<p>This is consistent with what I have heard from the president of EdX and folks behind Udacity.
I think this is an exciting development. Kids will no longer have to attend some New England prep school, find cures for undiscovered diseases and rescue AIDS-stricken orphans from warlords in Timbuk2 to gain admission to venues where the very best come to teach.</p>
<p>From that article: "While acknowledging that Google’s college recruits aren’t equipped to contribute immediately, he said, “They are phenomenal employees after the training program.”</p>
<p>Don’t send flowers and light up any candles yet. Employers need people with skills that will make them trainable and college acts as a centripetal force that moves students to a trainable middle both socially and academically.</p>
<p>Some life forms that have existed since the age of dinosaurs are still thriving. </p>
<p>Consider the source- a business publication. There is so much more to life than that. “How much did you learn in college” So much more than just the skills helpful in a job or career. A good education includes so much that is not tangible. I don’t believe the best teachers have left the bricks and mortar schools for online venues. The Business School is only a very small fraction of most colleges/universities. For the rest of us the on campus college model still works best. Real interaction with peers is never available online. A person can be self taught but can’t get the discussions with others via computer (nuances, interruptions and multiple voices et al).</p>
<p>No one can take away the experiences or knowledge gained from college. That is regardless of one’s income or value to society. People are still social animals- a computer can’t replicate the same experiences.</p>
<p>Learning is social. It’s not just absorbing lecture content from a professor. I have enjoyed listening to CDs from the Teaching Company in the past but I know that it’s not the same as the learning experiences I had at my LAC in my college days. Those CDs, along with MOOCs etc., are but a pale simulacrum of the stimulation and camaraderie of a real classroom at a great school.</p>
<p>NJSue, I held the same views as you do regarding online education. However, based on what I have seen and heard during the past year or so, I believe that a major disruption is beginning to take place like we have never seen before. </p>
<p>Hear what Marc Andreessen has to say about online education (starting at ~21:35):
[Fireside</a> Chat with Marc Andreessen](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>No one is discounting the social aspect. It is very common to hear people say that the best part of their college experience was outside the classroom. If that is the case then is it not possible to have social settings that augment online learning? Do people have to sit face-to-face all the time to have meaningful dialogues?</p>
<p>“Best” in what way? A very large percentage of college students commute to college and do not have much of a college-centered social life. Does this mean that the actual education they get from the courses taken is worth less?</p>
<p>Some of you are ignoring the fact that the majority of college students are not doing college in the traditional, 4 year residential mode. In fact, the majority of college students are over 22.</p>
<p>I have taken online courses from our state university and from a decent private college, and have found discussions to be far superior to what happens in class. Every student has to “discuss” as part of the weekly grade: this means no quiet students hiding in the back row. And discussions can be complex in a way only written discussions can. I would also contend that writing skills develop exponentially from the required written discussions.</p>
<p>That said, there is a potential for online courses to be robotic and unsatisfying, without the proper presence of a teacher, or online peer capable of contributing in an interesting way.</p>
<p>I tried a Coursera poetry class with thousands of participants and for me it was chaotic; I withdrew. I do feel it is necessary to feel that you “know” your fellow online students, just as people here on CC do on occasion. However, I also have seen postings for community meetings of Coursera students to discuss in person, an interesting permutation.</p>
<p>I also love the sentiment that kids should not go to college unless they want to be scholars. I totally agree with that. And there would be fewer glassy-eyed, hung-over students there because they have to, for a “career,” and no debt, and fewer adjunct professors on food stamps. So many would be better off if the college mania would die down. Leave it for kids with genuine intellectual interests, and do job training in other ways.</p>
<p>As for college producing better adults: I disagree again, and that is insulting to the countless young people who cannot go to college for one reason or another, but work. Many are far more mature and less self-focused than their on-campus peers. And again, the statement that “college produces better adults” ignores the fact that most college students already ARE adults.</p>
<p>The “very best” professors are not going to decide to give up their brick and mortar institutions and real students and colleagues in order to teach online. That’s what I think. They may design curricula for MOOCs but they aren’t the ones who are going to be responding to the work the students do. Students who think that enrolling in an online course with a curriculum designed by, say, a Harvard professor, or listening to an online lecture, is the same thing as actually being in the classroom with a Harvard professor are deluded. (Before people jump in to say that Harvard is not all that great, I’m just using it as an example of an elite institution that is dabbling in MOOCs).</p>
<p>MOOCs will supplement but not replace traditional offerings. Hybrid courses, which have an in-person and an online component, will become more common. </p>
<p>Compmom, I agree with your comments. I actually think MOOCs will be unsuitable for the average disengaged, hungover apathetic student because such students need physical structure and scheduled encounters in order to learn anything at all. But I still don’t think that MOOCs will replace the university. College is changing but it’s not a “dinosaur” about to go extinct.</p>
<p>MOOC’s are unwieldy and relatively impersonal because of the size of the class. But online courses with limited class size (20 or less, for instance) can be really satisfying, especially in subjects that benefit from the possibilities of the medium (online videos, graphics, sound, media in general).</p>
<p>In my 50’s, I took an American Popular Culture course that was incredibly fun, with everything from photos of 18th century ads to minstrel shows to old 50’s Westerns. It was also rigorous, with field work and papers due through the drop box. I wrote a paper on McDonald’s as a refuge for the poor and elderly, and a paper on the fans of the tv show “Bewitched,” whose meeting I visited.</p>
<p>I also took a world music class online with music samples online to listen to, starting with silence, natural sounds, primitive music, through to present day world music, instruments of different cultures and so on. I did a paper on Native American marching bands, as I remember, and the idea of forcing one culture to assimilate musically with another. Chinese opera and the Japanese flute were my favorites.</p>
<p>Just to add that the discussion about the differences between Ozzie and Harriet and Everyone Loves Raymond went on and on, so many ideas and enthusiasm from a mixed age group taking an online class.</p>
<p>When you see essays or polls about what college graduates value most about their college educations the academic information passed on in class is usually way down the list. Almost always topping the list are things like the friends they made, the relationships they formed with roommates and/or Greek org brothers and sisters, the in-depth interactions and discussions with professors and classmates, the fun times: football games, road trips, parties, etc., the ECs - playing in the school’s symphony orchestra for example, the cultural enrichment that the campus provided: concerts, art works, interaction with prominent visiting scholars, the semesters abroad. And simply getting a chance to learn the social skills of being an adult. The list of value college provides beyond mere classroom instruction goes on and on. </p>
<p>So until they figure out a way to replicate all or most of that via computer, say when the Star Trek Holodeck gets invented, then I think the bricks and mortar colleges will continue to do just fine. </p>
<p>I think that on-line instruction will continue to grow as a useful adjunct to the college experience. And I think it’s a great option for specialized or non-traditional students who want/need only the information and not the rest of it, say a working adult seeking to boost his/her career by filling in gaps in their technical knowledge or gaining a needed certificate or diploma. For them on-line may be just the ticket. But for an 18-year old recent high school graduate seeking a “college education” the information that can be gained on-line represents only a small portion of that education.</p>
<p>"Those CDs, along with MOOCs etc., are but a pale simulacrum of the stimulation and camaraderie of a real classroom at a great school. " Exactly, NJSue!</p>
<p>And don’t forget the wonderful, late-night discussions outside the classroom when you may get to an understanding of something you’d never been exposed to before.</p>
<p>So, thinking down the line here: Online courses become more popular, whole degree programs are constructed to allow students to earn a BS or BA without ever setting foot in a classroom. In fact, they could complete college without ever leaving their living room.
So, at 18, a young person choosing this more affordable option comes out the other side with a piece of paper and hopefully some knowledge and sets out to enter the workplace.
And what do you think the kids of the affluent and well connected will choose? The cheaper online degree, or the four years of “* football games, road trips, parties, etc., the ECs - playing in the school’s symphony orchestra for example, the cultural enrichment that the campus provided: concerts, art works, interaction with prominent visiting scholars, the semesters abroad?” *
And who will be more likely to find and take leadership positions in industry and society, using networking, recommendations and connections made in college?</p>
<p>I don’t like where I think this could lead us.</p>
<p>Many of the students from poor families today attend commuter schools, while the kids of the affluent and well connected are more likely to be able to go to residential schools which include “football games, road trips, parties, etc., the ECs - playing in the school’s symphony orchestra for example, the cultural enrichment that the campus provided: concerts, art works, interaction with prominent visiting scholars, the semesters abroad”.</p>
<p>I.e. what you don’t like where you think the on-line college courses could lead us is already here. If you believe that the out-of-class experiences and college life at residential colleges add significant educational value, and you are concerned about differing educational opportunities based on family income and wealth for students of similar academic ability and motivation, then the situation you find distasteful is already here.</p>
<p>Within the past month I read a news blurb about a young woman who will be completing her on campus undergrad in 2 years with multiple majors. This, thanks to the online courses she took her last two years of high school. Times are changing.</p>
<p>I agree with you, to a degree, but it would widen the divisions even more, imo. As it stands, “commuter schools” like our Cal State colleges, which many students commute to, have wonderful cultural enrichment opportunities on campus as well as excellent sports teams, and even frats and sororities, if that’s what you’re looking for. They may not all live on campus, but they have access to a whole college life. If these kids stopped attending the brick and mortar schools en masse, I think they, and we as a society, would be losing something important.
When I visit a school like Cal State Long Beach, I see a vibrant campus with amazing diversity. It’s a buzzing collection of young people with so many different goals and life experiences. If each of them were sitting behind their computers at home everyday instead of meeting one another, working on projects, dating, making life-long friends and often future work connections, I think there would be considerable growth lost.
My point is it’s not just the residential colleges that offer these extras- it’s all colleges.</p>
<p>Online classes are complete garbage. Anyone who says they are good at something because of an online class is highly suspect in the truth of that claim. </p>
<p>Ask people who did their degrees online through the many extension programs to compare it to their classroom experiences, if any. It really isn’t the same at all. It eliminates some of the most essential components of real learning and training of a college education.</p>
<p>No different than people who claimed distance education by audiotape would eliminate in-person college environments. Oh wait…now those audiotapes are confined to late night infomercials and not of any concern to the populace at large.</p>
<p>Remember, however, that enrollment in California community colleges is over five times the combined enrollment of UCs and CSUs. Obviously, not all transfer to a four year school, but the reality of college for most college students is commuting to the local community college. Even many of those who do eventually get bachelor’s degrees do about half of their college attendance at a community college before transferring to a four year school.</p>
<p>Re: fraternities and sororities at CSUs</p>
<p>Looks like they are present, but not heavily joined; common data sets tend to report percentages under 10% (often closer to 1%). Of course, not everyone considers fraternities and sororities to be desirable things.</p>
<p>Education is changing, but it doesn’t happen overnight. College as we know it, remains relevant because the work world makes it so. And although “online education” isn’t given as much credit, it is gaining ground. It takes a couple of generations to change entrenched beliefs. And even then, MOOC’s and others yet to be invented will only catch up or be seen as equal, not surpass “the college experience” for many more generations.</p>
<p>I remember when Community college was referred to as “13th grade.” Now it is widely regarded as an affordable/practical ramp to gain admission to 4 year degree programs.</p>