I met almost anyone I chatted with and was in my region (actually they were only two persons) and I had a business with one that we wouldn't do if we didn't meet off-line.
Talk with interesting people in your regional Network. And if they/you are really interesting you'll meet and make things together.
And as you said most people meet in coffee spaces, but the arrangement of the meeting can be done anywhere else and not only in University.
Aside from quality of education debate, the migration toward online education will not get any traction until companies recognize online degrees as equivalent to brick and mortar degrees. I doubt that will happen within five years. I have no plans to make my kids the test subjects in this experiment, and I doubt many other parents will advise their kids against a brick and mortar degree if they can afford one.
To rephrase and reverse astrec's comment: Depends a little on what you hope to get from University: a vocational qualification or higher learning. People who are looking for higher learning are already using online resource instead of, or in addition to, existing universities. People who are looking for credentials will obviously go where the credentials are.
Degrees from the Open University (as mentioned in the article) are indeed recognised as equivalent. The OU has a Royal Charter and has the same level of quality assurance as any other UK university.
From its inception in the '60s until a few years ago, all their lectures were broadcast on late night and Saturday morning TV, so anyone could watch high quality education for free well before the Internet.
Depends a little on what you hope to get from University: a vocational qualification or higher learning. He's right on the former, but so, so wrong on the latter: <insert Stephen Leacock quote here>.
I gained far more than information from my engineering degree, and most of it came from working in labs with other students.
I think the problem is companies don't need educated people anymore. For years public education has spit out idiot after idiot, myself included, who are just the bare minimum needed by socirty. This online method simply takes away the growth people now get from University and allows their minds to remain closed and set in the ways of HS, just with more memorized facts. Anybody can remember and regurgitate.
I can easily say that I am a completely different person than I was before I went and studied engineering at University. The classes are not what did it, they where a part, a small one maybe.
Before University I hated to learn(didn't know how, HS was memorize and forget for the tests), I sucked in math thanks to my pristine US public education. I really should have never even been considered for engineering school. At least I don't think so, but I guess they saw something.
I graduated loving to learn, great in math and regained my mind. I was opened up to a ton of new ideas, great professors, amazing TA's and great students, some who became amazing friends.
I just find it very hard to believe you can gain the same from sitting at a computer watching a video. I have watched many MIT and Standford lectures online and its just not the same.
I'm certainly glad I went to school when I did, it was the best decision I ever made.
I don't agree with Bill, hardly all the issues related to the transition from the current model to something full web-based could be solved in 5 years.
I've personally witnessed from the inside the first experiments with online based univ teaching here in Italy(maybe not too relevant), and the result had the word failure plastered all over it. The initial enthusiasm, the progressive difficulties in keeping the students engaged that could never be addressed(new media-> unexpected problems) and lastly what i think could be considered a failure, students with definitely worst degree and that started dropping out.
Quality free material will be increasingly available for sure, but for a typical student is not easy to maintain the consistency needed to study this way. Similarly, universities will have a hard time refactoring their curses to provide something usable/meaningful/useful.
What instead is already evident is the success of web-based courses not related to degrees, small packeted courses on a single subject that target young or not so young adults that want to learn a new language or other stuff.
As you know there are a lot of interesting start-ups in this area.
Spoken like a man whom has never been to university, or maybe a man whom did not spend much time at one when he was there. The signal to noise ration of the Internet is just about inverse of what it is at my university.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 52.8 ms ] threadThe University experience for many (in my opinion most) is more than just learning, it's also about social networking, activities, etc ...
Most people still meet in coffee shops, club and sports clubs not in chat rooms
Talk with interesting people in your regional Network. And if they/you are really interesting you'll meet and make things together.
And as you said most people meet in coffee spaces, but the arrangement of the meeting can be done anywhere else and not only in University.
From its inception in the '60s until a few years ago, all their lectures were broadcast on late night and Saturday morning TV, so anyone could watch high quality education for free well before the Internet.
http://scpd.stanford.edu/becomeAStudent/deliveryOptions.jsp
http://ischool.syr.edu/academics/distance/index.aspx
do we see a trend here
University aught not just be a means to an end but a pretty good way to spend the present.
I think the problem is companies don't need educated people anymore. For years public education has spit out idiot after idiot, myself included, who are just the bare minimum needed by socirty. This online method simply takes away the growth people now get from University and allows their minds to remain closed and set in the ways of HS, just with more memorized facts. Anybody can remember and regurgitate.
I can easily say that I am a completely different person than I was before I went and studied engineering at University. The classes are not what did it, they where a part, a small one maybe.
Before University I hated to learn(didn't know how, HS was memorize and forget for the tests), I sucked in math thanks to my pristine US public education. I really should have never even been considered for engineering school. At least I don't think so, but I guess they saw something.
I graduated loving to learn, great in math and regained my mind. I was opened up to a ton of new ideas, great professors, amazing TA's and great students, some who became amazing friends.
I just find it very hard to believe you can gain the same from sitting at a computer watching a video. I have watched many MIT and Standford lectures online and its just not the same.
I'm certainly glad I went to school when I did, it was the best decision I ever made.
What instead is already evident is the success of web-based courses not related to degrees, small packeted courses on a single subject that target young or not so young adults that want to learn a new language or other stuff. As you know there are a lot of interesting start-ups in this area.