Actually Ed, telementoring is fairly well established (do a Google search and follow up some of the links) and at least anecdotally fairly successful online--some interesting research on its effectiveness in various specialized medical areas as well... (I do a fair amount of various kinds of mentoring online and it seems to work partly because it is a rather "cooler" medium i.e. less immediacy of affect when one chooses that path.
M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 10:45 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] From Slashdot: Bill Gates on the (non) futureofhigher education Gates may be right when it comes to the theories, formulae and facts that one learns when being educated, and perhaps the classroom experience is not that important. However when I think back to undergrad and grad school what was most important to me was "mentoring" -- my profs taking an interest in how I was thinking about course content and helping me through that. I doubt very much that remote connections on the Internet could do that. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Gurstein" <[email protected]> To: "'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 12:27 PM Subject: [Futurework] From Slashdot: Bill Gates on the (non) future ofhigher education > http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/08/08/168229/Forget-University-mdash > -Use-t > he-Web-For-Education-Says-Gates > > Posted by Soulskill on Sunday August 08, @01:31PM > > An anonymous reader writes "Bill Gates attended the Techonomy > conference earlier this week, and had quite a bold statement to make > about the future of education. He believes the Web is where people > will be learning within a few years, not colleges and university. > During his chat, he said, 'Five years from now on the web for free > you'll be able to find the best lectures > in the world. It will be better than any single university.'" Of course, > the > efficacy of online learning is still in question; some studies have shown > a > measurable benefit to being physically present in a classroom. Still, > online > education can clearly reach a much wider range of students. Reader nbauman > sent in a related story about MIT's OpenCourseWare, which is finding > success > in unexpected ways: "50% of visitors self-identified as independent > learners > unaffiliated with a university." The article also mentions a situation in > which a pair of Haitian natives used OCW to get the electrical engineering > knowledge they needed to build solar-powered lights that have been > deployed > in many remote towns and villages. > > Bill Gates is certainly correct either now or in the near future about > the content of education--but that doesn't matter since a/the primary > function of higher ed. is credentialling and social sorting. > > M > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
