This link is from May 6 2012 NYT, and may be difficult for non NYT subscribers to access.
It’s a series of pages, so really not easy to copy and paste here. Also, this may be a post Kris gets to from her end of the railroad…but I found it in the Dropbox Public folder stuff, and was intrigued, partly because some of these predictions have now had time enough to prove right or wrong.
“publishing” it with today’s date for fun… after Gary’s SUNY official’s irrational exuberance speech.
Here’s my link description stuff from the original post:
English prof at U of Virginia who says a number of clueless things, such as large classes are actually a good thing because, who knows, your chances of running into someone on campus who is also taking that section increases, and you might then startup a conversation with them.
Several other totally wrong-headed perceptions of what an online course, when done right, provides to the student. And oblivious to the problems with University courses as they are presently constructed, and for which groups like Online Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon) are actively pursuing alternatives.
Dr. Sanchez, for all the vision he brings to k-12 education, and the upcoming initiative of LCPS Virtual Academy, doesn’t really get it either. For him, education is motivating students who don’t want to do it.
So, sure, and he actually said this, if you’ve paid the big $$ for college tuition, young adults are going to be motivated to study, and “perform” in classes. However, what stick do you have to make kids succeed online? Therefore, it is only for some, the highly motivated geeks.
His stated concern that students might take up online courses because they think it’s easier, has been noted elsewhere in my view as completely wrong headed.
Why do schools fail to integrate new learning technology…another of Dr. Sanchez stated bugaboos? Because the teachers don’t want to do it, and for all the professional development courses they buy for teachers, they still don’t want to do it.
My experience as a kid/student, was that any occasion to watch a movie on any topic “in class” was whole heartedly welcomed by students. Students are self motivated to use new communication tools. Why? Toddlers supposedly pick up iPads and go to town. Why?
What is the real barrier for online courses to work in schools: students who like them because they are “easy” or “easier”, or schools who define their job as enforcement of motivation with sticks.
Is learning an inherent human interest, capability, and intrinsically motivated? It may well be that k-12 is even more “suited” to new forms of learning using tech tools than supposedly self-controlled young adults in universities…
(for while you could access 5 links a month for free at NYT…still that way now?…)
I’m not necessarily happy btw that our news sources that are based on “real” reporters with “real budgets, training, expertise, contacts, etc” are “going away” and being replaced by a sea of free lancers, who may in a “crowd sourcing” way get it right, but who will also often be shallow and only marginally capable of putting news in context.
And who certainly are weak on “fact checking”.
NYT is one source that I hope will continue, because they do have that reporting capability, and are powerful enough to still be a problem for totalitarian regimes such as China, Iran, N. Korea etc. Some may not agree with their left flavored take on the world, but they are an example of a functioning competent news organization, the type we are losing fast.
They’re charging a “lot” it seems to me, for monthly access, and one can’t afford to subscribe and pay for every news source (LCSN?), but since I want access to articles such as those here at this link, I pay.”