The Houston Chronicle is carrying a story by syndicated columnist Froma Harrop about the transformation of colleges toward "whenever learning" and virtual education. The article discusses the fact that many professors now offer their lectures online as an MP3 file that can be downloaded to an iPod and listened to anywhere and anytime.
The article also talks about The Teaching Company and its college level lecture series that anyone can buy. I am a big fan of The Teaching Company. Driving to and from work, I have taken their courses on, among others, Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition, Ancient Greek Civilization, History of the English Language, Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition, History of Ancient Rome, and Plato, Socrates, and the Dialogues. What's great about these audio courses is that they can be listened to wherever you want, and the lectures are done by true experts in each topic area.
Peter Drucker predicted the disappearance of the modern university in a matter of decades. While I am not sure that will happen, it is clear that the direction for education is toward the concept of "whenever learning."
Interestingly, during Spring Branch's Visioning process this Fall, we have discussed this very topic and its impending impact on K-12 education. As with The Teaching Company, it is conceivable that one day, a virtual classroom will be taught by the best teacher available, simultaneously engaging students in many locations. For example, let's say the students are learning about molecular biology and the most highly regarded expert in the field is a professor at Tulane University. The visioning sessions we have held have included significant conversation that the future will include virtual teaching by this type of expert rather than requiring all of our teachers to be educational generalists.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3484577
Nov. 26, 2005, 7:01PM
Will today's college campuses be tomorrow's condos?
By FROMA HARROP
The modern university is a relic that will disappear in a few decades. That prediction was made by Peter Drucker, the management genius who just died at 95 and usually got things right.
His words brought an uncharitable smile to my face as I recently strolled across the ivied campus of Brown University, in Providence, R.I. At the time, maintenance crews were busy removing leaves. Campus officials were still dealing with the aftermath of an especially drunken Saturday night. And most everyone was excited that the football team had taken the Ivy League championship.
No doubt, some education was going on, but the question nagged: Is this an efficient setup for improving young minds? Not very, according to Drucker. "Today's buildings are hopelessly unsuited and totally unneeded," he said. Satellites and the Internet can easily make classrooms obsolete.
We now read that professors at Purdue, Stanford, Duke and other universities are recording their lectures. Students download the talks on their iPods and listen to them whenever. The "whenever" can be while driving, lifting weights or between songs by Black Eyed Peas and the Pussycat Dolls.
The profs say that letting students hear the lectures on their own frees classroom time for penetrating discussions. The same conversations, however, could be held over the Internet — or, for that matter, in a room at the public library.
Furthermore, the professors could let nonstudents download their lectures and charge them royalties, just like the Black Eyed Peas. Ordinary folks already buy courses on tape or CD. For example, The Teaching Company is now selling a virtual major in American history — 84 lectures on 42 audiotapes — at the bargain price of $109.95. It covers everything from "before Columbus" to Bill Clinton, and the lecturers are top-drawer. Some of them teach at Columbia University, where a single history course runs you $3,207.
Herman Melville said that "a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard." Melville didn't need college to write Moby Dick. He needed to read and spend time in the world. Before sailing out on a whaler in 1841, he had already worked on his uncle's farm and as a cabin boy on a ship to England.
Peter Drucker urged high-school graduates to do likewise: Work for at least five years. If they went on to college, it would be as grown-ups.
You wonder whether colleges, stripped of their education function, wouldn't find other lives as spas, professional-sports franchises or perhaps lightly supervised halfway houses for post-adolescents. The infrastructure is already in place.
Over at Kenyon College, in Ohio, the students have a new $60 million athletic center. The highlights include a 12,500-square-foot workout area and an indoor track with eight lanes just for sprinting. The pool has 20 short-course and nine long-course lanes. And, like any upscale health club, this one has a cafe.
Speaking of sports, colleges spend huge numbers of "education dollars" on keeping their football coaches happy. For example, the University of Texas is giving Mack Brown a compensation package this year totaling $3.6 million. UT's highest-paid academic, Steven Weinberg, earns about $400,000, and he has a Nobel Prize in physics.
The universities claim that popular football and basketball teams are profit centers that help pay for learning. In truth, few produce a surplus even for their schools' sports programs. Athletics pay their own way at only about 10 colleges, according to Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College who specializes in sports.
And with all due respect to the Texas Longhorns, if they were such a fabulous cash machine, there would be no need for the Longhorn Foundation. The foundation, which raises money for UT athletics, notes on its Web site that revenues from ticket sales, television and ads cover less than half the operating expenses of the university's sports program.
University presidents, meanwhile, are working on their own pay packages. Several already make more than $1 million, which has become the new goalpost. Most justify their incomes by their ability to raise money for new buildings.
Of course, these are the buildings that will soon be relics, according to Peter Drucker. Look at these shining new facilities and think: What fine condos they will someday make.
Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Providence, R.I.
ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3 WEB PREMIUM
http://romp.com.au/romp/showthread.php?t=47
ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3 dvd
[url=http://realoemsale.net/archive/adobe/adobe_creative_suite_3__web_premium.html]ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3 master collection serial number[/url] - ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3
BUY CHEAP software ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3
[url=http://realoemsale.net/archive/adobe/adobe_creative_suite_3_web_premium_mac.html]ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3 WEB standard price compar[/url] - ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE 3 upgrade
Latest technologies and standards:
Keep pace with evolving technologies and standards. Design with HTML and CSS; integrate with development
technologies like XHTML, XML, Adobe ColdFusion®, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, and PHP; test content across browsers
and operating systems; and prepare for the new Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).
Posted by: NewAdobeCreativeProject | Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 01:29 AM
Fellow Teaching Company addicts can join my Yahoo groups and phpbb forums:
Some of my new Yahoo groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Professor/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Subject/?yguid=317656331
Teaching Company forum:
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/index.php
Robert Hazen's "Origins of Life" forum
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=17
Doug van Orsow
moderator
Posted by: Doug van Orsow | Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 04:33 PM
Fellow Teaching Company addicts can join my Yahoo groups and phpbb forums:
Some of my new Yahoo groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Professor/?yguid=317656331
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Teaching_Company_Users_Subject/?yguid=317656331
Teaching Company forum:
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/index.php
Robert Hazen's "Origins of Life" forum
http://teachingcompany.12.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=17
Doug van Orsow
moderator
Posted by: Doug van Orsow | Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 04:32 PM