I guess the plan is for Harvard and MIT to drive the online 'universities' out of business...at the same time that they utterly devalue the work of their own faculty.
Well, I suppose in a world where we already devalue experience and expertise, the complete devaluation of experience was close behind.
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Harvard, MIT to partner in $60m initiative on free online classes
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Harvard President Drew Faust (left) and MIT President Susan Hockfield… (Bill Greene/Globe Staff )
CAMBRIDGE - Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will team up on a $60 million initiative to offer free online, college-level courses under a joint superbrand known as edX, the universities said Wednesday.
The Harvard-MIT move - an altruistic giveaway, a potential research bonanza, and an audacious bet on the future of higher education all in one - instantly made the schools preeminent players in the burgeoning worldwide online education sector. The venture joins several major start-ups in recent months across the country.
The full edX program is expected to be up and running by fall.
I think they are trying to fight Khan Academy, which ironically enough, was set up by an MIT grad. But the only trick with Khan is you can't get a degree from them, just star points.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't believe they will ever get rid of live teaching, there are just certain classes that demand a teacher, students, and a classroom.
"...there are just certain classes that demand a teacher, students, and a classroom."
ReplyDeleteTell that to my school, Big Online University Corporation Not Named After Desert City. They're doing everything they can to get rid of everything except the students. If the students would just pay and never show up, all the better.
This will perhaps mean a setback for the huge online schools. That ain't such a bad thing, I guess. My hope is that the schools like mine will be forced to advertise more "personalized instruction" and thus increasing our leverage. One can hope.
If the students would just pay and never show up, all the better.
DeleteThat might just work with some decent marketing. Have people pay for the fantasy of being a college student, signing up for classes they'll never attend and will drop in the middle of the semester. It's not just about getting a degree, but indulging yourself in the romantic idea of going to college and being a scholar.
To some extent we're headed in that direction, but it could be sped up a bit.
"Mystery Science Theater 3000" did a similar joke early on, a college for retirees to fart around in called "Old School"; it was a satire of retirement communites and 1950s films where the cast is supposed to be college-aged but they are all obviously in their thirties.
Delete(It was episode 206, "Ring of Terror.")
This strikes me more as an updated version of the Harvard Classics/five foot shelf of books, and similar endeavors of the early 20th century, than as a substitute for a full college education. Both of my grandfathers, born to working-class families in the very late 19th century, had 2-year technical degrees plus a professional certification, and both pursued extensive reading on their own, and discussion with like-minded friends, to bridge the gap between their own practical educations and those of the college graduates of their day. Intellectual curiosity was the main motivator in both cases, I'm pretty sure, but they probably also felt a need/desire to understand the cultural references of colleagues and clients from better-off backgrounds. One owned the five-foot shelf; the other haunted used book stores and assembled his own (and also took an abbreviated "grand tour" courtesy of the US Army during WWI. Since he managed to avoid the trenches, that worked out reasonably well.) I'd guess that these online courses might fill a similar role for those with technical/practical degrees today. I'd also bet that they'll be popular with retirees who want to keep their mental muscles flexed. For those purposes, or for supplementing regular classroom instruction, a la Khan Academy, these courses seem like a very good idea. As substitutes for actual college instruction, of course, they aren't (and not only because they don't provide a credential).
ReplyDeleteFinally, can I just say that, regardless of the subject, the accompanying picture makes me smile? I hadn't realized that MIT as well as Harvard now has a female president. It's pretty cool to see them together, especially after Larry Summers' comments when he had the Harvard post.
These courses pose the same threat to college education that the "Great Courses" CD series do. Since they have to appeal to a large public, they will not have the same depth of normal courses. And they won't have readings, discussions...
ReplyDeleteP.S.: I love the Great Courses series -- terrific for road trips.
I think the "threat" is how it relates to the realm of snowflakedom: prepare yourselves to start encountering students with attitudes like 'well, I already took this course online from Harvard, so I can be a jackass in your class.' Or 'I can get this free online, why are you making me pay for gen-eds just to get a diploma?' (I already get this crap from students who've taken crap courses at community colleges while in high school.)
DeleteMaybe it's a matter of degree, but I don't think this initiative bodes well at all. It's also nearly guaranteed to continue to hold non-tenured pay down...really, how long will it be before a place like Harvard says 'well, we offer that one free online, so take it there; and we'll assign twenty students to Adjunct Alice as their personal tutor. Oh, and by the way, Alice, we really don't need you for formal instruction, but we'll expect you to do all the actual teaching, so suck it.'
@Contingent Cassandra - What you are talking about is what Susan Jacoby talked about in Age of American Unreason, the "middle-brow" culture of people not necessarily going to college or wanting to understand Shakespeare, but wanting to want those things. She seems to argue that TV pretty much killed that off. Of course book sales are still doing well, so I'm not sure.
ReplyDelete@French Prof - The "Great Courses" also lack discomfort. People won't necessarily do any education that takes them out of their comfort zone unless they have to . See this discussion, for example.
The comparison to TV is apt. Imagine looking at TV as a powerful new medium to spread education and enlightenment to masses formerly unreachable. I think that was a prominent idea when TV first appeared. Fast forward fifty years to.... Real Houswives of God Knows Where.
ReplyDeleteOnly a (relatively) rare few watch anything even remotely informative, and even that is pretty dilute. The Onion does some brilliant riffs on this idea.
As to the internet, Trekkie Monster probably said it best.
Delete(Pretty innocuous, but probably not entirely safe for work)