"The Trouble With Online College" NY Times article

Thank you, I know the newspaper business too well. Its in my blood, and I still keep my eye on it. The friends I left behind will soon be out as well, I try to make them understand that as gently as I can when I talk to them. I give the physical paper, less than 10 years, probably closer to 5 than 10. The NYT just put the Boston Globe up for sale yesterday. What a great and proud paper that was. News gathering will go on forever, it will just be in digital for rather than a physical newspaper, and updated 24 hours a day. Times change, technology changes.

 

Hah.

I almost registered on the site, just so I could respond to that one lady's post, who said that she wouldn't hire anyone with an online degree.

I thought it was kinda hilarious, that she was posting to an online forum of a news article, and discussing it collaboratively with others (in a format that can't really be done with the traditional paper newspaper) and yet saying that online degrees are inferior. Really? So, I shouldn't respect her comments, since she didn't mail them via USPS, which is trying to drop Saturday delivery since people use it so little?

Also, it really rubbed me the wrong way that this person said that people would have identities faked for their tests.

It seems a bit unreasonable, considering that I have to show two forms of ID and get my photo taken when I was taking tests at proctored testing centers (meaning, a person is observing me taking the test).

The only way this would be faked would be by using fradulent identification, but also requires showing up "in person" which increases the danger level/risk if the perpetrator is caught. And, this same level of fradulent behavior could be used at a brick/mortar school. If I can pay someone to pretend to be me, go to all of my classes, and take my tests, how would the professor ever know that I'm not actually there?

I attended WGU, and there were no tests that I took "from the comfort of my home". All of my tests were taken while being watched by a human being, in person.

The cheating model does not scale well, if the test taker for hire has to show up in person and be observed by another person. There's usually only so many testing centers in a locale (I know, with it being quite a hassle to get a Saurday test sometimes.), so the potential for an in-person cheater getting caught is relatively high.

But, hey, that's just my perspective on it. Obviously, many of the people commenting have not taken class online. Online class is not easier.

Even the article itself says that online school works best for motivated students (duh, all endeavors work better when motivated people perform them). Online school is not easier, evidenced by the high levels of dropouts.

I chose online school not because it was easier, or because I needed someone to do it for me, but because I was in the flipping Army, getting mortared in Iraq (because someone wants to profiteer from conflict) and it wasn't a good idea to try to attend the local Baghdad University

Oh well. I'm pretty sure that brick and mortars are going to price themselves out of the market, eventually.

I would say that people doing online education nowadays are just at the front of the bell curve. We're "early adopters".

In 10 to 20 years, taking college solely at a brick-and-mortar will be seen as "old school".

The main detractors they have for wanting to do the brick-and-mortar stuff seems to sound like "hand holding". Hand holding is not for me, and it shouldn't be for anyone's children, either. You gotta grow up someday!

 

I find the arguments presented in the article a little difficult to understand. In Australia, most people are wearing their thumbs out texting, downloading, or getting electronically delivered materials. They routinely use skype, watch UTube, and generally interact online. I don't think they know what a book is (unless it is an ebook) and I am sure ball point pens are destined for the garbage heap of history.

I would have thought that education walks in the footsteps of the people and does not try to bend people to fit the past generation's learning experience. If it wasn't so then the printing press would have failed, we would still be using beads to count, and the quill would still be the preferred instrument of writing.

I did note that it was drawing some big assumptions as to the cause of dropping out of college. I would have thought dropping out of college would have been a lot more likely in the midst of a major economic downturn. I would also like to know what the college dropout figures were during the Great Depression. We really don't know on their information the causation of the dropping out, albeit some assumptions are delivered.

Education is now in a global marketplace and the measurement of the uptake of electronic education may have to be measured globally. I intuitively believe it unlikely, but how do we know that "offshore" universities have not picked up US students? Retail in this country is being hammered because of online buying from other countries. Is education being seen as simply another commodity?

It is here and it is going to stay. It is the third wave in the expansion of human knowledge. The first was the written word, the second the printing press, and now online learning. Accessability has never been greater.

 

A brilliant example is that of online learning (not through an online school, but used for research) and the accessibility of information is that of Jack Andraka ( Jack Andraka, the Teen Prodigy of Pancreatic Cancer | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine ) who used Google and Wikipedia for much of his cancer research.

 

Plus the City Paper. Plus the Washington Blade. And you can't beat the Pennysaver for political commentary and used bedroom furniture.

 

I got my Bachelor's degree at the University of Oklahoma - 80% of my classes were on campus but the last year of my degree they started offering several online classes. I personally think online are easier - mainly because I can move at my pace and get it done much faster than sitting in a classroom then going home and doing the assignments. However, with this approach it is possible I missed critical information and some value the professor would have added. All my online instructors were adjuncts with full time jobs. Because of this, I felt they graded much more leniently due to time constraints. I didn't get as much feedback as I did in the classroom - with the exception of one professor but she taught full time at another university and then adjunct at other places - her life and passion was teaching.

I love online learning because I am able to move at a faster pace and focus on what interests me the most but I can honestly say I felt it was easier than the traditional classes. Though, I can also say I took some traditional classes that were so easy I wondered why I was paying for them! lol

 

Off topic - I haven't seen a Pennysaver in years but remember getting my first motorcycle from one of the ads back in '91.

 

This adjunct faculty is something that needs to be worked through. Here adjunct faculty often take classroom lecturers. Some universities are actually cutting back on their faculty and running classroom lecturing heavily by adjuncts. They also use adjuncts as fill ins when faculty members are doing research. Universities often market it as "bringing the real world into the classroom". They seem to miss the cost cutting motive in the ads.

The online environment appears to me to be not that different in respect of adjuncts. In terms of asking questions, I find that with online learning I get to reflect on my questions and to email the questions I want to know about. I also find that I don't get stuck with somebody dominating the lecturer's time while I am struggling in a large class to get air time. I also like the idea of not competing for a car park at the university, not having to go there when I am tired, and all those other discouraging elements that part time students get. I also don't like paying for things at the university I will never use.

I find it easier to learn in the online environment and, in that sense,the courses are easier. I don't think, however, that online learning is a good option for most young people just out of school, unless their circumstances don't allow the alternative. It is an individualized thing and it is great now that we have a choice.

 

Unfortunately, these schools have it backwards. They should be bringing "the classroom" (scholarship) into the "real world" (practice). This creates opportunities to do practice (work, jobs, etc.) in new and exciting ways. By over-relying on adjucts, schools risk creating training grounds for reifying atheoretical practices that sound good, but don't actually create the desired outcomes.

A good example of this phenomenon--scholarship changing practice--is in the book Drive! by Dan Pink. Regarding motivation in the workplace, most practitioners (and the textbooks they learned from) have it wrong. The research not only shows what motivates people--and it ain't whatcha think--it also provides a framework for implementing practices that lead to higher levels of motivation. That's what research can do. (Another great example is Gallup's research using the 12 questions regarding employee engagement.)

Academics are often accused of being out of touch with the "real world." This can be true sometimes. But practitioners can be out of touch with reality, which is far worse. This is why my current research activity--not yet published--is partially focused on creating better practitioners by having them become "scholar-practitioners," bridging the gap between the two worlds and finding ways to apply scholarship in practice so that it (a) makes sense and (b) gets results.

 

I find this particularly to be the case with Judges. They are far removed from reality who could desperately use a good dose of it; Perhaps if they rode along with Police Officers once in a while they would get a better grasp of reality.