No one ever recalls their online education experience with as much fondness as those remembering their college dorm years.
San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif., is piloting a new
program to offer remedial classes online. The university is partnering
with Silicon Valley start-up Udacity,
an online education platform. At first, the program will let in around
300 students and offer only three courses, but there's a possibility
this online education for first-year classes could expand to all
California state schools if it's a success. The California State
University system is the largest university system in the U.S., so the college experience for future students could potentially be drastically different.
As the New York Times
noted, California Governor Jerry Brown has been pushing schools to
adopt online classes as a way to make education more affordable for
students.
CSU Chancellor Timothy White tells the Sacramento Bee
that these online courses can expand access to popular "bottleneck"
courses, entry-level courses that are required for students to move on
to classes for majors.
Dr. Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise, a company that offers education counseling and tutoring for students, tells Mashable
this may be the California State University school system's first major
foray into online education, but other universities and organizations
instituted online courses some time ago.
"Distance learning has been taken to a whole new level in recent
years with the introduction of MOOCs (massive open online courses)
taught by well-respected professors from revered universities, including
Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard
University, aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the
web," she says.
These online education companies give people unprecedented access to
higher learning, she continues. Students from anywhere in the world can
get access to classes at Ivy League universities at a much more
affordable rate.
But what's missing is the typical college experience, in which
students, now legal adults, get to have more independence outside their
parents' homes and move into dorms or campus housing. With online
classes, students could continue to live at home with their parents in
order to save money on living expenses.
"Now, there�s certainly something to be said for the college
experience," Cohen said. "College is where students build their social
and professional networks, ones they will rely upon throughout the rest
of their lives. Students living on campus also tend to mature much more
quickly, as they take on new responsibilities and maintain a new level
of independence. These are aspects of the college experience that can
get lost in a large, virtual college classroom."
TechCrunch
predicts that, if successful, this pilot program will spell an end for
community colleges, part-time teaching faculty and, eventually, graduate
programs, since teaching jobs could dry up. It ends with a small number
of students actually receiving face-time with professors.
An article in mashable.com
Could Online Education Be the End of the Typical College Experience?