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Forget University — Use the Web For Education, Says Gates
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates attended the Techonomy conference earlier this week, and had quite a bold statement to make about the future of education. He believes the Web is where people will be learning within a few years, not colleges and university. During his chat, he said, 'Five years from now on the web for free you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.'"
Of course, the efficacy of online learning is still in question; some studies have shown a measurable benefit to being physically present in a classroom. Still, online education can clearly reach a much wider range of students. Reader nbauman sent in a related story about MIT's OpenCourseWare, which is finding success in unexpected ways: "50% of visitors self-identified as independent learners unaffiliated with a university." The article also mentions a situation in which a pair of Haitian natives used OCW to get the electrical engineering knowledge they needed to build solar-powered lights that have been deployed in many remote towns and villages.
While I used to often boast about having learned at least as much on the net as I did in class, the net is no substitution for a formal education. There is value to the structure of coursework, to the demands of learning material and being tested on it, and to requirement to learn to think and apply logic. There is also value in the advise and teaching of professors, as well as the social and academic interaction you have with other students.
The Internet is a wonderful tool, and may become something much greater, but it is certainly no replacement for a university education just yet.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The only reason I go to college is to get the paper. =/
how about getting rid of need BS or MS for level 1 jobs and most IT jobs. The need BS or MS just to get on the help desktop is pushing way to many people to go to a Univerity rack up the bills and hope to get a $10 /h IT job and at the same it be overqualified for mcdonalds.
I saw this an hour ago, and it came to mind immediately upon seeing the headline and brief.
Brick-and-Mortar schools have been engaged in an 'arms race' for students this past decade, fueled by easy credit and enabled by low academic standards. It's enabled them to offer all kinds of nice perks that are expensive and not central to education, and it has also allowed many universities to grow top-heavy with administrators.
My degree as a mechanical engineer allowed me to get a job with a substantial starting salary, which was necessary to cover my substantial student loans. I came out okay after a few years of aggressively paying down my debt, but there are thousands of folks who are in just as deep as I used to be, with a degree that doesn't open up well-paying fields to them. Though I don't regret the path I took (my life is good), I wouldn't use debt if I had to do it again. There are other ways (in-state, scholarships, military, etc.)
Anyway, from the article:
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Gates dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft, so seeing him say that university isn't necessary is a little unsurprising.
Anybody want my mod points?
Keep in mind who we're talking about when it comes to predictions here.
There's absolutely no doubt that the web is already changing education and revolutionizing it. But there's no substitute for actually going to a class in person... with other learners and a teacher in front of you... for much of your formal education.
Anyone can read the Iliad on their own, or teach themselves HTML, or read the words of critics or teachers on a screen. But if you're missing the give and take of the classroom, then you're missing out on vital elements of an education.
"He that teaches himself has a fool for his master" - Ben Franklin
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
There's so little taught in a university course that I couldn't read off a public library.
But here's the deal, I don't think the epistemological quest for knowledge motivates me. I learn purely as a way of solving the problems I have. Sometimes real life doesn't even let me near interesting problems, because the cost of failure (and the risk) is too high.
College and teachers have worked as a nice cycle breaker of that situation. They've thrown problems at me, which have taken weeks to solve (or groups of us, weeks to solve). Some of those have seemed pointless, but most of the stuff I remember still have been the ones that I've had to dig up again for some reason or the other (calculus, for instance).
Essentially, without teachers, I'd have never really sat down and banged on a problem for a week - mostly to avoid having the shame of going back without an answer.
On the other hand, I've had at least a few teachers who've cared enough about teaching me than making sure of their paycheck. I don't think the world needs less of those. And I don't think you (or anybody) should stop learning because they're out of uni.
(goes back to reading wikipedia on RCU data structures)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
There is also another important benefit, that is really easy to understand if you just read a few science, and especially healthcare stories on Slashdot. Just reading the associated comments should generally be sufficient to realize how exquisitely important it is to have some sort of a moderating filter of an "academic community" of professionals. Yes it stifles dissent a bit, and yes there are other downsides that aim to preserve status quo. But the penalties we pay for having such a system pale in comparison to the fact that the upcoming professionals are in general guided to the more reliable sources, and are at least partially shielded from the self-important Charybdis of the "internet knowledge".
Yes, he is right - all the information is out there on the Internet... somewhere. But where you need peer review, and a structured learning environment, is for the Sisyphean task of filtering out the noise... and the amount of noise has gone up exponentially with the advent of the internet and the complete absence of barriers to publication. It's easy enough to spend weeks, months, years on the Internet, perusing websites that are dedicated to supporting strictly one's own point of view, and have it become an essential part of one's worldview. That's how we would up with Vaccines/Autism and HIV-doesn't-cause-AIDS crowd.
Furthermore, for all its failures, the academic environment does TEACH the students the skills they will need to acquire to be able to interpret primary data on their own, which is a far more important role, compared to teaching the students facts.
If we let the Internet loose on the population to an even greater extent, I shudder to think of the kind of idiocracy we'll be living in, just one generation from now.
There are two types of people in this world, the self learners and those that require a structured if not forced educational environment.
HR uses type #2 as a gateway, real world management demands type #1. The bigger the company the worse the disconnect. Look at how many companies provide no training or at best, on the job training for the new technologies they roll out, yet demand the new hires have a 4 year degree and 10 years of experience with a 2 year old technology. Only folks with inside connections or BS artists can pass the filter, causing failure. Solution to the failure can't be pinned on "important" people, must come up with a nonjudgmental soution... How about tighter, higher requirements of course, leading to the spiral down the drain.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I noticed that in most modern cultures, having a lot of money seems to imply automatically that they are right. "Sure, he killed those children, but he's a billionaire." or "Well, this statement seems like bollocks, but it comes from one of the wealthiest persons in the world, so we should pay attention." Problem is, Gates really has no authority regarding higher education or any kind of career that leads to creativity. He's a very successful businessman, that's all. You can make a lot of money just by manipulating powerful people and making the necessary contacts.
Now, if some of the established and creative scientists, engineers or physicians had made this assertion about education, I might listen. But Gates? What does his authority stand on, apart from his money?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I learn much better and faster from books than lectures. The material in books can be refined greatly and precisely, and digested at whatever rate I can manage. Watching someone lecture always leaves me feeling that I could be getting many times the knowledge using a more efficient delivery mechanism.
As a troublemaker born into a family of educators, I declare that you are full of shit.
In this land, parents try and get away with doing as little work as possible. Spineless administrators (the PHB's of academia) roll over to every little threat of a lawsuit because innocent little Johnny, always texting his buddies mid-class and distracting everybody else, needs his cell phone tethered to him at all times in case of a terrorist attack.
Is it the educator's fault that you and your kids are pieces of shit? Don't have kids then, asshole.
Besides, higher education is only about coursework the same way international travel is only about airports...
Would he like to tell the world how it should approach physical therapy based on the one time he sprained his ankle?
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
As a person who has been engaged in both tradition university and online courses, I can tell you that neither is perfect, but I would have to lean towards Mr. Gates statement. The coursework is similarly structured, there is still interaction between Profs and students, and also student-student interaction. You do lack the physical connection, and therefore the social network you might build, but for a non traditional student like myself, this really has fairly little value in the first place. One of the beauties of online work is that with non-semester based work, you can work at your own pace. So my international studies class I can whiz through, while I can take the extra time and effort on math that my feeble brain requires. To me it is an exercise in efficiency, but at the same time discipline. I find it hard to believe many of the 17-21 year olds who populate the majority of university have the amount of discipline to dedicate themselves to this format. So I think online courses can and will evolve but mostly for non-traditional students. One thing I struggle with though is the disconnect between the thirst for knowledge vs the practical knowledge for the profession I am currently undertaking.
PS. Things like Opencoursewar and the Khan academy have some superior classes!
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
You don't just learn social skills by interacting with others. Talking through a problem with someone else is often far more effective than trying to solve it on your own. Something you say may trigger an idea in the other person, which then triggers another idea in you, and so on.
I've got a MSc in comp sci, entry level jobs start at $17/hr...while I get paid $25/hr, under the table, to mow lawns & do landscaping. Yes, I am the worlds most overqualified gardener : p
I'd love to see how many people Microsoft's HR department hired last year who have a completely OCW-based education. This statement will be newsworthy when he makes his firm walk the walk.
The bottomline is that HR departments are mindless bureaucratic drones. And bureaucracies need pieces of papers to do their thinking for them -- which is why degrees and certifications instead of actual talent will always win in corporate America. (Albeit not in entrepreneurial America -- which Microsoft hasn't been in a long, long time. It's odd that Gates still seems to think of himself as an entrepreneur, though.) And HR people care more about the admissions process than what you learn when you are there, because that determines who the best is.
As far as I cat tell, online lectures are good for three groups: (1) homeschooled highschoolers who have surpassed their parents; (2) for those who can't understand their professors because of their thick accents; and/or (3) students who just have bad profs.
At universities that care about undergraduate education, lectures are only a tiny part of the puzzle. Access to better lectures would certainly help a lot of people. But a university composed of online lectures is just going to be the best crappy university, not the best university. Bill Gates knows nothing about education, it's unfortunate that his vast fortune once again gives him the power to appear authoritative on any subject he feels like mouthing off about.
but don't discard what he says just because he's rich
You're distorting my words. I don't dismiss Gates because he's rich. I dismiss him because he has no authority to talk about this issue - not from his achievements nor his life. To demonstrate more clearly my position, I'll say that I would be very interested in what Warren Buffet has to say about higher education, since he's not only an educated and accomplished economist; he's an economist that has actually contributed original and thought to his field. He's not just a billionaire, he's a creative economist that points his finger to all (or most) that is wrong with modern corporations, banking and investment.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Actually, your link doesn't poke a hole in his argument, it supports it. Gates dropped out and went on to become incredibly wealthy. Gates did NOT complete their coursework. He did NOT get the professor interaction. He did not show competency in all of the areas the University claims are important.
Bringing Gates in to speak at Harvard is a little like some chick inviting an old boyfriend to her wedding to give a speech explaining to her husband how to perform sexual techniques that will please her in bed because the old boyfriend was hung so much larger than the groom that the groom will never be able to compete no matter how hard he tries. The people at Harvard that asked Gates to speak were just being jerks.
Even though it was surely unintentional, they were basically rubbing the graduates noses in the fact that they spent all that money and time for nothing if they want to be like this incredibly successful guy.
On top of that, it was incredibly unethical for Harvard to give him a degree, as it is clearly an attempt take credit for work they did not do. So, that should be the take away from their actions. Harvard shows their students how to cheat. OK, that may be a little harsh, but only just a little since they did cheat.
The fact he doesn't have a Ph.D is misleading. He has a bunch of bachelor and masters degrees. Pretty darn difficult ones if you ask me. Perhaps he saw more value in learning a bunch of related subjects pretty well instead of specializing. Regardless, he is definitely a product of the traditional university system.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
This is the guy who completely failed to predict the effect the internet would have on society... In 1995.
And he's a college dropout.
He a businessman. He's damn good at that. If he wants to suggest marketing strategies I'm all ears.
You are not overqualified, unless gardening requires knowledge of comp.sci. A degree does not make you an expert in every area.
He has a point in that paying $50,000 yearly tuition to attend large lectures where the professor just reads his notes isn't a good deal for students. This is why one of the key measures of educational quality is the degree to which the classroom experience moves *away* from this model. If you're paying that much for tuition, you expect to have small classes and a lot of interaction among professors, TAs, and students.
So the fact that you can provide this inferior educational experience cheaply online isn't an argument for more online learning, so much as it is an illustration of how many universities need to improve teaching and stop giving students the shaft when it comes to their needs vs. the professors' research.
When I was in grad school, the ability to speak to a professor, who was an acknowledged expert in his field, ask questions and bounce ideas off of him were what I really paid for.
Then your professor can idle on your school's IRC server and do what you paid for over instant /msg.
Right. Let me guess - you don't know many professors, do you?
Seriously, IRC or other electronic communications mediums are no substitute for the interaction you get face - to face. You simply cannot get the same level of social interaction and feedback that you get face to face. Not to mention the ability to walk to the lab and try something, real time, under the guidance of an expert.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Gates was able to get a substantial loan from his parents as well as introduced to the right people at IBM. Most of us will never have that kind of easy access to connections and money. Gates was a good businessman, but he would never have made it big like he did without access to the things that an upper class upbringing can provide.
Good luck writing some indented code or a long mathematical formula involving integrals or fractions over IRC, let alone digging through some books and sharing excerpts or doing something physical like a lab experiment.