What Happens When the "Sharing Economy" Meets Higher Education

jyosim writes Professors now make big bucks teaching in educational marketplaces. Sites that let anyone teach courses might just change the way people think about the value of education, about the nature of expertise, and about what teaching is worth. From the article: "When Nick Walter graduated with an information-systems degree, he intended to start his own tech company to create the next big iPhone app, as so many twenty-somethings have tried in recent years. But then something dawned on him: He could make more money teaching. He set up a free account on a site called Udemy, which lets anyone teach online courses and charge for them, and then uploaded a series of lecture videos and exercises showing other people how to make apps. Walter had no experience teaching, no affiliation with a university or accredited educational institution, and—by his own admission—no particular gifts as a computer-science student. But that doesn’t matter to Udemy, or to any of a number of similar platforms that have emerged in recent years."

Comments

Goodbye college football

[wcrowe]

Forty years ago there were people out there, sci-fi writers and others, who envisioned that this was how all education would eventually be done, from elementary school all the way through college. They seemed to sense that the television and computer and telephone would somehow be put together to create a learning environment. The entire idea sounded fantastic to me.

When I got out of high school I joined the Navy and went through avionics school. The school was computer-driven and self-paced, and I loved it. For once I didn't have to be held back in classes that had to be taught to the level of the lowest common denominator. I remember thinking that I wish all education was like this.

Now the technology is here to create these kind of learning environments for nearly everyone, and it's affordable. I think that traditional universities, and even high schools and elementary schools, will eventually go away. We're seeing the beginnings of that now.

If I live long enough, I suppose I will miss college football, but in the long run, this is the best thing for education.

Re:Goodbye college football

[hibiki_r]

Schools will probably not go away quickly, as there is plenty of value in learning socialization, and kids will not learn that by sitting at home in front of a computer.

Schools are moving towards having some of that kind of learning though. Take, for instance, elementary school math. You have a bunch of kids coming in at K or 1st grade, which have drastically different experience and skill levels. Some kids will barely be able to count to 10, and read small numbers. Others enter K understanding multiplication and division. And yet traditionally, we put them in the same class, and teach them math together.

Now we have computer systems that can throw math exercises and lessons to kids, individualized to their skill level. So when the kindergartener that should be in 4th grade, seems to never miss at counting and number recognition, he just keeps getting more challenging material, until he's quickly doing 4th grade math.

Re:No experience teaching no particular gift for i

[rockmuelle]

I have a Ph.D. and am now fully qualified to teach university courses. The funny thing about that is that in the course of getting my Ph.D., I never once had to take a course on how to teach or even teach/TA a course (I was a research assistant the whole time I was in grad school).

I'm an outlier on not having to teach/TA a course in grad school (I did TA an undergrad, though) , but I don't know of any graduate programs that require actual training for teaching.

The person cited in the summary is just as qualified as most Ph.D.s. :)

As for the big bucks, two of my good friends from grad school (both computer scientists) spent their first two years working for free waiting for tenure track positions to open up. They get decent salaries now, but over the course of their careers, it's not what I'd call big bucks.

-Chris