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Do you think there is a benefit in providing a percentage of courses within every college free and online?
With the rising of educational costs and the competitiveness, the socioeconomic gap will continue to be wider unless there is a philanthropic mandate post-graduation to ensure that generations to come are not existing with a disconnected view of society and more importantly people that can contribute to our overall progression.
Shanmugananda M
Salim Huerta
John Moonstroller 30+
I agree with Gordon Barker, and others, almost down the line about our educational system, especially in regards to our colleges and Universities and the impact the internet is having upon them as machines utilized to distribute and communicate knowledge.
I believe Colleges and Universities are trying to recreate themselves in the same fashion as the Newspaper industry is actively doing today. This change is being forced upon these two communication machines, by the facility of the internet to shape and redesign everything that connects to it.
People today can challenge themselves to become more than they are and apply this "free" education to everything they do in their day to day lives. Free education in any form benefits everyone. It's a win/win proposition with the capacity to pull everyone up the ladder of success wither that success is cooking a meal, learning how to write a novel, or installing a new front porch. The internet can, often, replace books and other learning material, even a whole University with it's extended reach into the lives of everyone.
I read that a young man, still in high school, developed a test for cancer that only cost three cents per test and did a better job than similar methods, already being use by the medical industry. He discovered all the components and ideas necessary to develop this test using Google and the internet.
That is one heck of a success story displaying how the internet could possibly bring a college degree or certification to anyone who desires it but, I must mention that the internet in it's present, unregulated form can do more harm to children than the opportunity it affords to educational institutions. A college campus, at least has some level of personal protection for the students. You can post an inappropriate link on the TED website and hurt children.
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Tim Petersen
Gabo Moreno 100+
Julie Dick
Krystal Selvidge
Chidinma Igboanugo
Juniper Blue 10+
stan kinsman
Coursa.org offers online stuff covering a large variety of simple to oh boy. Many others out there too.
Ones who want knowledge can have it at their own pace with enough different explanations available online from such a variety of minds,one is sure to get it one way or another. People helping others. I like it.
Li Qianqian
Mark Hurych
Our problem is that we rely in our institutional thinking on convergent thinking, but usually a better approach is divergent thinking, so instead of a constant stream of "not that, only this" we should experience an infinite expanse of "yes that, and that too, and that too, and that too" opening possibility after possibility. With increasing possibility comes real hope.
Juniper Blue 10+
Gordon Barker 10+
The current one was designed to fill a societial need when we had many workers with a few managers. Those people destined to be managers went to university.
That need is now largely gone but the new need is not clear (at least to me).
This is a transition phase that will eventually find a way to fund itself (30 people paying $3000 per online course or 90,000 people paying $1 for the same course with a global audience makes the same sense financially.
It will just take time for the system to settle out the payment methods, delivery and certification methods.
To validate who is actually logging on, I have seen some research that can identify a user based on the speed and pattern that they enter their passwords, where pauses are and where bursts of speed are seen.
kev twilliger
Will tradtional classrooms become obsolete? Lots of cost ,time and resource disadvantages. Will the next generation of SIRI or IBM's Watson know a better answer to your question than your professor?
And if takes dictation and types PDF will you be able to ...
William Wilberforce
if it's going to be online; then stringent measures have to be put in place to make sure all rules and regulations on those courses are followed.
Brooke Branson
John Smith 30+
Yuguo Zhang 100+
But the problem always remains about whether some colleges will be willing to participate or someone might take advantage of this program to make a huge profit.
chen xin
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Online learning has its inadequacies; some fields need practical learning(pilots,doctors); the academic community is also an important part of learning(learning all alone with the computer will never be a good replacement for one-on-one interactions with other learners)
But what can be learnt with the free online resources should be learnt.
Imperfect learning/education is better than ignorance/illiteracy.
John Moonstroller 30+
The average roofer has seen more videos on how to install a roof, what tools to use and better ways to achieve result because of the internet. It's getting harder to find people in common labor jobs who have not learned something on the internet these days. In other words, people are more educated and knowledgeable about their jobs because of the internet.
As long as the internet is free there will not be a disconnected view of society. Most people will be on top of just about everything. The socioeconomic gap will continue to be wider because of economic issues not related to educational access. You don't need a degree to create and develop a business or manufacturing process that will enable you to hire people with degrees to do all the head work. I know of a few business owners who built a Midwifery clinic, had only a high school education and employes doctors nurses and midwives with masters degrees.
It' just business. What should be of more concern is will a more educated population who learn for free on the Internet bring down the cost of professional salaries because they can preform the same work with the help of a computer and will work for less than those with a degree. Will industry want to hire these people who can cheaply and easily get certification in their chosen field?
I see the gap closing.
James Zhang 30+
Joseph Donaher
James Zhang 30+
1) Accessibility
You can have discussions without your physical presence
2) Continuity and Getting all ideas across in a single post
You can have a discussion without people interrupting you before you even express your points
3) Multi-linearity
The discussions can be multi-linear where you have sub-threads of a discussion within a discussion and still be "heard" by all.
In a face-to-face real life discussion, a forum or even a chat messaging platform is not ideal because the face-to-face talk is much faster at communicating ideas to/from each person, and you can also communicate not only through voice, but through body language, eye contact, facial language, or even drawing/showing physical objects/ideas to one another.
To say that discussion and debate is not suited for online academic experiences is a weird statement, because having online discussions and debates is different from real life debates and they are inherently suited for different kinds of discussions/debates. Unless you were referring to the quality and the quantity of the learning experience.
John Smith 30+
Joseph Donaher
James Zhang 30+
True, which subject benefits more from the different media of discussions is dependent on the subject itself.
For something like Computer Science, you really don't need human instructors as much as most other subjects.
James Zhang 30+
Hmm, I'm not sure I know what you're referring to. If you're talking about online videos that imitate real world lectures, then I agree that it's not that great of a way to learn, but this is not because it's online that it's not good, it's because the lecture model itself is just not good. I mean I've been to many lectures the model of single sender to multiple receivers is inefficient for a lot of comprehensive learning. The lecture model can only really be most effective if the lecturer is great.
Adrian Smith
So do you think it’s going to happen?
I do think it should, but in this day and age most but not all people think more about the value of money than any gaps that maybe appearing or need filling within society.
hamada yousif
walter crockett
Am far to liberal and scientific to say 'doing that for years'. And fresh ideas are not limited to the young, I have them every day and with my experience in life have more than the young have.
And as for free on line teaching check out the Khan Academy web site, thy go far beyond just free teaching.
Linda Taylor 50+
Just because I registered for the course does not mean that I took it. I could pay someone to sit at the computer and answer questions for me. However, there would be some new employment opportunities...
John Smith 30+
Just as in regular collegewhere you can pay someone to make your assignments and take home exams.
jim Parker
And you're right, the student doesn't get his/her ticket punched as having attended MIT or wherever.
jim Parker
Every online course requires an instructor to lead, grade and administer the course. That teacher commonly does not donate his/her time. They expect to be paid for their work.
If the student does not have to pay for that particular course then the money to offer the course must come from another source such as higher tuition or higher taxes.
SOMEbody's "gotta" pay.
Eric McDermott 30+
While you are correct in that the professors do need to be paid, the great thing about MIT OpenCourseWare is that they are video recorded lectures, syllabi, and notes that are simply put online for independent learners or people who were unable to go to a university for a multitude of reasons. It's great! Why would anyone pay for school then you ask? Well, the disadvantage of OCW is that you do not have contact with the professor for questions or explanations (generally). Completing courses 'independently' is not recognized in a certifiable way. It is also quite a different learning environment all together, you have to be strict on yourself to do the work, as no one will be checking it, there simply will be no grades. While avenues of ''free'' learning cover the most essential component in giving an opportunity to increase knowledge; they perhaps do not give the prestige or credibility that going to a university would, which might result in lesser potential to carry forward the knowledge in a corresponding subject-area job or in graduate study.
John Moonstroller 30+
Most of the people who learned to program at college, who didn't already have loads of experience from practicing at home made pretty poor programmers. They usually ended up in sales and managing projects.
To learn to program requires a lot of time and occupying space with your fingers and your mind. Starting to learn this useful art when you enter college is a bit too late to compete with those who started when they were 12 years old at home.
The software industry doesn't need prestigious programmers they want coders who can follow directions and code the work. Prestige goes to the boss, who probably dropped out of college to pursue his grand idea.
To be medical doctor, you have to go to medical school but to be a good doctor you have to spend a lot of time in the emergency room and on the floors, making mistakes. That's a scary thought.
What they have today I didn't have is online MIT, video lectures, and access to programing materials all over the net. The gap between needing a college education to accomplish most projects today is reduced by the computer which does most of the processing with logic and math. Spending more time at home with Mathcad an adequately designed program manual and access to people who can guide you and critique your work will create more mathematicians than college.
The only thing keeping these people out of the work force is the requirement for a college degree, which is swiftly being replaced by the Certification process.
Eric McDermott 30+
Chidinma Igboanugo