An extract from a letter sent today to Lord Krebs:
[...]
It would now seem theoretically technically
feasible to offer some courses to students in other parts of the country and
the world, by electronic means. Potentially, the work of the College could
reach larger numbers and also those who might not, for one reason or another
(perhaps financial), be able to come to Oxford in person.
Lectures could be transmitted live or
recorded for re-broadcast, as the National Theatre now does for dramatic
performances (see http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/).
The communication could be two-way, with questions and comments submitted by
Internet, email and Twitter (like the BBC’s Question Time, for example).
Similarly, presentations by teachers at other universities could be made
available to Oxford colleagues and students.
Students could be authorized to remotely
access the University’s subscriptions to online publications (Times archive,
JSTOR etc). (Certain subjects might lend themselves more easily to this
approach in the first instance – mathematics, perhaps – as in some other fields
access to texts may be more difficult, until such time as everything has been
scanned online.)
Reading lists, assignments and much reading
and source material could be stored in the Cloud; coursework submitted by Web; teachers
and graduate students could offer teaching, comment and support by email, Skype
etc.
The potential inherent in the technology
could be a Gutenberg revolution in higher education – an “Invisible College”
for millions of advanced learners. It would be a far more radical step than the
extramural studies currently available; it would be the virtual, interactive
presence of far larger numbers of students and researchers than could be
physically accommodated in any University, yet learning and being nurtured
intellectually in the way that Oxford has fostered for centuries.
Perhaps a start might be made by raising
funds for a few e-scholarships for poor but talented individuals in developing
countries, such as India and China?
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4 comments:
One problem is that no-one can figure out how to make money at this. Another is that we don't have any data to show that people learn this way, and rather a lot that they don't (history of all kinds of distance learning).
"... no-one can figure out how to make money at this."
1. Charge them for access to University resources and tutotial time.
"... we don't have any data to show that people learn this way, and rather a lot that they don't..."
2. Not all people, just talented and ambitious people. And not necessarily all subjects.
And it needn't necessarily be undergraduates, but maybe graduates doing advanced degrees and using their local University as a base for computer use and liaison.
Absolutely, for very specialized upper-level knowledge. And this has been done for decades. What the politicians, business people and administrators want to do is to use it for the lowest undergraduate and K-12 courses where it doesn't work, but they can extract power and fees.
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