7 thoughts on “A Parody of the Future of Education”

  1. You just gave us a lecture via the Internet! How about an example of how we’d teach ourselves the content you just delivered (from original sources), form a hypothesis, and present it along with some experiments?

    James 1:22 (NIV) reminds us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”.

    The big risk of universities is “credential based on listening only” (with some regurgitation). That’s not terribly useful when innovation is required.

    Doug

  2. So, universities are businesses that want to stay in the business they are in (credentialing for fees), staffed by faculty who want to stay in their line of work (lecturing) and this is inviolate over changes in technology (printing press, Internet).

    Is it possible that a different business model will disrupt the University’s position — offering ‘good enough’ learning with or without ‘good enough’ credentials by a different model of delivery at a radically lower cost point. Might universities be ignoring this financially uninteresting market?

    http://www.nilspeterson.com/2010/03/21/reimagining-both-learning-learning-institutions/

  3. During moments of weakness I do fear that the future of education may be just as you describe. Certainly at the moment there seem to be more forces conspiring to maintain the status quo than there are forces to encourage change for the majority of practice in higher education. When it finally comes I’m afraid change will be painful for most these glacially moving organisations.

    Mark

  4. Why is the internet different? Simple, I dont like this lecture, I skimmed through 3 minutes (in total) and I am now going to close down this really rather dull overview and click onto something that might be useful.

    Please tag under ‘no-brainers’

  7. I chuckled because in some ways you captured elements of education that many tech advocates ignore.

    1) Credentials are useful and some credible institution needs to grant them. Schools/colleges are one of the most widespread, although various professional credentials come from government (licenses). Shifting credentialing authority away from schools will not be an easy or quick move even if some teaching is available in other ways.

    2) We really like face-to-face interactions even if there are many other ways to learn. Distance education and self-teaching have been possible for centuries. Your lecture would have been so much more interesting and funny in person đŸ™‚

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