Academia 2.0

[MrSinkukku]

When we regard a lecture as not useful one, We leave our ignorance out of consideration.

[rcpfxrt]

too long, redundant, old info, and facts dropping in letter-by-letter too difficult to read in time alloted. Seeminingly assumptive. "Make learning fun" Don't need classroom experience" etc. not exactly stated but implied and not true. Hybrid mix is best IMO. Online is inherently distractive. Why not just issue sample tests and tell students to go find what they need and come back for actual tests?

[77jamieclark]

Who gives a shit? The shitty world is fucked up, mostly because of MEN, they are the worthless, pathetic, weak creatures, and the world needs to be rid of them!!!!!

[Cuda11]

Academia is dead! learning can be done faster and better outside of universities, renting an office space and committing yourself to learning a subject has far less distractions. going to university is simply a strategy to earn more money and maybe socialize. NO LEARNING ABOUT IT! I'm not against earning more money or socializing but there are more clever ways of doing so without spending thousands of dollars.

[SaraTen]

OK I totally just watched this video to see if I could spot myself walking around campus :P

But in response to the vid:

The sad thing is that a lot of lectures I have endured were really just my teacher READING me a textbook.

Putting it up on powerpoint never changes that...and if universities don't start realizing we can get our information on our own and get ourselves certified without them, well they are going to lose a lot of money.

[gezeitenwende]

In fact, my most successful lecture came from a guy who used just chalk and blackboard, explaining his topic with a lot of enthusiasm, heating up the room with his energy - and I remember almost everything. Where's that in front of a screen?!

[gezeitenwende]

Thanks for all the advertising here, IT lobby at its best.

Some things are forgotten: I had some brilliant lectures with a lot of interaction, with a well-knowing lecturer who was open for relevant aside-questions as well. Being in a seminar with others is also better than sitting in front of my laptop, listening to the screen. I tend to forget what I see and hear on the screen very, very soon, whereas what I learn in a room with others, or from a good lecture, stays in my head for a long time.

[LuckySantiago]

We all know that we can dissect the current education model to be out-dated and failing the MAJORITY of students falling into this model. However, incorporating technology into a classroom, or if even a classroom is to be the best model, wouldn't solve everything, or perhaps allow students to be proficient in math or science enough to be chemists and doctors.(ie)It also gets rid of some accountability for teachers, should there be a certain amount of material a student NEEDS to know, who knows

[mnhs06]

do u have the full documentary and if u do can u put it on you tube

[pamelamtu]

I find the assertions in this video to be offensive and unfounded. The straw man of the old, technology resistant faculty is an assertion--not a demonstrated fact. Spin, all spin.

[Sagittaire888]

...or would you rather listen to supposedly "proven" facts that, after being tested and used, turn out to be OUTDATED principles ill-suited for today's RAPIDLY CHANGING global economy

Besides, no one cares how you feel about the video.

[Sagittaire888]

(That was directed at Pamelamtu)

[MimosaVendetta]

I am a 2nd year student transferring from a community college to a much larger university. My current college is just starting to get more involved online with the ANGEL software, but very few teachers understand or want to use it. Technology can be a great educational tool, but it can also be very daunting if you're not familiar with it. I've often felt that my learning could be better facilitated if technology was properly utilized, although it is nice to see things progressing finally.

[kendashi33]

Im a 2nd year university student in the uk. I think what you say is interesting, but i dont agree that lectures are an outdated mode of learning. The reason we study under professors is that they guide our thinking towards quality material - there is a massive amount of unhelpful or just wrong information online and in books and going to a lecture and studying a reading list a way into finding helpful well written material.

[archylgp]

I think it should be mentioned that one of the major goals of academics and academia at large is to conduct research and in turn enhance our world in unquantifiable ways. So for those of you who feel academia is useless, take a moment and think about where the knowledge underlying your laptop, cellphones, ext came from. If it were not for higher education, the world would be by far a worse place in every regard.

[sevinch002]

ne bu

[tlooknbill]

I can tell you College is there to enrich you, to teach you to think. This enrichment will help prevent you from doing stupid things with your life. It gives you a well rounded sense of how the real world works. Not how it works on TV or on the internet.

Don't concern yourself on how boring it is, just keep your eye on the prize-the degree. This tells future employers you will be less a financial risk than others without one. Who cares if the prof can't teach-figure it out when you graduate.

[Italiasalbion]

My experiences in College taught me that COLLEGE teachers are essentially useless; they are far too numerous and extremely over-paid.

College costs too much money. We don't need buildings. We don't need computer labs. All we need is a desktop computer, broadband connection and a website. There are places like that, but they are over-priced. That is unjust! The free-market, if allowed, will create cheap online education. Let it!

[ElPoojmar]

I'm a professor.

I would like to respond to the comments about students being "force fed" information "that the professor thinks is important". Frankly, professors usually have a better idea of what is most relevant to a student's education than the student does. Actually, that's why there are professors in the first place. We are like personal trainers for the mind; we push you to do something that you don't want to do now, but you thank us (and pay us) for it in the end.

[Italiasalbion]

If a student doesn't have the discipline to learn from a virtual textbook, without being spoon fed by an over paid ego-maniac, then they don't belong in College!

[cum2roll]

'Curriculums' have traditionally wasted years of our lives, force feeding us what is pre-determined by the system. That is why critical thinking is non-existent in my age group (30). You jump forward to an 18 year old and you find a person capable of dissecting lies, placed in their subconscious and conscious minds by marketing, and old school media manipulation.

You will see massive Government control of Internet, just as now, you know the info you put in a computer is going right out the back

[DimebagVision]

@ElPoojmar

Yeah, you push your lectures onto students without explaining and educating us in what you're lecturing about. The majority of professors are a walking text book.

Students have to binge information down their throats to the point where they are sick, then purge it all out for the almighty final exams, thus never recalling your lectures as a resource for the rest of their lives. Except when students say "don't take this professor, he's an ass."

Enjoy your wage.

[LBGTech314]

@ElPoojmar The reason students believe they are being "force fed" information "the professor thinks is important" is because we have no reason to believe it is important. Yes you may know more about what is relevant to our education than we do, so tell us why it is relevant. Tell us why we need to learn early US History if I'm an Engineer, Computer Scientist, or English major. Make us believe we need to know the information, then we might just thank you in the end.

[apmab1]

ONE: A number of studies have shown, spanning back to the early sixties, that it is TELEVISION which reduces attention spans, the internet is primarily text-based.

TWO: Student's do not care about subject matter because it offers them no clear employment options they feel committed to, and they have more important things to worry about

[waverlywatkins]

I also attend Morehouse College and see how technology has affected my learning. There have been times where I didn't want to go to class because I knew i could find the notes online.

[Warnerwatkins]

Being a student at Morehouse College, I see firsthand how technology influences the learning process. The only issue with it is how do you still make it a personal interaction and exchange of ideas, instead of just simply taking the information that is given, studying it, and tehn forgetting about it by next week.

[dentistwannabevader1]

hope they do help us with technology in the future or better yet now!

[Lpriimo6]

ive failed economics 102, with a 96 test average, because of missing 3 classes( i commute to school). My teacher was in her mid 60's, and tried to explain to me why i failed. I was to busy listinging to my ipod thinking of how to delete her

[mnatvig]

Perhaps you failed economics because you can't spell or use puntuation marks. You may need these skills in a job.

[addymike]

I do not understand why it is thought that a teacher telling someone the info is better than reading that same info in a book or on a website. The internet teaches you how to research, but not how to think - I can think for myself. That is close to saying that college brainwashes students. On the internet I can get different viewpoints and biases on the same topic from many different sources.

[jbryant13]

Public Education: Where information is transferred from the teacher to the student without passing through the minds of either.

Check out a TEDTalk by Ken Robinson called

Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson

[addymike]

Some lectures remind me of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller. So Boring. When I first started college I never showed up to class and I did fine through use of the internet and self-learning. All of a sudden, attendance became a huge issue and I feel discouraged that in some classes I might score in the top five percentile only to get twenty/thirty points taken off my exams for non-attendance. I am going to finish college just for that peice of paper. The time and money I spent went to waste.

[uppity892]

I feel that it's your responsibility to inject yourself into your education. It is important for you to ask questions and become engaged in the material. The way that you go about going on the Internet and self-learning teaches you how to research, but not how to think.

[Italiasalbion]

Exactly! Academia doesn't want to face their extinction; they are obsolete.

[eneliatarknenah]

Learn HOW to learn...brilliant!

[uppity892]

Amen to that!

[4164254596]

it is not that profs need to be entertainers, but that they KNOW how to teach. What is sorely lacking is some sort of teacher's courses for professors, so that they have some sort of standard to be held to...

[ElvenInk]

Exactly! They might be geniuses in their field, but that doesn't help the student much if they're unable to communicate the information adequately.

[eneliatarknenah]

Professors are hired mostly because of their publications, research, and reputation, not how well they can teach. Most schools care about their rankings more than the quality of education and the student's experience because higher rankings equal higher tuition.

[Termite551]

Thats good in some ways. The highest ranking researchers will know MORE in general then a lower ranking one. But if they can't teach, I agree they shouldnt be hired

[cynixfire]

The aspect missing from most lectures is the human one. Students who spend hours and hours staring at a computer screen don't go to lectures to stare at another computer screen. Profs who use white boards and overheads are equally as boring as a prof using smart boards and powerpoint. The important thing is that the prof brings comedy, stories or even facial expressions. Don't get me wrong I love Web CT and the student prof discussion tubes but there for after class.

[cowboydan0]

i think ksu students/faculty are just incompetent.

[phylmaker]

With all that is out there competing for young people's attention, teachers will probably have to be more entertainer than dispenser of information. The personality of the teacher is probably more important than scholarship.

Most teachers that I have experienced as a student and a teacher, impressed me as dull, uninteresting and, I'm afraid, uninterested.

[melstj89]

Nowhere in this video or "A Vision of Students Today" is the class size addressed. Large lecture halls are not conducive to learning. Adding technology to large lecture halls won't do in itself. Make classes smaller, interactive (in the traditional and technological ways) and relevant.

[mah9999]

You're exactly right. In the longer version of this piece, that exact point is emphasized, however we had to cut it out for time restraints.

[ecoomber]

Class size doesn't matter so much when you don't care about the subject material. Many lectures go in one ear, and the filtered-out theory that is irrelevant goes out the other.

[jmullina]

Nice video from some folks at Kansas State that tries to address some of the questions raised in "A Vision of Students Today" (by the same creators). If you these caught your attention, also check out the post: "Computing Is a Liberal Art".

[asdfgsdf11]

Well produced; thanks for linking from the "A Vision of Students Today" video

go cats!