Will online ed replace classroom ed?

and who is this Ed guy?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/05/08/will-online-education-replace-classroom-education-anytime-soon/#1490963b690c

 

It's an interesting question, even if the Forbes article didn't really address it very well.

Will online education replace classroom education (anytime soon)?

My opinion (just one among many) is 'No', it's unlikely to replace classroom education but it will (and already is) supplementing it.

I think that some schools will continue to emphasize classroom education for undergraduates for the foreseeable future. These will tend to be the more elite higher end of the 'liberal arts colleges' and maybe the ivy-league type elite private universities like Stanford. What they will be selling is a 'finishing school' experience and they will assume a role in society not unlike the British "public schools" (as opposed to state schools). They will emphasize their tradition, history, selectivity, how they represent a tight-knit community of "top" kids and they will be selling networking opportunities among the children of the elite as much as anything.

I see the broad mid-range of colleges and universities moving to a more hybrid delivery, where course delivery starts to resemble how introductory science classes have long been delivered. Huge lecture classes with hundreds of students being taught by a celebrity professor in a large lecture hall are likely to be replaced with online video lectures. Smaller 'discussion sessions' where its easier to ask questions and have class discussions may or may not continue to take place in-person. (They may move to discussion boards like this one.)

But... I do not foresee most laboratory classes moving to a DL format, particularly ones that require specialized equipment, require guided practice of hands-on technique, require safety procedures and so on. (Kizmet's welding might be an example. Microbiology. Lots of things like that.)

So universities like the University of California will gradually start to look like scientific research establishments, with graduate students and undergraduate laboratory practice grafted on. Lectures will have mostly migrated online and the campus will be devoted to labs, clinics and studios. Many of the humanities and social "sciences" might physically disappear from campus entirely to be taken up by geographically dispersed virtual communities hosted online by the universities.

And there will be the vocationally oriented schools, most of the current schools that don't offer doctorates, that will offer lots of IT and business classes and programs online. At least until that market is glutted. (Can an economy survive in which everyone is striving to be an IT worker or a manager?)So the shape of the vocational sector will depend on how the economy evolves in the future (assuming it doesn't just collapse into third-world poverty).

But I'd guess that it won't be nearly as fixated on degrees as it currently is, but more interested in marketable skills. So the emphasis won't be on degrees so much as on classes completed and on the smaller sub-degree certifications they provide. We are already seeing that happening. Some of these certifications will be available online (various software skills), but some won't (if they require hands-on instruction, Kizmet's welding again).

So the goal of universal higher education is probably going to go away. It just isn't practical (literally). Higher education isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, turning the entire population into a population of intellectuals by awarding everyone a bachelors degree. (We already saw that with high school diplomas and we are starting to see it with masters degrees too.)

But hopefully those online virtual communities of scholars that I mentioned above (when talking about the future of the humanities) will be there for those (including those in remote locations) who have a passion to learn and can't help being intellectuals. Here are some more speculations about that:

There's already an almost infinite variety of academic books and papers available on the internet. So everyone essentially has a research library right at their fingertips. Those who choose to make use of it in following their own unique personal interests might have the opportunity to get credit for it by passing exams at places like the 'Big Three' or WGU. That Prior Learning Assessment angle will only grow and much of it will be online. Pror Learning Assessment opens the door to alternative ways of learning things, without standards dropping too precipitously. People (who have the necessary motivation) will learn on the job, by independent study, in informal apprenticeships and in all kinds of different ways.

Right now, intellectual life and scholarship in general is more formalized and institutionalized than it has ever been in all of human history, dominated by doctoral programs and almost mono-manically focused on producing more university professors. That's just about all it is: Professors producing little clones of themselves, professors writing in search of other professors' approval, with research and intellectual life in many fields (the humanities and social "sciences" in particular) kind of trapped inside that little hermetically sealed bubble, a small subculture increasingly out of touch with the rest of society that doesn't know or care what they are doing.

What I would personally like to see is scholarship kind escaping from the iron-grip of the 19th century research doctoral programs and returning to something more like what we saw in the 18th century, with all kinds of informal scholarship taking places in the cafes, salons, societies and networks of correspondence.

 

No, the student who prefers classroom education is high compared to online education.

 

In my opinion, a classroom education is preferred by many. I don't think, an online ed can replace it easily.