MITx and other free online classrooms

The Higher Education Monopoly is Crumbling As We Speak By kevin Carey

In this article Kevin carey looks at different ways that traditional schools are feeling pressure from outdside competition. He talks about how students from all over the world are now able to take online classes by well renouned proffesssors from schools such as Stanford, and MIT. The students take the online coarse and go to a proctored location to take the midterm and final. If they do well the teachers send the students a form indicating that they passed the coarse, with the proffesors signiture, and its all free.

" a group of adjunct professors at Stanford University who were offering their courses in Artificial Intelligence and other computer science topics to anyone in the world, online, at no charge. Tens of thousands of students had signed up. The availability of free Internet courses itself wasn’t all that innovative—MIT’s Open Courseware initiative is a decade old and elite schools like Yale and Carnegie Mellon have followed suit. The news was that the Stanford professors were letting students in their global classroom sit for the midterm, at proctored sites around the world. Those who did well on the A.I. test and a later final exam got a letter saying so, signed by the professors" (pg.1)

"MIT made a major announcement: The world-famous research university would be creating a new non-profit organization called MITx. It, too, would be offering free online courses, designed from the ground up to serve tens or even hundreds of thousands of students worldwide. And it, too, would administer exams to students who, if they passed, would receive a certificate saying so from MITx."

"What all of these new ventures have in common is that they are outside of the existing system of college credits and degrees. The traditional college degree monopoly has long been sustained by three mutually-reinforcing factors. First, colleges are highly subsidized through some combination of direct government funding, non-profit status, and student financial aid. Second, only accredited colleges can receive government subsidies and offer credits and credentials that are recognized by employers and other colleges. The accreditation system, meanwhile, is controlled by existing colleges themselves. Third, our society has made an enormous psychic investment in the idea of traditional colleges. Most people don’t know how to think about credentials any other way."

'While an online class might not be as good as sitting in a classroom being taught in person by a learned scholar, the thinking goes, online courses are cheaper and getting better all time and so will eventually disrupt the providers of live instruction"

"the economy continually reorganizes itself in a way that values the possession of deep knowledge and complex cognitive skills. They are universally recognized and never expire, golden keys to the parts of the labor market most worth entering."

This information is so interesting because it makes a student like me wonder why am I in a traditional school when I am finding out that education is becoming increasingly popular and free online. Not only that but there are many new companies coming out with different ways of administering proof that students are masters of a subject by sending them "Badges" as credentials. Eventually students will be able to go online and become an expert in the feild of their choosing. "The great unanswered question is when the abundance and quality of new credentials will reach a critical mass of acceptance among employers and society at large." If this new system gets its feet off the ground, it probably wont be long, especially since there is so much technology to help it. "The Mozilla Foundation, funded by the people who developed the Firefox web browser, are sponsoring a competition for the creation of badge systems that will help students organize the credentials they receive from different providers." Once students can organize their credentials there is probably only one thing left that is needed. Online advisors to help guide students in the right direction and tell them what classes they should be taking first and a total of what ones they need. It will probably take a while for students to figure it out on their own. It may take a while for students to create their own degree this way too. Back in the sixties and seventies it wasnt uncommon for students to stay in school for up to ten years when they were figuring out the system, whereas now students are commonly only in school for four years. If there is a good Advisor system for this program students could potentially figure out how to finish their education in a timely manner.

 "Traditional degrees have the great advantage of being simple and universally understood. The problem is that they provide little information about what students actually know and are becoming more expensive all the time." If these free online institutions are a success, it would only take a few decades before everyone will be online taking classes at a very low cost if any. This could be the end of small liberal art universities. Online coarses will prove to be too much competition, Liberal Art universities wont be able to compete with the cost  and they wont be able to keep the number of students in their institutions high enough to continue to run their schools. The only institutions that will keep their doors open will be those doing large amounts of research, because research will always be needed and it is possible that like MIT, large instituitions will be the ones handing out the degrees. If this were too happen I could be among the last generation to be compiling large amounts of debt from education, which would be better for the country as a whole economically.

If this were to be successful what would be the consequences? would this drive the classes apart even further then they already are? Yes more of the lower class would be able to be educated at a much lower cost, but once again only the rich would be able to attend actual universities such as MIT and Stanford, because they would be the only ones willing to pay for education. Would that be good or bad for society as a whole? Yes more people would be educated, but would it cause all education to be the same, would it be creating a society that thinks alike rather then individually?

Online Education: where is it going? what should we know?

This is an interesting article I found on the future of online courses. The author did a survey to look at successes and failures of online courses in the past, then looks at what administrators are going to have to do to make online courses in the future successful.

Interesting Quotes from the Article:

"Online learning is an increasingly prominent and legitimate presence in higher education—nearly one third of full-time and part time students at nonprofit and for-profit institutions took one or more online courses in 2009." (PG.1)

 

"launching and supporting effective online courses and programs involves more than

simply migrating old course syllabi to the Internet." (pg. 3).

"Successful, quality online education requires a major investment training, instructional services and personnel, and student

services—to support those courses and programs." (Pg. 3)

"New data from the fall 2010 Managing Online Education Survey, sponsored by our two organizations, The Campus Computing Project and the WICHE Consortium for Educational

Technology (WCET), point to robust growth in online programs at many institutions across the country. Fully half of the survey participants report that online enrollments at their institutions grew by more than 15 percent over the past three years, and two-fifths expect online enrollments to jump
by more than another 15 percent over the next three years."(pg.3)

"the number of students taking at least one online course grew from 1.6 million in fall 2002 to over 5.6 million in fall 2009."(pg.3)

 

"Almost half (44 percent) of the participants in our Managing Online Education survey, typically the

senior operating officer for an institution’s online programs, said that their programs were profitable. In fact, more than 22 percent reported that profits—defined as total revenues minus all expenses—were better than 15 percent for the past academic year. Yet just as many of the respondents, 45 percent, reported that they did not know if their online programs were profitable this past academic year."(pg.3)

 

"What attributes, metrics, methods, and materials will adequately document the performance of each aspect and attribute of the rich mosaic of learning experiences that we want to provide for our constituencies? For example, is the institutional strategy for assessing online education similar to or different from the strategy for on-campus courses and programs?" (pg. 5)

Citation:

GreeN, KeNNeTh C., and Ellen Wagner. "online education: Where is it Going? What Should Boards Know?." TrusTeeship (2011).

 

5 scholarly sources

Artino, Anthony R., Jr. "Emotions In Online Learning Environments: Introduction To The Special Issue." Internet And Higher Education 15.3 (n.d.): 137-140. Thomson Scientific: ISI Web of Knowledge--Web of Science. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.

Boon, Stuart, and Christine Sinclair. "A World I Don't Inhabit: Disquiet And Identity In Second Life And Facebook." Educational Media International 46.2 (2009): 99-110. ERIC. Web. 6 Feb. 2012

Caranfa, Angelo. "Lessons Of Solitude: The Awakening Of Aesthetic Sensibility." Journal Of     Philosophy Of Education 41.1 (2007): 113-127. ERIC. Web. 6 Feb. 2012.

Sheldon, Kennon M., Neetu Abad, and Christian Hinsch. "A Two-Process View Of Facebook Use And Relatedness Need-Satisfaction: Disconnection Drives Use, And Connection Rewards It." Psychology Of Popular Media Culture 1.(2011): 2-15. PsycARTICLES. Web. 6 Feb. 2012.

Vercellone-Smith, Pamela; Jablokow, Kathryn; Friedel, Curtis. "Characterizing Communication Networks In A Web-Based Classroom: Cognitive Styles And Linguistic Behavior Of Self-Organizing Groups In Online Discussions." Computers & Education 59.2 (n.d.): 222. EBSCO: Academic Search Premier (EBSCO EIT) (XML). Web. 11 Oct. 2012.

I have two articles on Facebook and plan on using them to argue that students are more engrossed in the virtual world and not living through the real world anymore. I have a philisophical article on solitude and its importance by Angelo Crarnfa. This article looks at how finding time to be alone with the self is important to grow as a person. With social networks out there students dont have the oppertunity to find solitude and self reflect. Then I have two articles that look at how students react to an online classroom and whether or not it is benefitting them or if it changes their participation level and work ethic. With these articles I will be able to see how the internet is changing students and whether or not it is for the better or for the worse.

Research Proposal Technology in Higher Education

Title: Technology Helping Privatization takes over Education

Topic: I am going to look at technology and how it cuts students off from their physical environment, making them more concerned with the virtual world then the real world. When students are disconnected from their environment they may favor privatization over the classroom setting. I am wondering if the quality of learning through a computer screen is as good as the quality of a trained professional in the field of study that someone is learning about. Could it be as beneficial? Or is the Private world simply using computers because they are cheaper and easier for their students. What are the issues with learning online, obviously technology is very beneficial and makes learning easier and faster, but what are the distractions of the computer? Lack of personal connection and potential distractions may create a setting that doesn’t produce quality work.

Research Question: Is technology helping students learn, or is it or is it preventing them from putting forth their full potential work ethic, and maybe even allowing them to be lazy. Is technology the cause for this drive towards privatism, and is it damaging our overall education?

Theoretical Frame: In the article “Emotions in online learning environments: Introduction to the special issue,” a study is done on the emotions of the classroom environment and how it affects the student. It looks at the motivation of students and how an online classroom affects achievement. This will relate to privatization and how the amount of online classrooms in privatism may not be good for the student.

Another article entitled “Characterizing communication networks in a web-based classroom: Cognitive styles and linguistic behavior of self-organizing groups in online discussions,” looks at the cognitive skills of students in online classrooms and how there is a gap in students actual intelligence and that demonstrated online. It shows that students who may not interact due to different views or reasoning in person are interacting online, but the conversations they have online are significantly less argumentative. Conversations that could cause a face to face conflict are being done through online chat rooms and not having the same effect or influence as they could. They are also not being seen or heard by as many people. This could be an issue in learning because students could be raising a good point and saying something that everyone should know but they are not being heard since it is being done online. So while the online classroom may be good in terms of student to student interaction, overall the conversations are not as effective as they would be online.

A World I dont Inhabit

Interesting article I found on the idea of social networks also about connection. It is entitled A World I Don't Inhabit: Disquiet And Identity In Second Life And Facebook. Which specifically looks at Facebook and how it effects students in a Higher education setting and how it potentially can create a a second world through the use of an online space. The article says we can create a “new world in which to re/create ourselves, re/imagine our relationship to others and re/evaluate what is real and unreal.” This concept is not a new one. People are able to use the social network to create a false identity, maybe even create someone they like more, or someone they think others will like more. How does this affect the educational environment? This article is actually studying two students within the higher education environment and their response to the social network. It was published in 2009 so I may be able to find an update on this type of study. But it goes on to say that “The ambivalence of identity leads ultimately to low, even artificial, levels of engagement” that take place on the social network. Students working on their higher education are in a vulnerable state, trying to complete their degree while attempting to define who they are and what they believe. Could the distraction of a social network, separate them from finding themselves, or even completing their work to the best of their ability. Could students be more caught up in what is happening out in the social world, now that they are never disconnected from it, even when they are, their profile is still out on the web, that they could become swallowed by it, and not as focused on school work? "We are keen to discover how the act of creating and "inhabiting" digital selves within virtual spaces affects not only what a student learns in these new spaces but also what a student may become in the process of engagement."

 Boon, Stuart; Sinclair, Christine. "A World I Don't Inhabit: Disquiet And Identity In Second Life And Facebook." Educational Media International 46.2 (n.d.): 99. EBSCO: OmniFile Full Text Mega (H.W. Wilson) (EBSCO EIT) (XML). Web. 9 Oct. 2012.

 

Internet and its effect on the college setting

I'm going to take a look at how technology effects us as students. There are many different angles I could go with this. I need to do a little more research to be sure what I am going to do. I could look at technology and see how it is effecting our productiveness. See how social networks maybe slow us down and prevent us from doing our work. I could look at how technology is distracting us from learning, for example being on facebook, shopping and texting in class.Another angle I could go with t is how technology might alow us to portrey ourselves as something we are not through the use of the social network. I could look at how constantly being connecting doesnt actually bring us together but actually seperates us, which could be an issue in a college setting especially for freshman when people are trying to get to know one another. Sherry Trukles video "Connected but alone" Touches on these things. She comments on how we are "getting used to being alone." I think the stance she takes on it is interesting. She comments on how technology could cause an issue with not only "how we relate to others, but how we relate to ourselves, and what that will effect self reflection." I think that in order to grow and better yourself you need some solitude and self reflection to understand who you are. With technology preventing us from finding solitude we might not be able to make changes in our life.

In Sherry Turkles Ted Talk, she quotes an 18 year old boy. He said to her "Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I would like to learn how to have a conversation." This is interesting because at that age everyone should be able to have a conversation. Is technology preventing us from being capable of having face to face conversations? I think technology is very beneficial when it comes to learning but the social aspect of it is definatly detrimental to society. In a report entitled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy done in 2010 by Wired Mark Zuckerberg comes out and says just that, "we live in a world where privacy does not matter." This is an interesting concept. In one end of the spectrum we have people who cant have a face to face conversation and on the other end of the spectrum, we have a social network that allows everyone to know everything about you. So what are we left with? An 18 year old boy whom we know everything about, yet we can't even engage in a conversation with. I think at that age everyone should be able to engage in a conversation because it is at that time in your life that you are going off into the world alone to meet new people. It makes me wonder how many people are at college yet too scared to go out and meet new people.

Buskirk, Eliot Van. “Report: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Doesn’t Believe In Privacy.” Epicenter. N.p., 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. http://www.wired.com/‌epicenter/‌2010/‌04/‌report-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-doesnt-believe-in-privacy/.

 

Connected but Alone. Narr. Sherry Turkle. TED Talks, 2012. Film.