. The only people who will have to be at work at a fixed schedule are people like doctors, nurses, firefighers, and cops.
Sig: I stole this sig.
These iPod educated knuckle-heads are going to be in charge after I retire. I better start saving money for my own private island now.
Seriously, taking a class from home is like working from home. Everyone claims that they are exponentially more productive, but the fact is 90% of them spend 90% of their time watching Oprah and making macaroni and cheese for their kids. People think they do more at work at home, but the reality is that everything takes twice as long because of all the distractions.
I'm sure some people can be quite effective working from home. However, in my experience, the people who normally work from home are the people you do not want around to fuck things up. It will be hard to convince me that anyone educated exclusively by remote classroom does not belong in the same category.
General Hospital ends in about 2 minutes, so you can expect the rebuttals to start about then.
I can google up an equation of describing how electrons work, but, without being trained as to its applicability and utility, then, I wouldn't be doing the right thing.
The easiest way to prove your knowledge, is to go a 4 year series of tests and interviews with masters of the field... that's called a diploma.
This is my sig.
I'd almost mod you up, but "classroom training [is] a time waster" is an exaggeration. (Well, unless you had shitty teachers.) The whole point of going to college is to engage in interaction with faculty, students, everything. You're only in class a few hours per week. The rest of the time is just as important. For that reason I wouldn't give much credence to someone with a degree from the University of Mom's Basement.
But I think TFA had less to do with online learning than with large-scale collaboration. That's a hot topic in academic computing right row, so it's a straightforward way to get funding for your IT infrastructure. "We need to promote academic collaboration! Which means of course we need new servers, routers, etc, and that 10Gb LAN upgrade!)
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
first of all, if this does happen, it won't happen until, say, 2040. 10 years ain't that long. even if the process of implementing this started today, it'd be 10 years until some experimental curriculum based on this idea existed.
funny story. about 15 years ago, the minister of education in my country (not US) said in an interview that he thought that in only a few years the role of schools would no longer be to teach kids factual knowledge. he said that TV is already teaching children so much, that the only thing schools will need to do is, essentially, teach them proper manners. clearly this guy was a moron, and anyone who can eat soup without drowning in it (family guy reference) understands how retarded this idea is. however, it's a perfect example of people severely underestimating the merit of traditional methods of education, and paying more attention on how cool the technology used is, rather than what it actually accomplishes.
See, for example, one of the most famous historical essays on the function of higher education: John Henry Newman's "The Idea of a University" (1854).
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/newman/newman-university.html
Over 150 years ago, Newman noted that some people would argue that you could learn everything you wanted from the scholarly discourse in books, because some said that all knowledge that was worth knowing was available through written materials.
But Newman concluded that the true value of a university was never about classroom learning, per se. It was about being in a community of scholars, where the true learning was about all the various interpersonal interactions that happen. Some of this can happen online, it is true, but universities in a particular place won't be extinct until we can model all the social interactions that generate knowledge and learning in a virtual reality. Even then, it's an open question whether people would trade in real interactions for total virtual interactions.
"virtual science labs" work...
I do remember working on a heat exchanger that filled half a room back in engineering "lab", And crushing concrete blocks and bending steel rods in the materials lab back at university.
And a generation of scientists who have never done a real experiment seems a good way to kill scientific progress.
Or maybe "virtual" doesn't mean what I interpreted it as.
No distractions.
Put people in a boring, windowless room, and you're so bored the lesson is the distraction. You have little choice but to sit there and listen and write notes (don't bring in the laptop or smart phone - too tempting).
I've done the learn from home, IPod/mindisc/tape lessons, what have you. Its crap. I was way too distracted outside of the classroom to absorb things as well. No questions too (or hard to get in right away, when you type or talk out a tinny speaker). Found the same thing at work when I have training/meetings over the phone versus in person.
Maybe I'm unique or something, but seeing how much constant stimulation people my age and younger crave these days, I doubt it. There will always be a need for a large number of people to sit in a windowless room, and have someone lecture and answer questions.
Consider this from "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U. S. Higher Education", a report of the commission appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, dated September, 2006: "At a time when we need to be increasing the quality of learning outcomes and the economic value of a college education, there are disturbing signs that suggest we are moving in the opposite direction. As a result, the continued ability of American postsecondary institutions to produce informed and skilled citizens who are able to lead and compete in the 21st-century global marketplace may soon be in question" (p. 29). ...and this
"American higher education has taken little advantage of important innovations that would increase institutional capacity, effectiveness and productivity. Government and institutional policies created during a different era are impeding the expansion of models designed to meet the nationâ(TM)s workforce needs. In addition, policymakers and educators need to do more to build Americaâ(TM)s capacity to compete and innovate by investing in critical skill sets and basic research" (p. 31).
Yeah! The Internet is read-only. You can only interact with other people face to face or with funny goggles on your head.
And we'll all telecommunte to work and... oh, wait.
Virtual science labs? As someone who had to teach a digital design course using simulated electronics... I sure hope not. It was nothing compared to when I took the course in undergrad and we wired chips together.
I also took part of my BSc by correspondence. It just wasn't the same.
Online lectures etc. are a great supplement. They don't replace hands on stuff, or the group environment.
Training people in "virtual" labs is useless. Any wet lab experience that's meant to be a training for actual lab work must be hands-on. "Virtual" labs can only substitute the labs of today that are meant to create a minor exposure to lab-style work that students are supposed to keep in the back on their heads as a concept. And second, peer-reviewed material is crap. Yes, I said it. It's unreadable by anyone but the peers. And even the peers usually let go of a lot of imprecise statements. To allow this level of vaguer y into text books would make text books obsolete. It would only solidify the market for test-prep cliff's-and-schaum's-type materials as substitutes for assigned reading. Peer-review is a terrible model for increasing clarity. Just think about it: it asks experts to made the decision on whether a certain piece of expository writing does a good job of breaching the gap between those who are well-prepared and those who are in-the-know. By definition, it's a decision based on hypothetical. It's missing a test. Where asking students to first use text books before deciding on whether they are useful is that kind of a test.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
But very FEW things in life come with a guarantee.
I've *long* felt that it's probable the MAJORITY of people with degrees out there really retained less than maybe 20% of what they learned in college.
Knowledge tends to be a "use it or lose it" proposition, really.
So yes, employers need to interview anyone who claims to have the skills and ability to do a job they're seeking new hires for. But it's also understandable they'd value degrees. They don't guarantee a thing, but they indicate the individual was at least *capable* of following instructions well enough to pass the courses, diligent enough to show up for the majority of classes, etc.
It occurs to me that those who profess say a lot of things. The ratio of truth and light found in the content therein contain about the same as you'd find in any redneck bar.
I'd be checkin' into a refund for my education in this case and use the money at the bar.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Hmm... I've never met an adult, unless inheritances don't count.
Even then, the only adults I've met are pretty old.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
maybe us Geeks and Nerds can work that way, but my wife cannot. She needs a teacher in the classroom to ask questions to, and an iPod recorded lecture cannot do that. Plus the strain on her eyes from watching too many videos will cause them to hurt. My wife is a Nurse by profession and is trying the Internet courses which don't seem to benefit her as much as a real classroom.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
How can "hands-on" labs be done over the internet? Chemistry, Physics, & even computer-programming labs require students to experience something.
Would you hire a chemist who never mixed any before? that's disasterous.
We all know people who studied CompSci & still couldn't write hello-world in another language new to them. They had lab experience!
I attend Kent State University, where some courses are only available as online classes. From experience, I've learned that online classes lack the structure and interaction that allows the students to absorb information. Even further, most of these online classes, have been poorly run, with no real quality control. In fact, I'm taking one right now, and the professor has not posted an assignment since Feburary. There is no recourse that can be taken, as the professor can neglect to check messages, as opposed to a physical classroom, where I can say "Hey, you're not following the syllabus".
The other issue revolving around online courses is the consitency of use. Each professor will use the system in an entirely different way than the next. I have two online courses this semester, and they both use completely different web applications. The one I had to take last year used a system entirely different from the two this year. These differences cause a lack of consistency in how information is given to the students. One professor will post links in a buried section of the application, while another will post flash animations somewhere else.
Then you get into technical issues. One class I have requires me to upload my work to a server system that relies on frontpage extensions for the connectivity. Why should I have to use Visual Studio or something along those lines to upload PHP files?! To top that, the login credentials are handled differently at each campus. This web course happens to be based out of the Trumbull campus. I had to call their IT office to get credentials set up.
What does a classroom provide that is better than web courses? Consistency, you go to the room, you interact, and learn. There is an auditory concept at work here as well. I retain information the best at lectures, where I can look at the professor talking and listen to the material. Not to mention, it's nice to interact with your peers instead of being isolated in front of your computer.
I got my Master's in Software Engineering at Harvard. I was an IT professor at the time (for a small community college) where I ran some online offerings, ran a website for my own classes and some of the Harvard offerings, and even setup online courses as a TA at Harvard. I was also an 'online TA' running special bulletin board question and answer sessions for students who took classes online. So I'm not exactly an old fart too set in his ways to see the advantage of technology.
Despite this, I took only 1 class online--for the other 13 classes I drove the 340 mile round trip to campus (a total of 60,000 miles for the degree). Why?
Because, first I wanted to participate. I had the opportunity to become a TA, work with the online crew, get to know professors. I also got a job offer as a programmer at a research lab in Cambridge which was cool.
Second, I flunked my online course--well, I got a C which doesn't get you grad credit at Harvard. That's because the streaming lectures were available 24/7. That means you can always catch it tomorrow. And pretty much anything that can be put off a day never gets done.
Here I was working to perfect online ciricula with some of the smartest people I've ever met. But I know now that an online course is not the same thing as a real class. Whether it is an useful alternative depends on the student, but they are very different activities.
will be the year of the linux desktop.
As an adult student in a graduate program who has taken traditional on-campus courses, online-only courses, and hybrid courses that combine both worlds (on-campus and online), I can say that I really hope they are wrong about this one. You see, college administrators, in their constant desire to deliver education products (i.e., courses) at lower cost, believe that online education is the inevitable and long-foretold method of delivery that will save their colleges and universities from their online woes. They are either deluded, or simply wrong.
;P). In addition, some persons are auditory learners, whose primary learning style is through listening, and often through asking questions verbally. It's not that they can't post questions online, but that they do not learn as well in that environment.
There are positive aspects to online learning environments--the anywhere-anytime factor, the erasure of geographic boundaries--but administrators fail to understand that the online learning environment is not for everyone. Anyone who has taken a course on communications knows that non-verbal communications (e.g., body posture, facial expression) is a significant part of successful communications. Without virtual telepresence technologies, it is nearly impossible to convey those nonverbal cues (emoticons aside
On a more personal note, although the online courses of which I've been a part have been touted as "anywhere-anytime" offerings, there were still specific deadlines, tied to specific time zones. The online courses often had numerous deadlines during the week for different assignments, including quotas for participation in online threaded discussions. If you were one who tends to get things in just under the wire, posting your online comments during the final evening before a due date for example, you might not receive any replies to your comments. The goal of a threaded discussion is to emulate the type of exchanges that occur in a classroom, but I have yet to see any instance where they come close. When in a classroom, I tend to scan the room to get a feel for how the other students are responding to the information. If I notice confused looks (and the instructor doesn't pick up on the cue), I will often stop and ask clarifying questions even if I am comfortable with the material. My peers have thanked me often for my willingness to do so. Unfortunately, in an online learning environment, those opportunities just aren't there.
I'm going to get off my soap box now before I ramble on all day long...
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
My wife got a Masters degree from a major university. But she got it remotely, doing classes via the internet. She was exposed to the same course material as anyone taking classes in person. But one critical thing that was missing was the interpersonal factor.
Doing it online, you miss the personal contact and information sharing with fellow students. Also, in grad school, it's important to make a good impression on professors, because you'll need references; that was lost too.
In my own experience, also as a grad student, I find that having set class times to go to keeps me organized and on-task. For those "project" classes where we mostly just worked in small groups, I just didn't feel like I learned as much, enjoyed it as much, or benefitted from a real-time sharing of ideas. As geeks, we often don't think about things like body language, but for those of us who are tuned into it, it too is a major component of the social aspects of communication and learning.
I'm also a telecommuter. Without weekly meetings and otherwise general in-person interaction, I quickly fell out of touch with day-to-day activities. I now rely too heavily on others to tell me what's going on and assign me work to do.
If formal classes "go away", you'll find some people who thrive, while you'll find others who flounder, finding it much harder to stay focused. Given that MOST people going to college are quite social, I suspect that organized in-person classes are here to stay. They may change shape somewhat, but there will always be classrooms with live lectures, at least until humans evolve into something quite different from how they are now.
I don't think classrooms are an accident that technology will erase. They're analogous to neandertals sitting around a fire, sharing the spoils of the hunt, telling their children about the way it's done, and discussing what they're going to do the next day. The clan getting together for dinner, as it were. Organizing into social groups is human nature. As such, everything we do starts with figuring out how and where the people are going to meet. The US Congress will stop in-person sessions long before classes do.
I work for a large community college network.
We are seeing a general trend of 10-20% increased use of online course tools each year. That doesn't necessarily mean that the classroom disappears though. Rather, certain topics can easily be taught using a variety of methods.
And I think that the 'listening to lectures on your iPod' is a bit misleading. Usually, online courses are either 100% online, taught using a system like Blackboard http://www.blackboard.com/ or the open source Moodle, or online courses can be a mixture of online and in the classroom (such as a chemistry course taught online, and the lab you come in 1 or 2 times per week for hands on).
There is also a fairly sizable amount of fully interactive video courses. Whereby, students come into a classroom, and the teacher teleconferences into the classroom. Full video, full audio, questions and answers, etc.. Each desk has a little microphone on it that students can use.
The reverse happens also. Online chat, online video that students can watch from home.
Each teacher is largely in charge of how they choose to mix and match the various tools.
So what we are seeing, isn't necessarily a move away from classrooms, rather, it is an increasing use of a variety of tools that allow more and more people to interact. Like your teacher lives in India, you take part of the course online from home in a rural county, and you drive in once per week for a video teleconf directed lab.
There is also a large push for business continuity. Especially around disaster planning. The more systems and outlets you have in the online world, the easier that task becomes. If a physical classroom catches fire, class is over. For a long time. If you can pick up where you left off online, money keeps coming in, and students keep learning.
I have also seen a large increase in message board/forum use. It adds a great layer to teaching and learning. Whereby, in addition to the regular lectures/labs or whatever, several 'slow' conversations can be going on inside a forum.
I made the mistake (well, my only option) of attending an online degree program. Digital books suck. I'm not even a hater of DRM (digital books are the only DRM products that have ever gotten in my way of legal access, btw). E-books flat out suck. Call me old (more like spatial), but seeing print in the traditional left side right side alignment of a book is the only way I remember anything I read. E-books are good in one regard--I can use spotlight on my Mac to find specific words within the PDF e-books of my college, which makes it easy to find stuff I remembered reading about, but couldn't remember what class it was for or what book it was in.
This kind of idiot is ruining our schools everwhere and us geeks are not calling the shucksters like this out enough so they keep getting away with it!
My ART school (Emily Carr, Vancouver) has a president (and CEO) who is constantly on about this kind of "digital" nonsense. Meanwhile he does an interview for the National Business newspaper with him sitting there with a dual monitor WindowsXP (in 2006) saying he is avante-garde technologist artist hot shit. (Not trying to slag Windoze here, just saying that a dual monitor rig with default OS isn't cutting edge digital anything)
The school doesn't even KNOW what open source means. The school is totally NOT high tech but rather sold up the river buying the typical software suites that are NOT innovative, shunning spending on real art materials.
Basically the whole point is very bad old school, save money, make more profits. How did we let private profiteers run higher education? My ART school was a depressing place. The hands-on studios were empty due to being de-emphasized and underfunded. (too costly too upkeep in the new regieme, things might get messy and require knowledgable staff to maintain) The computer labs were also basically under-used because - hey, why not just work at home anyway if all you can use is a lame default networked XP or OSX with only officially vetted software.
Was there any combining of cool traditional arts with cool digital hacking a la the MAKE magazine type of culture? Not unless you did it on your own time and dime. The school would make a fuss if you did. Sometimes they would claim credit but never integrate the type of sharing culture required to cultivate this at the school. The whole school is reduced to this cliched argument of digital vs. traditional, modern technology vs old masters from the 1970s. Instead of being a place of hybrid innovation (as the school's literature desperately proclaims at every breath) it becomes a backwater where people get depressed about the whole for-profit-mostly BS situation and don't have the energy to even follow the exciting digital/analog/creative art and sharing that our culture of free internet sharing has brought us.
I suppose I'm almost supporting the techno-whiz-bang fellows argument that schools are becoming obsolete and unable to handle technology. But he isn't saying that it is his false utopian promises that are the basis for the whole cynical changes to the system.
Obviously there are signifigant technologically based changes that can and will be happening. However the edutainment model is backwards, anti-tech and needs to be called out. A bunch of passive consumers to whom technology might as well be a magic box is about as antithetical to higher learning as you can get.
-End of rant.
(I sure wish there was more of a geek community at my school when I went there)
Stupidity is its own reward.
A university degree says nothing about the attitude towards learning of the person, nothing about the fitness of that person for some specific role, and nothing about that person's capabilities or interests.
What it primarily says in this country is one of two things:
- a person or their legal guardians understand exactly how to game the job market in the US, and have done so
- a person, with the support of their legal guardians, never plans on actually working a day in their life and "studies" the most pompous, contemptuosly useless drivel possible, such that there can be no plausible contribution to society and no objective standard of quality. This is in preparation for a life of pseudo-intellectual socializing, primarily in measured instances of attempting to lord ones faux-status over people who secretly detest each other's company
Yeah, I'm a US university graduate. On the rare occasions that I let myself feel some sense of accomplishment or acheivement about the peice of paper I have in a box somewhere, I think of all of the other people in my graduating class with the same sheet of paper.
[and lest you suggest that if only I had gone to the "correct" institution, I'd have a different opinion: I direct you to the 'academic' histories of our recent crop of politicians. They are the result of "the best" our nation has to offer]
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education.
I can't believe this guy is missing the social aspect of college. Living together, working together, going to classes together, etc. all help build and strengthen social bonds that will last for years. We already are losing so much as we restrict communication to faceless, toneless text; why make it worse on ourselves? Humans are social creatures, and the actual coursework is a very, very small part of college.
That's only the most basic level of what a classroom provides. As much as we like to show it off - our technology still can't achieve most of the subtle and important interactions that being there in person provides. Things like Twitter and Facebook just start to provide some of that functionality and look how hot they are. Neither is particularly technologically advanced - the hard part is replicating the the ultra complex functionality of human interactions.
Stupidity is its own reward.
That sums up what I keep telling everyone in any University-oriented discussion. It is a school of life, not just a test were GPA is all that matters. You need to learn how to become an adult, a better citizen and a thinking person. Staying all day long with your nose in your books (or listening to a class on your ipod?) is only half the experience.
Not only that but it is also the greatest networking opportunity you'll have in a long time, until you get to work in your field for a couple of years. I should know, I'm about to leave for a month of engineering oversea work because I know people who know people (all because of that University degree) :)
I guess that in scientific terms, this would sound like "It is not all about quantity of information. It is also about quality".
We don't even interview candidates that we suspect are online graduates where that degree is needed for the job. University Of Phoenix has really screwed their campus based students, if they even have any...
Really BYU, really? This from the same institution that didn't allow African Americans until 1980? From the same academic minds that bring us "magic underwear"? Really BYU, really? The organization that believes that Native Americans are descendants of the damned tribes of Israel that God marked with dark skin as punishment (even though there is definitive DNA evidence to disprove it? The same institution that believes the end of the world is nigh and hoards food in preparation for Jesus to return to Zion? Oh and believes that homosexuals are the worst abomination on earth next to premarital sex and masturbation? Really, BYU, really?
I'll come out and just call "bullshit" on this entire claim. Textbooks open-source and free, great, I'm all for that. Lecture videos online, that's pretty cool, too (watching one right now on my bus travel to work). Virtual labs, I'm not an applied scientist, but that smells fishy.
Anyway, here's the reason I'm passionate about classroom teaching: The ability for students to ask questions. That's the unalterable advantage that the classroom lecture has. A physical person that you can have an immediate dialogue with, complete with body language, facial expressions, physical manipulation, "here take this chalk and draw me what you're talking about", pointing to specific words, taking a student's book and showing them the reference they can't find, slamming my hand on the board to make a big point, dropping books from the ceiling to check how fast things fall, etc.
Friends and employers keep suggesting that I teach online classes (honestly, the real reason this is attractive to them is that once it's established, they can outsource all the teaching to our friends in India). I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole. On the day when there's no classroom teaching, then I'll move on to some other job. But I suspect that there will always be a demand for personal, live teachers.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It is pretty hard to get a Computer Science degree online. It seems like this particular degree would be the best suited for distance learning (via a computer), but so far I haven't found a lot of good choices. If we can't yet get Computer Science right, I doubt they can get much else working.
I have looked, extensively. There are some programs out there, but most are for-profit education classes. Many of the others require some bricknmortar component.
If anyone here has a recommendation for a good, regionally accredited, 100% online Computer Science (undergrad or grad) degree that has some respect with recruiters/employers, I'm all ears.
--
$tar -xvf
Distance Education does not mean that you do not have an opportunity to work with fellow students.
Last term I took a distance education course and much of the grade was based on group projects. My last group of four students, I did my work near Washington DC, the other three where in Japan, England and Texas. Very few traditional schools will you have a chance to practice following the sun with a school project.
of course this will happen after SecondLife becomes a mature stable and well put together platform for such things ...).
but imagine having an actual IBM person as a professor (or Sun^HOracle person or
The class room isn't dead/dieing it just will land up at Fishermans Cove 179, 182, 51 instead of Phoenix Arizona USA
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This will happen along with our flying cars
This guy is a fully indoctrinated webby. He needs to get his head in the Real World(TM).
When will people learn that you go to college to prepare for life, not just a job or career. You go to learn how to be self sufficient, to go to bed so you're not dead for classes, to show up, and generally learn to be an adult. College is an environment where a lot of people fail at that at first, but most, by the time they graduate, are capable of living on their own and holding some sort of job. College isn't just basic engineering or english or math, its basic life. If their parents can afford it, kids need to be out on their own in a forgiving environment like a dorm or college community where they do their own laundry and feed themselves.
Um, O.k. I made it through college with a BS in CS. Now, let me tell you a secret about all those friends of mine that didn't bother or dropped out of college instead. Here it's a little secret that you may not know. They all have jobs, pay rent or a mortgage, have the same bills that I do, and usually a bit more just due to be being at their place of employment longer.
You'll be highly upset about this next secret. I had a few friends go this other route. It's called the military. That environment is more physically demanding only at first. After boot camp, it stops being physically challenging and becomes as demanding as college does now on the mental level while teaching all these other life skills.
There are many times that I think our entire educational out look is messed up. It should be about teaching those kids, how to clean their homes, shop for the best products, buy food and cook or pick the best deals in fast food, how to manage rent/mortgage and other bills. All these "life skills" that you think college is for should be taught in elementary school.
I'm glad that I (and most people I know) had a better experience than you did. Hopefully you'll find more happiness and fulfillment in life than you did in college.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Sounds like Brainbench.
On the plus side, if higher ed melted down to a puddle, it could get back to its personal roots, "Oh, you contributed _that_ paper to Dr. X's blog? Sure, we could use some help at our lab this year."
You wanna know a secret? I realize university is not the only place to learn about life, i also realize that people can go far without, but for the majority of people, its a good place to learn about life. Quit putting words in my mouth. I didn't say any of the things that you're contradicting.
A CS degree is not the only place to learn about programming, but its a good place to learn about programming.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Teaching is about helping students learn, not about delivering content. And that will not be achieved by listening to a non-interactive lecture from an iPod. We are doing both self study, various face-to-face time teaching and online lectures via videoconferencing, and the students are learning the most from the face to face time and practical exercises. That is all according to their own feedback.
I have seen this idea about replacing teaching by pre-recorded stuff few times already. Usually from people who do not know how to teach and whose lectures are, frankly, crap :(
Funny? How about insightful!
Granted, I'm not a computer-tech or engineering major.
Though, this doesn't help socially inept /.ers like myself actually pick them up. ;) /.er, but that's another issue. :P
* Picking up *any* ~150lb weight might be hard for an average
The common-interest thing may help
However, the higher level of intelligence may make the aforementioned girls more of a challenge; maybe that's a good thing in a way
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Sure, I wish I could learn as efficiently just by reading the material online or whatever. But I just don't see it happening.
However, I've found that teachers/professors can provide a useful steering role, pointing you in the right direction and whatnot. (If done properly,) they can filter out some irrelevant, inaccurate and/or confusing material.
If you don't "get it", sometimes you need to ask the answer or at least ask for a push in the right direction, rather than blindly plowing through yourself.
And, to be honest, the structure of a class can lead to you actually getting off your proverbial butt and getting some work done on the topic; otherwise you might procrastinate; I presume I'd be quite likely to fall into such a trap
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I'm a composer. As long as I have pencil and paper, I have distractions. I wrote a (well received) saxophone trio in my database architecture course.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
"Higher education doesn't reflect the life that students are living ... today's colleges are typically tethered, isolated, generic, and closed.'"
Right.. And kids who listen to iPods are untethered? This guy has obviously never tried to talk to someone listening to an iPod. Actually, most university campuses are quite open. Living at home, taking an online course is the definition of closed lifestyle. Finally, what about the value of a teacher or TA thats interactively responding to your questions and problems in person. Going to college, ie. physically moving, i thought was one of the best ways to gain new, deeper experiences.
I really wish people would actually study human behavior before they make statements like his.
Putting a metric buttload of students in a classroom and saying information in their general direction is very close to pointless, a pointlessness hardly restricted to college level. Smaller, interactive workshop-type classrooms, where there's actual feedback between the professor and students, though, are still very much relevant. I'd say it's more the "I talk at you, you write it down, you regurgitate it later" paradigm that's irrelevant, rather than the setting in which it is presented. Dumping 50, 100, 200, 500 students in one big room serves little purpose other than to push as many students through some required class with the lowest staff expenditure possible.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I was studying for a BSc at a 1800s red brick UK university, but at my final year I found out Open University (OU), so I dropped out of the red brick university and transferred my credits to OU. I decided to graduate with a BSc Open Degree there, since the open degree allowed me to study whatever I enjoyed most, and then I proceeded to do an MSc, which I am about to complete soon. All these years I haven't been at a traditional classroom, except a few residential OU courses and tutorials. I find OU's open learning system more advanced to classroom teaching, so I am really surprised that the other universities haven't followed suit yet.
given the number of students who turn up to lectures.
Why does every damn thing have to happen by/in year 2020?
...they are training simulators, but not "labs." While you can virtualize a server, and teach useful concepts to someone studying to be a certified technician or a computer scientist, you can't effectively virtualize a physics experiment or a dissection and call that a lab experience. Sure, you might teach some of the underlying concepts (which you could also do with, say, a slide presentation), you can't teach some kinds of muscle memory, nor can you convey things like subtle telltale odors (useful in chemistry), or subtle changes in the texture of certain tissues.
Telling the student that these subtle cues exist is not good enough. They need to experience some things first-hand so they know them in their bones.
Cadaver labs are indispensible, not just to nurses and doctors, but even to massage therapists! Knowing how real muscles and organs look in a real body (and not some sanitized or idealized textbook), or even how they feel, is a necessity for doing your job well. Shortchanging students by taking away real dissection labs is a crime, because they are learning how a synthetic representation of a living thing is put together, not how a real living thing is put together. Trying to sell the removal of dissections from the science curriculum as a win for compassion might gain you some traction, but it will make future generations even more out-of-touch with the skills they'll need should they want to become doctors. I see this virtualization trend in colleges as an extension of the trend to take real chemistry, biology, and physics labs out of high schools.
Computer simulations of physics experiments? Those are useful for predicting the outcome of a proposed experiment that nobody's ever done before... but not so much as a teaching tool for well-known science. A simulation will likely only behave in the way it was programmed to behave. Real-world experiments, on the other hand, give you data that isn't always clean, and sometimes give you results that are totally "wrong" and require diagnostic skills for debugging the experimental apparatus. You might call making a student use these virtual labs a form of training, but you can't call it science. Ultimately, there's no "grounding" when you use a computer simulation -- how is the student supposed to understand that the science is real and has real-world practical implications? How is the student supposed to know that it's not all just some cooked-up fantasy? We have enough grief with flat-earthers and YECs trying to get real science taken out of classrooms. Moving to this style of education for "the masses" will only exacerbate that problem, creating a whole class of people who potentially don't believe anything or don't understand anything about the technology that is used all around them.
I think there's some truth to both your and CopaceticOpus's statements. College does serve to prepare you for life in certain important ways, but it fails in others. My take is that the most important part of college is not that you learn to be an adult. That can be done much faster by working. Nor is it to train for a job or career though a good education does do that for you. I think the big things that you learn at college is how to think, how to interact socially, how to learn, and how to achieve large goals (the primary one being a degree).
He got that PhD in 3 years starting from a BFA in vocal performance. We can probably consider that a fresh start, and then go ahead get skeptical about anybody with a PhD from that department at BYU.
In the contrast of your opinion, I would vouch that General George C. Scott (as portrayed by Mr. Patton himself) couldn't hold a candle to Chuck Norris. Think about it for just a moment: Patton had absolutely no experience going to war, so he attended a university to gain simulation experience in no different a manner as did Chuck Norris become experienced in Delta Force by simulation (practice/acting). Chuck Norris didn't get any certifications or even a duhploma, yet he has much more experience than Patton ever would to become an actor if not lead a division of tank cavalry from the ass like a coward as he was. In this same manner, I would vouch that General Schwarzenneger, Commando Stalone, and sergeants Willis Damme Magnum & Seagull would outperform any phalanx brought by those "theoreticals" McArthur, Dolittle, Eisenhower, and even Custurd.
Yea that's right! You go back to school and keep telling to yourself "the teacher will protect me, the teacher will protect me!" Go attend the education of your undoing, where you study as though you were born "unlearned and unsound" until some alleged "prophessor" credits his opinion on you as being able. It's just a different kind of licenture sneaking-up on the people, that's all that universities and their kind of schooling have brought to everyone. It was never about experience, only privilege of an unknown. Tell me, student, how do you suppose a hero became so damn good without even touching a pencil and a desk? You want to know what happens to the guy who deserts his jungle experience for a desk-job? Look at the documentary Predator 1 for Commander Dillon. Yea, that's right. The illegal alien dismembers him slowly, starting with that literate pencil-weilding right-arm that Dillon was promoted to.
I mean, a bunch of my college classrooms were already irrelevent 35 years ago!
Pscht. Nothing to see here.
As a citizen in the welfare community of Finland, I find the idea of Universities making money absurd to say the least.
They provide education, they are not sime money-making tools. When that changes, there's something royally wrong with the world.
...and BYU is the Mormon's "pet school". The only good thing that comes out of BYU are music students and teachers; everyone else might as well have a degree in cheese doodles. Of course, it doesn't matter since they'll just live in Utah and get work there, where the Mormon church holds sway.
I couldn't find a link to his CV, but I do know he has received multi-million dollar grants, managed a research group that created numerous educational software projects, and developed the Open Content License, one of predecessors to Creative Commons.
While I don't know anyone who could be fully qualified to say that universities are "irrelevant." But he's more than just a random professor.
I did an Astronomy Masters online a few years ago - Astronomy Internet Masters (AIM) from the University of Western Sydney.
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/mathphys/astronomy/pagea.shtml
I visited the University twice, both times for admin work. I lived a few minutes away from the University. Most people taking the course were on the other side of the planet. Our online lectures, tutorials, assignments and exams were delivered as PDF files. The few lame attempts at multimedia and web cam type stuff never worked. They didn't need to.
Most of the issues I experienced were due to University politics and a change in management deciding to shut the course down. As a result the project to have a robot controlled telescope come online throughout the course were cancelled, and staffing was wound down so much that it was a struggle for the remaining lecturers to keep up. Despite all this, and despite falling seriously ill in the middle of my course, I completed it and am very very grateful for the opportunity.
Would I have preferred an in person course!? Hell yes. Would I ever have had the opportunity to study if it were an in person course. Not a chance! I didn't do this so I could get a job as an Astronomer. I did it because I had a burning desire to learn this stuff. So I'm very very grateful that I got this opportunity.
Not everything can be taught this way but a lot of material can. Online courses aren't the future. They're happening NOW. They were happening 5 years ago.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm sorry to burst the bubble of a great many who still feel that market forces rule in all areas of human existence, but it had to be said that institutions of higher education are not, and never have been businesses.
This viewpoint is probably very common among graduates (and departments) of engineering and other fields where graduates typically go straight onto employment, or where graduate students research is frequently the subject of various patents. To such people, it's not surprising that education is associated primarily with the attainment of money, and therefore the idea that an institution of education is not a money making enterprise may come as quite a shock.
But they're not. Profit is simply not something most universities do. The majority in fact are currently in quite a lot of debt. That isn't to say that education there is free. In fact universities cost quite a lot of money to run. But frankly so do churches and schools and hospitals. Yet all are not classified as businesses(except in the US, but the place is a basket case anyway).
Universities exist to give academics a place to learn, discover and teach. Academics are people too odd to make their way in the "real world", but too useful to be let fall by the wayside. Rather than have them out on the streets, in mental institutions or otherwise letting their potential go to waste, society created the university when they can be quartered for fairly modest sums, and where their skills and knowledge can be used and passed on in a way that benefits everybody. They can teach people who can make practical use of knowledge and expand existing knowledge. A university is in essence a kind of mental institution for very distracted people, but one which you can send young people to to further themselves.
Universities are not businesses. They are communities of academics who teach and research. Their "product", for want of a better word, is educated graduates and advances in knowledge. It costs money to obtain these things, but they do not, in and of themselves generate any money. Fundamentally the whole institution is a loss making device.
Now, while the patent gravy train continues to chug along, many engineers and the like may again be confused by the idea that there is no money in the advancement of knowledge. Sorry, but there isn't. Historical researchers do not generally become millionaires by publishing their works. Mathematicians do not live like rock stars after discovering a theorem. Claude Shannon did not make a penny from his very great contributions to humanity (He played the stock market instead).
Strange as it may seem, academics are researching for its own sake. Some of them are teaching for its own sake. While they do like to be paid for such endeavors, ultimately they will do them anyway. Essentially, academia resembles the open source programming community. Programmers like to be paid, but in the end their brains are so restless they will write entire applications and OS kernels in their spare time for no money at all. In fact, the Linux kernel is far more an academic pursuit than a commercial one.
So it may be strange to think that vast amounts of money and materials can flow in and out of an institutions without it making money. It may seem daft that people will do work and make discoveries and reap no profit for themselves. It might sound heretical to think that some people aren't constantly scheming to become millionaires, and indeed that communities can be formed by people who are in fact scheming towards completly orthogonal goals. Yet indeed, these things happen.
This idea may be very difficult for students of American Universities to grasp.
May the Maths Be with you!
gee, most people who didn't go to college have to learn how to be adults much faster because no one guards their bedroom, has rules for their neighbors, prepares their meals every day or gives them a schedule other than "work starts at 8". They don't have advisors, tutors, or support systems either.
How do they ever learn to be adults without college?
College is great: it does not prepare you "for life" in any sense, however. At least not unless you're living off campus and working through school. Frankly, you should know how to be an adult by the time you leave your parent's house.. that's their job. Obviously we don't all learn it in time ;) But the fact that you happened to learn that over four years or more in college, doesn't mean that's what "college is for".
Don't get me wrong, I loved college. I had great friendships and experiences, and some of the classes were pretty interesting. I'm just saying that it wasn't so helpful in preparing me for the real world.
Perhaps a real expert and not someone from a 3rd tier college somewhere in the middle of nowhere who most probably cannot accept that *his* university will be obsolete my 2020...
If you have not noticed, MIT, Stanford, and other top-tier universities have their courses online (including sometimes recordings of the lectures) for sometime now. Yes, they are open for everyone to see. When such material becomes widely available, the need to attend a lower-tier university just to get a worthless piece of paper will greatly diminish.
In contrast, the MITs, Stanfords, and Ivy League's of this world will continue to exist. But these are not only in the education business, they are in the prestige business as well...
"I know kung fu." - Neo
All things being equal, some day learning will be automated. Do you remember the last time you didn't know how to walk? That's what it will feel like. You do something and you don't even remember never having done it. You think you've been doing it your whole life. Yesterday, I couldn't even walk? What a surprise today! Even this moment doesn't happen.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Sadly, the masses constitute a tribe known as, idiots: IDIOT, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line. The materials needed to become a biomedical engineer are all available online in cheap ebook form as it is. Now just go buy some power supplies, oscilloscopes, electron microscopes, fumehoods, chem labs, and study solo for 10 years, and you're all set. Yeah, I seriously doubt that the hands-on part of a formal education is going to be done in mom's basement. In the case of my degrees (engineering, electrical + biomedical) they had a LOT of hands-on work which were essential to understanding the concepts. Also, in the case of engineering degrees, at least in Canada, you have to complete capstone projects at an accredited institution to be allowed to call yourself an engineer and apply for P.Eng status, which takes another 4 years. Would you really be comfortable with a mom's basement degree graduate desiging your bridges, building your IT infrastructure, or creating an MRI machine to scan for tumors? Not likely.
Between many of my elective-courses professors who would spend half their time whining about George W. Bush instead of teaching the material, and half of my computer science professors being too senile to remember the material (one of them even failed to show up for our final exam), I seriously wish I could go back in time and NOT HAVE ENROLLED IN COLLEGE AT ALL. Waste of time, waste of money, waste of my youth.
Fuck college.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i30/30a02101.htm