I think there will always be room for traditional brick-and-mortar colleges and universities. Coincidentally, we were discussing university with our daughter the other day (she's in 7th grade), and I strongly suggested to her that she attend a traditional school vs. an online college, primarily because of the social and interactive experiences. Plus she's a great softball player and expects to continue playing that sport beyond high school, which would be tough to do via the Internet!
However, I believe that online education is a fantastic resource for students with children; employees looking to grow into new careers or improve their promotion chances; people who want to explore other options; people with health issues; individuals with financial concerns, etc. And there are plenty of "traditional" students who, for one reason or another, would rather attend university/college online. Offering everyone the opportunity to further their education by multiple means cannot be a bad thing at all!
I am all for education promotion using all available means.
But if it was in my power, instead of such courses offered for higher-end higher-ed type courses (often utilized by people who possibly could afford online, multi-media or printed books on such topics), I would have major sponsors fund similar efforts to enable basic education to the billions who neither have PCs, nor Internet connections, nor, often, even electricity.
A global network of WLAN enabled kiosks or banks of kiosks enabling every child on every continent to be able to get a basic education, at zero cost. That would take away one excuse poor parents have to not send kids to schools in those parts of the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer.....but I'm not the only one... I hope.
We can hope that the tradition-bound and staid academics who zealously and jealously guard their bailiwicks with vicious rapacity (as the joke runs, because the stakes are so incredibly low) will see the light, but historically speaking, they would rather die than allow something that will actually aid distance learning and non-traditional educational methods. Simply put, the more time they have in academia, and the higher their degrees, the less flexible they are likely to be. It is therefore intuitively obvious (to even the most casual observer) that this will require more than just the inprimitur of a well-known nerd to make any headway against the tide of time. And that's just the way they like it.
If the top universities are promoting it and with financial backing from Bill Gates, online education will be officially mainstream with many other schools to follow.
Perhaps the main critical issue will be protecting the brick and mortar environment (the traditional classroom setting).
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