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*edited title to read alternative instead of replacement.
Imagine a system of education, supported by direct donation and advertising, where you could get the equivalent of a college education at little or no cost to you. I'll go over some of the resources and then give a framework of how the whole
system should work.
Resources:
-moodle is a free, open source, online education platform into which it is possible to plug in educational modules. It runs on a webserver with php and sql. I think there are also installations for running it standalone on windows and mac. With this, someone should be able to take these classes without a teacher, either on a website, or by downloading the modules to their computer. This makes education available (such as at library computers) and relatively cheap.
-there are already many open source moodle modules available, and they are relatively easy to create.
(note: the system does not have to be moodle, but moodle already has a large following, so it might be easier to implement.)
-there are already several private industry certification agencies which charge for testing an individual's knowledge of particular subjects (A+, etc). These agencies rely on their reputation for accurately representing that knowledge through certifying these individuals. If they are lax in their testing, their reputation suffers, and they lose money or go out of business.
-the private sector needs intelligent, educated individuals with marketable knowledge and skills. If the individual with these has a 4 figure education debt, instead of a 6 figure debt they can afford to work for less, initially, until they gain experience and justify a higher salary from their employer. If businesses can be convinced to accept these certifications and give them the same (or more) "weight" as a university degree when hiring, the system becomes self-sustaining.
This system has 3 beneficial side effects.
1. Nobody has to take the certification tests, so it is possible to get just the education part for free (no one can credibly argue against increasing the general education level).
2. The cost of a traditional college degree should go down, as the colleges compete for students.
3. No one is forced to take liberal arts and social awareness classes that serve little or no purpose but indoctrination and padding of university coffers.
Framework:
I would suggest that anyone should be able to submit modules for the "university", but that the certification agencies choose which classes are covered in their certifications. These classes would become the "course" to follow to get the particular certification. (e.g. psychology, accounting, statistics, etc. could be part of an advertising certification)
Here is how the thing would work from the student's point of view:
Bob goes to the website, and either downloads the standalone package, or registers at the site. He goes to the site of one of the certification agencies, and sees that for an advertising certification, the agency recommends that he take a particular psychology course, any accounting course, one of 3 recommended statistics courses, a writing course, and a sociology course. He finds the courses, signs up for them, and starts studying. During his studies, he connects with his "classmates" through forums and chat rooms (this is an opportunity for students or businesses to make money tutoring).
An undetermined length of time later, Bob (after aceing the quizzes for his classes) goes to a testing facility run by the certification agency. There, he pays $1000 (or whatever price the test is) and takes the test. Assuming he passes the test, he then applies for a job where one of the requirements is an advertising degree, or certification from a list of reputable agencies.
He gets and interview, and is able to get the job. He was as qualified as the other applicant who went to a traditional university, but he was able to accept a much lower salary, due to his lack of education debt.
------------------------
Sorry for the long post, but there was a lot to cover.
What problems do you see with such a system?
How could these be overcome?
Whom can be contacted to get this plan in motion?
Comments are VERY welcome.
Somewhat baked?
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
MIT Open Courseware [AntiQuark, Feb 26 2012]
The universities this system would replace
http://thedoghousediaries.com/3416
[Psalm_97, Feb 27 2012]
The Khan Academy
http://www.khanacademy.org/
[RayfordSteele, Feb 27 2012]
Also this
https://www.ai-class.com/
[mouseposture, Feb 27 2012]
'varsity reminiscences
http://www.webofstories.com/
and much else of interest. [mouseposture, Feb 27 2012]
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Annotation:
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Bun for the concept, but I wonder who is going to be qualified to make a moodle module for most of the "classes" and do it for free? |
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And I bet library computer banks would get very crowded. And very hectic, and a lot of people losing their tempers. "You don't understand, I gotta get this next chapter done NOW!" |
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"Bun for the concept, but I wonder who is going to be qualified to make a moodle module for most of the "classes" and do it for free?" |
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There are lots of free moodle courses out there, already. (moodlecommons.org) The certification agencies might even create courses for their particular certifications. think of it as "advertising". This, by itself, could be problematic. but if you couple it with businesses choosing which certification agencies they will accept, you have the agencies competing, not only for the students' money, but also for recognition as a "reputable" agency by businesses who are spending money on the people who are certified. |
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Is the Open University in the UK recognized as an accredited university? (Or whatever they call accreditation over there.) |
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on Open university: Probably not accredited with regard to transferring credits to a traditional college or university. This IMHO is a failing in the current system that serves, primarily, to increase the price of education by forcing the student to take (and pay for) classes which he has already taken. I ran into this problem when switching colleges. |
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My idea focuses on the outcome of the education, mastery of the subject, not the process of gaining the education. Theoretically, you could take the accreditation tests, without ever having taken any of the courses. If you know your subject, who cares where you got your information? |
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//If you know your subject, who cares where you got your information?// |
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Lots of people. There is still a lot of importance on wearing a Harvard tie. I'm not saying this is right, but that's how it is. If you went to Yale or Harvard or (fill in name of really prestigious college here) people think you can do the job better for some reason. |
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That's the second reason I gave this idea a bun. Maybe if it were implemented it could change all that. Gonna be hard making the transition though, might even have to wait until some CEOs get old enough to die out. |
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//Gonna be hard making the transition though, might even have to wait until some CEOs get old enough to die out.// |
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Agreed. The social "inertia" is going to be the biggest obstacle. |
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I think that one of the strengths of the system is that it has aspects that appeal to wildly different segments of the population. The more collectivist members of society will like the access to free education aspect, while the individualists will like the increased competition and the efficiency that more choices brings.
Ideally, the system extends all the way into the primary school systems, as well, competing with the public school system, forcing each to be more efficient. That would be much farther into the future, though. |
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Maybe not so far as you think. Wikipedia seems almost a precursor. ;) |
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It will happen soon I am sure. |
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The advantages of university education include hands-on
experience, low staff-student ratios, networking, establishing
social contacts and face to face interaction. You need to be able
to bounce ideas off real people. The rest of it you can either do
independently or the reason you can't is an artificial barrier.
When i say hands-on, i'm including things like access to particle
accelerators. There are a number of other advantages and
universities don't always seem able to provide them. The
reputation of your chosen educational method with others is
also sometimes important if isolation is an issue for you. |
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The University system as a lot of parallels with the late medieval Church, an international system that dominates the field and squeezes out alternatives. I also suspect that Reformation is just around the corner. |
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If we weren't all about to die, it would be. The elder child having reached adulthood, my speculations on higher education have come more to the fore. |
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The OU credit system is a grumble of mine. They wouldn't accept any of my previous higher ed, even the psychology degree level stuff into a degree in the same subject, both being recognised by the BPS. Moreover, in spite of the fact that it was claimed by the now defunct College of Phytotherapy that they had gone through a process enabling credit transfer between them and the OU, they didn't recognise any of my qualification in herbal medicine in spite of claims that they would by various other bodies, including the University of Wales. Nor did they accept that my Masters or my first degree had any transferability value. I'm really peed off about this. |
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[-], mainly because university is much much more than learning how to answer questions from textbooks. |
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It is if it's any good. But this isn't necessarily a
replacement for the *good* universities. |
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This system would replace the bad universities. [link] |
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Online haircut. Well, that's the point, you can't. |
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// university is much much more than learning how to
answer questions from textbooks // |
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Obviously you and I attended different universities. I'm
assuming you finished, whereas I did not, in part because I
was tired of being a parrot. |
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I dropped out and earned a degree at a technical college
instead, where the goal was largely learning how to re-
create material results from the instructors' examples;
same theory, but more fun. |
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"university is much much more than learning how to answer questions from textbooks.
— AntiQuark" |
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This is the type of feedback the project needs. What additional elements does a traditional university provide, that the same education online cannot provide? |
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"The University system as a lot of parallels with the late medieval Church" |
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I have found this to be the case. It is also beginning to infect the public school system down into elementary school. For example, my son is in 5th grade, and is learning to write 3 paragraph essays. The logic is that he will need to know how to write 5 paragraph essays in middle school. The logic there is that he will need to write longer form-factor essays in high school. The logic there is that he will have to write ever more longer essays for college, up to writing research papers. No one has given me a satisfactory answer as to why someone outside of academia would need to be able to write a standard form essay, or a research paper except for possibly journalism. |
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//3 paragraph essays// reminds me of a programming course I took where program levels all had "beginning"(set stuff up), "middle"(iteration), and "end"(clean up). |
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// What additional elements does a traditional university provide, that the same education online cannot provide? // |
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Even in electrical engineering, along with the theory we had to get our hands dirty with some real-world stuff. It was amazing that some people were theoretical geniuses, but didn't know what that theory meant when applied to an actual device. |
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From the title I would have guessed this was a program to teach monkeys to start fires. |
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[copycat042] I believe the reason for a formulaic
approach to teaching essay-writing (3-paragraph,
5-paragraph, etc) is this: Very few people have
enough of the right kind of intelligence to
express, coherently, ideas of much complexity,
without being given some sort of crutch. The
solution, for the majority of students, is to teach
formulas. For the less-talented, when they need
to explain, or convince, they can get a reasonable
result by slavishly following the formulas. |
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And ordinary people -- neither academics nor
journalists -- do have a use for such skills.
Ordinary people compose memos to their bosses
arguing in favor of particular policies, or Letters to
the Editor complaining of potholes, or
applications for Arts Council grants, or cover
letters for resumes, or statements read aloud at
town meetings. And so on. |
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Formulaic teaching goes over badly with the more
intelligent parents of the more intelligent kids,
but in fact, it needn't hold the stronger students
back. The idea is, they master the basic
techniques, and go on from there, increasing the
sophistication of their style. This is a bad idea if
you think someone who paints in an abstract style
is the worse for having classical drawing skills; I
myself believe the opposite. |
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re: what elements a traditional university provides
that ought to be replicated, somehow, in an
online replacement, here's one that comes quickly
to mind: a common theme in the reminiscences
of people with really good formal education is
that they learned as much from their peers as
from the faculty. This is closely related to the
fact that such universities are highly selective, so,
if you make it in, your peers group is enriched in
remarkable people. So, how do you replicate that
online? |
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Large size, and low standards are a problem for
this "learning from peers" thing. Most large
educational institutions subdivide
themselves in one way or another, to create
smaller subsets of students who interact with
each other more frequently than they would if
diluted in the larger mass. Some US "state"
universities mandated to keep admission
requirements low, for in-state students, create
internal "honors" colleges, for the better
students, so that they interact with each other
more, and with the other students less. The idea
being that this improves the quality of their
education, though, of course, it deprives the
other students of that (presumed) benefit. The
problem's not unique to The Prometheus Project,
but it would be worse, because there would be
less extracurricular inter-student interaction. You
couldn't have a life-changing conversation with
someone you met in the laundry room, for
example, since there would be no laundry. |
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On essays: I will take your word for it, but I have yet to see many practical applications of the formula. |
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//This is closely related to the fact that such universities are highly selective, so, if you make it in, your peers group is enriched in remarkable people. So, how do you replicate that online?...You couldn't have a life-changing conversation with someone you met in the laundry room, for example, since there would be no laundry.// |
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You are a remarkable person. We are having a conversation which has the potential to spark a revolution in education and we probably aren't even in the same state. |
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//Remarkable in what way.// |
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Unfortunately, I cannot teach you the answer to
that question on the internet: It's something I
learned from peers, in various educational
institutions. (If you want a less flippant response,
try <link>.) |
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You seem to want an argument: my comment was
meant to be helpful, in response to your
question. The peer-education effect probably can
be replicated online: and you need to think about
how to do that. I've mentioned a couple of
partial solutions to the problems, and a couple of
obstacles to be overcome. |
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//You are a remarkable person. We are having a
conversation// No, you are not having a
conversation with a remarkable person, unless
"remarkable" means "special" as in "everybody's
special," a sentiment with which I disagree. |
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"Remarkable" in a higher-education context clearly relates to dry erase pens and supplementary exams. |
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// unless "remarkable" means "special" as in "everybody's
special," a sentiment with which I disagree. // |
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You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake; you are the
same decaying human waste as everyone else. We are the
all-singing, all-dancing crap of humanity. |
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@mouseposture
I apologise for any argumentative tone. I am used to adversarial conversations to solve problems (drives my wife crazy). |
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I think that might be a common trait here. |
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There may be a connection between how concerned an institute is in keeping control over the content created by its employees and the quality of other aspects of the educational service it offers. MIT and other places are willing to put their stuff on the internet for free but some other places are very protective of their intellectual property, i suspect because it's all they have to offer due to bums on seats and the poor employment prospects of their students. It might also be that they want to protect rather crap course content from prying eyes who might then realise how bad it is. |
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However, that process does possibly make it clearer what is of value in a university education because it's whatever it is the more secretive colleges lack. One of those things is an old boy network, but there are several others which are less contentious. |
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Perhaps if a professional took the time to write a course
that was accredited by some organization, he or she could
get a tax writeoff. That would probide the motivation for
people who actually know what they're talking about to
write high qulity courses. |
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On tax write-offs:
Ideally (IMHO), we avoid getting government involved in the system, even peripherally. |
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The businesses which accept the accreditations would have an incentive to ensure the quality of the content, possibly to the extent of writing some of it, themselves. Educators could compile quality courses as a way to attract customers for tutoring services. There are also a few people who would probably donate their talents because they enjoy the process, or believe in the cause. |
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//There are also a few people who would probably donate their talents because they enjoy the process, or believe in the cause.// |
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Why not, it works for a lot of other open source software. But considering some of the OSS I've tried, you might want some quality control... |
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