College 2.0: Can Universities Be Google-ized?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/04/21/Siva_Vaidhyanathan_The_Classroom_Is_Sacred

Can online lectures replace a college diploma? Cultural historian and media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan outlines two arguments for the movement towards a democratized, Web-based form of higher education.

-----

Professor Vaidhyanathan's keynote address, entitled "'The Classroom is Sacred': Digitization Without Commercialization," addresses the myriad challenges facing university faculty, administrators and students in finding the best ways to embrace emerging digital technologies to improve teaching, research and learning without giving in to commercial pressures or arguments about efficiency or cost savings. Prof. Vaidhyanathan suggests that we approach the implementation of academic technologies in the classroom with a sense of experimentation and modesty. - CUNY

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently an associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia. From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University.

Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog, www.googlizationofeverything.com. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.

Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• google
• model
• higher
• education
• university
• system
• community
• colleges
• online
• classrooms
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv
• siva
• vaidhyanathan
• graduate
• center
• CUNY

[ndyt]

still need interaction with teachers you cant get from watching videos.

[Medifro]

@shelaughs I agree. Education for everyone at a minimum cost will solve 99% of this world's problems.

Good news its that the concept is menifisting in the real world. Wikipedia?

[matchbox555]

ive watched 4 videos of this guy now and he never actually makes a point

[JOHN411S]

View, Safe Sex In A Bottle, on youtube

[ronny9842]

The pros for the "googlization" of higher education far outweigh the cons. Do it now. We could solve major problems in society just by reducing the cost of education.

[JeffWithAnF]

@Medifro I love wikipedia. I use it all the time at work. But a lot of people don't use it because anyone can edit it. But that should be a good thing. If I come across an article and a very important fact is missing a citation, I open up another tab and Google the subject and double check the uncited fact and change it. 5 minutes.

I learn so much from Wikipedia on a daily basis. People don't learn more because they don't want to. I work with a lot kids in their 20's and most of them...

[JeffWithAnF]

@Medifro ...have internet enabled phones. During conversation they ask questions that do not need to be asked, just Googled. And it's not like if their asking what are the elements of gold or shit like that. No their asking how did they do that action scene in that movie or how why does our employer pay us bi weekly instead of weekly.

My point is that these are simple things that have FREE simple answers right in their pocket and they don't even take advantage of it.

[ndyt]

@ocerg1111, that's not "Google-ized" which is what this video is about.

[ocerg1111]

@ndyt fair enough, however live streaming camera feed of an instructor with online, interactive Q/A, and assignments, coupled with electronic transmission of assignments and papers can do the job. Being in the room in-person does not increase or decrease one's quality of education.

[aandreya]

googleing and youtubeing for "knowlege" is good. But it only works, when you have a suky professor and you need a good explanation.

in a way it decreases knowledge and in a way it increases knowledge.

It is best that real and virtual universities go together hand in hand.

[ElShadaiLives]

Education online would provide students w/ a safer environment from idiots that want to shoot the schools up.

Think of the barrels of oil that would be saved.

Think of the savings in hours not sitting in congested traffic.

In the military they taught us via videos. They didn't waste man power providing teachers in the classrooms. After the video an assistant would pass out a test to see what you learned. Hooah!

[AznN00B]

we can get top quality lectures from universities such as harvard. so, what are we paying for? laboratory usages? well, i think those are a lot cheaper; therefore, what's next in this chapter of education