March 12, 2008
A Future Without Courses?
With all the information on the Internet, and with all the ways that students can connect with experts via Web 2.0 tools, who needs traditional courses? George Siemens, an education-technology consultant, argues that the day may soon come when the course outlives its usefulness.
“When content and conversations are distributed, we no longer need to have courses in their current iteration,” he says in a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on his Web site. “We can instead create a global classroom with distributed learners from virtually every corner of the world participating in learning experiences, providing learning resources, creating learning resources, and playing a peer-mentoring role to others through the process.”
It’s a provocative point, but he offers no clear path to that future. And he concedes that some form of accreditation would be needed to give a seal of approval to all that distributed, self-guided learning. That’s a caveat as big as Harvard’s main library.
The argument seems a bit like the pronouncements that come, from time to time, predicting the death of the book. It is a fun thought exercise, even if the book never does die. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Wednesday March 12, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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This is garbage.
— mlm Mar 12, 12:31 PM #
It’s always fun to have someoe rattle the cages of those self-absorbed professors who like to play god before a naive and captive audience.
Geeks and free-thinkers “UNITE!”
— K.Jones Mar 12, 01:27 PM #
Many “self-absorbed professors,” especially those of us in science and engineering, do not “like to play god before a naive and captive audience,” although we can and do. But even Mr. Boynton knew that education transfers much more than data or information. It also conveys cultural and human values and habits not easily held in technology pathways.
Thus, we need a new word to describe the inevitable next step in technological progress that began when the papyrus-and-reed generation stopped singing stories to each other. I think “autocredentialization” will be more accurate than “education” and potentially more elegant in the ear of the 21st Century savage.
— S. Britchky Mar 12, 02:24 PM #
At least for the foreseeable future I’d rather not have to rely on surgeons who have learned their trade in a global classroom where everyone learns from everyone else. Same thing for pilots of any plane I fly on.
— S. Woodson Mar 12, 11:12 PM #
A few decades ago McLuhan predicted the end of the Gutenberg era and the arrival of the paperless office. Right. Since the introduction of the PC, the use of paper has gone through the ceiling, and as Publishers Weekly put it, about twenty years ago, we’ve all come to realize that the paperless office makes as much sense as the paperless bathroom.
New technologies supplement existing ones. Movies didn’t wipe out live theater. TV didn’t wipe out movies. Cable didn’t wipe out networks (well, let’s see now. . . .) Anyway, my undergrad daughter now does her math practice and homework online, and it sure makes sense. It’s not hard to think of subjects where the live, in-class interaction is and will be irreplicable and irreplaceable.
But in some cases at least, the technology is a godsend. Well, okay, a scientistsend.
— Dan Kirklin Mar 13, 08:42 AM #
Shouldn’t the litmus test of expertise for any so called professional be how they perform not how or where they learn?
— cliff Mar 13, 08:44 AM #
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
—Mark Twain
— David Mar 13, 10:01 AM #
Excellent point, Dan (#5)! I bet tons of people at the beginning of movies, especially “talkies”, thought that they would end live theatre. I also have never bought into the whole paperless thing.
— Rich Mar 13, 10:55 AM #
The point would be to define what is meant by a learning environment. That is, if we stipulate certain criteria including access to practising mentors for example, this would be very beneficial for students.
— Ruth Mar 13, 12:03 PM #
Why do Americans consistently feel the need to replace real, human interaction with detached interactions through technology? There is no doubt in my mind that much can be gained from opening education to a global level, but at what cost? Practitioners know that in our residence hall rooms we have students sitting in the same room “speaking” to one another from a computer. We wonder why our students are slow to develop coping skills or struggle interacting with other students. It’s probably because they have never had to; computers have done the work for them. Bottom line: I’m not sure if online only is the best option for our students.
— SG Mar 13, 04:04 PM #
It is an utopian idea.
— kvc Mar 13, 05:57 PM #
@SG Like it or not, the distinction between “real, human interaction” and “detached interactions through technology” is going to become very fuzzy in the next 10 years. Already, well-designed online learning environments can provide a much higher degree of human interaction than what happens in a typical large lecture hall.
— Jim Mar 14, 02:40 PM #
There will come a day—sooner than you think— when some of the best minds of our generation are not human at all. There will come a day when cloned brains can perpetuate a mind for eternity. There will come a day when recovered DNA will ressurect the greatest minds of the past. There will come a day when learning will happen by direct data transfer from transmitter to brain wiring. Ultimately, there will come a day when the most effective learning will be accomplished through color, tone, and dance.
— marci Mar 14, 03:29 PM #
Hi all – thanks for the discussion. If you’re interested, I’ve slightly extended the discussion on my connectivism blog
— George Siemens Mar 14, 04:39 PM #
It’s very easy to imagine a world without traditional classrooms for many areas of study, but it’s a little more difficult to imagine a world without courses. For most courses of study, it doesn’t really matter where you’re located, or how you communicate. Things like learning objectives and standards do matter, and that’s where the course comes in.
— Tracy G. Mar 14, 05:08 PM #
Ok, having viewed the PPT slides and listened to the presentation, I can say that I think Siemen’s view is actually very forward thinking, quite doable and even desirable for many learners. But what he describes is not really a world without courses, it is instead a world without courses in their “current iteration.” Siemens envisions courses in which content is not organized beforehand. Instead, all of it is distributed. Motivated students will go out and get it, organize it for themselves, and so on. This is not only doable, but it seems like it would work better for a lot of students—especially adult professionals who are seeking further education in their particular area—than the traditional view of courses. In any event, it’s not a future without courses. It’s a future without courses as we now know them.
— Tracy G. Mar 14, 05:32 PM #
The article is simply saying what a lot of us in education fervently believe; the current model of one teacher, many students teaches nothing more than passivity in students. Nobody ever learns anything well or useful unless they have some input into the topic and the mode of learning. Connectivity offers that power to the student and re-situates the responsibility for their learning. It does not need to be a teacher’s job to ‘make’ students learn; it needs to be a student’s job to take control with the help of a teacher. It not only WILL happen, it IS happening! As many have said, it’s just a matter of waiting for the powers that be to realise that new methods of accreditation are needed.
— Kieran Mar 14, 09:30 PM #