the good old days

Distance learning is considered a promising technology. Students can get lectures from “visiting professors” on the other side of the world. Or sit at home on one side of the country while a teacher streams video to them from the other side of the country. It will revolutionize education, bringing student and teacher together wherever they may be on the planet.

Wow! Great thing the internet and video conferencing have brought this new concept to life, isn’t it?

Sorry, there really isn’t anything new about it: “Dr. C. C. Clark” was doing it back in 1935. Since it continues to be not found everywhere, I doubt there will be any huge upsurge in coming years. I guess teachers see something useful in making students come to them. I do know people who are in long-distance classes — they download their videos every couple of days, they turn in homework online, and never need to meet the professor face-to-face. But that’s for a master’s degree in business school. If my kids ever end up doing this when they’re in college, I’ll eat my hat. (Disclaimer: I don’t own a hat since I didn’t grow up in the 1950’s. Haha!)

Via Modern Mechanix.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under new technologies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.