[iDC] Why do we need physical campuses?

Thu Jun 10 18:18:50 UTC 2010

Andreas,

Speaking of hands-on learning processes, you¹ll be happy to know that
Wal-Mart will begin offering online degrees to its employees:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/business/10public.html?src=me&ref=business

Wal-Mart employees can earn a degree in retail management or transportation
logistics and apply this new knowledge on the job. Perhaps Wal-Mart will
offer incentives to their employees like loans to complete their degree,
work-study opportunities, employee discounts.

While many corporate and university ties have existed for ages, could this
be the real future of education and learning--a company package that used to
be only available to executives and management? Or will online programs be
viewed as the ugly step-child, reinforcing the gap between management and
labor? 

The possibilities are endless, no? I imagine many large corporations,
colleges, and universities will be watching this closely.

In terms of equity and access to higher or tertiary education, could this
same model be offered in countries that manufacture the products being sold
at Wal-Mart? 

WWMT? (What would Marx think?)

-Chris

Christopher D. Sessums, Ph.D.
Post Doctoral Associate in Educational Technology
School of Teaching and Learning
College of Education
University of Florida
(e) csessums at coe.ufl.edu
(t) @csessums
(b) csessums.tumblr.com

On 6/10/10 10:59 AM, "Andreas Schiffler" <aschiffler at ferzkopp.net> wrote:

> 
> I guess there is more to a physical learning environment than just a
> "perceived value": it is the real value of practical hands-on learning and the
> subtleties of person-to-person communications that go with it - the practical
> and sensorial learning which is hard to replicate in distance learning or VR.
> I believe that these traits inherent in physical learning environments are
> often treated as secondary when they should be an area of primary investment.
> 
> Such grandfathering may be due to a deliberate focus today on a preparation
> for the "information processing age" or it may be a financial or other
> resource constraints that limits the scalability of physical learning spaces.
> I think "online" should not be treated as a substitute but rather as an
> augmentation to supplement physical spaces to extend their reach in time and
> space.
> 
> --Andreas
> 
> On 6/9/10 1:18 PM, George Siemens wrote:
>>  
>>  
>> Stian wrote: 
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>>  
>>> There are many ways to provide cross-border education and training, and
>>> distance education is one, where the institution never leaves its country,
>>> and the student stays at home. There are interesting providers, for example
>>> the Indira Gandhi National Open University in India, arguably the largest
>>> university in the world (more than 2 million students) has study centres in
>>> 34 countries, often countries in the Middle East and Africa with large
>>> Indian populations!
>>>  
>>>  
>>>  
>>  
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> Online learning makes sense for all kinds fo reasons: financial,
>> equity/access, scalability, etc. But...online (distance) learning is still
>> the unloved stepchild of education. Is the resistance cultural? Or related to
>> the perceived value of learning in physical spaces?
>>  
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> ICT has progressed enough over the last decade that I think we can largely do
>> away with the physical space of universities. Open Universities have greatly
>> impacted developing countries and the intellectually curious in remote parts
>> of the world (as is commonly cited, Nelson Mandela studied via distance). If
>> a government's goal, and the spirit of a society, is to promote equity and
>> broad access to learning, the online learning should be an area of primary
>> investment.
>>  
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> George
>>  
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
>> (distributedcreativity.org)
>> iDC at mailman.thing.net
>> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc
>> 
>> List Archive:
>> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
>> 
>> iDC Photo Stream:
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/
>> 
>> RSS feed:
>> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc
>> 
>> iDC Chat on Facebook:
>> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647
>> 
>> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
> (distributedcreativity.org)
> iDC at mailman.thing.net
> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc
> 
> List Archive:
> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
> 
> iDC Photo Stream:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/
> 
> RSS feed:
> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc
> 
> iDC Chat on Facebook:
> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647
> 
> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/attachments/20100610/6fd1ceeb/attachment-0001.htm 