Why can't online education replace school education?

When I decided to be a university teacher, I was very satisfied with the employment environment at that time. The old professor has retired and is in urgent need of a new professor. After that, I took part in a large-scale online course (MOOCW) and was shocked by its prosperity.

A teacher, a camera and a computer with Internet access can teach and educate the whole world. Sebastian thrun, a research expert at Stanford University and co-founder of Udacity, a large open online course company, once threatened that "50 years later, only 10 universities in the world can provide higher education."

I was shocked. At the beginning of this year, I participated in the online course "How to Build a Search Engine" provided by Udacity with 90,000 other college students. In this video course, the professor will discuss problems with students and impart the most advanced ideas. It is easy to think that online education may be the terminator of the ivory tower education model in universities. But I also found five basic problems in large-scale open online courses:

1, so gullible. Udacity encourages students to help other students online. Although you can't check the answer directly, you can also search through the internet, which is too simple to search. Cheating is the biggest failure of college education. What's more, this situation is even more serious when there is no teacher's supervision outside the classroom.

2. Good students can't shine. Even if a student is outstanding in this course, the teacher will not know him. Although it is a network, it is impossible to connect students and professors. In traditional universities, I will write letters of recommendation to my best students, and write their excellent personalities and academic achievements in great detail. However, online education cannot. What Udacity can do is to set up students who have seen the video and deliver them to interested employers. Of course, if you can really write letters of introduction to the excellent students of online education, 1% of the students mean writing 900 letters. Even if professors are willing to write, the market will not accept so many so-called "excellent students".

Employers don't like strangers. The purpose of the company to hire people is to make them work. No company wants strangers to mess up the company. What's more, those of unknown origin. Students who graduated from online education are definitely not as good as those who graduated from normal universities.

4. Computer scoring is not reliable. Large-scale open online courses are very popular because they are easy to get close to the public. Students' grades can be easily judged and graded by computers, but traditional final papers or statements can't be graded by computers, especially final papers. Communication between students and teachers is a basic and very practical skill, which can never be learned in online education.

5. Ability can't buy money. A high degree usually means a high income, because a college degree is a symbol of status. Students can learn real skills in college and let employers see your wisdom and talent. Although philosophy is not used much in life, getting an A in philosophy will leave a deep impression on employers. Of course, the importance of achievement and ability should be highlighted.

If college education is very cheap, students can save a lot of money to spend on surpassing other students. Similarly, in order to avoid too many students with high scores, classroom education will become more and more difficult. In this way, the competition among students will be more intense, and the fees for online education will be higher and higher until it exceeds the traditional university education.

This has happened before. A long time ago, college education was scarce, and graduation from college meant job security. Later, more and more people entered the university. A bachelor's degree from a university is no longer a higher education, but a necessity for people to apply for a job.

Udacity is looking for ways to deal with cheating. It will set up a testing center. After passing the test, students can obtain the certification of other schools (non-online schools). At present, large-scale open online courses have too many disadvantages. In order to get high marks, students try their best to cheat, but generally speaking, it is better to go to the classroom.

However, from the development trend of online education, the traditional classroom education model is constantly improving. You can learn a lot of knowledge online. If universities don't take this road, they will seize the best opportunity. Here is a good way for a professor: adopt online teaching, ask questions regularly in class, and organize student activities. It can not only save money, but also not reduce the quality of teaching.

If traditional universities do not learn from large-scale open online courses, universities are doomed to be gradually eliminated. Before Sebastian Thruns' prediction comes, traditional universities can do a lot of things.