June 20th, 2010

[eel_grass]

University 2.0
This entry expands and elucidates on the preceding entry, which you should read first.

University undergraduate programs are expensive and, therefore, exclusive. Their mandatory courses of prescribed readings, tightly structured assignments, and firm due dates do nothing to nurture independent lifelong learners. They will be supplanted

Comments

[kutnitijna]

Very neat idea, and it becomes more interesting the more you flesh it out

[eel_grass]

Thank you so much for reading this "tltr" monstrosity and commenting. You're a great brother!

I see the transition period going pretty smoothly. If the site was launched tomorrow, I would certainly sign up. Even though I have a couple of degrees and little need of a transcript, it irks me on principle that there is no record of my online efforts. Won't somebody please think of the future biographers?!

There is one grave error in your comment. Buck Gunnery, routine-lover though he is, would thrive in University 2.0. Recall that he took up ontology of his own accord in his free time. Like me, I guess, he is "not normal".

[nova_one]

Geology, archaeology, geography...: Universities have the power to send you along with experts out into the field to do hands-on exploration and research, usually along with the complex and expensive technical tools sometimes necessary for the work. In a different kind of society people could rally around leaders-in-the-fields on a temporary basis and conduct the research that way. But right now the present university system is the sine qua non

[nova_one]

Now, if I were to take my netbook to a friend's house, a skate park, or the mall, I think I would get exactly zero productive work done. Unless my friend and I were both working on the same thing. But aside from that, socializing is a far, far, far bigger draw than studying ever will be... at least it's that way for me. Then again, I did get a lot of work done on the "party bus" when I rode with other spectators to a football game in Sherbrooke, QC and again when we went to Toronto. But those were very long bus rides - I wasn't actually doing any work until well past the NB border

[eel_grass]

I'm tickled neon pink that people read what I write! But there is one sad little bit in me at present. It is conceding that University 2.0 is only suited to people like me. Most of the evils of the world are caused by idealists who think all people ultimately want the same things they do. The system I have proposed might be prejudicial against the best people in the world, those who get high good deeds not TED talks.

[nova_one]

Well, it certainly doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. The school boards could start hiring teachers specifically for the purpose of co-ordinating "outside learning". There'd have to be some teeth in it - you'd have to demonstrate progress in - I dunno, math and reading and a language - in order to stay in the program. Otherwise you'll be back riding the school bus every day instead of just once or maybe twice a week. ;-)

[nova_one]

Most of the evils of the world are caused by idealists who think all people ultimately want the same things they do.

I agree that idealism is dangerous, but I doubt that Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Il-Sung were particularly focused on what all people wanted. ;-)

I'm for opening up education, but I want a blackboard

[ext_226448]

This is an interesting idea. I haven't studied education, and I would love to take an English Lit class

Re: I'm for opening up education, but I want a blackboard

[eel_grass]

In your correspondence course, do you use Elluminate? It is an emeeting program that offers the closest thing to a blackboard that a student in Chile and one in Siberia can work on together. In addition to a voice conversation and an msn-style conversation, Elluminate meeters share a digital whiteboard that all of them can be drawing on at the same time. I think a math-specific opensource take-off of Elluminate could do much to address your concern. Alternately, Math Bars! There could be public places where University 2.0 students come to participate

Re: I'm for opening up education, but I want a blackboard

[ext_226448]

We use webct. I would be pleased to see walk-up-to-the-board participatory problem solving. It sounds fun and like a good experience.

I'm a Luddite. So, why do students in Chile need to work with students in Siberia? Are there not people they can work with in their own towns? Are they doing such specialized research?

[eel_grass]

Because math education and culture in Chile and Siberia are different enough that they can offer fundamentally new insight to each other...