
A Virtual Revolution Is Brewing for Colleges - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091104312.html
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johnohara
The story's on point but is really a promotional piece masking as news --
which is disappointing. The Washington Post owns Kaplan University.

I'm all for online coursework but we're still a ways away from standardized
testing for nationally recognized credit.

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andreyf
I'm starting to think this meme has some PR money behind it:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

~~~
natrius
I doubt it. This is basically an op-ed. From what looks to be the original
article: "Zephyr Teachout is an associate law professor at Fordham University,
a writer, and an online entrepreneur."

[http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/diploma-
mill/2009/09/08/...](http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/diploma-
mill/2009/09/08/welcome-yahoo-u)

There's a slight chance that there's education involved in her "online
entrepreneurship," in which case you're probably right.

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igrekel
I am not sure online learning is for everyone or for every age.

College is much more than the classes. And I believe the "suspended reality"
when attending college actually helps learning. And I don't count being able
to answer online multiple choice questions as having learned something.
Education is not cramming knowledge in your skull, and a course is not just
going through the cartesian description of the subjects it covers. And lastly
what makes a class good is not only the teacher but what emerges from the
group in terms of dynamics, attitude, atmosphere and feeling. I would believe
that if watching a lecture by Feynman on the web is inspiring, being in is
class was much more.

If what the article describes really is the future, I probably would have
dropped out and become a mechanic or something.

~~~
yardie
While I agree about what college used to be and what it should be the reality
is vastly different. College is turning into an extension of highschool where
the grades don't reflect the students but the course/teacher/college. When I
first arrived I read and signed a piece of paper, I believed in, about the
honor code; how cheating undermines the student and university. The reality
was cheating was so rampant I thought I was the only one that bothered to read
that paper.

And I can see why it was so popular. Recruiters weren't interested in what
type of student you were, just what your GPA/QCA was. I asked some of my
friends why they chose to cheat and the answer was they 'needed' a grade. It
wasn't what they needed, it was the job they 'needed' wanted them to have a
minimum 3.5 GPA. I realized, a bit late, that college was not about learning,
but getting a good job in some big company. I wasn't a great student, but I
learned a lot through participating in projects and contributing something to
the university besides tuition. I handed my CV out to a lot of companies and
most just gave it back after reading my GPA completely ignoring my work on
battery and solar powered vehicles.

Now when I give advice on college it's basically do whatever you need to to
graduate, education be damned. As far as I'm concerned education is the last
thing on the colleges' minds. Universities have raised the stakes so high it
stopped being about learning and all about buying an education.

~~~
rdtsc
> When I first arrived I read and signed a piece of paper.

You should have made the university sign a paper saying it wasn't going to
cheat you out good learning environment. A university where it is possible to
cheat and it is part of the culture is also cheating you out of your money and
learning.

I think telling what you just told here to an employee should make them not
look at your GPA as much, and you probably don't really want to work for a
company that looks at GPA only.

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edw519
_Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for
which "going to college" means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening
to tenured professors._

Will they also be the last generation to listen to radio now that TV has been
invented and the last generation to drive cars now that airplanes have been
invented?

OP overlooks a whole bunch of other needs that colleges fulfill. The
interaction with other students, both in class and at home. The interaction
with professors. The contacts made. The opportunities to explore many new
things by virture of actually being there.

Technology is great. It moves us forward in many ways. But in many situations,
nothing is a substitute for actually being there.

~~~
Oompa
This is exactly right. This is why I don't understand many of the "just learn
online" posts on HN. If you're going to college for only the information, then
I think there's no reason to come. However, there is much more offered than
just information.

~~~
alxp
But the question is is this advantage worth the ever-increasing tuition prices
for most students? Before there wasn't a choice, now we'll see what the market
effect of the competition of different education models will result in.

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JoelMcCracken
University education is very prime for a reworking. However, it will not be
done the way described in this article.

I don't want to give out all of my ideas, specifically since I plan on working
on this myself. However, a few leading questions:

Why were universities established? What problems did they solve? What problems
do they still solve? Do they solve them well?

Universities solve problems P via method M. The trouble with what is mentioned
in the article is that it simply moves M onto the internet, it does not go
back and reevaluate the original set of P. And, again, if the solutions to the
original problems are wrong, they wont do much better online.

The same is true for the newspaper industry.

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euroclydon
Wow, that's a big shift! I like the idea of the best professors nation-wide
rising to the top, so that all students can benefit from their captivating
lectures rather than be stuck with their boring local professors.

What I don't get, is how you overcome cheating on online exams. Of course I
think the best answer is that we need to introduce apprenticeships into more
career areas, and stop viewing college as a four year block of time, where you
prepare yourself to be a productive member of the workforce.

~~~
rdtsc
Apprenticeships would work great. Some colleges have co-op in their
engineering collages. Those are great. They put you behind one year, but at
the end of 5 years, you end up with 1 year of professional experience under
your belt. That makes you much more hirable.

Or you can have oral exams and make the student travel once at the end of each
quarter to be examined by a panel of professors.

Or assign open-ended problems to each individual student. Or have more project
assignments that would illustrate or require understanding the theory.

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tybris
On universities, material isn't important, social interaction is.

~~~
rdtsc
Alright, then paying $100k in student loans for social interaction is a little
screwed up. I am not saying it doesn't work, just that it is a little crazy.

I think universities are the next bubble to burst, they have inflated their
grades and their tuition so much, it is ridiculous.

In the meantime, they are full of professors who have tenure and sit on their
behinds all day not doing anything, or being too absorbed into their research
and not giving a damn about undergraduate students who pay thousands of
dollars per credit hour to be there.

