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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Colleges and universities don't just provide information.
They also provide physical proximity to classmates of the opposite sex.
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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?
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?
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.
You shouldn't give credence to someone with a degree from the University of Mom's Basement. Nor should you give credence to someone with a degree from anywhere else. ... ...
Personally, I kind of look down on people who stay in school.
So what you're saying is that you were never quite able to finish that degree.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
College isn't just for the lazy, but also for the mediocre ... and anyone who intends to get into research.
Would mod you up if I had any points left. I think you have the right idea. I'm in research and I don't think any amount of "seeing the real world" would have helped train me in the rigor that my physical science profession requires (12-14hrs a day 6-7 days a week of enjoyable work is rarer than rare in the so-called "real world". Besides, in this day and age, people who think academic work (again: in the hard sciences) is bookworm material are out of their freaking mind. Running a lab (or even being partly responsible for one - as a lowly grad student) requires a scary breadth and depth in your skill set (I like to think of it as having to be "jack of all trades and master of a few", to turn that hoary old cliche on its head :P)
In my experience, people who tout 'real-world' experience are usually masters of resume-padding and self-delusion (not necessarily referring to GP :P). This is ESPECIALLY true in professions that don't deal with tangible end-products (this doesn't include software :P - to me that is tangible).
The only things I DON'T have to deal with (that the real world has aplenty) is boredom with repetitive tasks that a monkey could perform and dealing with assholes (imagine how many abrasive idiots a customer service rep has to deal with). If that's the real world, you can have it. Life is too short to WILLFULLY embrace such madness :P and then further, to brag about it as so many people are wont to do. Celebs are the worst at this - just because a famous actor or basketball player or a self-made millionaire "made it" in the real world doesn't mean that everyone can or should drop out of school and have silly adventures just so they have good stories to tell at parties :P. Prodigies are usually sensible enough to know when their accomplishments are due to their special skills and when they are simply due to lots of hard work (and then again, sometimes they aren't and give out advice that would lead average people to drop out of high school/college like lemmings off a cliff - in pursuit of that indefinable ... coolness is the only word for it ... associated with successful people.
Besides, that leads me to another thing that tfa missed entirely: you can't do research "at a distance". And only a "real-worlder" would believe that research is the domicile of grad students and postdocs and professors. These days, more and more undergrads participate to a greater extent than ever in research (without necessarily staying in academia afterward) so that brick and mortar universities are gaining MORE relevance in the hard sciences.
Disclaimer: please don't give me counterexamples OUTSIDE the hard sciences - I have nothing to say about that. I've stated my domain of interest (for this post) very clearly. A final observation: as society gets ever more technical, the BASIC level of competence that a potential employee needs (in a field that is at least a little complex) simply becomes too deep to be tested for at the interview level. In essence, a college degree (in theory) attests to THIS basic competence. Now, you may well argue (sometimes justly) whether this is satisfied in practice. I don't disagree. But that is not a reason to throw the entire thing away and start "going with our gut" every time we want to hire someone. That only works in cheap novels and sappy movies :P.