<p>@xiggi
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<p>So, basically there’d be just enough time in the day to study engineering, complete your premed requirements and very little else? Sounds charming.</p>
<p>K thru 12 education will also be greatly changed with online learning. You cant stop it. Teachers will become facilitators. Grade levels will disappear as students will come together in constantly shifting groups as they move ahead in their understanding of subject matter. No one is left behind because you are able to work at your own ability. There is no behind. There is only learning the next steps.</p>
<p>The entire education model is changing. We need to embrace it and move it forward rather than dig in our heels to keep the status quo.</p>
<p>It is a very exciting time.</p>
<p>Xggi. Way to think outside the box!</p>
<p>Most of what that tech revolution has really yielded so far is people so attached to phones and non important contact with others that they walk into traffic. Few have the patience to stick with any demanding online content. If it takes over 2 minutes they are wandering. So those lessons better come in 2 minute segments.</p>
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<p>@barrons scary isn’t it? But seems to be true. </p>
<p>Note that coursera already takes this into account. See the guidelines for course creation, the course building link at <a href=“Duke Learning Innovation”>Duke Learning Innovation;
<p>“Aim for a length of 10 mins (at maximum, 15) for each video (about 1- 2 hours per week/unit total videos)
Insert 1 to 3 questions in each video as self assessments”</p>
<p>So a 10 - 15 minute video with stops every 4 or 5 minutes for a self-assessment question to make sure the student is paying attention.</p>
<p>Duke students can only concentrate for 10 to 15 minutes? </p>
<p>:)</p>
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<p>Just as charming as having to carry a lifetime of student’s debt without many marketable skills. There are no universal solutions, but take a look at the millions who go through the motions during high school and a few years of college. </p>
<p>Most 5 yr olds have to be dragged away from their complex computer games or they would sit there for hours. Same goes for demanding Lego sets. How many 10 year olds taught themselves Simcity programs? Even little kids have the patience to learn how to code in order to make basic cartoons.</p>
<p>I don’t know how anyone could believe people can’t concentrate on a lecture for 60 minutes. I assume you are taking a class that interests you.</p>
<p>In 2012. 5 million college students took at least 1 on line class. </p>
<p>You have to give people some credit.</p>
<p>"… Certainly, technology is present; it’s been a factor for students for some time, though. MOOCS are not new, by the standards of the tech world. The track record is not good in terms of course completion. The most fragile students–those with deficient skills–tend to do worst. It’s not a panacea.</p>
<p>I fear a splintering of the market along class lines, to a much greater degree than today."</p>
<p>The strong students, the autodidacts, can get thru MOOCs. Weaker students need more handholding as is provided in individualized online courses or brick and mortar institutions. I would expect that the credentials to have about equal value, but the stronger students will tend to graduate from cheaper MOOCs to save money.</p>
<p>Some things need personal contact, like science labs, and some proctored exams or other assessments. These will continue to be supervised physically as needed, putting a floor on the price of a degree.</p>
<p>And there will probably continue to be “name brand” institutions, where a part of what the graduate is selling is the fact that he or she was admitted in the first place. These will be the same ones that fill that role today, but they’ll have serious competition from MOOCs, and a MOOC graduate need not be ashamed of saying “yes I got into two Ivy League schools, but I just kept taking MOOC classes and never saw a reason to stop that and start paying a lot for classes on a campus.”</p>
<p>I also see potential for a widening gap, although I expect it will take a few years to see how this all plays out.</p>
<p>The standards set forth in a MOOC given by a tippy-top institution could set the bar for what is expected in specific classes, at elite schools and honors colleges in particular. Many students at these schools are already using online versions of the classes they are taking as supplemental “study guides.” </p>
<p>As always, students with the networks to implement what they learn in the classroom, whether brick and mortar or virtual, will be at a distinct advantage. It is unclear whether or not MOOCs will play any more than a token role in connecting students with these opportunities, although they could be helpful to students who are already well-networked.</p>
<p>Strong students will continue to enhance their resumes after graduation, adding MOOC classes. Completion of several MOOC classes might come to signal a strong work ethic and ability to self-direct, since there is little or no hand-holding. Or, these could add to the credibility of students who are interested in changing fields or who need to repair a spotty academic record and want to re-enter the world of brick and mortar education.
A cottage industry of tutors who will help students review material in MOOCs could emerge. This is likely if MOOCs evolve to provide grades.</p>
<p>Conversely, online or brick and mortar classes could serve this particular signalling function for an initial degree, since in these instances there is a penalty for dropping a class after a short shopping period and students are often not permitted to re-take a class more than once or twice. All attempts to take any class outside of a shopping period are reported on transcripts. Students must remain in good standing in order to continue to register for classes, although criteria vary quite a bit among schools.</p>
<p>With this in mind, strong students in brick and mortar schools or taking online classes could audit or even complete a MOOC version of a class in order to “pre-game” in advance of taking the class at their school, and raise the curve in these classes.</p>
<p>Also wondering - will high school students soon be expected to add completed MOOCs to applications to the nation’s most competitive colleges and universities, along with or in lieu of a laundry list of EC’s? Will this take pressure off of schools to provide online classes for high school students? </p>
<p>Some classes or majors will be very difficult to put online. Brick and mortar institutions might feel pressured to offer more of these, and they could come to serve a signalling function .</p>
<p>With these thoughts, I think I am going to get to work on the MOOC that I am taking…</p>
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<p>Would that be possible if one wasn’t already educated well? Just wondering if going to a traditionally college laid the foundation for the ability to teach oneself successfully online. It would be interesting to see studies done who do well in an online learning environment. </p>
<p>Some adults need trainers to stick to a fitness program, some motivated musicians still need lessons to keep them fresh practicing. I would think the younger they are the less likely they will learn from online courses. </p>
<p>College is an important and in many ways unique experience of people living in the civilized world. It’s more than academics and job prep. To most 18 yr olds, college is their first chance to leave home and lead a “semi independent” life. It’s hardly duplicable in a different setting or even at a different age. I don’t see online education replacing brick and mortar schools any time soon, and certainly not threatening the existence of the best ones. Is it possible in the future? Yes but so is robots replacing all workers, but we’d be living in a very different world.</p>
<p>The average age of a college student in the US is 24 years old. 30 percent of the population has a college degree. This includes those who commuted from home. The experience most of us had or want our kid to have is hardly ubiquitous. We are a self selected brick and mortar group on here. </p>
<p>But if you ask those who have had that “experience”, good or bad, if it could be replaced by a series of online courses, I think the answer would be overwhelmingly no. I understand college is not for everyone (so I agree the “self select” part of your comment), but it is what it is, and attending a 4 year college at 18 is very different from going to college part time and with a kid at home waiting to be fed. </p>
<p>Well, of course. But we have a lot of people to educate and also to retrain, and continuing educate, since the days of get a degree and that’s that are over, and we need more avenues to do this. Clearly, most universities see this too. </p>
<p>I once read from somewhere that most unmarried young adults in South Korea still live in the same house with their parents, even after they have been graduated from college and are working. It is only after they are married that they move out. (And their parents shoulder the financial burden to a great extent in order to enable their offsprings to move out and their children “owe” them a lot so that they have to “pay back” in one way or another eventually,)</p>
<p>Actually, I heard the majority of the young adults in the Europe commute to the college as well.</p>
<p>I do not know whether this is because their country is small, their housing cost in the city is too high for their income, or just their “family culture” (maybe they do not value “being independent” of senior family member as much as we do, and value “conforming to or belonging to a group” more?) different from ours.</p>
<p>It’s interesting, @mcat2, we really are discussing cultural preferences to some extent. I hadn’t thought of that.</p>
<p>I think that residential universities in most countries were founded following certain models established by Europeans, so while their resources could vary drastically, they are operated on similar principles and provide somewhat similar experience to young people who have completed secondary school and attend a residential college. The non-academics experience, including dorm and social life, the learning from peers that happens every day (including the “peer pressure” and pressure of “deadlines”) , the more complex choice/decision making opportunities and the luxury of making mistakes, being lost and finding their selves again etc in an environment of a college which is like no other, is part of the education. One becomes an educated person not just by acquiring knowledge and skills. Of course, attending a brick and mortar school is not the only way to become educated but it’s a tested venue for the majority. I agree online education is a great tool for continuing education and “non traditional” students but there are certain things inheritently missing that would make it a serious potential substitute of brick and mortar colleges.</p>
<p>It’s not a " tested venue for the majority" at all @Benley. It’s never been a majority in this country, and in Europe even less so. It’s far more available here, and still only 30 % of the population has a degree, including those who commuted. </p>
<p>Your notion is ideal and romantic, of course, but not accurate when you talk majority. College has always been elitist and exclusionary, by action and design. </p>
<p>^^I didn’t mean the majority of the population…</p>
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<p>Living at school has always been the bastion of the privileged. Prince William attended Ludgrove, a boarding school when he was 8 years old.Many of the old moneyed American families also sent their children (mostly sons) to many elite boarding schools like Andover, Exeter etc.</p>