I think the debates about online education confuse the different roles that educational institutions serve:
1. Impart knowledge. And when it comes to teaching grammar or differential equations, online education is probably a more effective delivery agent than classrooms ... sorry guys.
2. Train people in face-to-face social skills. Much important work is done in an educational environment by teaching people how to behave in their later professional careers. This goes FAR beyond technical skill, into things like how to make appropriate jokes, how to drop names, how to socialize off work, how to dress at what occasion, how not to expose the fact that you came from a poor background, etc, etc. I think high level centralized education is probably pretty good at this; some of this can be done online, but online interaction doesn't give you practice at face work.
3. Grow social networks with a high level of emotional charge. One goes to Yale largely so that one can become a Yale Alumn and mobilize those networks. This network building doesn't work without an emotional attachment to the university, though, and this is probably more easily cultivated when people are there in person, lose their virginity on campus, go to rituals together, etc.
4. Control the flow of people into various levels of the elite. I think there are a lot more capable people in the world than there are open positions, so education partly serves to withhold training and entitlement by imposing fairly arbitrary cutoffs for admission and by making people feel personally responsible for their prior lack of training (a lack which is generally due to their bad luck in being born into a less fortunate segment of society). Better to have unemployed pissed off illiterate peasants than unemployed pissed off educated folks -- the latter organize and execute revolutions while the former just break windows and make a lot of noise. This categorizing based on supposed talent begins at a very young age -- google "Pygmalion effect". Choking off the flow of talented people who might make trouble will be harder if education escapes its current stranglehold by the academy.
5. Provide physical equipment. If you need to provide access to lab equipment and libraries, it is more efficient to put them in one place and share them. This is obviously changing rapidly, with central libraries becoming obsolescent in many ways (not all though -- browsing the shelves is a good thing and impossible to do in the same way online).
So, if we are discuss the pros and cons of online versus offline education, I think we should do it broken down more, either my way or some other.
Two more comments -- it is pretty funny to hear professors going on about cheapening the value of a degree from Fort Whatever in Kansas. And as far as I am concerned, the sooner the internet bomb goes off in academia, the better.
1. Good, but you definitely don't need college for that.
2. Potentially useful, but most people can easily absorb this on their own, and colleges don't (or at least didn't when I was in) actually provide any help for those who really do have trouble with this.
3, 4. Evil, but conventionally accepted.
5. Nonsense. Unless you're doing graduate research in science or engineering, lab and shop equipment is a small fraction of the cost of attending college.
My point wasn't that college is the best way to do numbers 1,2,3, just that it DOES provide these for better or for worse. If we are going to talk about alternatives, we need to talk about how college can provide these.
I agree that on #1, online learning is probably better than classroom. I was just saying that classroom usually provides it today.
WRT #2, I disagree that people can easily absorb it on their own, otherwise there wouldn't be so many lonely socially awkward people in the world. And yes, if you have real trouble, college won't help. But if you are sort of graceful when you arrive though, college can help polish that gracefulness even more, with very real benefits in the real world.
I disagree that #3 is evil. Again, my point is that people need it, so if we shift away from conventional universities we need to provide it somehow.
I DO agree that #4 is evil. I just wanted to call it like I see it, and explain some of the resistance to really opening up education.
WRT #5, I wish the OP would refrain from using words like "nonsense", which seems a little antagonistic. I think my point still holds. Part of my point though is that efficiency is changing, especially with shifts from print to electronics.
Actually I don't think online learning is better than classroom, I wrote two blog posts (the more recent is http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/04/overcoming-bias-an... and links to the earlier) claiming that the Web is NOT adequate for serious study. Books are the thing.
The nonsense was a bit strong, but I have seen this claim over and over, and equipment suitable for learning is much less expensive than tuition. If you REALLY want to learn, you can even build large amounts of the equipment yourself (that is also the ultimate test - Pass/Fail - does it work or not). I don't know if they still do, but the UMCP had a required physics shop course where you learned to use machine shop and electronics tools to make specialized equipment you may need.
Your blog posts are comparing surfing the Internet and using Google to reading/studying textbooks tailored for college courses. You're comparing Apples and Oranges.
The general Internet is only the access point for serious online education - the actual teaching happens within private web applications. Furthermore, online courses or degrees still require the same books, you just might buy them (for a lot less) off Amazon or Chegg instead of the college bookstore.
I suspect that if getting #1 from an online classroom or other bare-bones service becomes commonplace, then other institutions will evolve to provide 2-5.
Comments
I think the debates about online education confuse the different roles that educational institutions serve:
1. Impart knowledge. And when it comes to teaching grammar or differential equations, online education is probably a more effective delivery agent than classrooms ... sorry guys.
2. Train people in face-to-face social skills. Much important work is done in an educational environment by teaching people how to behave in their later professional careers. This goes FAR beyond technical skill, into things like how to make appropriate jokes, how to drop names, how to socialize off work, how to dress at what occasion, how not to expose the fact that you came from a poor background, etc, etc. I think high level centralized education is probably pretty good at this; some of this can be done online, but online interaction doesn't give you practice at face work.
3. Grow social networks with a high level of emotional charge. One goes to Yale largely so that one can become a Yale Alumn and mobilize those networks. This network building doesn't work without an emotional attachment to the university, though, and this is probably more easily cultivated when people are there in person, lose their virginity on campus, go to rituals together, etc.
4. Control the flow of people into various levels of the elite. I think there are a lot more capable people in the world than there are open positions, so education partly serves to withhold training and entitlement by imposing fairly arbitrary cutoffs for admission and by making people feel personally responsible for their prior lack of training (a lack which is generally due to their bad luck in being born into a less fortunate segment of society). Better to have unemployed pissed off illiterate peasants than unemployed pissed off educated folks -- the latter organize and execute revolutions while the former just break windows and make a lot of noise. This categorizing based on supposed talent begins at a very young age -- google "Pygmalion effect". Choking off the flow of talented people who might make trouble will be harder if education escapes its current stranglehold by the academy.
5. Provide physical equipment. If you need to provide access to lab equipment and libraries, it is more efficient to put them in one place and share them. This is obviously changing rapidly, with central libraries becoming obsolescent in many ways (not all though -- browsing the shelves is a good thing and impossible to do in the same way online).
So, if we are discuss the pros and cons of online versus offline education, I think we should do it broken down more, either my way or some other.
Two more comments -- it is pretty funny to hear professors going on about cheapening the value of a degree from Fort Whatever in Kansas. And as far as I am concerned, the sooner the internet bomb goes off in academia, the better.
1. Good, but you definitely don't need college for that.
2. Potentially useful, but most people can easily absorb this on their own, and colleges don't (or at least didn't when I was in) actually provide any help for those who really do have trouble with this.
3, 4. Evil, but conventionally accepted.
5. Nonsense. Unless you're doing graduate research in science or engineering, lab and shop equipment is a small fraction of the cost of attending college.
My point wasn't that college is the best way to do numbers 1,2,3, just that it DOES provide these for better or for worse. If we are going to talk about alternatives, we need to talk about how college can provide these.
I agree that on #1, online learning is probably better than classroom. I was just saying that classroom usually provides it today.
WRT #2, I disagree that people can easily absorb it on their own, otherwise there wouldn't be so many lonely socially awkward people in the world. And yes, if you have real trouble, college won't help. But if you are sort of graceful when you arrive though, college can help polish that gracefulness even more, with very real benefits in the real world.
I disagree that #3 is evil. Again, my point is that people need it, so if we shift away from conventional universities we need to provide it somehow.
I DO agree that #4 is evil. I just wanted to call it like I see it, and explain some of the resistance to really opening up education.
WRT #5, I wish the OP would refrain from using words like "nonsense", which seems a little antagonistic. I think my point still holds. Part of my point though is that efficiency is changing, especially with shifts from print to electronics.
Actually I don't think online learning is better than classroom, I wrote two blog posts (the more recent is http://williambswift.blogspot.com/2009/04/overcoming-bias-an... and links to the earlier) claiming that the Web is NOT adequate for serious study. Books are the thing.
The nonsense was a bit strong, but I have seen this claim over and over, and equipment suitable for learning is much less expensive than tuition. If you REALLY want to learn, you can even build large amounts of the equipment yourself (that is also the ultimate test - Pass/Fail - does it work or not). I don't know if they still do, but the UMCP had a required physics shop course where you learned to use machine shop and electronics tools to make specialized equipment you may need.
Your blog posts are comparing surfing the Internet and using Google to reading/studying textbooks tailored for college courses. You're comparing Apples and Oranges.
The general Internet is only the access point for serious online education - the actual teaching happens within private web applications. Furthermore, online courses or degrees still require the same books, you just might buy them (for a lot less) off Amazon or Chegg instead of the college bookstore.
Could you imagine someone with no need for #1 (say she already got it from an online classroom) paying tuition to get 2-5?
I suspect that if getting #1 from an online classroom or other bare-bones service becomes commonplace, then other institutions will evolve to provide 2-5.
I can't visualise these institutions.