Monday, September 10, 2007

The Little Cyber Schoolhouse   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

From a Q&A I did with former SECED Bill Bennett:

Lopez: What is the University of the Republic? How will it work?

Bennett: About two years ago, my friend David Gelernter, a technology visionary and great intellect, wrote about the need for “a cyber university that presents an integrated, conservative world view” based on the fact that there are great scholars scattered around the country and yet there is not a central place where students can learn from them in an integrated setting. So he and I and a handful of others have set about building that very place with the idea that, ultimately, the universe would have access and be able to take courses from the world’s leading professors and collaborate with other students. Stay tuned.

Remember, higher education is one of the greatest things in this country, when done right. Too often it is not; from the supply side. That’s what we’re trying to fix.


Lopez: What’s the attraction for professors to do the online thing?

Bennett: Larger forum to ply their trade without diminishing the kinds of things you like in a low student/teacher ratio. Ask any professor if he’d rather teach 10,000 students than 10 if the demands on his time were not much greater than they already exist, and I think you’d find most of them would be honored. There are national treasures in higher education in this country, in many of our professors. Their lessons, their learning, should not be cabined to a select few and they should be financially rewarded better than they are. If you had the opportunity to have Harvey Mansfield or Robby George or Charles Kesler (to take just three examples) teach you political science, wouldn’t you jump at that? And if they knew you could be their student, without them or you leaving your living rooms, they’d jump too.


Lopez: Is the future of education online?

Bennett: The future of a lot of things is online — from research to business to almost every sector of business and development I can think of (but not marriage, child raising, or dancing). Almost every industry (capital or otherwise) has become mobile in some form or other — except the university. It’s one of the last places that says, “If you want us (as a teacher or student), travel and live here.” That needs to change some in a mobile society such as we have become.

....

Lopez: Computers in classrooms have been all the rage for a while now. Would you rather they just have books? Have we lost anything on the primary and intermediate levels (or beyond) with the tech surge?

Bennett: Ever since computers and classrooms have made mergers, I’ve maintained that just because something is new does not make it better and just because something is old does not make it worse. The reverse is also true: Just because something is new doesn’t make it worse, and just because something is old doesn’t make it better. First, computer literacy is important in 21st-century America, as my staff — and you — constantly have to remind me. Computers and the Internet have opened up whole new vistas of learning and research — so I’m for them, big time. I couldn’t do my radio show without them, neither could my audience correct me as much, I don’t think. But, sure, I do worry at times that we’ve lost the ability in some senses to perform classic research, to even know where the library is or how to use it. Is cautious optimism too tired a phrase? At the end of the day, my two greatest fears with over-reliance on computers and the Internet is that a) we don’t read as much as we used to, not as many books, with enough patience and diligence and b) the Internet can lead one to a lot of wrong facts, assertions, stories — so one has to still check their sources and it’s become awfully easy not to. Still, in the early grades, dump the calculators. Memorize the “times” and “division” tables.

There's more — about history, college advice, and 2008 — here. 

09/10 12:15 PMShare