Colleges obsolete by 2020? Really?



Anytime a bozo takes the stage and proclaims something radical it seems to stir up the educational community. In similar vain an article circulated the interwebs a few weeks ago about David Wiley who is getting a ton of publicity over his comments that College will be obsolete by 2020. I suppose in David's case bad press is good press....

In any case his idea that colleges will be obsolete by 2020 revolve around the idea that technology such as podcasts, videos on services like you tube, e-Learning and m-Learning, communities of practice and freely available content will replace how people gain knowledge.

Don't get me wrong. I love technology and all that it can do to help in education, but let's be serious, we won't be replacing colleges with downloadable podcasts any time soon. The reason you go to college is not just to get an information dump. If that were the case colleges would have close down ages ago because people would be going to free public libraries for their content. You go to college to interact with people. To learn from them, to argue, to debate, to agree and disagree. Knowledge is not simply an information dump from book to brain (or in David's case from podcast to brain). It is a process.

Podcast, and other tech are great for life long learners to continue to update their skills, but as a primary means of education without an instructor? I think not.

Thoughts?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Something I've seen quoted around recently is attributed to WB Yeats:

"Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire."

If education were filling a bucket, then school substituted by podcasts might be a possibility. But it isn't. Perhaps replacing bland lectures by profs who'd rather be researching with podcasts from passionate teachers would be a good idea, and then time on cam[us can be dedicated to interaction, group projects and other "doing".
May 15, 2009 at 8:32 AM
Ο Φοβερός said…
Brian I agree with your idea.

I also think there is something fundamentally wrong with profs that just want to do research and don't want to spend time with lowly students :-)
May 16, 2009 at 1:33 PM
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