next »

[big_giant_head]

That's no slam against Fort Hays State, by the way. 

[misterx]

But here's the thing: I am so, so, so glad I didn't.  What I got from being _in a classroom_ with intelligent, interested, prepared students (they do exist!) and witty, brilliant, quick-minded, well-prepared professors and instructors...I just cannot imagine that happening in an online environment. 

A classroom is not just a platform for delivering content.  We have a different name for those: we call them "books."  From what I have seen so far, the online environment cannot (yet) compete with a roomful of good students and an engaged professor.

If I had a daughter and could afford it, I'd send her to Harvard over Phoenix.  Heck, I'd send her to Fort Hays State over Phoenix.

Those criticisnig on-line universities take the path of criticising what
they see TODAY TODAY TODAY!

There are students in the pipeline who are learning the  network as if it were a telephone.

The world will change.  The on-line's will adapt and adopt anythnig
they want.

The profit from those universities last year was over 10 BILLION.
Ignoring that is like suicide.

I did not say I would send my daughter to Phoenix TODAY.
But in 15 years, I would.

And as for witty, quick minded professors?
I do not pay tuition to be entertained. 
I pay to learn.  Time is getting shorter... life is at a faster pace.

We have to think NOT what was, but what is coming.

[kishter]

Misterx, you do make many good points.   

And as for witty, quick minded professors?
I do not pay tuition to be entertained.
I pay to learn.  Time is getting shorter... life is at a faster pace.

But "wit" and "quickmindedness" are not only or even primarily about entertainment; they are just two examples of the skills in argumentation, logic, critical thinking, and the like that a traditional classroom environment can provide, today, in ways that the online environment still cannot (and, I would guess, may never be able to provide).

I love the idea of the roaming laboratory, by the way. 

[arugula]

Phoenix Online is not cheap.  The tuition is more expensive than state schools and close to (in some cases more than) the price of many good private schools.

>>>I have yet to hear a single argument why I should spend $50,000
per year to send my daughter to Harvard (in 15 years), when I can spend a tenth of that to send her to Phoenix?

[misterx]

Misterx, you do make many good points.  

And as for witty, quick minded professors?
I do not pay tuition to be entertained.
I pay to learn.  Time is getting shorter... life is at a faster pace.

But "wit" and "quickmindedness" are not only or even primarily about entertainment; they are just two examples of the skills in argumentation, logic, critical thinking, and the like that a traditional classroom environment can provide, today, in ways that the online environment still cannot (and, I would guess, may never be able to provide).

I love the idea of the roaming laboratory, by the way. 

I get the feeling, from reading what you write, that you likely manifest the traits of wit and quick-mindedness.  This is good.  So let me ask you.  Did you learn it from listening to a TA?  Or did you
learn it from reading everyone from Voltaire to Molly Ivans (Peace be upon her)?

"The Paper Chase" is dried up and withered.

And Lo!  I read between the lines... sense you are not defensive... you sense the same.  And this
is electronic... not in a classroom.  My! How much does come across electronically.

And how about those kids learning it when they are just, what? 5 years old?

I like to roam the labs too!  In my case, computer labs.  But I see them and realize that in about three
more years, the students will not need them... they will have laptops.  I gather you like the smell of
formaldehyd?  I do too... brings back memories of when I was a bio major.   I also recall the smell
of books on their first printing... but that, too, will become dust.

[bio_prof_]

You make very good points, misterx, and if your lab truck proves lucrative, I have developed many labs in a variety of subjects and have an outstanding CV. You know where to find me (big grin).

Robotics has already replaced lab tedium, but misses the crucial aspect of a skilled technician: troubleshooting. Robots only work when things go right. A human skilled in the theory and practice of the procedure is irreplaceable.

Again... only intending to play the devil...

So, I am a company wanting to hire a graduating student in bio.
(Yes, yes, I hate that academia is whoring itself to companies... but
that is the way it is--let's be blunt, shall we?)...
Do I hire: 1) a student who has had lots of lab classes at Big Dinosaur U. or 2) a student who took Troubleshooting 101 on-line...
learned the theory... and is willing to intern to learn the details.

yes. you are right, troubleshooting is important.  But then the only
thing a University should teach is the  basics...  The rest- you learn from experience in the company, but not on line and not in a classroom.


So while the objection is valid in theory, in practice it is a non-issue.

Again... I cannot see why I should pay Harvard level tuition.
(do their professors really grade the students in those classes anyway?  or is it teaching assistants?)

You've never poured a sequencing gel, have you?

[misterx]

You've never poured a sequencing gel, have you?

No... but if this, then, remains the last vestiage of the only argument about the pending
dominance of on-line universities... then the Harvard's are, indeed, dying dinosaurs.

[twofish]

No... but if this, then, remains the last vestiage of the only argument about the pending
dominance of on-line universities... then the Harvard's are, indeed, dying dinosaurs.

The fact that you need laboratory experience can be solved by having a student do internships in a laboratory.  There are a number of social and technological reasons why online haven't overwhelmed traditional universities yet, but none of them are unsurmountable.

The big thing that Harvard has going for it is marketing and money.  Marketing and money are things that you can overcome.

I've been thinking about what MIT will be like thirty years from now, and I think that what will happen is that the Institute will focus at research and hands-on teaching, but that the concept of "undergraduate admissions" will be obsolete.  Students will be on campus for intensive one month internships and conferences, and a lot of the students on campus will actually be getting coursework from other places. 

The other idea is that conferences like the American Astronomical Society will also have informal schools associated with it.  You get your degree online, but one of the requirements is that you must attend professional society conferences.  Once you get lots of online students in one place, this will serve as an informal school.

[twofish]

But "wit" and "quickmindedness" are not only or even primarily about entertainment; they are just two examples of the skills in argumentation, logic, critical thinking, and the like that a traditional classroom environment can provide, today, in ways that the online environment still cannot (and, I would guess, may never be able to provide).

One problem with comparisons is that they usually aren't apples to apples comparisons.
Most traditional classrooms *don't* have people think on their feet.  Also, it's possible to have people interact with wit and quickmindedness over a distance.  The technology and social relations may not be there right now, but both are changing very rapidly.

[twofish]

I like to roam the labs too!  In my case, computer labs.  But I see them and realize that in about three
more years, the students will not need them... they will have laptops.  I gather you like the smell of
formaldehyd?  I do too... brings back memories of when I was a bio major.   I also recall the smell
of books on their first printing... but that, too, will become dust.

There are some things that require hands-on experience.  You just are not going to be able to learn how to ride a bike online.  You have to sit on one and ride.

However.....

The interesting thing about the internet is that it facilitates physical interaction.  The computer hasn't killed the book.  In fact with amazon.com and half.com it has made it easier to get books.  Computers have vastly increased the amount of paper in the office, since they make it easier to print things out.  I think similarly, the internet will facilitate face to face interaction.  The image I have is that thirty years from now, some physics undergraduate will need to take a lab course.  So they get online, find out what labs are open, fly over to the lab, do their lab work and fly home.

One problem with online education is that when people think online education they think of the big for-profits like University of Phoenix.  There are some serious structural problems with University of Phoenix that comes with their educational model that aren't inherent in online education (namely, they strongly discourage interaction and community building between adjuncts because if adjuncts started talking with each other, they'd soon take over the university).  But at some point, some online university will encourage this sort of community interaction among faculty, and at that point Harvard and MIT should be worried, (and MIT already is).

[twofish]

We have to think NOT what was, but what is coming.

One of the things that I've been doing is trying to figure out what an online undergraduate physics degree would look like.  The idea is that you'd get

1) courseware from MIT
2) accreditation from Thomas Edison State College or Charter Oak
3) social networks from Wikiversity/Wikipedia
4) laboratory experience from the NSF research education for undergraduates
5) curriculum approval from some professional society like AAS

I should point out that one of the reasons I'm doing this is that I'm outside of traditional academia, and so have no vested interest in preserving it.  I mentioned in another thread that revolutions happen when there are more smart people outside the system than in it, and this does seem to be the case in academia. 

The technology is all there.  The bottleneck is getting the social networks and social relationships together. 

The one that I do think is obsolete is the idea that you'd get everything from one institution.

[twofish]

Harvard as it currently exists will probably be obsolete in a generation, but once the crisis comes, I'm pretty sure that it will find a place in the new order.  (The Extension school will probably take over.)

Curiously, I think it is University of Phoenix that is going through a crisis right now, and for it to overcome that crisis, I think it has to start developing strong faculty communities and strong alumni communities, and that will require some major decisions which the administration may or may not be willing to make.  It doesn't matter in the grand scheme.  If they don't make it, someone else will. 

University of Phoenix and Harvards are both for-profits in reality, but they have different business models.  UoP collects the profits upfront, whereas Harvard makes it money through government research grants and alumni donations. 

Since I'm an MIT alumni, I've been thinking more about how MIT will function in the age of online and distance learning, which MIT helped bring about.  Open courseware is a good first step, but what they really need to do is to get rid of the non-commercial restriction on some of the OCW texts, so that people can remix the texts and develop communities around them.  Right now, the licensing makes it impossible to put OCW texts on wikipedia where they then can be edited by the world.  If a few faculty could be convinced to remove the non-commercial restriction on their texts, then these could serve as the nucleus for learning communities on wikipedia and wikiversity.

The second thing that MIT really needs to do is to create an Academic Liasion Office which is similar to the Industrial Liasion Office and allows MIT to partner both formally and informally with other academic institutions.  MIT needs to go to the community colleges, high schools, SLAC's, big public universities, vo-tech schools and figure out what it can do that would be mutually beneficial.  The two key assets that MIT has are the "Enterprise Forums" which allows anyone to effectively be an MIT alumni, and the UROP undergraduate research program.  I do suspect that in thirty years, the only instruction that MIT provides onsite will be undergraduate research of some form or another.

Those are the first steps.  What I think are the main "seeds" that will drive MIT in the early 21st century are the informal courses that they give alumni.  These need to be opened up to everyone, and that will get MIT one foot out of the 18-21 bracket.  Eventually, I think there will be something more or less like open admission at MIT.  More accurately, the concept of "admissions" is going to be quaint and obsolete, since MIT is going to be providing a huge number of unbundled educational services.  Some you can get immediately online.  Others, you have to talk to someone, but there will be no central gatekeeper.

Trying to get this stuff done shows some of the interesting limitations of online interaction.  Basically in order to sell these ideas, I have to get physically in front of someone, but in order to figure who I need to talk to can't be done without online interaction, and with online interaction, I can find people who don't think I am crazy to be trying to do what I'm doing.  What I'm expecting that everything that I'm thinking about is going to be more or less ignored until there is something close to a crisis, in which case people start getting desperate.

Tactically, the thing that I'm going to lobby for in the next year or two is the idea that MIT really, really needs to start partnerships with other academic institutions to get anything done with the energy initiative.  This will hopefully create useful relationships that will come in handy when the crisis hits.

[bio_prof_]

You've never poured a sequencing gel, have you?

No... but if this, then, remains the last vestiage of the only argument about the pending
dominance of on-line universities... then the Harvard's are, indeed, dying dinosaurs.

It is, actually, only the beginning. However, I'm not interested in explaining it further.  Good luck.

[misterx]

You've never poured a sequencing gel, have you?

No... but if this, then, remains the last vestiage of the only argument about the pending
dominance of on-line universities... then the Harvard's are, indeed, dying dinosaurs.

It is, actually, only the beginning. However, I'm not interested in explaining it further.  Good luck.

Ah... this must be an example of that classroom wit.
"There is more, but I will not tell you and I will take my toys and go play somewhere else."
Oh... the dinosaur is bellowing.

[bio_prof_]

You've never poured a sequencing gel, have you?

No... but if this, then, remains the last vestiage of the only argument about the pending
dominance of on-line universities... then the Harvard's are, indeed, dying dinosaurs.

It is, actually, only the beginning. However, I'm not interested in explaining it further.  Good luck.

Ah... this must be an example of that classroom wit.
"There is more, but I will not tell you and I will take my toys and go play somewhere else."
Oh... the dinosaur is bellowing.

Come back when you've met the enrollment criteria and have paid you tuition. I'd be happy to educate you.