All through elementary school and high school, we are offered a myriad of courses in order to give us broad fundamental skills and to expose us to as much of an variety as possible.
But, beyond basic skills and experience, school teaches us how to deal with other people, how to intellectually relate to and cooperate with others, how to ask and answer questions.
College or university is no different. Now, you choose what you want to study, but you do is in an environment that focusses on honing your academic skills to the standards of true academia.
Course materials are a great information resource, nothing more. I think people in the technology industries tend to lose sight of this more than in other fields because so much detailed information is required in understanding all the different technologies out there. (Ironically, that is how people who have read all the manuals who mistake information for education.) Few people will read information sources just for the hell of it. That's where teachers come in: they provide focus and enthusiasm. Nothing is better for getting through a really boring course that a great professor. The teacher motivates, guides, and assesses: a very important job.
But ultimately--and I think this is what they believe at MIT and why they're not too concerned about giving the material away for free--degrees are about learning how to apply the fundamental academic skills to the chosen material, and obtaining one is about interacting in an academic environment.
But, in the real world, if all a person needs is certification for administering an Apache web server, then give them a certification course (information). If they need to understand an Apache web server, give them an university course (education).
Maybe the spirit is right, but the application is wrong. Converging technology is great: wireless networking is a good step, digital cameras are super for a lot of people, and, heck, I bet a whole bunch of people would love to listen to mp3s on their cellphone.
The cappy stuff is spawned when you choose to mix a myriad of technologies just becuase you can.
I think the key to having successful personal digital devices is two-fold:
1. Integrate only mature technologies. (eg. a cellphone and a decent mp3 player--lot's of songs, battery power, play list capabilities). All the integrated technologies have to be useful unto themselves--right now, no one would buy a digital camera of the quality they have in these phones.
2. Modularity. I think that as we develop the technology to integrate all the digital elements of our lives, we should develop them in a way that we can choose how to piece them together (like our PC's are now and like we design our (good) software).
That's my two cents. Now, I'm just going to wait for my cellphone-laptop-digitalTVreceiver-taser-GPS-light sabre.
It's interesting that they put in a Limosine Liberal, but no Conservative Fat Cat (even though he's most likely to have an extra $1 billion laying around).
It would probably go something like this:
put $500 million into the lobby for tobacco and oil;
Slashdot Mirror
All through elementary school and high school, we are offered a myriad of courses in order to give us broad fundamental skills and to expose us to as much of an variety as possible.
But, beyond basic skills and experience, school teaches us how to deal with other people, how to intellectually relate to and cooperate with others, how to ask and answer questions.
College or university is no different. Now, you choose what you want to study, but you do is in an environment that focusses on honing your academic skills to the standards of true academia.
Course materials are a great information resource, nothing more. I think people in the technology industries tend to lose sight of this more than in other fields because so much detailed information is required in understanding all the different technologies out there. (Ironically, that is how people who have read all the manuals who mistake information for education.) Few people will read information sources just for the hell of it. That's where teachers come in: they provide focus and enthusiasm. Nothing is better for getting through a really boring course that a great professor. The teacher motivates, guides, and assesses: a very important job.
But ultimately--and I think this is what they believe at MIT and why they're not too concerned about giving the material away for free--degrees are about learning how to apply the fundamental academic skills to the chosen material, and obtaining one is about interacting in an academic environment.
But, in the real world, if all a person needs is certification for administering an Apache web server, then give them a certification course (information). If they need to understand an Apache web server, give them an university course (education).
Maybe the spirit is right, but the application is wrong. Converging technology is great: wireless networking is a good step, digital cameras are super for a lot of people, and, heck, I bet a whole bunch of people would love to listen to mp3s on their cellphone.
The cappy stuff is spawned when you choose to mix a myriad of technologies just becuase you can. I think the key to having successful personal digital devices is two-fold:
1. Integrate only mature technologies. (eg. a cellphone and a decent mp3 player--lot's of songs, battery power, play list capabilities). All the integrated technologies have to be useful unto themselves--right now, no one would buy a digital camera of the quality they have in these phones.
2. Modularity. I think that as we develop the technology to integrate all the digital elements of our lives, we should develop them in a way that we can choose how to piece them together (like our PC's are now and like we design our (good) software).
That's my two cents. Now, I'm just going to wait for my cellphone-laptop-digitalTVreceiver-taser-GPS-light sabre.
Saw the trailer on Apple a couple weeks ago. Pretty cool. Very long, too.
It's interesting that they put in a Limosine Liberal, but no Conservative Fat Cat (even though he's most likely to have an extra $1 billion laying around).
It would probably go something like this:
...oh. Wait. Now I see why they didn't include him...