October 10, 2016 at 08:50PM

Actually at this point I think the consensus is that the MOOC and Udacity models are unsuccessful models. My sense is that this is partly because we're finding or we think we're finding that there are real limits to the advantages digital can offer to the enterprise of learning. Writing is connected with the learning process. Reading a book is different from reading onscreen. A person face to face does seem necessary. It may also be partly resistance from the interested labor force. Teachers and faculty are typically more empowered than workers in other industries, and many teachers clearly see digital learning techs as a threat. Whether they're doing students a service or disservice is another question. But I also wonder whether we're actually applying the benefits of digital tech in the right way. Or whether we're even far enough along to be able to know the best approach or be able to envision the ways digital tech can enhance learning. One thing is certain: there are many students waiting outside the gates of academe, and a lot of information out there doesn't really need to be reworked in order for them to be able to learn from it. Are those insisting that information must be delivered only alongside a paid instructor holding up the works? Are those who insist that education (paying the instructors) is not a good use of taxpayer monies the ones keeping them out? Would more students go to school if we paid what was needed to teach them? Can digital as we know it now help this situation at all in the end? Additionally, has the digital economy changed the way we value a liberal arts education? We tell students they won't make money in social science and now even science careers. Is that even true? Most of the online open access or low fee access courses teach digital-related skills. Is that wise? Is that the direction in which we want education to evolve? Because what happens when it is time to assess policies? Leaders? And does the digital economy and the shift away from liberal education encourage us to emphasize leaders over policies, encouraging cults of personality and discouraging true engagement in our civic institutions? And for similar reasons, do we even want open access to information? Few of even the most highly educated of us have the self-discipline to avoid putting ourselves into echo chambers, and few of us have the motivation to remind ourselves of why it's so important that we don't retreat into our echo chambers. To me it seems that the implications of digital technology for and the impact of the digital economy on education are extremely difficult for us to envision for the future, to perceive in the present.
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