Learn for free online

BBC ^

[freedom9]

Thanks, Bookmarked

[eno_]

MIT is a non-profit corporation that solicits (there's the letter from them on my kitchen table) money from people like me to ostensibly to serve the greater good - not to aggrandize MIT, its faculty, or administration. The fact that MIT gets it and so many other universities do not is disturbing. Guess I should write a bigger check this year!

[VOA]

bump

[VOA]

why can't you, at state universities, sit for exams for about the cost of proctoring
and grading the exam plus a bit to cover the cost of the online course bandwidth?

Aside from the concerns about impostors showing up for test, lack of interpersonal classroom
interaction, etc...
there are two other reasons:
1. The teachers/faculty like their current salaries, no matter how much they b-tch
2. The administration, from the campus up and wide (include the physical plant
folks as well) all the way up to near the office of the governor...hey, they don't
want to let go of the power and prestige.

Besides, you need a big local student body to fill up the football stadia and the
basketball arenas!!!
(I'm not anti-sport...just saying that a real educational revolution will
shake the world as we know it. If it is allowed to happen.)

[VOA]

MIT's Professor Dick Yue

I wonder if people break out laughing when ever this fellow is introduced.

[Freedom2specul8]

I haven't read this yet..just skimmed over it. I thought you might know some kids who might be interested. :)

[womanvet]

Also, since there would be no interaction between student and professor, no "homework", no feedback for correction, no term paper assignments, etc.,

??????? Really? My dd is taking two classes online this semester (part of Florida's state university system).

There is plenty of interaction with the professor (as this is dd's first semester, she had no idea that one does not challenge the teacher -- so far the prof has corrected several quizzes and reworded two labs).

In both classes, the teachers are available at their offices on campus, by telephone, or by internet. Plenty of feedback (including a warning from the teacher that she wants Office XP used, not Office 97, so she took 2 points off a test. That upset my 14-yo who is not used to getting less than 100).

The meteorology class has a term paper requirement, along with an oral defense of it. And both classes met the first day to have instructors and students get to know one another; both will have final exams on campus.

My dh also took classes from OSU (OK)-- tests were administered by a proctor the school agreed upon. Off-campus classes are nothing new -- what is new is the lack of cost: seems to go with lack of academic credit, unless the student can take a CLEP exam.

[Lion's Cub]

You are talking about regular on-line classes, for which a student registers and pays a fee. What MIT is going to do is put the course materials on line for free for anyone to study or read at their leisure. IOW, it's like giving away text books--there is no fee, no registration, no testing, etc. You're not "taking a class"; you just get free access to a library of the course material.

[GummyIII]

Thanks, Kim! I have a whole Center for Engineering, Biotech program, and Computer Information Systems program that is interested!

[philman_36]

To MIT...Having just learned of this website I don't really have any "feedback" yet, but I do have praise.
Congratulations to MIT! I do intend to visit often.
"Why don't we, instead of trying to sell our knowledge over the internet, just give it away."
Hear, hear!