Building Virtual Universities 82
Anonymous Coward writes "Psychologist and AI guru Roger Schank has an essay at the Edge about The Need for the Virtual University. Surprisingly, he sees nothing special about virtual universities except for the narrow window of opportunity to make schools that don't suck." Spend the time to read the whole article (it's in interview format and quite long) and you might come away with more than that. Schank raises some good questions - and proposes some good answers to them.
Virtual U (Score:3)
Sounds good to me (Score:1)
Virtual Universities (Score:1)
Re:10AM (Score:1)
... (Score:1)
How about tuition less than the GNP of a small country each semester?
Decent computers. Sorry, but that DX2/66 in the corner isn't going to do me much good if I need to make a fluid dynamics model. Now, if you had a hundred of them in a beowulf.. that would be better!
Wire up the dorms. And the surrounding community. :) Suprisingly, many colleges still haven't connected their students to a high-speed internet connection.
Nice big board in the computer room showing the latest slashdot articles. Use an overhead projector. :)
Forget putting the whole class online - how about just the class notes? Maybe even previous tests, or upcoming "things to study"? That would be uber-helpful.
Instructor's e-mail address. A few instructors don't/won't have/give e-mail addresses. It's also helpful for geeks like me who are too shy to call an instructor on the phone.
Boring instructors. Yes, we actually need more of them.
How about getting public transportation involved - like having routes that include drop-offs/pickups at colleges. Anything to help cut costs.
Girls!! We need more geek grrrls.
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Re:10AM (Score:1)
Great for Geeks (Score:2)
I can't think of a better way to prepare for an existence of sitting by oneself in front of a computer screen, safely distanced from the rest of the world.
Since most geeks have a hard time interacting with real people, not having to confront them (or sunlight) while getting a degree can only help get the mind and body ready for an lifetime full of junk food, carbonated beverages, florescent lighting and no girlfriends.
Re:... (Score:1)
And #3...reminiscent of Ferris Bueller's Day Off...we NEED more Ben Stein's teaching us..."Bueller...Bueller...Bueller"...
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:1)
Here, all the freshmen are required to have laptops (most of us got the IBM 600E, "linux-certified", but anyway). Now that we all have laptops, professors use Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations (we're required to have a Windows partition) to give their lectures, and they upload the lecture to the course website. That way, I can zone out during the class (or not even attend, if it's a large enough class) and not miss anything.
j-a-w-a-d------------------------------
Re:10AM (Score:1)
Re:Virtual Universities (Score:1)
j-a-w-a-d------------------------------
Pepsi - U (Score:1)
Just take a long look at the "well rounded" education you get from Microsoft in their MCSE program.
If I have a 6-pack of Pepsi, and I drink two Pepsi's, how many Pepsi's have I enjoyed?
Re:Pepsi - U (Score:1)
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:1)
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:3)
Maybe an online university isn't for everyone. Maybe a lot of people would be better off going to a school full time, and living in the dorms for the "True College Experiance", but I for one can't afford that luxury.
I work full time. More than full time really. I work anywhere between 50 and 60 hours a week. I make pretty good money, enough to pay for most schools, but in order to go to school I'd need to leave this job, which sends me back to not being able to afford school.
An online university would allow me to take classes in my free time. I already learn quite a bit on my own, but there are certain subjects that I have trouble with, and that I could certainly use the help of a structured class.
You may suggest part time school, or something of the sort, but I work network operations. I don't know when some sort of disaster will occur. I need to be able to work when I need to, without worrying about missing a test, or an important class.
Just because online schooling isn't for you, dosen't mean that someone out there won't benefit from it.
People are different, and have different needs.
Asking for the impossible ... (Score:5)
I think people underestimate the difficulties facing tertiary education. The problem is that there is no single "university". Instead that term can cover the gamult of technical education (adult learning), teaching colleges, research universities, plus corporate labs/training campuses, each trying gain the prestigue of being called a university and thus diluting the value of the term. Also given the rising costs and reduced public resources, it will be more expensive for individuals to select the education they desire.
The unspoken question in the interview was how to sort out the "right" choice for each potential student. Given humankind's inability to predict the future, many young people have no real clue as to what they want to do in life, much less the best method to cultivate their talents. In the grand scheme of things (ignoring any taught material), universities act as a filter and sorting mechanism, allowing companies to select the top 5-20% on the basis that if you've got half-a-clue and are willing enough to slog it out for 3-4 years in a competitive environment with your peers, then at least you are marginally employable and can thus be trained
On the role of teaching, there are certain basic foundations which are essential for certain disciplines such as mathematics for many of the physical sciences. How many would willingly take up maths if it wasn't forced down their throats at an early age? While Richard Feynman [geocities.com] was correct in saying "If you can't explain it, you don't understand it", there is a serious shortage of people who are both brilliant at research and excellent at teaching especially if the institutional incentive structures are not aligned this way. In short, you are asking for superstars, and in turn these superstars want superstudents (otherwise it would be a waste of their time) and the universities set harder entry barriers which raises the average cost (fewers students per staff). A rather tough cycle to break out of, not to mention the general upmanship and educational arms race (my supercomputer is bigger than your supercomputer etc).
So how can universities change to become more effective? The major problem is that education is not really market driven, more like a semi-regulated oliopoly (state charters, national certifications, etc) with all the expected distortions. The prestige factor alone can influence students in selecting a potential course though they may well not be totally suited or happy. Demonstrating competence is a difficult feat as there are many different skills and requirements for different disciplines. It is not like open source where one can point to as the CV and others can determine the quality (or lack thereof). Given the arrival of the web, I would toss out some possible directions education can head:
So to sum things up
LL
What one really learns (Score:2)
In science and engineering courses, the most valuable thing learned is how to solve particular sorts of problems. I am not refering the needed laws and theories directly conveyed; these can generally be looked up as needed. Instead, I refer to the skill one gets (through practice and observation of others) at solving particular sorts of problems generally. I could probably have made it through astronomy grad school knowing only the information I learned in high school. However, very few students (if any at all) just out of high school have anywhere near the problem solving skills necessary to survive graduate education in a hard science.
Can these sorts of skills be taught over a computer network? I doubt it. Where I (and those I TA'd) did most of their learning was in doing problem sets (which you can do anywhere, net or no), lab experience, and tutoring (either from other students, professors, TA's, or professional tutors). This is where the most valuable stuff gets learned in college, not in lectures. Virtual labs are no replacement for real lab experience, and net communications are still too clunky for effective tutoring.
If a student learns the skills properly, any information needed can be learned with minimal effort. (I took a few comp. sci. and EE classes at the undergrad level as a grad student in astro. I went in with less informational knowledge (and probably less talent) than most of the students, and yet did very well relative to the classes as a whole, with less effort. Why? I picked up a lot of programming and math "skills" solving physics problems.)
I suspect the situation for teaching many of the humanities over the net is nearly as bad. The most valuable aspects of these sorts of courses I took were learned in discussion with peers and professors, and in writing papers, and in careful analysis of my papers by others. (The article seems to suggest that these classes are, in general, not worth taking anyway. I disagree. They are less vocationally useful, but have helped me enjoy my life more, and I would never have known what I was missing otherwise.)
-Hil
Not either or (Score:4)
There are also the socialization aspects that other readers have mentioned, and colleges are a indeed a useful halfway house between living with parents and really being out there on your own.
But for education, traditional colleges tend to be very poor unless the student is very focused on learning, not just graduating. Way too much politics, both internal and external, tend to get in the way. Good training for corporations and academia, but not really about education.
The idea I like about the Virtual U is that it could provide a way for many of us supposedly already socialized types access to learning resources. We all know that learning doesn't stop at the University if you are into technology. It allows individual pacing, so those with only a couple of hours a day to spare can still participate. It doesn't require yet another commute to attend classes.
Don't underestimate the interaction possible via internet -- slashdot is kinda fun for example, no? No replacement for real social contact, for example with the opposite sex, but not bad at all for intellectual discussion, the primary thrust of education.
Another advantage would be distributed resources. You can benefit from *both* MIT and CMU from your home terminal -- choice is no longer a career threatening hazard.
Even if Virtual U can't replace colleges, it can still have a very valuable role in education.
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:1)
Education has not changed (significantly) since the invention of the lecture. Something is terribly wrong with this. Back then, when the odd ways of education where created, education was only for the very wealthy and the known world's knoweldge fit easily in a room. The audience of education is nothing like that of the ancient greek academies. Why is it that a 'modern' class is all but superficially taught the same was as it was all those centuries ago?
Schank argues for a 'learn-by-doing' approach to education which he feels that the rise of virtual courses might stimulate, but he notes that this has not yet been the case with current web based education. He points out that our classic approach to education fails us and sites that employers and graduate programs wanting to reteach you as evidence.
While Schank does not dwell on this, it is possible to mix 'virtual courses' with brick-mortar-places. Go to Yale, but take a class virtually at MIT in AI (along with other Yale students).
The idea that education is best achieved by gathering students in a room and listening to a prof lecture for an hour 3 times a week for several weeks is outmoded and needs to be replaced. But your concern about socialization is valid, but knee jerk and not in sync with the interview.
Same Old Same Old (Score:3)
Here, the solution is "The Virtual University", which Schank never says anything about except that it uses computers. Got news for you -- people have been trying to use computers in education since the 1960s, with "programmed instruction". There are a few minor successes (typing tutor programs come to mind), but by and large, they have failed miserably.
IMHO, Schank has very little understanding of the purposes and goals of a University education. The interview was littered with fallacies. A few of the more glaring ones --
* Tests and exams are "bad". But how do the students rate their own progress?
* Prerequsites are "bad". Ever been in a class with an obnoxious moron without the prerequisites, who nags the professor to explain things he should already know?
* Required survey courses are "bad". Students are expected to be familiar with all aspects of a field when they enter it.
* Tenure is "bad". Professors should be fired for expressing politically unpopular opinions, or for being "dead wood" (whatever that means).
* Like many modern academics, he does not see the difference between a university and a trade school.
These are just the ones that come to mind immediately. There are more.
There are certainly problems with University education. But they're not going to be solved by someone who can't even come up with an answer to the question "Why should I go to Harvard instead of the University of Maryland?" (Hint -- who are your classmates?)
If Schank thinks so highly of his Virtual University, let him get off his butt and build it. I agree fully with the other posters who have said that it will either be a diploma mill or a long, expensive Microsoft commercial.
a bit paranoid? (Score:2)
And while it's true that if you ask most people why they're going to college, they'll say it's so that they can get a good job or something, that's just camouflage- I have honestly yet to meet someone who isn't in college because they're excited about learning beneath all the layers of "I hate school" socialization. I would be surprised if my university is atypical in those respects among upper universities.
Virtual High Schools in Alberta (Score:1)
Of course the parents are also involved in the child's online education and is kept up to date on lesson plans and what is due when via email.
In some cases I see the parents needing to learn about the Internet in order to keep up with thier children learning online. Seems like a good opportunity for parent and child to share time and knowledge with each other. I have even had some of the parents tell me they are so excited with the experience they are looking for continuing adult education courses online.
Anything that promotes learning and the shunning of Jerry Springer and rest of that genre of television is a good thing to me.
Re:Thank you... (Score:2)
Free University? (Score:2)
Re:Virtual U (Score:1)
"Distance Learning" (Score:2)
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:1)
So the purpose of 'higher education' institutions is to keep the local government in check? Uhm... yeah, sure.
I like the idea of actually basing education on learning, not regurgitating.
As stated in the article, the point isn't to have a Buzzword-ian Virtual University (whee!) but a chance to break out of all of the dead weight, now-useless baggage that exists, like tenured professors (to paraphrase, "Having a tenure means you never have to say that you're sorry") and businesses and grad schools looking for degress, but also assuming (rightfully so) that the applicant knows next-to-nothing applicable to the job/graduate study.
The current administration structure makes it impossible to change anything for the better, as stated in the article.
.Shawn
Re:Virtual High Schools in Alberta (Score:1)
Canada isn't the only place with virtual High Schools.
I'm in Massachusetts, USA, and happen to be taking a history course online. This is only the second year the program's been in place (at least here), but it's already gaining popularity. The courses aren't necessarily easier, but they run at a more relaxed pace, and as an added bonus, you have full access to it from home as well as school.
Of course, while the Canadian program seems to be more of a home-schooling thing, this program is meant to supplement regular HS courses. If you want to check it out and see what the courses look like, go to http://vhs.concord.org [concord.org]
Re:Virtual Universities (Score:2)
In my english class we do all of our discussions in a web based discussion format, and all of my cs homework is turned in through a unix shell account.
But it is more that just internet technology. The two tech tv stations broadcast all kinds of acedemic stuff. From complete classes to tutoring help late at night.
I don't know if long distance learning over the internet is the future, but I really think that utilizing all the technology available to provide a complete education is.
No better (Score:1)
want to jump hoops, to distinguish ourselves from those that can't or won't jump hoops.
"Real" U's have problems just like he says, including that they are out of touch with the
real world. First, I'm not sure they should be more in touch with the real world. Second, how
would a Virtual U. solve that "problem" (and should it)?
When I taught at a University (the dreaded Mathematics), I resisted the fashionable
trend of using "real world" problems and making students write essays for their solutions. My
goal in teaching a class (and yes, I was allowed to have goals) was not just content, but
abstraction of thinking and mathematical maturity. I don't believe those things can be
gained without a firm understanding of basic concepts. They are tools, and it is up to the student to apply them appropriately. That is, you can't build a house (the "real world")
unless you know the strength of materials (i.e. the class might teach you the properties of
wood, even though your plans are only to build houses of brick).
A virtual University will be no better (and possibly no worse) than a "real" University --
but we are limited by our expectations and social needs. I can see from the interview, he
wishes for some kind of miracle transformation to happen just because a computer is involved. Any Virtual University will still have to pass some kind of accreditation in order to be accepted as legitimate by society as a whole, and that means evaluation (including testing of the students).
I work for such a "Virtual University". (Score:1)
TechBC may be closer to Schank's vision for a univsersity than a few others I know. We've tried to develop our course delivery models to embrace an online environment from the beginning. Too many online offerings are either just supplementary information for a lecture, or some glorified correspondance course. We've tried to change that by throwing out the old learning models (including a lecturer standing in front of a class droning on for 3 hours a week) and starting with something new.
A few features that set out TechBC from the rest (If I may get a plug in for my employer):
Some amusing points. I notices Schank was complaining about the use of Latin as an "ancient educational language". Latin is also often used as text filler, sort of an "insert your text here" when developing course material. We bucked ther trend and used Esparanto. (A quote translated from Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, I believe).
I liked the bit about using "games" such as flight simulators to teach students. I think most of our professors who would like this idea and think it was cool.
Reading about people "drifting off" and losing interest in lectures. I've been asked to generate reports from the web logs to determine which students may be losing interest so we can give them some more attention, and make sure they're not dissatisfied with their learning experience.
Well, I've plugged enough. It's not all been roses... It's been hell to put off from the university's point of view, and we won't really know how well it works until the students have completed their first semester of courses.
Perhaps our university can shock the others into changing their ways...
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:1)
Doing this can make your life very much easier.
Re:Free University? (Score:2)
I remember something from 1992, when I first got an internet account. I was reading a newsgroup where someone posted a question about how CD players work. It was answered by a Sony engineer who had worked on designing the original LD and CD players. His answer was extremely technical, about 3000 words long, and most of it was way over my head. I always remember that though, because reading that message made me realize that with the internet, the world would become a very different place. A place where the whole world could have open lines of communication with the ultimate authority on any subject.
Of course, Usenet is now mostly used for porn, and the vast majority of people on the internet just surf the web, looking at virtual flyers and virtual classified ads. Communication is not between university and students in newsgroups, but between pre-teens and other pre-teens in chat rooms.
But there's still hope! Maybe
Re:Same Old Same Old (Score:1)
I totally agree with everything in your post, and would like to add something as well. Schank speaks about the 'real world,' but as near as I can tell, 90% of the posters on
The Obsolete University (Score:3)
Though he respects the student more, he still believes the solution is in better "teaching". In America, the belief is that students need to be taught. There are constant debates on how to teach students better. As many geeks experience in high-school, this is very oppressive: students aren't free to learn in their own way, they are force to play whatever game the teacher wants them to play.
For example, American education has been run on the concept for the past 20 years that we should ram facts down students throats, we should instead teach them how to think. This is extraordinarily oppressive to smart students who have cognative skills better than teachers. I remember in one college EE class where we had to calculate the Thevinin resistence. I failed the lab because I used a complete different technique than what the teacher taught. It took me a week of haranguing the teacher until he let me prove that not only did I get the correct result, but my method produced more significant figures than the "correct" method. Mine also took fewer steps, and as far as I could tell, was more intuitive. I got a B instead of an F, I should have gotten an A+.
I have looked back in the literature and found that this idea is actually even older. It is like Christmas: we all think it was more pure and less commercial in the old days. The reality is that it has been a marketing circus for 150 years. We look back on the classes in school that required rote memorization that we all forgot after the test anyway, and we say that education should be different. The general slide in American education is to teach fewer and fewer facts, and still be an utter failure at how to teach students to think. And while we all hate rote memorization, it isn't as bad as you think: for example, rote memorization of wordlists teaches foreign languages well. To still need the practical application of using the language to "set" them, but you really do have to start with the memorization process.
The funny thing is that even though tests results of grade-school education show Americans behind other developed countries, American grade-school teachers refuse to even consider foriegn school techniques as being relavent in America. Every 5 years some new education guru pops up showing new methods of teaching, and bunches of teachers flock to these new methods.
In many non-American countries, however, the model of education is must different. Let me contrast German and American university systems. I'm sure many American nerds are familiar with the oppressive American system, but they don't realize that it can be different. To start with, in Germany, you don't sign up for a class. If you want to attend lectures, you simply show up. In fact, for the first month of a term, half the students are still off on vacation. You must sign up for some things, like reserving lab time or signing up for a test.
The key here is that students are responsible for their education in Germany, but the system is responsible in America. If you are a nerd/geek, this is extraordinarily oppressive because the system doesn't take into account your special needs.
This isn't to say that German universitys don't have problems; for example they are every much as political as American ones. Also, the German culture is more oppressive for nerd/geek initiative in the first place, though it does free you to learn in your own manner.
From this perspective, I think the philosophical basis behind universities are two-fold: one, to make you a more rounded person by forcing you to take classes in subjects that aren't relavent to your career, and two, certify you as having the basic knowledge to fulfill your career. Let's say that Dr. Dobbs Journal had a certification course on programming in the C language. Their certification would test not only that the person had a full command of the language (i.e. had no problems with pointers-to-pointers) but also a grasp of basic data structures. If you looked at two candidates for a programming position, which would you rather have? A recent Computer Science graduate, who got an A in "Basic C Programming" or a Dr. Dobbs certified C specialist?
As you can see, I'm a geek who has been oppressed by the American education system who wanted to teach me how to think, so I have some pretty strong reactions to articles like this. I rather be freed to learn my own way.
Universities have conflicting goals (Score:1)
- Show their students the wonders of the Universe and the joy of knowledge.
- Send their students out with a piece of paper that will get them a good job.
- Attract new students to replace the ones who are leaving.
- Convince employers and relevant other authorities that they are doing an effective job
The problem is that all these goals are incompatible, and hence the universities have to do a balancing act between them.For instance, every computer scientist in the world knows that C++ is a lousy first language to teach a computer programmer. Smalltalk, Lisp, Eiffel, Python: the list of better alternatives is endless. But high school students want a good job, so they do market research. What is the programming language most in demand by employers? C++. So they demand to be taught C++ by the universities, and the universities respond to the demand.
Somewhere in the system there has to be quality control, otherwise everybody goes in for a race to the bottom. How do you find out what kind of a job the university is doing? You look at what the students have to know to graduate. To find that out, you look at the curriculum and examination papers. Other important criteria, such as an enquiring approach the world, cannot be measured and so don't count.
In "What Do You Care What Other People Think", Richard Feynman told a story about a sabatical in (IIRC) Brazil to teach in a university there. He found that the students just learned by rote memorisation, never asked questions, and completely failed to understand what they were being taught.
Overall I think that this guy has some important points to make, but if he doesn't pay attention to the need to produce a standardised product then he isn't going to get anywhere.
And you do need standardisation in education. If you are planning to hire a graduate you need to know what you are getting. A degree certificate tells you that.
Paul.
Ethical Certification (drill&practice aside) (Score:1)
But I do want to address one thing I found particularly noxious in this article:
Roger Schank lost his credibility with this vertern of the PLATO project when he, as an "AI expert":
deplores the curriculum-based, drill-oriented methods in today's schools
The most advanced drill and practice methods match almost exactly some of the stimulus-response pair training schedules for neural networks that drive learning from short term (shallow imprint) to long term (deep imprint) memory. Since I've implemented such neural network training schedulers and deployed them in real world human neural networks imprisoned in the Illinois Department of Corrections as well as in image processing systems, I have no doubt as to their efficacy. By the way, it isn't complicated. All you do is present the top of a stimulus/response queue, get a response, and if the response is correct, shove the s/r pair further back in the presentation queue, else if it is wrong, insert it close to the head of the queue. Common sense -- at least in hind-sight. For anyone who has worked with artificial neural net training algorithms, one can see how such parsimony of presentation could speed learning significantly. The only trick is calculating how far back in the queue one needs to shove the s/r pair.
Anyway, the PLATO prison project (which used such drill and practice as one of its primary tools) was the most successful demonstration of computer based education's potential up until that time (late 70s). The GED success rate of prisoners under that sort of drill and practice sky-rocketed compared to prisoners who were put in classrooms unaided by computers.
Re:The Obsolete University (Score:1)
This is why I think that good American liberal arts colleges offer the best education in the world. They basically expose you (sometimes by force) to ideas and people and thinking skills that your typical "science type" might not have touched with a ten foot pole if left to their own devices. At the time you might not appreciate the "off topic" subject matter and the learning and the thinking and writing skills you obtain there. You may worry that you aren't on a direct path to a job, etc. But later on as you mature, you will probably be grateful for the added dimention of your mind's development.
It's funny that you mentioned German Universities as an example of something you admired. I personally have heard nothing but complaints from my German friends about huge class sizes, distant and arrogant professors, lack of quality teaching, etc. People often blame similar problems in American universities on the fact that they are based on the German model.
Why Virtual/Home schooling strikes out (Score:1)
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Amen (Score:1)
Learn by doing --what a wonderful concept! Anyone will admit this beats siting passively in a dimmed classroom for hours on end looking at slide projections.
I couldn't imagine a bigger waste of time for my graduate students than to take a course in numerical processing by computers when they were trying to build smart machines. One thing had nothing to do with the other... The requirement was there because of political compromise.
I can really relate to that. Get rid of the unnecessary required courses. If it is not related to what I am going to do in the future, I should have the choice not to take it. Now, if only I can tell my numerical analysis teacher.
Get ride of tenure. I think this is one of the greatest evils of higher education. It breads unwanted politics and creates some of the worst professors to ever teach, since some do not have to worry about being fired if they teach poorly.
-slams
Re:Free University? (Score:1)
like the man says, we taught latin for a thousand years beyond it's relevance. I find the information I need from the internet today, as you do. If it doesn't come by usenet, so what? We will use whatever means we devise to learn from the resources we can muster.
Re:Sounds good to me (Score:1)
Re:Same Old Same Old (Score:1)
Re:Virtual High Schools in Alberta (Score:1)
The Open University. (Score:1)
My wife has one degree from the OU, and is currently studying for a Masters.
Paul.
YES! (Score:1)
YES! (Score:1)
I didn't read the entire article, and I had to stop after the second page (I'll read it all later). One of the biggest problems is saw were some VERY sad and mistaken impressions about what university "life" is all about. What's the big deal about campus life? So you go get hammered night after night, and end up in bed with some chick you've never met, and would probably never want to meet again. Is this what I'd be missing???? Boo-frickin'-hoo! And let's see...interacting with the faculty - that would consist of what...sitting in an auditorium with 450 other students, listening to a droll, monotone voice emanating somewhere from the front, and trying to tie what's being said with some hastily compiled overheads??? Oh man! I can feel the emptiness now!
Having spent some time in a college dorm, there were both pros and cons. On the positive side, there actually were *some* students that were there to learn, and I enjoyed their candor. On the other hand, far too many of them were there to "have a good time." And indeed, whatever their perverted idea of a "good time" was, they did it.
While I don't completely discount the validity of getting an education *at* a university, things will have to change quite a bit before I can honestly say I've missed out on something.
Speak for yourself (Score:1)
When real people are actually REAL, I have no problem with interaction. It's all the phoniness, the posturing, the cheating, the lying, etc., that tend to skew my emphasis toward other endeavors. Other than that, I eat well, get plenty of exercise, limit my consumption of pop, use incandescent lights, and well, as for girlfriends, it's all a matter of priorities.
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:1)
Since most geeks have a hard time interacting with real people, not having to confront them (or sunlight) while getting
a degree can only help get the mind and body ready for an lifetime full of junk food, carbonated beverages, florescent
lighting and no girlfriends.
Well, that depends on how one manages one's own life if given more time to him/herself, doesn't it?
On the other hand, it may give the student more time to mingle with people from all walks of life other than fellow studious academic nerds, and give them a more well-rounded perspective of the real world outside of the mostly irrelevant ivory tower. Spend some of the time saved from not having to commute at a neighbourhood pub, instead of the one on campus, or something. Sure beats limiting oneself to and being consumed by an academic environment day and night.
When you need to discuss matters relating to the material being studied, do it online in the form of Usenet or chat rooms with students around the world, and get a broader, more complete perspective of it than you would by limiting your interaction on it to others in the same class taught by the same instructor. For discussing necessary course-specific material, use web-based message boards or e-mail.
Re:Asking for the impossible ... (Score:1)
My university lowered it's criteria for passing after 80% of the students failed.
They didn't assess the teaching, nor the environment, or material given to study by.
They lowered the wall you have to jump over.
And natch, eh?
Re:Same Old Same Old (Score:1)
But it often degenerates in bureaucracy where you set up a set of rules and expect everyone to follow them. So you don't know the material unless you followed the course and was graded on it. Professors have some leeway on that, but they don't use it that often for various reasons (easier that way, need to for everyone to follow the rules, etc.).
And politics still plays for far too much in this. I once asked to one of me teachers why so many of the introductory courses in biological sciences cover the same material and the answer was that each department has to have enough enrollment to justify its budget. This means several required courses with roughly the same material .
University is like the rest of our society in this. It doesn't work all that well but it works. But it is based mostly on self-interest, not on what is good for the student/society. The need for improvement is very real but a lot of people seem to think that this is good enough and if it worked for them then it can work for others too. Of course these are the people who went to university successfully and have to loose if it changed.
Re:Asking for the impossible ... (Score:1)
Your statement about universities not being "market driven" really worries me. I've seen discussion on this topic before, and I don't see much primise in it at the current time. Any institution being "market driven" isn't any good for anything other than making a profit. Universities are supposed to be a place where learn about yourself, other people, other ideas. It shouldn't be a corporate training ground.
Personally I think universities are very much market driven, or at least are moving in that direction very fast. With shirnking budgets, we see corporations creeping in to fund new labs/programs, which are essentially corporate driven, with any discoveries going to the corporation. This isn't obvious on the outside but the influence is definately there.
Have you ever taken a web based class? When you can't interact directly with the professor,TA, or other students you might as well just sit down by yourself and read the book. In its current form I'd rate web education as 1 step above that.
Another thing that worries me is the fact that universities themselves are starting to behave like corporations. Its almost as if they are investment bankers, managaing large pools of money, and running educational institutions on the side. Every year I see decisions at my school being based less and less on the students needs and more on their bottom line, and whatever can fatten it. Meanwhile more positions are created at "upper management" levels and they're all getting big raises every year. The president at my school just got a raise of 50k, he now makes around 450k a year.
I see web/internet based education as playing just another part in this. When the idea of money became a reality, the search for wealth became infinite, there is always more money, more power to be had. Same thing here. Now there is no limit on class size, you can charge the same fees, and register 100, 1000, 1 million, or any number of students. And the overhead costs drop significantly, you can just have a professor operating out of his home office. Think of all the money they could make!!
The good and bad of my education (Score:1)
People say that when you can get the "degree" elsewhere, then things will change. I think that the MCSE, MCSD, CNE, etc... are the very beginnings of this. At least in the computer field, the only one I care about
I graduated with people who now have CS degrees that can't use a computer. You give them some source on a floppy disk and they are confused...if the IDE can't do it for them, they are lost. I remember someone being amazed because a program I did had an option to format a disk. When asked how, I told them I just started a shell and called format. You'd think I had started speaking latin!!!
I still remember college - I guess I'm not that old yet...though I am old enough to think all the current popular music sucks
The good part that I remember is that in the computer science curriculum, we actually learned some theory that was then applied to a real language. In my CS II class (linked lists, binary trees, etc...) we could turn in our assignments in any language we choose, just as long as they did what they should.
The bad parts I remember are:
1) Required core courses...Poetry? Why oh why?
2) Many of my profs hadn't learned much since they got out of school, so my computer architecture class, while still relevant, mainly covered the PDP-11 and it's CPU style. My assembly class was in IBM 370 Assembly.
3) Like the article said - many profs seemed to teach as if research was your ultimate goal. In my networking course, we learned 0% usefull info. Nothing about any real network topologies. We learned about packet collisions and test questions were along the lines of "If you have machine a sending to machine b, with a repeater a x feet, and assuming 30% network usage, how long would it take the packet to go from a to b". We then had to compute electron speed, latency at the repeater, etc...
Real friggin useful!
4) Graduate work. My school required 10 classes at the grad level. While an undergrad, I had taken five courses dually offered. There were a few difference between the way they were taught:
- Computer Graphics : no difference in the material or projects
- Artificial Intelligence : Grads had to do 5 extra pages on the final paper
- Compiler Design : Grads had to implement a for loop...I did it anyway.
- Operating Systems : Grads had to implement something extra - did that too...
- and some fifth one with no difference
Yet, to get a grad degree there, I'd have to retake those courses, or other ones. All the schools care about is one thing - you paying.
Re:Free University? (Score:1)
In a sense, we already have this, except we call it Usenet and fill it with porn.
The problem with this is, there's no way to get any formal accreditation for anything learned over the Usenet.
What needs to be done is for intellectuals to donate their time and knowledge to put out instructional material organized and bundled together as entire course packages (ie. everything needed to be learned to gain credit for a particular course). With the knowledge gained, the student ought to be able to write and pass a final exam for any equivalent course offered at a traditional university, or better yet, have the option of writing one over the net, or prove their mastery of the course material by posting his/her own thesis for the course over the Internet for all to see.
If the author of the course package doesn't have a Ph.D. or any other formal credentials, WHO CARES!?! PhD's aren't necessarily the best teachers anyways, and why leave it to an elite clique of brown-nosers who conformed to all the formalities of a traditional institution and sucked up to enough old men throughout their student years to decide who is worthy of credit/respect in society anyways? As a comparison, who makes better, more reliable software? The professional programmers/software engineers with CS degrees who work at Microsoft, or the many fine hackers around the world who have brought us Linux and many other such free software?
Although I think an anarchic approach to higher education like this would be ideal, of course not all courses and programs can be substituted by what can be read over the net, especially those that require hands-on experience and practice. But the time needlessly wasted attending useless and boring lectures and the hard-earned money lining the instructors' and institutions' pockets ought to be brought to a minimum.
Already (kind of) Exists (Score:1)
For example, a 3d VRML 'campus', where you can go to talk to professors or administrators or other students for assistance.
Within the next year or two, seminars will be conducted in videoconferencing sessions, making the need to actually be physically present at the school almost zero.
As it is right now, I spend 1 and a half days on campus a week, the rest at home.
Re:Virtual Universities (Score:1)
What we found to work best was to use a 20kbps or 35kbps (depending on whether we were aiming for 28k or 56k modems) video/audio stream. You can get a 128x96 video image at a respectable frame rate (3-6 fps) and a 6k audio stream (adequate for mono voice, terrible for music, though) into a 20k stream, and a better frame rate at 35k. Then we redid the slides/overheads in either Flash or Powerpoint (exporting to GIF) and transmitted them separately from the video/audio stream. Admittedly, the slides updated slowly over a 28k modem, but it worked. In fact, I can even say it worked well. (Of course, it worked better over the LAN...).
You don't need a full screen of a talking head. What is the purpose, anyway? The important thing is the slides, the text, and the audio. Video is really secondary. Therefore, we even got things set up to use a transcribed copy of the lecture text (searchable, and synchronized with the audio/video stream so you can goto a position in the text and the stream jumps to the correct position and vice versa).
Re:Why Virtual/Home schooling strikes out (Score:1)
Re:Great for Geeks (Score:1)
The sad thing is, from my weekly conversations with my CS Senior Lecturer friend, is that things are the same now here too.
A common problem across time and space would tend to suggest a root cause somewhere at the origin. Maybe it was the Greek academies. I suspect we should look to the Middle Ages and the origins of Oxford and Cambridge.
Does anyone with knowledge of the histories of these Universities care to illuminate us on the origin of lectures, tenure, faculties, hierarchy of staff etc?
I suspect a lot of Universities around the world were modelled on these institutions.
Good News for SHY people (Score:1)
We know that shy people should come out from their "shyness" and traditional classes will encourage them to talk by providing such environment but with so many students and so little time...eventually they keep quiet until end of the session.
some shy people actually have some bright questions and ideas that can help others student to understand a possible case, they just don't dare to speak it out..........
Some people will learn a lot in real classes, some (not only the shy ones) will benefit from virtual learning, that's what I believe, what's your opinion?
Re:The Obsolete University (Score:1)
My beef is the implementation. For example, I would say that students should be forced to read more Socrates/Aristotle/Plato, but what happens in American universities is that students are forced to know the professors pet theories on the subject and never get around to actually reading the source.
Similarly, in America you must show your work in solving math problems. You can actually do quite well on a test without ever getting a single problem right, whereas another student that gets 100% right answers can fail the test because they didn't show their work. Similarly, only in a America can students graduate without knowing how to read.
In essence, America has a "communist" education system: from each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs. Rather than having a "standard" for all students, learning is "dumbed down" to fit an individual's needs (and naturally, students take advantage of the system accordingly, so this fails just like communism fails). The number one philosophy behind American education system is to support a students self-confidence and stop them from failing. Here's a test of that hypothesis: walk up to an American teacher and say that you think there should be a national test necessary for a high-school diploma (like in every other country). Their first argument would be "...but what about the students that fail". Essentially, these teachers are busy dumbing down the system so that nobody can possibly fail. This means, as in communism, no one can actually "succeed" either. This grade inflation has been going on for 30 years now, in both our colleges and primary schools. (It is very well documented)
As for you comment: [you] personally have heard nothing but complaints from [your] German friends about huge class sizes, distant and arrogant professors, lack of quality teaching, etc. That is absolutely, 100% correct. I've been in [huge] [German] lecture halls where the students are making noise, sending paper airplanes about, etc. while the [distant] professor drones on ignoring the students. Your statement about "the quality of the teaching" reveals your true nature, however. It isn't about teaching, but learning. Compare exiting German students to American ones, and you will find that German students have much greater skills. To bring this around to your original comment: yes, they force you to learn things you wouldn't want to learn on your own, but they leave it up to you how you want to learn them. In otherwords, the education system is so bad students are forced to learn for themselves. In American high-schools, teachers try to "befriend" students; in German high-schools, teachers are hostile toward students. You can actually see this in classrooms where American students disperse throughout the room, whereas German students huddle together with the mentality of ganging up on the professor.
In other words, at every level in the education system comparing Germans to Americans, German outpace the American students. This applies not only to the narrow skills of the fields they have chosen, but a breadth of exposure to alternative ideas. Here is yet a third test: read the German media on abortion, and you hear a wide range of opinions on the subject. Read the American media, and you get exactly two. Germans learn critical thinking skills in school, derived from basic philosophy that Americans never learn. Thus, there is a lot of diversity in the way people think. Americans don't, so on any particular issue, there is less diversity of opinion.
The perverse thing about all this is that I've found German students who study in America do very well, better possibly than if they had stayed in Germany. American students are pampered, whereas German students have much better self-motivation and study skills (they have to, as you see above). Likewise, they are used to more rigorous social pressures in their general culture, so it the stupid [communist] games teachers play seem natural to them.
Another perverse aspect of all this is that German students have more self-confidence. In America, teachers never allow students to fail, so students are never challenged. German students are heavily challenged, and therefore learn how to overcome. This teaches a lot of self-confidence.
I am doing Humanities over the net (Score:1)
I am basically enrolled in a virtual university. It is actually Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. However, I listen to my lectures via a RealAudio stream. I converse with my peers via a UseNet-style newsgroup. Both of these lose something without human contact but gain things from association with a computer too.
While I listen to my lectures, I am connected to the Internet, so I can look up terms on Internet encylopedias and dictionaries and get some background info. Similarly with the newsgroups, but unlike a tutorial discussion, you can look back at weeks of discussion and follow several arguments concurrently. No-one interrupts me mid-thought either!
Admittedly, I do still go to campus every week, but only for a couple of hours, and that's not bad for a 2/3rds loading.
Andrew Scott
Where is la creme de la creme ? (Score:1)
Internet is like air :
80% Advertizing, commercial crap
19% Sex
1% "Good" knowledge, interesting articles
~ Science dusts
-Internet- the leading edge technology of the communication science is design to broadcast
The life:
What's the meaning of learning ? does we have to study at college and after what ? your cerebral neurons begin the long dying process !
The brain is like the (male) sex : he's design to work all the live, and like the sex you've to train your brain all the live to get a better feeling.
My hope:
How many people can say I'm the best teacher in xyz science area ? R: Only one (best = superlative).
My hope is to meet a day a Virtual university, with video courses of the world best teachers.
With a online support section, where fleelance student can get help.
With the best excercices to train your new skills, with solutions and demos.
A place where I can enjoy
Throw away your diplomas, dont stop your mind there or they'll become a pathetic paper.
Enjoy the science, incrase the world human knowledge level by your own personnal studies.
Be autodidact !
Re:Same Old Same Old (Score:1)
* Prerequsites are "bad". Ever been in a class with an obnoxious moron without the prerequisites, who nags the professor to explain things he should already know?
From first hand experience at WPI [wpi.edu] I can tell you that the lack of prerequisites has been beneficial to my education. I have been able to take upper-level courses for which I have the prerequisite knowledge, just not the prerequisite credit. If that's not enough, it's understood that I take the class at my own risk. Failing is my problem, not the school's.
Also, a good professor should be able to keep up with the pace of the course despite the few lagging students.
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College_CS != useful (Score:1)
a) stay in school for five years, take crap like "poetry" and "water aerobics", then graduate knowing a whole lot of C++ and nothing else, and start out making about $30K -OR-
b) drop out, get a lower-level IT job which not only gives me experience and on-the-job training but also free MCSE, Cisco, Novell certification courses, make $16K this year, $24K next, $30K next, and by the time my friends graduate, $40K.
Think this is fanciful? Hardly. Many of us forget that common folk are not as nerdy as we are. They know nothing about computers, and big companies pay top dollar for young punks like me to teach them how to empty the recycle bin.
P.S. Testimonial: I know a guy, dropped out of high school, now 19 years old, LAN admin, makes $118K. Yes.
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