Posted on 03/16/2020 6:57:22 AM PDT by karpov
In the span of a few days, coronavirus has upended American higher education. More than 400 colleges have canceled classes or moved them online to slow the virus’s spread. While some schools hope that the shift will be temporary, others have confirmed that in-person classes and events will be canceled for the rest of the semester.
The nationwide closures mark what could easily be the most massive and sudden shake-up of higher education to date. For many students and faculty alike, the swift switch to online learning has cast dramatic uncertainty on the rest of the school year.
The uniting theme of university announcements last week has been one of proactive precaution. As university leaders monitor the evolving risk of coronavirus outbreaks hitting their campuses, many have made decisions motivated by concerns that an on-campus outbreak would overwhelm local health facilities, especially as supplies of masks and coronavirus test kits remain low.
Locally, the University of North Carolina system, Duke University, and Elon University have all canceled in-person classes and shifted to online learning.
Ohio State University president Michael Drake recognized that while the university’s switch to online instruction will present a “Herculean task,” he and other administrators felt an urgent need to act before the virus hit campus.
“We had a choice here really of doing all we could to try to mitigate the damage of the virus before we had someone become very sick or unfortunately die, or we could wait until after that happened to do the most that we could, and we wanted to be ahead of that,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Makes you wonder what we are paying for when students can just read a few powerpoints.
Funny how online college has been discredited until the large universities decide it’s okay.
I am of the opinion that the US Dept of Education could provide some value by creating an open source cloud based framework for delivering educational content and make the content available for a small fee to school districts. Districts would then be able to develop or purchase content and provide it to their students.
Full disclosure -
I got my associates on-line from Colorado Technical University and I am finishing my BS in Networking and Security on-line from Western Governors University this spring. Will be moving into their masters in cyber security following graduation.
don’t know much about lab science
don’t much about medical care
don’t much about anything hands-on
don’t much about real world fare
but I do know left-wing indoctrination
me and other students across the nation
our in-person classes are all suspended
and everything has been upended
right is wrong and wrong and right
and there’s no way but fight or flight
oh what a wonderful socialist I will be
Time to drastically cut the cost of college.
Good. Now keep it this way. Technology is such that there is no need for lecture halls any longer.
Not only can they learn from home, they can learn from the best teachers. Instead of trying to learn from a T.A. who barely speak English you can learn from teachers who have been reviewed by thousands of other students. It ought to create massive unemployment in the halls of academe.
And all the college students who paid their tuition for their classes, a place to stay, and the food to eat; are COMPLETELY screwed. Embrace the suck of an overbearing government, kids. I hope you learn a valuable life lesson.
Now we just need to improve the rural internet so that true broad band none of this only 20-50gigs a month crap is available out there and then no more need for ‘public schools’
It’s hard to have a protest when you’re quarantined.
Online teaching means outsourcing this to India as well, at least in Computer Science.
Lost my career as a Professor at University of Maryland University College due to online education. 1 instructor can teach several hundred students online. No more face-to-face classes at Army/Navy/Air Force Education Centers. From 30 Computer Science Faculty, our Department was cut to 3 for all of Europe. The Bush BRAC Drawdown in Europe didn’t help much either.
There is a certain stigma associated with teaching. While companies would hire new graduates, they wouldn’t touch us, as none of that counted as relevant experience. Can’t teach in the US, as they only want PhDs for full-time faculty. I stupidly have 4 MSc Degrees from American Universities, not fake Indian ones.
Adjunct teaching or teaching online - part-time with no benefits barely feeds yourself, let alone a family as pay is hourly, based on contact hours. Maybe $400 to $800 per class with no benefits - 16 contact hours at $25 to $50/hr. You are not paid for online class prep-time (lots of PowerPoint decks, setting up the online classroom, recorded videos etc). A dream job for those in India, as they prefer low-cost Indian teachers as well. The rate used to be $250 to $300 or more an hour. Typically, prep time would take 80 hours for a new class, with research, writing and testing each module. All unpaid. About 20 hours for classes taught before, again unpaid.
Been teaching Java and C++ and the rest of Computer Science material since 1993, constantly updating as new technology emerges. Magically, your experience level drops to 0, and you are competing with new graduates and H1Bs in the US.
Lynda and others offer the same materials online as most universities in Computer Science. So does YouTube, if you are willing to listen to some Indian with an impossible-to-understand accent.
In Computer Science, Indian trash based in India has taken teaching over as well. Talk about trying to understand one of those. Definitely not the best and brightest. They were the cheapest, however.
I have a friend who lives is the “sticks” of eastern Colorado. He has fiber to his house and can get 1 gig Internet if he wants to pay for it.
I am in suburbia Denver and the best I can managed is bonded DSL lines. Fiber is not yet an option.
sigh - perhaps an anomaly but it is frustrating
I have a friend who lives is the “sticks” of eastern Colorado. He has fiber to his house and can get 1 gig Internet if he wants to pay for it.
I am in suburbia Denver and the best I can managed is bonded DSL lines. Fiber is not yet an option.
sigh - perhaps an anomaly but it is frustrating
In many cases, if institutions of “higher learning” were shut down entirely, we’d be collectively smarter as a nation.
My son is in high school and the schools here are closed now for up to two weeks. All the kids have school issued laptops and were given assignments before school was dismissed on Friday. They have a website where they can log into and continue their lessons.
There is no substitute for interaction. And even video and teleconferencing doesn’t quite cut it
Didn’t for me as a student, and not as a tutor now. I have a student who stated she won’t like this (she’s 1 of only 2 I was able to inform Friday that I may not see them again in Person).
“Traditional higher education” is DEAD, and died a long time ago when they removed “dead white guys” and western civilization and values from the curriculum in favor of diversity, people of color other than “white” (which is not a color but the absence of color), Marxist, Islamic or other anti-American ideology, etc.
No more Socrates or Plato self examination, but a lot of dogma and indoctrination.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.