Do Online Educational Badges Threaten Conventional Education Models? 294
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?"
Portfolios (Score:4, Insightful)
Is the only badge relevant for self teaching.
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Illegal to experiment without a licenes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Based on what I learned at uni, in the UK, if you actually know any physics or chemistry, you can be arrested for "having information likely to be of use to a terrorist".
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Knowing what information may be considered to be information likely to be of use to a terrorist is information likely to be of use to a terrorist. Please report to your local police station and turn yourself in.
Re:Illegal to experiment without a licenes (Score:4, Funny)
I did a similar study myself last New Year's. I'll be writing a peer-reviewed Facebook post on it. It's called "How much Johnnie Walker Black do I need to drink to sleep through the idiots setting off M-80s in the street out in front of my house?" The results were inconclusive.
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Published, peer-reviewed, papers go in a portfolio for any subject like that...
I'm curious as to how many people with no university or industry affiliation have published papers, especially those that have published without any collaborators with such affiliations. As a CS grad student, I haven't run across any that I can remember, but perhaps I haven't been around long enough and there are too many other disciplines and specializations to count. Some disciplines would be easier than others -- in Computer Science, for example, there are plenty of research areas that don't require a
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only few (non academic or industrial research) outsiders would care so much to publish unless they are hoping to gain the very affiliation the eschew.
You said "industrial research". I guess the point of the comments by Deus.1.01 and TheRaven64 is just that: one's industrial research should get one into industry.
Re:Portfolios (Score:4, Interesting)
In the mid 90s I worked with several good friends on a research project investigating the sexually based dimorphism of the human corpus collosum. It not only looked at the dimorphism among a large Stanford based MRI baseline data set, but also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.) The project was not affiliated with any school or industrial organization. It was a fascinating project.
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also looked at hundreds of people from around the world, who were gay, lesbian and transgendered to determine if preference and/or gender identity could be fully or partially explained by brain morphology (i.e. brain sexing.)
Instead of "explained by" I think you mean "matched with" or "correlated with."
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How good can you be if you haven't accidentally created a plague or two?
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That's easy, just become a henchman, there's significant room for promotion as the evil genius keeps offing his #2 and chances are there's all manner of laboratory equipment to get used to when you're using it to fry secret agents.
Gamification Fanboyism (Score:4, Interesting)
Two weeks ago it was the iPad, today it's gamification. I wonder what it is going to be tomorrow?
Colleges and Universities have survived and adapted to the introduction of the Guttenberg press, the public library, the personal computer, and even the Internet, but now that the concept of gamification is around -- their days are numbered? This claim doesn't make a lot of sense.
This statement implies that (1) colleges and universities can not copy/adapt the practice themselves, (2) that the online concept of badges can not be cheated or gamed, (3) that the concept of gamification is going to be equally effective in all areas of education and on all web sites, and (4) that gamification is so freaking effective and disruptive -- it's probably even more disruptive than the printing press itself -- it's going to take over the World !!
To all of that, I say BS.
Colleges and universities are indeed in an existential crisis right now (which no doubt will shape them in different ways), but this was the case long before youtube or gamification even came along.
Re:Gamification Fanboyism (Score:5, Insightful)
Colleges and Universities (at least in the US) exist to support colleges, universities and professors. And I have heard former professors say the same thing, not just people like me.
The university system does not prepare students for work in the real world, it simply teaches them some basic theory. It isn't until a person gets out of school and goes into an apprenticeship model (depending on the career path) that students learn anything useful. The college system did a great job convincing HR managers that they should require college degrees when many times it isn't needed. All the degree shows is the candidate is willing to waste 4-5 years in a classroom.
I hit a glass ceiling 10 years ago, the company I worked at (where I was considered one of, if not the top, technical leader) said I could not get promoted without a degree, so I went and got a BS in Compute Science. I took classes with graduate students who (literally) did not know how to open a file stream in C++ and read individual words out of the file. I had to show them during labs. And these were the same people that would apply for jobs I had posted claiming they had Master Degrees and were deserving of higher salaries. The head of the Computer Science department asked if I would consider coming back and teaching after I graduated.
What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.
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Wasn't the college system that did this.
Once upon a time, you apply for a job, you get handed an aptitude test which they use to decide if you can learn the job well enough to be worth the bother.
Then, someone decides aptitude tests are discriminatory (note that many of them probably were), so it became illegal/immoral to use them for the purposes intended.
So...we switched to
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What we need in this country is to go back to the guild/apprenticeship model for people that plan to work. If you want to teach, want to do research, then let the universities focus on that. But if a person wants to implement, let OJT be the way to go. Stop requiring 4 year college degrees and stop penalizing highly skilled practitioners who learned their trade instead of sitting in classroom.
Absolutely. College is not supposed to be a glorified trade school. I repeat: college is not supposed to be a glorified trade school.
Centuries ago, college existed to teach the "liberal arts." You were training for a specific trade, but rather being generally educated in a wide variety of knowledge and ideas. Exposure to lots of things that are unfamiliar will always be of a greater long-term usefulness than a bunch of specific facts, especially when you aren't using those facts for anything at the m
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the problem is profit (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the idea of models for education that have been around for a long while apparently arent meeting the peoples needs.. the popularity of khan and mitx is just but one example...
the 'threat' of people learning more stuff only exists if your business relies on selling people an education..
for everyone else its good news!
Re:the problem is profit (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, not so much. Setting aside diploma mills like DeVry, University of Phoenix, etc, it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.
On the flipside, yes, there are certain areas of the economy where "college" has taken over the role previously taken by what were called "trade schools", and there's the inevitable degree-creep that's been caused by the brainless HR sector constantly requiring more and more of a checklist of "must have this, must have that" to apply for jobs that has come with the computerization era. The idea of "all jobs require a college degree", whereas 30 years ago it was a HS diploma, or the number of jobs now requiring a Master's rather than a mere Associate's or Bachelor's degree, all pushed even further by a complete refusal by companies to actually provide on-the-job training, instead insisting that all new hires should drop in like made-to-order cogs on day one.
Khan and MITx look a lot to me like the Idiocracy approach to "education" - one size fits all, just take your multiple-guess test and keep taking it till you get your cert.
If Khan or MITx were to install Slash (Score:2, Interesting)
it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who [...] provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective
Can't this be done online with software such as Slash or phpBB?
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it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who [...] provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective
Can't this be done online with software such as Slash or phpBB?
No. In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls. Moderation and reputation systems are not an effective substitute.
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In-class discussions use peer pressure to weed out trolls.
They also, unfortunately, use peer pressure to weed out bright students who just happen to have impaired mobility or an autism spectrum disorder.
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If you have autism the odds of your success are mucher lower. Also I have yet to have met a class that was so bothered by a physical handicap that it defeated them. Ultimately you're trying to justify the obtuse.
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Actually yes, I am justifying a professor moving on for the sake of the other students because in college it is less hand-holding and more learning. Those with functional autism have the right to seek ou
t aid from the professor or learning support but don't have the right to drag the class down. As a whole though I never support bullying and I have yet to visibly see it at the University I teach at. I see awkward body language and have had students complain to me about the one or two students who do to a
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"Install" software is insignificant, the question is who's actually answering the questions and discussing the topics. Khan is free because as a broadcast medium, it requires very few knowledgeable people for each student. If you make it two way, you suddenly need the same number of teachers as a regular college.
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If you make it two way, you suddenly need the same number of teachers as a regular college.
But no room and board, and no textbook fees if the teachers contribute to Wikibooks/Wikiversity or another Free courseware project.
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Kahn also does not have to validate the credentials of the individual to ensure the person so names i actually capable of functioning in the speciality that the education qualification would indicate.
I don't see any problem with on-line as long as the final testing and qualification is done in person and verified.
So free learning and pay for written, oral and practical testing. Free is important to keep out the right wing rip off merchants, whose scam is to charge government to provide pretend educatio
DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mill (Score:4, Interesting)
And if any thing tech / IT needs trade like learning.
As in IT
CS is very top level and has a over load of theory.
Certs are vender based and some are ones that you can cram for and pass with no idea on how to do the real work.
Tech school and trades is the right fit with some real apprenticeships / interns (that are not office boys and ones the get paid and do real work with a learning part to it)
Re:DeVry is a tech / trade school not a diploma mi (Score:5, Informative)
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A university like MIT, Yale etc teach and produce graduates with skills that are respected and an employer can ask for a transcript and rely on it to show the merit of the person in these courses. Diploma mills also grant detailed transcripts, but gain little respect. Is the transition from diploma mill to university possible? - Yes, over a time, by following accreditation procedures, usually governed by the state any school can elevate itself.
Now we have Khan and MITx, one of which grew from the earth ove
and ? (Score:3)
it is helpful to society to have professors in colleges who aren't just there to provide "here's the video for the lecture, here's the choose-a-guess test, here's your certificate" classes but instead provide actual interactive discussions, answer questions relevant to the topic at hand from a learned perspective, continue to do research in the subjects they are teaching, and continually update the curriculum thereby.
youre talking as if there does not happen such discussions online. i guess you have never been to a civil, science oriented community forum ? and you are talking as if the only online education methods are khan and mitx. the fact that such discussion forums, communities, mailing lists have existed since arpanet escapes your horizon.
are you sure that you are qualified to participate in discussions pertaining to how science education should be, with your narrow horizon ?
Re:the problem is profit (Score:4, Interesting)
Online education isn't the Idiocracy approach. Traditional eduction has become the Idiocracy education.
A major piece of this conversation that gets completely ignored is that there are different levels of education. Look at all of the comments in any thread concerning Khan Academy , and people start talking about how they don't want to be operated on by someone who got their medical degree online, or drive on a bridge by someone who got their engineering degree online. The conversation should start with "Does a 6 year old learn math better via Khan Academy or in a traditional 1st grade classroom?" This should then be asked for each year until you get to the end. I can tell you that my 7 year old child gets about the same amount of education from 6 hours of Khan Academy as traditional education would provide in 6 months.
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Of course, it would help if a high school diploma meant more than "johnny showed up every day and didn't distract anyone" .... seriously. When I graduated HS in '89, the polices were changed so that as long as you showed up every day, didn't cause a disturbance, didn't sleep, and didn't die you would get a 60... get 1 point anywhere on anything, and you now have a greater than 60 average so you pass...
I teach a intro to linux class at a community college (whoops... just college. we offer 4 year degrees n
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So as more people try to get a better education the more schools will try to meet demmand. So standards get lowered because a 2 year degree is needed for a job that was previously needed for a high school deploma. So the education taught would be the equlivlant of a high school deploma. A 4 year is about what you get in a 2 year, a masters is about the same as a 4 year. A phd is the same as a
Re:the problem is profit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Many in-person university classes are exactly what you said is wrong with online classes. Look at Organic Chemistry for instance, that one was even criticized by DARPA recently. Organic Chemistry classes in USA university are pretty much universally taught as memorization classes and tested that way also. Doing them online is no different then doing them in person.
Last semester I had a class which did extensive online homework and it was not multiple choice at all. It was for a chemical engineering class on
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How are you going to get politicians to vote for that?
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Or you're just a loud minority supported by an even smaller minority who want to break public education due to their political goals and personal views alongside their ability to profit. This is a better mousetrap conundrum, if you can do it you'll get rich but nobody has. Humans only learn in a handful of ways and frankly a traditional academic setting is preferred.
Education vs professional qualification (Score:5, Insightful)
The professions typically have a couple of years of professional qualifications to pass before going into practice. This is over and above a good education.
Education is not and should never be, professional qualification. They are entirely different things.
The problem seems to be that many professions, and HR "professionals" don't seem to realise they should be providing "badges and certificates" for professional qualifications.
A degree is not a professional qualification, it is and should be for education. MIT Online and Khan Academy are educational tools, again, not professional qualifications.
Not optimistic. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect they'll stay slightly less influential than industry certifications, which stand well below degrees from accredited universities.
Re:Not optimistic. (Score:5, Interesting)
I tentatively agree, but I think the entrance of "big-name" universities into this experiment potentially changes things, if they keep standards up. Anything with the name MIT or Stanford associated with it has some amount of built-in cachet. I think that even if it's not a regular degree, but Stanford-with-an-asterisk, employers, and especially smaller and less rigid employers like we often find in technology, will be willing to consider it if Stanford does a reasonable job with it.
I can especially imagine employers with specific needs taking it seriously, e.g. someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.
Re:Not optimistic. (Score:5, Insightful)
someone needing a data analyst may consider certification in 2 statistics and 2 machine-learning classes from Stanford good enough for the job.
Yeah the problem for Mr Badge is that badge collection is all that is need to do the job, but the unemployed guy with a masters in math also applied for the same job, along with 10 new B.S. 4-year grads and 5 guys with 3 years of experience, and that "retired" EE prof with a PHD who was denied tenure. And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.
I'm not thinking the depths of the second great depression is all that great of a time to roll this idea out.
Re:Not optimistic. (Score:5, Interesting)
In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...
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Thats awesome for the (number of people in silly valley in the field)/(number of people in USA) * 100 percent of the population. In other words just about no one.
Similar, I could move to one of the oil/gas production hubs, and be one of the 10 or so McDonalds employees making more than $20/hr.
It's just not relevant to most of the population.
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In tech there seems to still be enough of a shortage of skilled people that people without degrees do get hired regularly, though not as easily as people with degrees. Silicon Valley startups seem to already consider "some cool projects on GitHub" to be the moral equivalent of a bachelor's degree...
It sounds like you don't think much of people that don't have degrees, as if they're hired only to fill a chair until a properly-educated person comes along. Please explain why college degree should confer higher value than real, visible work. As an employer I prefer to see what someone can really do, regardless of their papers. As an employee, I would rather show off the things I'm capable of (and interested in) now, not how much I can borrow/spend on having someone else spoon-feed concepts to me.
Don't
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And also 20 guys who don't have the education or experience but they're good liars and know how to work the system, so one of those 20 will almost certainly be hired.
No matter how good those liars are, they have little or no chance... against the nepotist applicant.
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After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned.
I think the author has made a fundamentally false assumption here. "Traditional college diplomas" are not meant to contain the details of what the recipient learned. That's what a Transcript is for. A degree certifies that you have learned how to learn; that you know how to read and analyse, how to find information and sift it for fact and fiction, how to write what you have learned clearly and concisely, and how to support your argument by pointing at what others have
Re:Not optimistic. (Score:5, Insightful)
For large employers, there's also the meta-skill of showing some amount of self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies. A degree is in part a certification that you've successfully followed a series of requirements and tasks for four years. That's harder to replicate in these DIY educational approaches, because not being huge and bureaucratic is sort of the whole point of the alternative approaches.
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For large employers, there's also the meta-skill of showing some amount of self-discipline and aptitude for following rules and navigating bureaucracies.
They could introduce some classes whose subject is "navigating bureaucracies", "meeting requirements", etc.
With hands-on project work, and learn by doing used extensively....
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Safe for a while (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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looking back I think I would have missed out on a lot of social interaction that was probably really important.
And that's true. Putting it in more stark terms, a lot of higher education is really just a lifestyle for 19 year olds. That's not a bad thing, hell, I've lived that life far longer than one human should.
But colleges make this lifestyle absurdly expensive, when all you really need to do is set aside a neighborhood for 19 year olds.
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Sure, I agree that there are additional hidden values that may be found in traditional education (such as the development of social skills and social networks).
However, it is completely possible that you can succeed in attaining your education without gaining these social skills or developing those networks, just like it is possible to develop social skills and networks without traditional education.
Additionally, not everyone is in the financial position to attain the luxury of having both a traditional edu
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Of course you are right that education is received best when you have active interaction with smart people. Which should happen at real university. Unfortunately it does not. There are 300 people on single year of civil engineering studies, and this university (PG, Poland) is the best one in whole country when it comes to civil engineering. And let me tell you: teachers are sick of that many students. Teachers don't pay attention to students. They *can't* pay attention. There are too many of students. The u
Re:Safe for a while (Score:5, Interesting)
short version for tl;dr:
- let's allow online universities
- so we have fewer lazy students at the universities
- students who actually come to study are served much better, and really have interaction with teachers, who suddenly have more time
Getting a degree (Score:4, Interesting)
The most important thing in getting a degree is getting that ticket punched. There are jobs that just won't even talk to a person that doesn't have a degree.
My degree is in music but in interviews I've never been asked what my degree was in. I've often been asked if I have a degree.
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Yeah but the point was you hired him - possibly overlooking a better employee who didn't "get his ticket punched".
It's a pretty nasty system, as you just illustrated.
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Getting that ticket punched is only one goal. If I hire a somebody on the basis of having his ticket punched and then find out he doesn't know how to do anything, I'm going to fire him pretty soon.
That's the problem with degree inflation / underemployment, if you hire a math major to do what amounts to a secretary job (real world example, a friend of my wife) and later find out she's really no good at solving Riemann Geometry problems, its kind of hard to fire her if she does a good job at filing orders.
Lets say I lied at my current job and I don't really know C++ despite having had to take something like 4 semesters. Other than the honesty thing, would anyone care, seeing as we switched mostly from
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Networking! (Score:2)
easy answer (Score:4, Funny)
because if you go to a campus, then your education costs will increase. that means you need to take out a bigger student loan. this, in turn, means that some hedge fund or investment bank can resell your student loan to someone else, take a huge profit, and retire to Fiji.
what you need to understand, is that all of those perks of on campus life are very important to the economy of Fiji.
Would you be comfortable getting surgery ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... from someone who says, "I don't actually have an MD, but I do have a 'Great Listener' badge!"?
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Now you've stumbled onto a situation where the fancy bit of paper doesn't cut it. Yeah, you heard me right. A doctor isn't going to get to cut on you just because they have that bit of paper. They also have to go through a sort of traditional apprenticeship. The education itself isn't considered enough.
So an MD is kind of a bad example.
Re:Would you be comfortable getting surgery ... (Score:4, Informative)
Fair enough. Okay, try applying to a residency program with your "Great Listener badge" and see how far you get.
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As opposed to the first MD in his post, who pretty much did that but without listening to said problems?
What's wrong with Boy Scout badges? (Score:2, Interesting)
Being an Eagle Scout got me my first few jobs. The First Aid and knot-tying skills I learned have continued to be useful throughout my adult life. Your "playfull riff" is offensive, sir anonymou
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IT's time to rework colleges and universities (Score:2)
A lot of way colleges work is stuck in the past and some of it does not fit into today's world. But some of that stared years ago.
Also there are a lot of people who not college material but can go / have other ways of learning.
The cost of colleges is only part of what needs to be fixed.
The tech schools do get a lot of stuff right and fill in some big gaps.
community colleges do have a good fit and it's said that took state laws for 4 years colleges to take credits.
4 years is to long (for most people) and som
Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities (Score:5, Informative)
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...
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This! 100 times, this!
Re:IT's time to rework colleges and universities (Score:4, Interesting)
Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools (Score:4, Insightful)
Great points. See also my: http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html [sourceforge.net] ... So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case" based on someone else's demand. Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change.
See also these collections of links i put together:
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005379.html [p2pfoundation.net]
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/005584.html [p2pfoundation.net]
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-November/006005.html [p2pfoundation.net]
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Why was the PayPal founder Peter Thiel paying for entrepreneurs to skip college and work on startup's?
So they won't have other options when it fails.
IT should be not be but that is what HR thinks (Score:2)
IT should be not be but that is what HR thinks
Because nobody actually cares (Score:2)
Because nobody, except the person getting them, actually gives a shit about educational badges.
HR is the only important actor (Score:3)
The only important actor in this transaction is HR. No one else cares about degrees or badges or whatever, all that matters is skill.
Someone wake me when "HR" as a group cares more about badges than, say, 2 year associates degrees (which they do not care about at all).
Or perhaps certifications. For decades my local 2-yr tech school has offered endless certs for IT and pretty much anything else they can train over a weekend.
Even vendor certs. What is my old CCNA or CCNP worth? Well, I guess it would make a nice placemat under a drink at a restaurant.
tell him that he is braking the law (Score:2)
As you need to offer that to people with learning disabilities who don't have a degrees but can do the job.
Never mind whether online schools work. (Score:2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/education/students-of-virtual-schools-are-lagging-in-proficiency.html [nytimes.com]
The number of students in virtual schools run by educational management organizations rose sharply last year, according to a new report being published Friday, and far fewer of them are proving proficient on standardized tests compared with their peers in other privately managed charter schools and in traditional public schools.
http://www.kunc.org/post/report-finds-more-virtual-k-12-students-are-falling-be [kunc.org]
really, why.. (Score:3)
Honestly, my wife has asked that lately. a "degree" is useless as tits on a bull outside of science or education. Mostly because Business degrees are a complete joke.
She has a Bachelors in accounting and a CPA license. does not make her get a job any easier. In fact it hinders her right now, because companies dont want to pay a realistic wage that a BS and CPA would ask for. They are more interested in paying $25,900-$33,500 to a 21 year old kid that just got their AS and will take the peanuts pay happily.
What's wrong with Boy Scout badges? (Score:2, Insightful)
See the subject line. I'm an Eagle Scout and I'll acknowledge that that badge doesn't really account to much in the technical world, but I must protest to the idea that Boy Scout badges are worthless. At least the merit badge booklets can provide a decent crash-course session on many subjects for less than $5.
Being an Eagle Scout got me my first few jobs. The First Aid and knot-tying skills I learned have continued to be useful throug
It depends upon your goals ... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're looking to work for someone else, then you need to prove yourself to them. Sometimes you do that through portfolios. Sometimes you do that through work experience. Sometimes you do that through references. And yes, sometimes you do that through accreditation.
If you're the type of person who wants to start their own business though, these forms of independent learning can be nearly as good as schooling. Of course you would have to go a little beyond hitting the books, since there is definitely a human element to learning.
Of course, the people who are most successful at learning this way are probably self-starters to begin with and probably already know that.
plumbing has trades and apprentices systems (Score:2)
tech needs some like that as well the traditional classroom does not fit for a lot of tech stuff and there is a BIG form say IT admin, Cisco, and doing programming.
But people thing that CS is the one big fit all (it's not and even then each schools does CS in different ways) and thing tech schools are a joke (they are not 2 years in a tech schools covers more stuff that is used in real jobs then 4 years in CS)
Now IT should be 1-1.5 years class room trade / tech school and 0.5-1+ years on the job apprentices
at least pay min wage as it's easy to brake the la (Score:2)
Fee-based programs, and charity auctions, restrict internship opportunities to students in wealthier families who can afford paying thousands of dollars while the student works for little or no wages,
Beyond fee based programs, there has also been criticism against companies requiring college credit in exchange for eligibility to obtain an internship. Depending on the cost of the school, this is often seen as an unethical practice, as it requires students to exchange paid-for and often limited tuition credit
why? (Score:3)
How about the ability to actually build a machine that actually produces semiconductors, and I certainly got my money out of the program.
~$30K for materials and `$20K budget for the lab equipment including things like hydrogen purifier, mass-flow controller, incinerators, custom bell-jars, UV light source, and other assorted materials and equipment. Then there's access to a machine shop to cut angle iron, a scanning electron microscope and x-ray diffraction system, all in the same building of the university.
And this was just undergrad work.
Now how are MIT Online and Khan going to replace that?
Personalized AND video AND accredited (Score:3, Interesting)
Some things cannot be taught by video (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no substitute for classroom discussion refereed by a Professor of Philosophy when you're learning how to construct an argument.
There is no substitute for classroom discussion about history and literature, or any other subject where the course is about forming and expressing opinions, not learning what the "right" answer is.
As those two items are the most critical things I felt I got out of my 4 year BScAdv in Computer Science, I definitely do not feel online education is a threat to the universities, though it is a game-changing supplement to the traditional university or college environment.
Re:I'd go a step further (Score:4, Insightful)
High school is supposed to prepare you for entry into the workforce, and get you ready to maintain regular schedules and routines, and working to a goal. Given this, why is college regarded by society so highly? To go into the workforce? Isn't that what high school is for?
That depends on whether or not our high school education system is actually teaching people how to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. Unfortunately, it is not, and moreover jobs in America are becoming so demanding that people require additional training just to perform their job.
My view is this: the focus on vocational training has to become secondary. America is supposed to be a democracy, and in order for a democracy to function we need people who can read newspapers and understand important political issues. College should be about educating our citizens and making our democracy strong, not just about training people for high tech jobs. People can go to technical schools to get technical training, and the entire college system should be restructured to be friendlier to non-matriculated and part-time students.
Why should mechanics and truck drivers be less educated than investors and managers? We need people to do all of the above, and in theory we want people from all walks of life to be able to participate in democratic processes in a meaningful way.
Re: (Score:2)
We are not a democracy, and never have been. "god" willing, we never will b
trade school should come after not just college (Score:2)
College is not setup to tech job's skills and alot of it is for moving up in the college system and doing teaching / R&D type stuff and that is OVER KILL for most jobs.
Not everyone is cut out for school. Not every school is worth the tens of thousands in loans it takes to go there.
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Re: (Score:2)
Talk to corporations about that. They're the only ones who can do it.
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