Posted on 06/21/2012 7:33:23 PM PDT by CutePuppy
This autumn more than a million students are going to take part in an experiment that could re-invent the landscape of higher education.
Some of the biggest powerhouses in US higher education are offering online courses - testing how their expertise and scholarship can be brought to a global audience.
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed a $60m (£38m) alliance to launch edX, a platform to deliver courses online - with the modest ambition of "revolutionising education around the world".
Sounding like a piece of secret military hardware, edX will provide online interactive courses which can be studied by anyone, anywhere, with no admission requirements and, at least at present, without charge.
With roots in Silicon Valley, Stanford academics have set up another online platform, Coursera, which will provide courses from Stanford and Princeton and other leading US institutions.
The first president of edX is Anant Agarwal, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and one of the pioneers of the MITx online prototype.
He puts forward a statistic that encapsulates the game-changing potential.
The first online course from MITx earlier this year had more students than the entire number of living students who have graduated from the university.
In fact, it isn't far from the total of all the students who have ever been there since the 19th Century.
'Tipping point'
The internet provides an unparalleled capacity to expand the reach - but it also raises far-reaching and thorny questions for the traditional model of a university.
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at m.bbc.co.uk ...
Online education, with mostly standard curriculum has the potential of freeing students and parents from busing or transporting to and from school (saving tremendous amount of time, gas money and the "environment" by significantly reducing traffic congestion and pollution - it can be sold as the "green solution" to the education problems), bullying, social peer pressure, schoolbooks printing, dramatic reductions in spending on "bigger/smaller classrooms" and many school buildings, as well as reduction in numbers of "educators" - teachers and bureaucrats - that would become unnecessary and/or redundant.
Will be fought tooth and nail by well-fed with government money "education" establishment, but eventually it will be done... first, in some more truly progressive (not phoney "progressives"/"liberal"/"Democratic") states, and then pretty much demanded everywhere.
Whether this will save people money and/or taxes will depend on the states and/or school districts (who don't usually have the incentive to "save" Other People's Money) but the tidal wave of Internet transformation will be felt in the public education, just like it's been felt in the private sector.
Also of interest, on the same subject is recent article by Steve Klinsky (founder and CEO of Mountain Capital, active in education reform since 1993):
Computerizing the Campus | The Virtual Classroom - B (sub), by Steve Klinsky, 2012 June 16
Institutions like Stanford, MIT, and Harvard are justified in maintaining this distinction. They are already accomplishing a social good by providing free online courses and should not also be asked to dilute or confuse the value of their traditional degree. But it's also true that the best unaccredited online courses may be higher in quality and more rigorous than a physical course at a lower-quality college that is accredited. Ideally, all courses' rigor and all students' individual achievement should be measured to reflect this reality. ..... < snip >
..... Under such an approach, students could succeed through individual initiative, rather than reliance on financial aid and student debt. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... Accreditation means that a course credit can be transferred to other institutions and that graduate schools will recognize applicants' online credits. Right now, edX will give a certificate of mastery from edX, not an accredited degree from Harvard or MIT. Similarly, a student at Stanford's open Artificial Intelligence course earned a "statement of accomplishment," not an accredited course credit from Stanford University.
I’ve watched a bunch of MIT courses online. It’s cool to get a different point of view from my current professors.
Not a bad idea. I had a few classes in college that I had to teach myself out of the textbook, the teacher was so bad (usually couldn’t speak enough English to order a Big Mac). This would, of course, twist the educrats’ heads in their sockets. The student could truly be an education consumer instead of being forced to put up with the local deadwood.
I learned only last night that MIT has been putting some content of courses online all the way back to 2002.
I’ve watched a bunch of MIT courses online. It’s cool to get a different point of view from my current professors.
Just my 2 cents.
I can see your point. I use them in addition to my actual classes I go to though.
www.khanacademy.com
Great instructional videos and free. If you have a kid that is having trouble with math concepts...this is the place...
The traditional model for education served Western civilization well for 1500 years, but it has been rendered obsolete by technology. We need to accept that and embrace a new, decentralized educational model, and hopefully to do it faster and more completely than other countries.
It is a coincidence, but our current economic downturn actually will help bring this new educational model about. Many families have a parent out of work, but just because they don't have a job doesn't mean they can't be valuable to society and their families. What we should be advocating is a homeschooling renaissance, to cut the regulations hindering greater homeschooling and have these parents teach their children. Many countries severely restrict homeschooling, but if we embrace it far more than we have currently, we can end up with the most educated work force in the world.
As for edX, it currently does not offer a degree, but a "certificate of mastery" or some such thing. Right now it is not worth a degree, but that will be solved by the marketplace. When an employer equates a certificate of mastery as being equal to a paid degree, then the upper level of education will be fundamentally changed. And no band aids to prop up student loans or paying teachers will stop the sea change.
bflr
Hillsdale had an online course about the Constitution. That was neat.
There are drawbacks for education outside of the "classroom" but there are also many advantages, besides financial, e.g., more time available and less "college life" distractions for those who really care about education rather than developing social ties aka "networking."
And as Klinsky noted in his article, "< snip > ..... it's possible to create a new and affordable life path forward for capable, highly motivated individuals seeking a higher education. Access to the American Dream would be strengthened, and taxpayers could save billions. ..... < snip >"
In the end, it's really all about individual. I would surmise that those who spend their time taking classes online are more interested in education than those who go to college because they can [afford it], such as "legacy" students. At least now the opportunity to learn becomes somewhat democratized - the rest is up to those who want to take it - no more "can't afford it, not equal field" excuses.
Yes, the educrats, especially in and of the public sector will not take this lying down, but they are being undermined from above, by the people who see the unsustainability (to borrow the "environmentalist" term) and the divergence of the current quality of education and its cost - to the individuals, the economy and, ultimately, the society.
bookmark
It would be great if there were some sort of umbrella schools that would cover homeschooling for college, and award degrees, like there are that award high school diplomas. Then folks could sign up with the umbrella school, take free courses online, have someone at the school look over the work, then award credits toward a degree. I don't see why this couldn't work for degrees in the Humanities, Mathematics, Foreign Languages, Social Sciences, and just about any degree that doesn't require serious laboratory work.
Wouldn't it be great if anyone could be an auto-didact, and be rewarded for their hard work, even if it takes them 6-10 years to finish the work. That way, they wouldn't need to quit the job that allows them to pay the bills, and they wouldn't have to get student loans, to boot.
The problem with these "academies" is that they may be great as supplemental or "hobby" teaching material, but they are not accredited (at least, not yet) and are not likely to be unless providing more than just one specific course. Also, it "flips" the model, but doesn't really displace or uproots the system, financially. However, it's a great resource for those who just want to learn or learn more and better.
From Turning the Classroom Upside Down | Why not have lectures at home and 'homework' at school -- and let students learn at their own pace? - WSJ, by Salman Khan, 2011 April 09
But it doesn't have to be this way. In 2008, I started a non-profit organization called the Khan Academy to deliver free online education. As it turns out, our tools have given students and teachers the power to "flip" the traditional classroom: Students can hear lectures at home and spend their time at school doing "homework" -- that is, working on problems. It allows them to advance at their own pace, gaining real mastery, and it lets teachers spend more time giving one-to-one instruction. ..... < snip > < snip > ..... The problem with this model of instruction is that it leaves behind large gaps in understanding. For A students, it might be a 5% gap, for C students a 30% gap. But all of them end up with a Swiss-cheese education -- full of holes. Little wonder that, when they reach algebra and calculus, they often struggle. It's like being trained to juggle oranges half-competently and then being expected to juggle knives.
I have gone through several I Tunes university courses.
The only thing missing is certifiable examinations to prove to another that the material has been mastered.
My son recently took the first part of his CPA exam at a testing center.
So?....if a Certified Public Accountant exam can be administered at a testing center, why not algebra, or high school history, or second grade spelling, third grade reading, or fourth grade geography?
If testing centers were willing to accept advertising perhaps even the testing to could be free to the student.
Why isn't every government school K-12 class on the Internet from kindergarten through AP calculus? Hm? What the big cost in videoing a teacher? And...It should be entirely tuition-free to all the citizens of the state regardless of age. Hey! The citizens paid for it. What's the BIG secret?
Most go way too fast and introduce material in an order that is not meant for novices.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree. That is my experience with these courses. They are not meant for novices. But...I think that will soon change in response to demand.
Ping to post #18.
Mr. Mom could supervise the virtual education, but it doesn't have to be tied to traditional "homeschooling" either, any more than it would be to "traditional" public education, though it will seem to have the elements of both. The idea is to radically change the public education model, so that "homeschooling" won't be really necessary, while most of the education will be done, physically, from home, but at significantly lower expense (hopefully, if done right) than either public ed or homeschooling today.
As for edX, it currently does not offer a degree, but a "certificate of mastery" or some such thing. Right now it is not worth a degree, but that will be solved by the marketplace. When an employer equates a certificate of mastery as being equal to a paid degree, then the upper level of education will be fundamentally changed.
Exactly, that will be and should be "solved" by the marketplace, i.e., the employer will start looking more at qualifications and knowledge rather than a "degree" knowing that they come from about the same places.
Ideally, you could get business credits from Warton or Harvard, engineering from MIT or CalTech, law from Harvard or Yale, etc. etc. and get the "mastery" degree that would, at least "on paper," supercede those of physical college student-attendee.
Internet may finally allow people to be free of tyranny of "physical" educracy and rigidity of schedule, place, time, limited [if any] school choice and curriculum selection, and so on...
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