There is a great push in the world to go virtual. However, I see a great problem in the prospect that people may lose the ability to communicate with anyone in any other way. We are quickly losing our ability to interface with others of our species, and it plays out in strange ways (like giving you no recourse in job applications since a computer filters all resumes).
Some of the students at the university where I work worry, as do some faculty members. When professors go on sabbatical, they try to put as much of the course online as possible. Granted, it's tempting to never actually have to administer a quiz/test or grade it by having the computer do it for you, and I really hate that I lose 20-30 minutes at the beginning of each lab period to administer the quiz, but in a hands-on career field, how can we possibly adequately prepare students to do things at which they've never actually plied their hand?
I made it through an advanced degree without ever dissecting anything. I never took anatomy. I would never teach those things. Yet, some people are willing to trust diagnosis, treatment and their very lives to people who have essentially done nothing more than watch a reality series on surgery.
Back when I was an undergraduate, WebCT version 1 came out, and I had to buy a computer in order to complete the online portions of the class, a single class. It's not convenient, cost effective, or "fair" to demand that of students. Simply because we can do a thing does not follow that we must. Significant numbers of students still learn best by doing, and if we eliminate that option, we render them useless to the betterment of society, which is a real shame.
Too many people spend too much time in virtual worlds and forget to live in the real one. It breaks up marriages and indicates deeper problems. Some of my students confessed that they buy their boyfriends games to get free time. Is that really love, that you send them into a fake world so you can relax? It's not healthy, and I see no end to this trend.
I happen to be of the old school and believe and bank on the preconceived notion that labs will always have an in person component. That's why I teach lab- I enjoy it, and that's why I think my job is safe because most professors hate teaching lab. Their loss.
Don't let it be yours.
Some of the students at the university where I work worry, as do some faculty members. When professors go on sabbatical, they try to put as much of the course online as possible. Granted, it's tempting to never actually have to administer a quiz/test or grade it by having the computer do it for you, and I really hate that I lose 20-30 minutes at the beginning of each lab period to administer the quiz, but in a hands-on career field, how can we possibly adequately prepare students to do things at which they've never actually plied their hand?
I made it through an advanced degree without ever dissecting anything. I never took anatomy. I would never teach those things. Yet, some people are willing to trust diagnosis, treatment and their very lives to people who have essentially done nothing more than watch a reality series on surgery.
Back when I was an undergraduate, WebCT version 1 came out, and I had to buy a computer in order to complete the online portions of the class, a single class. It's not convenient, cost effective, or "fair" to demand that of students. Simply because we can do a thing does not follow that we must. Significant numbers of students still learn best by doing, and if we eliminate that option, we render them useless to the betterment of society, which is a real shame.
Too many people spend too much time in virtual worlds and forget to live in the real one. It breaks up marriages and indicates deeper problems. Some of my students confessed that they buy their boyfriends games to get free time. Is that really love, that you send them into a fake world so you can relax? It's not healthy, and I see no end to this trend.
I happen to be of the old school and believe and bank on the preconceived notion that labs will always have an in person component. That's why I teach lab- I enjoy it, and that's why I think my job is safe because most professors hate teaching lab. Their loss.
Don't let it be yours.
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