College 2.0

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Description

"Like a scene from a sci-fi movie, many commentators have indicated that the future of online colleges will be vastly separated from the classroom: College 2.0 as Thomas Frey has called it. One of the first to predict the rising onslaught of online colleges, Frey created a type of iTunes online college in his essay that initially probed the minds of students and manufactured an online course suited to their needs. This was only three years ago. Now, Frey’s idea does not seem too far-fetched with the monumental rise in online education and the acceptance of it by many in the education industry. His description of College 2.0 is eerily similar to something we see in a futuristic movie:

College 2.0 will witness a massive peeling apart process. Learning will become separated from the classroom. Courses will be created organically and formed around an on-demand, any-time, any-place delivery models. Professors will declare their independence and work for multiple institutions rather than just one specific college. Accreditation will shift from the Institution to the course and to the individual. And textbooks, the ink-on-paper version that we know today, will all but disappear.

Actually, this description does not appear to be too far off, with the way that online education is heading. Thus far, the top online colleges have attracted thousands of students who otherwise would have attended the traditional brick-and-mortar schools and would have had constant interaction with professors. By taking this type of interaction out, we are discovering that a future in this realm is not as dire as it may seem.

However, Frey’s predictions take on a Huxley-esque setting as he describes a world where college campuses are transformed into factories and warehouses. However, he disclaims this fact by maintaining that his idea for a perfect future combines this dire future with the current one, finding a happy medium where online colleges and traditional universities can coincide, without any of the futuristic ideologies that go into it. Just thinking of a landscape of factories instead of college campuses reminds me of A Brave New World, where humans are manufactured instead of birthed. An eerie resemblance, to be sure." (http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2010/04/26/top-online-colleges-for-a-new-landscape/)