The article basically talked about the nuances and the changing space of online education. In terms of what I’m doing for my project, I’ve often wondered if it’s worth it for us to produce the content ourselves instead of pulling from more talented professors who teach the same content. The article mentions just having intro classes taught by “star” professors through prerecorded videos, and I think that’s a really good plan in terms of getting the less complex classes out of the way but also providing the most entertaining and clear vehicle for learning. I’m not sure if our Duke Engage project will necessarily accomplish being the best taught course to get people involved in learning online. What I do think the value add of the DE project is that the course is teaching other people how to teach specific content, and there aren’t a lot of graduate classes online, so it’s more specific content.
The thing about online education is that many people don’t have access to the internet even though moving towards that is a positive thing for people who can learn at their own pace. The narrative mainly looks at higher education like colleges, but it doesn’t discuss the implementation of tactile learning and that type of importance. It talks about how intro classes would be online, but it doesn’t address the motivation required to complete a class and how that can be improved by having somewhere to physically go. As stupid as it sounds, the education we get at college is already online; we really just pay for the brand, the friends, and the motivation to force us into learning. Different people have different philosophies on how self-motivated people are on their own, but psychologically getting to experience something in person does help with the motivation to show up and do the work.
