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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."
A degree isn't everything. All it does is prove you took a certain number of units at some universityâ¦
You're absolutely correct. I couldn't agree with you more. However, it still doesn't change the fact that degrees are used to filter out applicants. If you're able to get the jobs and experience without a degree that look good on a resume then more power to you, but not having the degree will make that a harder task, as well as affect your pay scale.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
I go to a small tech school, who's primary programs are IT and Medical Coding, and most all the labs are virtual. For the IT stuff they do have actual Cisco hardware to play with, but all the MS servers, etc were run on VM's and such, as well as most of the Cisco labs.
Anatomy and physics classes were done via simulations on the computers. This is fine for anything short of becoming an actual nurse or doctor, or physicist, none of which were even close to being thought about being offered by the school.
There are a very large number of programs that can be offered 100% remotely, without requiring physical labs or being physically in the room with the proffessor. I know a guy who got his advanced math degree over the internet, his class used collaberation software to hold classes and there was plenty of interaction. In fact, in that kind of environment people are a lot more likely to speak up than in a classroom with people watching.
I think it's foolish to think ALL degrees will be even possible online, let alone that they will replace brick-and-mortar schools. There are too many degrees that absolutely require a physical presence. However, there are a heck of a lot of degrees that really don't require a physical presence, and those may well be offered online-only at some point. I think 11 years is a little hopeful though.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
It also proves beyond a doubt that you could withstand an average length of association requiring the constant navigation of byzantine and plainly absurd, arbitrary and obstructing policies and procedures involving intensely egomaniacal petty infighting sadists and their droves of attendant sycophants competing for favor all the while being forced into insane and conflicting schedules designed explicitly to prevent you from accomplishing anything, yet degree in hand, you've proven that somehow you did and still had the composure to not get arrested at your commencement in a cathartic act of domestic terrorism.
Your average high-school dropout realizes this is insane and simply wanders off in frustration, but someone with a degree has been highly conditioned to see it as acceptable, normal human behavior...which, sadly, it is.
Why is this such a difficult thing for people to understand?
Because I'm a scientist. Students need to spend time outside of lectures, in the labs. It's where they learn the point of all the stuff taught in lectures - it's where we teach the craft. I enjoy giving my students something to calculate, and then measure - I try to choose something that is really difficult to calculate accurately. Sometimes the 'edge effects' dominate, and it's just quicker/more reliable to measure. A good scientist will spot those, but it only comes with practice. Tracking down the causes of those 'edge effects' takes a lot of years experience. Something you really don't get over the internet.