Posted on 01/07/2012 3:23:43 PM PST by Sprite518
For Wall Street Occupiers or other decriers of the “social injustice” of college tuition, here’s a curveball bound to scramble your worldview: a totally free college education regardless of your academic performance or background. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) will announce on Monday that they intend to launch an online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
We are currently short of “technical people”. Somebody forgot to have our people go to college at engineering schools.
Because you can learn something. You know, it is ENTIRELY possible under the current system to earn a degree and NOT learn anything.
People who want to take high level college classes, just for the sheer delight of learning, or to educate themselves about whatever they live, now have the opportunity to do so.
Anything that helps people improve themselves is great, and I am a big proponent of using the internet to both challenge oneself and the status quo, to make greater efficiency.
One thing I read recently sounded great, and would turn high school education on its head. Instead of kids being in school all day, they do their learning and coursework interactively online. Then go to school 1 or 2 days a week to meet with the teachers for 30 minutes to go over their coursework 1 on 1, to make sure they learned it and to ask questions and to even expand upon what they have learned.
THIS kind of thinking can revolutionize education and may one day become standard. Even if kids don’t have to stay at home to do this, they can meet in small clusters of computers, maybe with a facilitator to make sure they are doing the work etc... either way, this is MUCH MUCH better than the system we have now where you cram 30 kids in a room for 50 minutes and hope they learn something. 1 on 1 will always work better.
MIT has had free courses online for years.
Go look.
Some have lectures. Some have notes. None have textbooks. No tests. No credits.
It’s one of many ways to educate yourself independently.
This is not news.
Also, it will be the end results that matter not the process.
Lol, nice one.
What MIT had was largely experimental, done on the fly.
Now the process is becoming formalized.
This is reaally big!
“They do not accrue towards an MIT degree (thus far), however, making them worth what you pay for them in the eyes of degree consumers.”
Sheepskins are highly over rated but knowledge is a tool of worth.
I’ve worked with two MIT engineers. The ChemE was super - self starter, logical problem solver, effective. The MechE couldn’t find her way out of a closet with a map.
The knowledge and information has always been available to those that will work to get it. Putting it to practical use is up to the individual. Degrees are worth the paper they’re printed on.
I generally agree with you. The information is out there and ready, for the willing and able student.
But most people are not good self-learners. Not everybody can be a Thomas Jefforson or a Ben Franklin or a Steve Jobs. Most people need a structure that they can work with and measures along the way, to ensure they are learning at an acceptable rate.
One of the really good things that MIT is doing by this, is allowing people to learn at the rate they are capable of. Those who are good learners won’t be slowed down by the slower learners and the slower learners can move at the rate they are capable of.
It will probably help create a more educated populace, because the emphasis moves towards results and away from the process.
I like that idea about the kids learning online. Brilliant!
We are in the 21st century, but our education system is still in the 20th. It may had been good at the time, but it's time to update.
The best part is that the children would be at home with their family. Just think of all the money that could be saved in fuel cost (getting kids to and from school everyday) alone?
I think so too!
Perhaps but not this way. See post #7.
Thanks. Sloppy of me not to check out the latest. I’ll go look.
What seems to be the trend from graduates these days is that they have to go global for jobs now. What I’m hearing is that most U.S. graduates are going to places like Singapore, China, India and even some to Europe for a good paying job. While foreign born students are taking the jobs here for what you said less pay. At least that is what I have heard.
We had a period of time in our country when most people where farmers. Then in the industrial age people moved to the cities for the jobs. Then during the information age people moved to different states and now we are in the global community, like it or not, where students have to move to other countries for jobs.
Thanks to our politicians both Democrat and Republican.... This is why they do not give a dam about the borders.
There might be some knowledge to be had even if course credit is not given. Electric, physics, mathematics, etc. It’s never a good idea to pass up knowledge, especially when the price is right.
Amen!
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