I recently fell upon Michael Mandel's "Justice course" at Harvard. This a spectacular concept. It is, in a nutshell, the web version of a course that Mandel has been teaching at Harvard for years on issues of ethics and law. The site includes readings, videos of the lectures. It is professionally produced and structured as a series of "episodes" like your favorite TV soap. The course makes for an exciting watch, and almost gives one the impression of being at the lecture. I suspect it could be hugely successful.
This strikes me as the way of the future, somewhere between an open and a brick and mortar university, a website and a course. It suggests fascinating interrogations. If entire courses become available online that are beautifully made, allow for active learning and provide entire readings, these will sooner or later create considerable competition for the real thing (by which I mean not Mandel's own real-world course, but other similar courses in justice). It is not simply a question that students will become more aware of what is out there and ask their instructors to offer them something similar orbetter (although that too may happen), but that increasingly students may flock to online courses, if these turn out to be much better conceived. I am not suggesting that the online course might soon displace the seminar or the tutorship, but it might certainly displace ordinary lectures, especially if those lectures are not as good as the virtual thing.
There is also a lesson to be learned in terms of universities' openness. Traditionally, universities are based on a strong sense of inside/outside, where a select few are allowed to participate and others not. There are undeniably beneficial effects on the community, but these are mostly indirect, and attending a university institution is still a way of being privy to a special form of knowledge, imparted only to those who have been allowed to sit in classes. The idea of breaking down the walls is both very appealing and a little scary. Some profs may like the idea that they are not potentially talking to the whole world but, precisely, only to the select few. Moreover, there may be a feeling that universities, in opening up, are undermining their business model and their air of exclusivity.
In practice, of course, we are still a long way from this. If anything, putting at least a few courses online increases a university's aura, and is a bold statement that is bound to attract attention, and increase students' willingness to attend. But some of the bigger questions will need to be asked sooner or later. It may be that this online-nization of courses is a prelude to a re-centering of universities around small group, participatory forms of teaching/learning that cannot as easily be replicated virtually. Maybe the virtual course, with its assortment of readings and prerecorded sessions, will little replace the old textbook. Students will be expected to have "seen" the lecture before they come to class, so that they can get down to the serious business of asking questions and thinking through problems. Or it may be that universities will increasingly mesh with the web, and that distance education, which has already been making formidable strides in the last decades, will become even more appealing and lead to a complete reorganization of the academic world.
At any rate, I sense that there will be huge benefits to early adopters. There will also be risks to diversity and of a number of students drifting towards the easy or better marketed course, at the expense of hearing a different voice. And of course seeing a lecture is never quite the same as being there, especially if one is burning to ask a question. But there is a lot of space for more, and extraordinary openings for the many who would not have attended university, but might nonetheless be interested in "attending" a "Harvard class".
This strikes me as the way of the future, somewhere between an open and a brick and mortar university, a website and a course. It suggests fascinating interrogations. If entire courses become available online that are beautifully made, allow for active learning and provide entire readings, these will sooner or later create considerable competition for the real thing (by which I mean not Mandel's own real-world course, but other similar courses in justice). It is not simply a question that students will become more aware of what is out there and ask their instructors to offer them something similar orbetter (although that too may happen), but that increasingly students may flock to online courses, if these turn out to be much better conceived. I am not suggesting that the online course might soon displace the seminar or the tutorship, but it might certainly displace ordinary lectures, especially if those lectures are not as good as the virtual thing.
There is also a lesson to be learned in terms of universities' openness. Traditionally, universities are based on a strong sense of inside/outside, where a select few are allowed to participate and others not. There are undeniably beneficial effects on the community, but these are mostly indirect, and attending a university institution is still a way of being privy to a special form of knowledge, imparted only to those who have been allowed to sit in classes. The idea of breaking down the walls is both very appealing and a little scary. Some profs may like the idea that they are not potentially talking to the whole world but, precisely, only to the select few. Moreover, there may be a feeling that universities, in opening up, are undermining their business model and their air of exclusivity.
In practice, of course, we are still a long way from this. If anything, putting at least a few courses online increases a university's aura, and is a bold statement that is bound to attract attention, and increase students' willingness to attend. But some of the bigger questions will need to be asked sooner or later. It may be that this online-nization of courses is a prelude to a re-centering of universities around small group, participatory forms of teaching/learning that cannot as easily be replicated virtually. Maybe the virtual course, with its assortment of readings and prerecorded sessions, will little replace the old textbook. Students will be expected to have "seen" the lecture before they come to class, so that they can get down to the serious business of asking questions and thinking through problems. Or it may be that universities will increasingly mesh with the web, and that distance education, which has already been making formidable strides in the last decades, will become even more appealing and lead to a complete reorganization of the academic world.
At any rate, I sense that there will be huge benefits to early adopters. There will also be risks to diversity and of a number of students drifting towards the easy or better marketed course, at the expense of hearing a different voice. And of course seeing a lecture is never quite the same as being there, especially if one is burning to ask a question. But there is a lot of space for more, and extraordinary openings for the many who would not have attended university, but might nonetheless be interested in "attending" a "Harvard class".
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