Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models?

An anonymous reader writes "Educational badges, which seem like a playful riff on Boy Scout skill patches, pose an existential crisis for colleges and universities. If students can collect credentials from MITx and Khan Academy and other free Web sites, why go to a campus?"

Safe for a while

[Anrego]

I really don't know if this is a good thing. While I think I would have loved the idea while I was in school, looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.

If left to my own devices, I would have spent every hour of my free time on a computer. Luckily I had friends who dragged me to various things.. and begrudgingly I actually had a lot of fun.

In other words, I think education is only part of the education process. Social development is the other big part. Technical skills are great, but in todays work environment everything is team driven and being able to get along with people is almost (or even more) important than being able to crank out killer code.

Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities

[betterunixthanunix]

Why in CS is there a BIG GAP from what you learn in college and the real job? tech schools have alot more real job skills.

This is the way it is supposed to be. Universities are not vocational schools, and a degree in computer science is not a professional certification. People forgot that a long time ago...

Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Fair enough. Okay, try applying to a residency program with your "Great Listener badge" and see how far you get.

Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi

[blackraven14250]

I've also had a far different experience with professors at DeVry. They're far more available than the local county college professors IME, and have largely been willing to help with problems outside of the set curriculum they're given to actually teach (for most of the full time faculty and the more passionate part timers). In fact, most of the professors are kinda bummed that they have to follow such a strict set of topics for class lectures due to the limited time and top-down curriculum structuring, but love being asked the kinds of questions that aren't quite directly related to what they're supposed to teach.