Dr. Curt Bonk from Indiana University was our guest speaker during the last week’s class. I had prior experience with teleconferencing, and I have seen lectures over the web, but this was the first time I was present at the two-way distance class (where the guest speaker could see the audience). It is amazing, but this was no different than a normal lecture, except it is harder to stay focused for a long time for some reason (90+ minutes).
Dr. Bonk echoed the key points that were already addressed by George Siemens and John Seeley Brown, but he took it further by trying to make a projection for the future of Web 2.0 technologies and the effects it will have on the world of higher education. But it also raises a few questions.
Today, one the great powers of the Web is that it allows participants from all over the world listen to the whole courses from Stanford or MIT. You could even download the podcast and listen to it while driving or jogging. Does it mean the degrees from those institutions be less of a commodity in the future?
Another great aspect of the Web 2.0 is that (as Tim O’Reilly put it) “it embraces the power of the web to harness collective intelligence”. Some argue, however, that by allowing non-experts to generate content via blogs, etc. it lowers its quality (e.g. journalism, research, encyclopedia, etc). According to this point of view, the algorithms that are used by the search engines like Google, are only making things worse. Essentially, Web 2.0 promotes the law of the crowd. On top of that, because we are free to choose our sources, people are risking to end up locked in a bubble of information that is low quality. These issues are already being addressed by the major mass media companies, news sites and magazines. Those same issues are relevant when Dr Bonk is asking about digital scholarships. I believe that this is an area where a lot needs to be done. We already see how the rating system, for example, changed the world of e-commerce. You could also check the instructor’s evaluations from your living room before signing up for the traditional class today. I am certain, that this is going to be even more valuable for the digital learning. In fact, if distance learning allows larger number of students from all over the word to take a class at the same time, sophisticated data mining could be used to find courses that suit your learning style, desired depth, prior level of knowledge. These ratings might be a lot more useful than those used for college rankings in US News and World Report.
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1 comment:
I like your point about rating systems. I had not really thought about how rating systems could work in the context of instruction, but more and more this concept is applied. As you say, in ecommerce, also in local commerce, doctors, etc. In my research on wikis, it is being used to rate editors. Why not instructors?
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