Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models?

An anonymous reader writes "Educational badges, which seem like a playful riff on Boy Scout skill patches, pose an existential crisis for colleges and universities. If students can collect credentials from MITx and Khan Academy and other free Web sites, why go to a campus?"

Comments

Portfolios

[Deus.1.01]

Is the only badge relevant for self teaching.

Re:Portfolios

[lightknight]

How good can you be if you haven't accidentally created a plague or two?

Re:Portfolios

[hedwards]

That's easy, just become a henchman, there's significant room for promotion as the evil genius keeps offing his #2 and chances are there's all manner of laboratory equipment to get used to when you're using it to fry secret agents.

Re:Portfolios

[Genda]

In the mid 90s I worked with several good friends on a research project investigating the sexually based dimorphism of the human corpus collosum. It not only looked at the dimorphism among a large Stanford based MRI baseline data set, but also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.) The project was not affiliated with any school or industrial organization. It was a fascinating project.

Re:Portfolios

[aeoo]

also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.)

Instead of "explained by" I think you mean "matched with" or "correlated with."

Re:Portfolios

[datavirtue]

and next....English class.

the problem is profit

[lemur3]

I think the idea of models for education that have been around for a long while apparently arent meeting the peoples needs.. the popularity of khan and mitx is just but one example...

the 'threat' of people learning more stuff only exists if your business relies on selling people an education..

for everyone else its good news!

Re:the problem is profit

[Moryath]

Actually, not so much. Setting aside diploma mills like DeVry, University of Phoenix, etc, it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.

On the flipside, yes, there are certain areas of the economy where "college" has taken over the role previously taken by what were called "trade schools", and there's the inevitable degree-creep that's been caused by the brainless HR sector constantly requiring more and more of a checklist of "must have this, must have that" to apply for jobs that has come with the computerization era. The idea of "all jobs require a college degree", whereas 30 years ago it was a HS diploma, or the number of jobs now requiring a Master's rather than a mere Associate's or Bachelor's degree, all pushed even further by a complete refusal by companies to actually provide on-the-job training, instead insisting that all new hires should drop in like made-to-order cogs on day one.

Khan and MITx look a lot to me like the Idiocracy approach to "education" - one size fits all, just take your multiple-guess test and keep taking it till you get your cert.

Re:the problem is profit

[ohnocitizen]

The question becomes what level of education does our society want to support, and how do we support teachers to make that possible? If we want a college level of education for our populace, then we really need to rethink things. The traditional approach is highly problematic - it doesn't reach everyone, it is very expensive... Then again, this new method as theory is not a sustainable way to support teachers, and leaves out in person instruction. (In practice one would expected these classes are actually used in "real-world" classes to supplement instruction).

Re:the problem is profit

[aurizon]

A university like MIT, Yale etc teach and produce graduates with skills that are respected and an employer can ask for a transcript and rely on it to show the merit of the person in these courses. Diploma mills also grant detailed transcripts, but gain little respect. Is the transition from diploma mill to university possible? - Yes, over a time, by following accreditation procedures, usually governed by the state any school can elevate itself.
Now we have Khan and MITx, one of which grew from the earth overnight and the other which sprang from MIT. Both teach courses, but Khan has none of the past reputation of MIT(x), so how is the employer to gauge the relative merits of two applicants, one from MITx and one from Khan?
It is apparent that MITx is self referential, based on many decades of fame. Khan is also self referential - but from a course history that can be as little as a few months. So how can they be compared? Years ago, a system was crafted to deal with the problem various colleges had to rate their student intake. How to cull the goofs from a slacker high school from the worthy students from a high school with a good curriculum. I am of course referring to the SAT tests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT . These have served for decades to serve as such a screen. The SAT also has more limited test areas for expertise in restricted areas. I think that a third party, like SAT or ??, can fill this test void, and charge a fee for this service. As time goes by, employers will go through a learning process whereby MITx, Khan academy et al 'badges' will accrue merit, especially of these academies invoke a test procedure that tests the person (and not some online hired test passer), possibly in harmony with SAT et al, because they will see the need for this sort of process. Sadly, the cost will accrue to the student - who else?, and this will impact the freeness that is their hallmark. Of course, MITX and Khan can produce a dossier of 1000 questions on each of their courses that an employer can use to self test applicants, say on the 50 that fit is best? These banks of questions will make it to the web and people will take it to self assess and study to pass. All this is good.

Re:the problem is profit

[Belial6]

The reason so many jobs require college degrees instead of a HS diploma is because traditional education has failed through the HS level. The reason that you are not seeing the requirement of Masters degrees instead of Associate's or Bachelor's is because the "Reputable" colleges have become the same kind of paper mills as DeVry, Phoenix, etc...

Online education isn't the Idiocracy approach. Traditional eduction has become the Idiocracy education.

A major piece of this conversation that gets completely ignored is that there are different levels of education. Look at all of the comments in any thread concerning Khan Academy , and people start talking about how they don't want to be operated on by someone who got their medical degree online, or drive on a bridge by someone who got their engineering degree online. The conversation should start with "Does a 6 year old learn math better via Khan Academy or in a traditional 1st grade classroom?" This should then be asked for each year until you get to the end. I can tell you that my 7 year old child gets about the same amount of education from 6 hours of Khan Academy as traditional education would provide in 6 months.

Re:the problem is profit

[i.r.id10t]

Of course, it would help if a high school diploma meant more than "johnny showed up every day and didn't distract anyone" .... seriously. When I graduated HS in '89, the polices were changed so that as long as you showed up every day, didn't cause a disturbance, didn't sleep, and didn't die you would get a 60... get 1 point anywhere on anything, and you now have a greater than 60 average so you pass...

I teach a intro to linux class at a community college (whoops... just college. we offer 4 year degrees now in a couple of subjects so legally we can't be called community anymore) and I have students that can't follow a set of 10 directions... that a secretary for the English department can (because I have her test stuff like this). They can't think critically, problem solve on their own, apply past experience to current problems, or even do a decent google search.

So yeah, at this point I'd say an AA or AS degree is what a HS diploma was 30 years ago...

Re:the problem is profit

[AK Marc]

If you haven't taken a class where you are learning Russian History in a class of 8 from a PhD in Russian literature who is "published" as a translator of 10 or so historical non-fiction works from Russian to English (and in the class, it is so informal and discussion-oriented that everyone calls everyone else by their first name), then you didn't get an education, you got a degree. And yes, that was at a university where I was also in a Chem 101 (literally) with 500+ students and IDs were checked at all test days because there's no way the lecturer would ever notice a cheater without papers checked. You just have to sometimes look hard for the actually educational classes.

Re:the problem is profit

[jellomizer]

It fits better in an economics model. The basic principal is the more education you have the more you will get paid.
So as more people try to get a better education the more schools will try to meet demmand. So standards get lowered because a 2 year degree is needed for a job that was previously needed for a high school deploma. So the education taught would be the equlivlant of a high school deploma. A 4 year is about what you get in a 2 year, a masters is about the same as a 4 year. A phd is the same as a masters. And you need post PHD work to get the same level of work a PHD use to get.

The problem isn't as much lower school standards but students know how to handle the system to get degrees without learning as much. You find professors who grade easier, take classes on information you already know, or classes where you just need to work hard at but not necessarily learn from. They space out classes so they can take a class they think as too hard as pass/fail per semester as to not hinder their GPA.
When going to other schools say to take a masters you need at least a 3.0 GPA. That means colleges can no longer grade their students the old way. By giving grades based on the statistics of the rest of the class. So going to grad school if you got a 2.5 from Harvard University would look worse then a 3.0 from University of Hartford.

If a student went to college for an education there would a lot less A students and a lot more C and B students as they will want to take classes in areas they are not good at as to really expand their minds.

Re:the problem is profit

[Anne Thwacks]

require people to know what they're doing in order to get the job?

How are you going to get politicians to vote for that?

Re:the problem is profit

[Ambassador Kosh]

Many in-person university classes are exactly what you said is wrong with online classes. Look at Organic Chemistry for instance, that one was even criticized by DARPA recently. Organic Chemistry classes in USA university are pretty much universally taught as memorization classes and tested that way also. Doing them online is no different then doing them in person.

Last semester I had a class which did extensive online homework and it was not multiple choice at all. It was for a chemical engineering class on material and energy balances and we used something called sapling. For that you had to actually figure out the answer and enter them into the system and it was right or wrong based on how close it was to the actual answer. It worked extremely well and it helped learning since if you got it wrong it told you why it was wrong and you could try again.

On the flip side I had a math class on differential equations and in that class maybe 1/3 of the homework or less was graded and many people ended up doing a certain type of problem wrong until an exam came since that type of problem had never been graded so they had no idea they had it wrong.

Online courses and homework that are instantly computer graded offer a lot of advantages over poor university courses since you get instant feedback and so you don't learn the wrong way of solving the problem. Also you have to admit these online courses don't have to be better then good university courses they have to be better then poor university courses and that is a very low bar to meet since most university courses are poor.

I would take good videos and online homework and tests based on understanding not memorization and not multiple choice any day over most university courses. If they where cheaper I would probably just do them for all courses since the odds of getting a good class is fairly low and at least these online classes would have a pretty standard level of quality.

Also don't knock the khan academy until you have used it. I found it pretty essential on my differential equations class since it was done so poorly. The book did a poor job of teaching the materials and so did the instructor so without those online screencasts that class would have been vastly more difficult.

Not optimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

The usual purpose of attending college isn't to learn the material, so much as being adequately credentialed for consideration for employment. So the question is, will the people doing the hiring consider them as sufficient alternatives to a traditional degree.

I suspect they'll stay slightly less influential than industry certifications, which stand well below degrees from accredited universities.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

I tentatively agree, but I think the entrance of "big-name" universities into this experiment potentially changes things, if they keep standards up. Anything with the name MIT or Stanford associated with it has some amount of built-in cachet. I think that even if it's not a regular degree, but Stanford-with-an-asterisk, employers, and especially smaller and less rigid employers like we often find in technology, will be willing to consider it if Stanford does a reasonable job with it.

I can especially imagine employers with specific needs taking it seriously, e.g. someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.

Re:Not optimistic.

[frisket]

That's the nub of it. From the article:

After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned.

I think the author has made a fundamentally false assumption here. "Traditional college diplomas" are not meant to contain the details of what the recipient learned. That's what a Transcript is for. A degree certifies that you have learned how to learn; that you know how to read and analyse, how to find information and sift it for fact and fiction, how to write what you have learned clearly and concisely, and how to support your argument by pointing at what others have done. It also certifies that you have done all this within a specific discipline, so there is an implication that you know the basics of your chosen field[s].

That may certainly provide adequate credentials for some kinds of employment. But it excludes the large number of specialist institutions whose business is to teach the basics and practicalities of a discipline, without the same level of emphasis on the other skills.

Unfortunately it also excludes a significant number of institutions who accept payment to allow a student to graduate without proper checks on whether they have or have not achieved anything of worth, based on other aspects of the individual's social background. As degrees-for-cash become more prevalent, whether state-sponsored or privately-funded, it is becoming more difficult to distinguish this class of graduate from the first.

Re:Not optimistic.

[vlm]

someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.

Yeah the problem for Mr Badge is that badge collection is all that is need to do the job, but the unemployed guy with a masters in math also applied for the same job, along with 10 new B.S. 4-year grads and 5 guys with 3 years of experience, and that "retired" EE prof with a PHD who was denied tenure. And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.

I'm not thinking the depths of the second great depression is all that great of a time to roll this idea out.

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...

Re:Not optimistic.

[Trepidity]

For large employers, there's also the meta-skill of showing some amount of self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies. A degree is in part a certification that you've successfully followed a series of requirements and tasks for four years. That's harder to replicate in these DIY educational approaches, because not being huge and bureaucratic is sort of the whole point of the alternative approaches.

Re:Not optimistic.

[vlm]

Thats awesome for the (number of people in silly valley in the field)/(number of people in USA) * 100 percent of the population. In other words just about no one.

Similar, I could move to one of the oil/gas production hubs, and be one of the 10 or so McDonalds employees making more than $20/hr.

It's just not relevant to most of the population.

Re:Not optimistic.

[quintus_horatius]

In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...

It sounds like you don't think much of people that don't have degrees, as if they're hired only to fill a chair until a properly-educated person comes along. Please explain why college degree should confer higher value than real, visible work. As an employer I prefer to see what someone can really do, regardless of their papers. As an employee, I would rather show off the things I'm capable of (and interested in) now, not how much I can borrow/spend on having someone else spoon-feed concepts to me.

Don't get me wrong, I went to college and I think an education is important. I find that intelligent people that don't attend college often lack the critical thinking skills that come with a well-rounded scholarly experience, which is a waste of their potential. They miss the real point of an education, which is to teach you how to think. I just believe that there is frequently too much emphasis on papers, not enough on actual capability. Maybe some of the "startups" think that too.

Re:Not optimistic.

[AliasMarlowe]

And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.

No matter how good those liars are, they have little or no chance... against the nepotist applicant.

Safe for a while

[Anrego]

I really don't know if this is a good thing. While I think I would have loved the idea while I was in school, looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.

If left to my own devices, I would have spent every hour of my free time on a computer. Luckily I had friends who dragged me to various things.. and begrudgingly I actually had a lot of fun.

In other words, I think education is only part of the education process. Social development is the other big part. Technical skills are great, but in todays work environment everything is team driven and being able to get along with people is almost (or even more) important than being able to crank out killer code.

Re:Safe for a while

[JimBobJoe]

looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.

And that's true. Putting it in more stark terms, a lot of higher education is really just a lifestyle for 19 year olds. That's not a bad thing, hell, I've lived that life far longer than one human should.

But colleges make this lifestyle absurdly expensive, when all you really need to do is set aside a neighborhood for 19 year olds.

Re:Safe for a while

[Janek Kozicki]

short version for tl;dr:

- let's allow online universities
- so we have fewer lazy students at the universities
- students who actually come to study are served much better, and really have interaction with teachers, who suddenly have more time

Getting a degree

[AG the other]

The most important thing in getting a degree is getting that ticket punched. There are jobs that just won't even talk to a person that doesn't have a degree.
My degree is in music but in interviews I've never been asked what my degree was in. I've often been asked if I have a degree.

Re:Getting a degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the point was you hired him - possibly overlooking a better employee who didn't "get his ticket punched".

It's a pretty nasty system, as you just illustrated.

easy answer

[decora]

because if you go to a campus, then your education costs will increase. that means you need to take out a bigger student loan. this, in turn, means that some hedge fund or investment bank can resell your student loan to someone else, take a huge profit, and retire to Fiji.

what you need to understand, is that all of those perks of on campus life are very important to the economy of Fiji.

Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... from someone who says, "I don't actually have an MD, but I do have a 'Great Listener' badge!"?

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[jedidiah]

Now you've stumbled onto a situation where the fancy bit of paper doesn't cut it. Yeah, you heard me right. A doctor isn't going to get to cut on you just because they have that bit of paper. They also have to go through a sort of traditional apprenticeship. The education itself isn't considered enough.

So an MD is kind of a bad example.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Fair enough. Okay, try applying to a residency program with your "Great Listener badge" and see how far you get.

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[geminidomino]

As opposed to the first MD in his post, who pretty much did that but without listening to said problems?

What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Anonymous Coward]

See the subject line. I'm an Eagle Scout and I'll acknowledge that that badge doesn't really account to much in the technical world, but I must protest to the idea that Boy Scout badges are worthless. At least the merit badge booklets can provide a decent crash-course session on many subjects for less than $5.

Being an Eagle Scout got me my first few jobs. The First Aid and knot-tying skills I learned have continued to be useful throughout my adult life. Your "playfull riff" is offensive, sir anonymous reader.

Re:What's wrong with Boy Scout badges?

[Ethanol-fueled]

Being an Eagle Scout also entitles enlistees in the Army, Navy, and Air Force to start as E-2's instead of E-1's.

HR is the only important actor

[vlm]

The only important actor in this transaction is HR. No one else cares about degrees or badges or whatever, all that matters is skill.
Someone wake me when "HR" as a group cares more about badges than, say, 2 year associates degrees (which they do not care about at all).
Or perhaps certifications. For decades my local 2-yr tech school has offered endless certs for IT and pretty much anything else they can train over a weekend.
Even vendor certs. What is my old CCNA or CCNP worth? Well, I guess it would make a nice placemat under a drink at a restaurant.

Never mind whether online schools work.

[__aaltlg1547]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/education/students-of-virtual-schools-are-lagging-in-proficiency.html

The number of students in virtual schools run by educational management organizations rose sharply last year, according to a new report being published Friday, and far fewer of them are proving proficient on standardized tests compared with their peers in other privately managed charter schools and in traditional public schools.

http://www.kunc.org/post/report-finds-more-virtual-k-12-students-are-falling-behind

The number of private companies operating full-time online K-12 schools in Colorado and other states continues to grow. Meantime, student performance is declining. That’s according to a new report by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado.

These articles pertain to K-12 schools but I think the dynamic behind why these schools don't work very well can be generalized. Probably nothing works as well as direct face-to-face instruction.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[betterunixthanunix]

Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.

This is the way it is supposed to be. Universities are not vocational schools, and a degree in computer science is not a professional certification. People forgot that a long time ago...

really, why..

[Lumpy]

Honestly, my wife has asked that lately. a "degree" is useless as tits on a bull outside of science or education. Mostly because Business degrees are a complete joke.

She has a Bachelors in accounting and a CPA license. does not make her get a job any easier. In fact it hinders her right now, because companies dont want to pay a realistic wage that a BS and CPA would ask for. They are more interested in paying $25,900-$33,500 to a 21 year old kid that just got their AS and will take the peanuts pay happily.

Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools

[Paul Fernhout]

Great points. See also my: http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."

See also these collections of links i put together:
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005379.html
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/005584.html
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/006005.html

Re:I'd go a step further

[betterunixthanunix]

High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?

That depends on whether or not our high school education system is actually teaching people how to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, it is not, and moreover jobs in America are becoming so demanding that people require additional training just to perform their job.

My view is this: the focus on vocational training has to become secondary. America is supposed to be a democracy, and in order for a democracy to function we need people who can read newspapers and understand important political issues. College should be about educating our citizens and making our democracy strong, not just about training people for high tech jobs. People can go to technical schools to get technical training, and the entire college system should be restructured to be friendlier to non-matriculated and part-time students.

Why should mechanics and truck drivers be less educated than investors and managers? We need people to do all of the above, and in theory we want people from all walks of life to be able to participate in democratic processes in a meaningful way.

DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mill

[Joe_Dragon]

And if any thing tech / IT needs trade like learning.

As in IT

CS is very top level and has a over load of theory.

Certs are vender based and some are ones that you can cram for and pass with no idea on how to do the real work.

Tech school and trades is the right fit with some real apprenticeships / interns (that are not office boys and ones the get paid and do real work with a learning part to it)

Re:Let's be honest about it....

[betterunixthanunix]

Here is an idea for evolution: stop treating bachelor's (and increasingly master's) degrees as professional certifications. People who want an in-depth understanding of a given field should major in that field, but for people who just want to get a job, how about this plan:

1. Go to a trade school and get a professional certification.
2. At night, take interesting courses at a university -- in particular, courses in political science, economics, basics about technology (not those courses about how to use Word and Excel -- courses about how computers work, how the Internet works, etc.), courses in science, etc.
3. Be an educated citizen who can identify politicians that support the things you support, now that you understand the issues facing our society
4. Profit (for society, now that democracy works because people know what they want)

Universities should become friendlier to part-time and non-matriculated students, working people who want to get a decent educated while support a family. Rather than being institutions where kids can party at their parents' expense, they should be institutions where adults can be serious about scholarship.

Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[tepples]

Published, peer-reviewed papers generally result from some sort of experiment. But I'm under the impression that some subjects are so tightly regulated that just doing experiments by themselves is illegal without a license. Only people who already have a degree from an incumbent accredited institution can get a license to supervise experiments in person. Case in point: the decline of chemistry sets after the strengthening of toy safety standards and the public awareness of the illicit manufacture of stimulant drugs.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[dances with elks]

I can only speak for my experience in the UK... Animal experiments require a home office licence to comply with various parts on animal welfare regulation. Chemistry and physics experiments do not (as far as I'm aware, as a university researcher) require any licencing. But on a more practical level, chemical companies such as Sigma-Aldrich or Alfa-Aesar would be very reluctant to ship to a non university/company address, and I have had to sign declarations for certain specific chemicals promising not to synthesize drugs with them. Interestingly one of the most annoying things to deal with is buying ethanol, due to stupid customs and excise rules.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Anne Thwacks]

Chemistry and physics experiments do not

Based on what I learned at uni, in the UK, if you actually know any physics or chemistry, you can be arrested for "having information likely to be of use to a terrorist".

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[datavirtue]

If I were conducting DNA research on how to turn on immortality genes, and I'm not, I wouldn't broadcast that fact to the public. In fact, I would keep it completely secret. The last thing our government wants is the average Joe living for 1000 years. The same goes for any healing technology.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Ihmhi]

Knowing what information may be considered to be information likely to be of use to a terrorist is information likely to be of use to a terrorist. Please report to your local police station and turn yourself in.

Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes

[Ihmhi]

I did a similar study myself last New Year's. I'll be writing a peer-reviewed Facebook post on it. It's called "How much Johnnie Walker Black do I need to drink to sleep through the idiots setting off M-80s in the street out in front of my house?" The results were inconclusive.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Anonymous Coward]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who [...] provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective

Can't this be done online with software such as Slash or phpBB?

No. In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls. Moderation and reputation systems are not an effective substitute.

It depends upon your goals ...

[MacTO]

If you're looking to work for someone else, then you need to prove yourself to them. Sometimes you do that through portfolios. Sometimes you do that through work experience. Sometimes you do that through references. And yes, sometimes you do that through accreditation.

If you're the type of person who wants to start their own business though, these forms of independent learning can be nearly as good as schooling. Of course you would have to go a little beyond hitting the books, since there is definitely a human element to learning.

Of course, the people who are most successful at learning this way are probably self-starters to begin with and probably already know that.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[tepples]

In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls.

They also, unfortunately, use peer pressure to weed out bright students who just happen to have impaired mobility or an autism spectrum disorder.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[icebraining]

"Install" software is insignificant, the question is who's actually answering the questions and discussing the topics. Khan is free because as a broadcast medium, it requires very few knowledgeable people for each student. If you make it two way, you suddenly need the same number of teachers as a regular college.

Re:violating the Americans with Disabilities Act,

[__aagujc9792]

As a result of the 1971 SCOTUS decision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co it's extremely dangerous to an employer to use perceived aptitude in hiring decisions. The gap has been filled by wasting 4+ years out of the life of all kinds of people (with no interest in learning per se) who need a certificate of aptitude that is immune to discrimination lawsuits. The badges are designed to serve the same need. Let competition roll!

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem is that Universities are marketing it as something akin to professional certification (and many businesses are treating it as something akin to professional certification).

why?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

How about the ability to actually build a machine that actually produces semiconductors, and I certainly got my money out of the program.

~$30K for materials and `$20K budget for the lab equipment including things like hydrogen purifier, mass-flow controller, incinerators, custom bell-jars, UV light source, and other assorted materials and equipment. Then there's access to a machine shop to cut angle iron, a scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffraction system, all in the same building of the university.

And this was just undergrad work.

Now how are MIT Online and Khan going to replace that?

Re:I'd go a step further

[ksemlerK]

I was taught how to read, write, do arithmetic, be aware of world events, care about the US constitution, be aware of modern political events, and also practical skills that are usable in the workforce through the School-to-Work program in WA state. I interned at a locksmith, and an audio installation shop. I have learned valuble skills from these internships that I still use to this day. (I work at a auto dealer here in town)

We are not a democracy, and never have been. "god" willing, we never will be either. In a democracy, 51% of the population can kill 49% of the population by a simple vote. We are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. The word "Democracy" appears nowhere in the US constitution. Hell, back in high school, I used to read the Constitution and history book for fun. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, "A democracy is where three wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for dinner, a republic is where the lamb has a gun".

As to your question about why should mechanics and truck drivers being less educated; I contend that they are equally as educated. They are trained in skills that you do not have, and there is a market demand for those skills. Furthermore, to be a certified ASE automotive technician, it requires ongoing education in automotive repair. Vehicle technology changes rapidly, and a technician needs to be kept up to date regarding the latest changes.

Why is a "well rounded education" limited to knowing about shit you'll never use in the real world, such as Socrates, advanced calculus, Cantonese III, The History of Rock and Roll, underwater french basket weaving, etc? Why aren't practical skills such as automotive engine repair, Small engine repair and electricity, plumbing, wood craftsmanship, etc, (which are practical skills), considered part of a "well-rounded education"?

Personalized AND video AND accredited

[bd580slashdot]

Khan Academy isn't one size fits all. They partner with real schools and teachers too. The idea is to get more one on one time for students and teachers by shifting the one size fits all portion that is usually presentation time in a class to at home video homework and interactive adaptive exercises. Then when the student is stuck (and software helps ID this) the teacher has more time for personal interaction because the class time isn't being used for one size fits all presentation. Also Western Governor's University is fully accredited. There's face to face video and live proctoring and so on. Flat rate tuition and you can challenge for credits at any time. So you can study with free online stuff until you are proficient and then challenge for full accreditation at a flat rate. Pretty fuckin' cool, huh?

Education vs professional qualification

[Colin Smith]

The professions typically have a couple of years of professional qualifications to pass before going into practice. This is over and above a good education.

Education is not and should never be, professional qualification. They are entirely different things.

The problem seems to be that many professions, and HR "professionals" don't seem to realise they should be providing "badges and certificates" for professional qualifications.

A degree is not a professional qualification, it is and should be for education. MIT Online and Khan Academy are educational tools, again, not professional qualifications.

and ?

[unity100]

it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.

youre talking as if there does not happen such discussions online. i guess you have never been to a civil, science oriented community forum ? and you are talking as if the only online education methods are khan and mitx. the fact that such discussion forums, communities, mailing lists have existed since arpanet escapes your horizon.

are you sure that you are qualified to participate in discussions pertaining to how science education should be, with your narrow horizon ?

Some things cannot be taught by video

[msobkow]

There is no substitute for classroom discussion refereed by a Professor of Philosophy when you're learning how to construct an argument.

There is no substitute for classroom discussion about history and literature, or any other subject where the course is about forming and expressing opinions, not learning what the "right" answer is.

As those two items are the most critical things I felt I got out of my 4 year BScAdv in Computer Science, I definitely do not feel online education is a threat to the universities, though it is a game-changing supplement to the traditional university or college environment.

Gamification Fanboyism

[stephanruby]

Two weeks ago it was the iPad, today it's gamification. I wonder what it is going to be tomorrow?

Colleges and Universities have survived and adapted to the introduction of the Guttenberg press, the public library, the personal computer, and even the Internet, but now that the concept of gamification is around -- their days are numbered? This claim doesn't make a lot of sense.

This statement implies that (1) colleges and universities can not copy/adapt the practice themselves, (2) that the online concept of badges can not be cheated or gamed, (3) that the concept of gamification is going to be equally effective in all areas of education and on all web sites, and (4) that gamification is so freaking effective and disruptive -- it's probably even more disruptive than the printing press itself -- it's going to take over the World !!

To all of that, I say BS.

Colleges and universities are indeed in an existential crisis right now (which no doubt will shape them in different ways), but this was the case long before youtube or gamification even came along.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[dwarfking]

Colleges and Universities (at least in the US) exist to support colleges, universities and professors. And I have heard former professors say the same thing, not just people like me.

The university system does not prepare students for work in the real world, it simply teaches them some basic theory. It isn't until a person gets out of school and goes into an apprenticeship model (depending on the career path) that students learn anything useful. The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed. All the degree shows is the candidate is willing to waste 4-5 years in a classroom.

I hit a glass ceiling 10 years ago, the company I worked at (where I was considered one of, if not the top, technical leader) said I could not get promoted without a degree, so I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file. I had to show them during labs. And these were the same people that would apply for jobs I had posted claiming they had Master Degrees and were deserving of higher salaries. The head of the Computer Science department asked if I would consider coming back and teaching after I graduated.

What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[CrimsonAvenger]

The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed.

Wasn't the college system that did this.

Once upon a time, you apply for a job, you get handed an aptitude test which they use to decide if you can learn the job well enough to be worth the bother.

Then, someone decides aptitude tests are discriminatory (note that many of them probably were), so it became illegal/immoral to use them for the purposes intended.

So...we switched to using the high school diploma as an indicator that you could learn well enough to be worth the bother.

Segue forward a few decades, high school diplomas became meaningless when "social promotion" became the norm (note that it isn't universally used even yet), so they upgraded to college diplomas as an indicator that you can learn.

Now, with more and more remedial (what should have been high-school/middle-school) courses to be found in college, we're drifting slowly toward "you need an MS/MA to be considered for this entry-level job"....

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[datavirtue]

Troll badge, now that is AN honor!

Re:Gamification Fanboyism

[AthanasiusKircher]

What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.

Absolutely. College is not supposed to be a glorified trade school. I repeat: college is not supposed to be a glorified trade school.

Centuries ago, college existed to teach the "liberal arts." You were training for a specific trade, but rather being generally educated in a wide variety of knowledge and ideas. Exposure to lots of things that are unfamiliar will always be of a greater long-term usefulness than a bunch of specific facts, especially when you aren't using those facts for anything at the moment (as most students aren't while in college). If you have had to confront lots of problems and questions and ideas from a lot of unfamiliar territory, you might be better prepared to deal with new problems when you go out into the real world.

In the past couple centuries, college retained that function but also became a sort of credentialing vehicle for the rich -- somewhere for young men to go and hopefully learn something broader while "sowing their wild oats" and whatever else young men wanted to do when they had lots of money.

Then, in the past 50 years or so, the liberal arts were all but forgotten at most schools. Sure, there are still gen ed requirements, but very few students -- rich or poor -- take them seriously. The "major" became more important than the broad education.

In essence, college became a glorified trade school. Except, it wasn't (and isn't) a very good one, because rather than acting like a trade school, it held over all of the teaching and learning and class models from the old system for broader education, where direct application of individual facts was less important.

If you want to be able to do something practical, on the job training is by far better than sitting in a classroom or doing some sort of abstract assignment. If you want to broaden your mind and open yourself up to wider possibilities and great potential for problem-solving and thinking about deeper problems, focusing only on one area is probably not the best use of your time as a young person.

Essentially, we took the glorified credentialing/partying system of the rich of past generations, and now we've given modern young people a place to continue to act like kids while forcing information on them in an ineffective abstract way... but then we assume they are credentialed and competent for practical work.

It's all stupid.

Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi

[blackraven14250]

I've also had a far different experience with professors at DeVry. They're far more available than the local county college professors IME, and have largely been willing to help with problems outside of the set curriculum they're given to actually teach (for most of the full time faculty and the more passionate part timers). In fact, most of the professors are kinda bummed that they have to follow such a strict set of topics for class lectures due to the limited time and top-down curriculum structuring, but love being asked the kinds of questions that aren't quite directly related to what they're supposed to teach.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[rtb61]

Kahn also does not have to validate the credentials of the individual to ensure the person so names i actually capable of functioning in the speciality that the education qualification would indicate.

I don't see any problem with on-line as long as the final testing and qualification is done in person and verified.

So free learning and pay for written, oral and practical testing. Free is important to keep out the right wing rip off merchants, whose scam is to charge government to provide pretend education for a year and then not give a crap about the result (they'll be faking numbers of students, pretending late drop outs, faking tests results). Of course if students fail the testing they can always pay for individual or small group tutoring in the areas they failed and retake the tests.

Once it is online, you only need 'one' school, and lessons plans written 'once' for each element of each subject of each course. So one of nor recurring payment for work produced with copyright owned by government and then distributed free by government. After all it would be supremely crazily insane to contract out online educations thousands upon thousands of times for identical efforts to be repeated year in and year out, now that would be blatant corruption and in affect sending out million dollar welfare checks to education copyright scam artists.

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Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi

[KillaGouge]

I agree as well. I am currently going to DeVry and it is nice to have teachers that are actually doing the job during the day, then coming and teaching at night. You get a better idea of how everything is playing out in the real world, rather than a professor who only teaches and hasn't been in the field for who knows how long. I do enjoy the discussion topics as you get to interact with people in different areas of the country who still have their own opinions rather than the localized opinions you get when you live and go to school at a campus. Now DeVry is also moving to use WebEx meetings for live lectures for online only classes, which is a great help for the higher level classes, and if I happen to not be available for the lecture I can always review it later rather than just having to rely on notes somebody else took.

Re:If Khan or MITx were to install Slash

[Xeranar]

Actually yes, I am justifying a professor moving on for the sake of the other students because in college it is less hand-holding and more learning. Those with functional autism have the right to seek ou
t aid from the professor or learning support but don't have the right to drag the class down. As a whole though I never support bullying and I have yet to visibly see it at the University I teach at. I see awkward body language and have had students complain to me about the one or two students who do to a mental deficiency weren't able to remain quiet but they never made any attempt to harm them or adversely interact with them.

Course you're just an AC, so why am I even replying?

PS: College is a right of entrance, passing is the privilege.