Bill Keller wrote an Op-Ed piece in the October 2, 2011 New York Times. He stated that internet entrepreneurs and M.I.T. OpenCourseWare have been playing with putting college courses on the internet for the last ten years, but a revolution has not occurred at America’s most prestigious and expensive universities, at least not yet.
Two things coming out of Stanford may change that, Keller notes. One is the opening of a branch in New York City dealing with applied sciences, a move urged by mayor Michael Bloomberg. A campus will be built on an island in the East River.
The second prong from Stanford comes from Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun, an expert on robotics. He was behind the design of Google’s self-driving car. He has an "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course on-line free of charge. It has the same lectures, assignments and exams as the regular course at Stanford. Graduates will get a "statement of accomplishment," though, instead of college credit at Stanford itself. There were 58,000 students signed up before the Times wrote about it a month ago; the total enrollment leapt to 130,000 cyber students.
Thrun sees a cyber learning experience in which professors broadcast lectures to tens of thousands of students. He told Keller, "Literally, we can probably get the same quality of education I teach in class for about 1 to 2 percent of the cost."
Thrun gushes about the campus environment and in-person learning, "But it’s also insanely uneconomical." There are technical problems – keeping the student from cheating, knowing who is at the keyboard, keeping the subject matter compelling, keeping the cyber method going. Thrun acknowledges these difficulties, and notes that specialists are working on these issues. He notes, "If we can solve this, I think it will disrupt all of higher education."
Stanford president John Hennessy has approved an "initial demonstration" of this concept and seems most enthusiastic about what this can do for the underprivileged and for students in the developing world. But he remains a stout advocate of an actual campus – the give and take, the critical thinking, and the skills in how to keep learning. Hennessy is not afraid of new technology – he’s a computer engineer, started a microprocessor company during his sabbatical, and sits on the boards of Google and Cisco. But he thinks actual attendance at a physical school is vital for undergraduate education.
Keller concludes, "Who could be against an experiment that promises the treasure of education to a vast, underserved world? But we should be careful, in our idealism, not to diminish something that is already a wonder of the world."
[The entire article is online at:]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/opinion/the-university-of-wherever.html?src=me&ref=general
COMMENTS BY THE BLOG AUTHOR
There are four things that a college student ought to learn, things that I myself learned as an undergraduate:
CONCLUSION:
The economics are compelling and daunting. There are over $800 billion in student loans in the USA, a number that will soon pass the $1 trillion mark. The cyber-campus is coming. I nonetheless hope that those electronic students are required to get comfortable at the lab bench of a chemistry laboratory to the level of competence at qualitative and quantitative analysis. A well-rounded collegian can read each miniscus accurately and follow bench protocols.
Two things coming out of Stanford may change that, Keller notes. One is the opening of a branch in New York City dealing with applied sciences, a move urged by mayor Michael Bloomberg. A campus will be built on an island in the East River.
The second prong from Stanford comes from Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun, an expert on robotics. He was behind the design of Google’s self-driving car. He has an "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course on-line free of charge. It has the same lectures, assignments and exams as the regular course at Stanford. Graduates will get a "statement of accomplishment," though, instead of college credit at Stanford itself. There were 58,000 students signed up before the Times wrote about it a month ago; the total enrollment leapt to 130,000 cyber students.
Thrun sees a cyber learning experience in which professors broadcast lectures to tens of thousands of students. He told Keller, "Literally, we can probably get the same quality of education I teach in class for about 1 to 2 percent of the cost."
Thrun gushes about the campus environment and in-person learning, "But it’s also insanely uneconomical." There are technical problems – keeping the student from cheating, knowing who is at the keyboard, keeping the subject matter compelling, keeping the cyber method going. Thrun acknowledges these difficulties, and notes that specialists are working on these issues. He notes, "If we can solve this, I think it will disrupt all of higher education."
Stanford president John Hennessy has approved an "initial demonstration" of this concept and seems most enthusiastic about what this can do for the underprivileged and for students in the developing world. But he remains a stout advocate of an actual campus – the give and take, the critical thinking, and the skills in how to keep learning. Hennessy is not afraid of new technology – he’s a computer engineer, started a microprocessor company during his sabbatical, and sits on the boards of Google and Cisco. But he thinks actual attendance at a physical school is vital for undergraduate education.
Keller concludes, "Who could be against an experiment that promises the treasure of education to a vast, underserved world? But we should be careful, in our idealism, not to diminish something that is already a wonder of the world."
[The entire article is online at:]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/opinion/the-university-of-wherever.html?src=me&ref=general
COMMENTS BY THE BLOG AUTHOR
There are four things that a college student ought to learn, things that I myself learned as an undergraduate:
- To develop a broad mind – specifically proven by an ability to listen to a story in a foreign language and laugh at it in that language, being unable to translate it back into English to get the same hilarious reaction because one is thinking in that foreign language while hearing it and laughing at the story.
- A real understanding of science, the scientific method, and the development of personal confidence in the ability to participate in such endeavors. Nothing perfects this like the freshman chemistry lab, the glasswork preparation and cleaning, and actual personal experimentation such as titrations. At least as good as this quantitative analysis is, qualitative analysis (which, sadly, has been replaced by the mass spectrometer) is even better at developing this disciplined habit of scientific thought.
- The actual experience of studying the great minds who have studied human nature and come to the most complete understanding of our humanity. A collegian knows that great minds have worried themselves to death thinking about human nature and have much to say to us. The very greatest of these thinkers seem to be the great tragedian playwrights (especially William Shakespeare) and the playwrights and mythologists of classical Greece.
- An ability to present a logical argument, including especially the ability to properly detect and criticize an illogical argument when one presents itself. The ability to perform unbiased research is, itself, a subset of this vital skill.
CONCLUSION:
The economics are compelling and daunting. There are over $800 billion in student loans in the USA, a number that will soon pass the $1 trillion mark. The cyber-campus is coming. I nonetheless hope that those electronic students are required to get comfortable at the lab bench of a chemistry laboratory to the level of competence at qualitative and quantitative analysis. A well-rounded collegian can read each miniscus accurately and follow bench protocols.
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