Main | Academia's Tottering Republic »

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Luann Hawker

To answer your question, yes. I think we are absolutely in an academic revolution. More now than ever before, if a question or idea pops in my head during the coarse of a day, I can can hop onto the internet and find something about it. I'm at a time in my life when attending an academic institution just isn't feasible, but I still have access to a huge library of information. Technology may not provide a complete answer, but it starts me down the road.

The caveat is that we have to discern truth from fiction. Without the controls of academia that you refer to in your other blog entry, it is up to the seeker to sift through all the stuff coming at us and figure out what information is gold and which is garbage.

The other shortcoming I see is inevitably there will be questions I don't know I need to ask. When I realize my knowledge is lacking in a certain area, I can set out to self-educate. The more I study and learn any given topic, the more I find new questions I haven't asked yet. I think traditional academic institutions would greatly speed up that process for me by presenting me with information I didn't even know I needed to look for. That isn't to say I could never have gotten there on my own, but a classroom might have been able to get me there quicker.

The other side of that coin is this. If attending a class at a traditional academic institution, often the class will be covering at least some material the student already knows. Self educators using technology don't have to spend time relearning things they already know, unless they want to do so. Whereas in a classroom, the student is probably stuck attending the redundant lectures just in case the old information is peppered with a little bit of new.

Well this comment ended up a lot longer than I intended, but you got me thinking...

The comments to this entry are closed.

Subscribe to the Evolution!

Mobilise this Blog

Twitter Updates:

    follow me on Twitter

    Search this Site

    • Google

      WWW
      gideonburton.typepad.com

    Flickr Badge

    • www.flickr.com
      This is a Flickr badge showing items in a set called Academic Evolution remixes. Make your own badge here.
    Blog powered by Typepad
    Member since 03/2007