College is a time for education and self-discovery, a rare chance to be a part of a community of diverse folks gathered together for the same purpose, enlightenment. Today, enlightenment is often achieved by getting drunk, hooking up and stumbling into class the next morning– if you so dare. But what if getting to class the next morning didn’t involve trekking across campus? What if there was no campus at all? How is a collegiate community, be it of partygoers or book-lovers, affected by a virtual education?
Everyday, it becomes easier and easier to rely on the Internet to connect you to the outside world. From ordering groceries to getting off, you and your little black box can live quite happily together. So it only follows that education would pick up on the technology boom. Distance learning, an educational practice that allows the instructor and the student to occupy different physical locations, employs various communication techniques to bridge the geographical gap. It started with printed materials sent and received via snail mail and extends to the internet, including email, audio and video. Now, thanks to Apple and a long list of easy-to-use software, iChat makes the distance learning process even more authentic.
This past April, The Washington Post ran an article affirming that it is harder than ever to get accepted to college. Columbia University reported record low admission rates, only 9.6 percent. Approximately two thirds of the 3 million students expected to graduate high school this year will be seeking a college education. And no wonder, the US Census Bureau reports that a college degree nearly doubles annual earnings. With more people than ever seeking a higher education, distance learning may make it easier to accommodate so many eager students.
And yet traditional universities have been reluctant to adopt such programs. A fear of becoming obsolete, however, is unfounded. A “name brand” brick and mortar degree is still considered a valued commodity and online only institutions cannot offer one.
In 1999, the National Center for Education Statistics found that, in 1997-98, almost 44 percent of all higher education institutions offered courses via distance learning. Today, many prestigious universities are counted among that figure but most don’t actually offer a degree. Harvard and MIT are such institutions. The latter’s much-touted distance learning program, offers the latest technological advancements to its students but not a diploma.
Laurie Everett, MIT World Project Manager, comments, “The most well known MIT education resource is Open Courseware. It’s an online publication of 1200 courses available to anyone who wants to see them. It doesn’t require registration, it doesn’t position itself as distance education and doesn’t give you access to the MIT faculty.” And, oh yeah, it doesn’t offer a degree. “It’s for students, educators and self-educators,” Everett continues, “MIT has not done what a lot of other universities have done with distance learning. I think every institution is using tech in ways that make sense to them based on who they are. I think tech is an amazing supplement and a tool that has changed education, but I don’t see us as a distance learning option.” Still, take advantage of the virtual wisdom – it’s free.
When asked why there’s no charge to soak up the online information, Everett answered, “We have 351 lectures that have been captured in the last 4-5 years. Currently we publish 80-90 lecture videos a year. It’s an informal learning environment. We find that with bloggers and other .edu sites, MIT World is helpful in starting meaningful conversations. Other universities will select one of our lectures and actually assign it to their students. MIT thinks it’s great to share our lectures.”
And why did the institite hop on the online education bandwagon in the first place? “MIT decided that the web is not a vehicle for monetizing education. The web is not a replacement for an on-campus environment. That said, the web is an amazing opportunity to preserve, create and share knowledge around the world,” explains Everett. “We found that it wasn’t just the MIT community interested in seeing these lectures…this is content of interest to people all over the world. It’s on 20,000 servers in 65 countries,” she concludes. And that piece of information is at the core of this movement. In America, the pursuit of information is, to a degree, about the piece of paper acknowledging you’ve pursued it. But for some here and elsewhere around the world, information is pursued so one can be informed and that’s why MIT’s free online tools are so great. Still, some schools, such as CUNY and NYU, do offer online degrees for those who need that piece of paper and, lets face it, that need is a contemporary reality.
Further, with tuition, room and board fees exceeding $40,000 a year at certain universities, distance learning may not just bridge a geographical gap. Much of that sum goes to maintaining school facilities and online programs negate that cost.
So while distance learning brings education to a more diverse group of people, geographically and perhaps even economically, it is still unclear whether the people are actually brought together. To compensate for the lack of in-class communication, students can and do join online peer groups. In terms of education, a heated debate can most likely be created in writing just as well as it can in person. And perhaps the loss of a drinking buddy isn’t detrimental. But can social skills be developed; can the ability to communicate with real, live people be fostered? Maybe not, but perhaps that need is no longer a contemporary reality. n
