Unfortunately, Blogger can't load the link (or I can't figure out how to load it) that will take you to the Saturday Night Live "University of Westfield Online" sketch of two weeks ago. It's a thinly veiled reference to a university that you may recognize.
The fake advertisement says or implies a number of things about online education: that one can get one's degree in one's pajamas, that employers are not keen to hire graduates of an online college, that what one "learns" there is how to cover up one's education, and that it only takes four months to graduate.
As friends of mine have pointed out, none of these statements is necessarily true. But that's not the point, any more than CNN fact-checking SNL's sketch about President Obama's lack of accomplishment is relevant. It's not the truth of the statements, but the perception that they represent that should interest us, and that we should listen to.
Basically, why people laugh is because they tend to believe that 1) online education is easier, 2) online education is less rigorous, and 3) that because of these two things, online education doesn't take as long. If one believes (as I do) that online education can be as rigorous and interesting as campus education, then one should ask where these perceptions have come from.
The university being parodied now has hundreds of thousands of graduates, many from online programs. How many of them are talking about the quality (or lack of it) of their education? Intel has discontinued financial aid for MBA students from this university--why is that? Now it's not as though the players and writers of SNL are actually academics; some of them probably haven't even gone to much, if any, college. They may be the voice of the East Coast, but they are in touch with the urban culture there. Maybe they're like Gary Trudeau, a social liberal but educational conservative, who for years has decried what he sees as slipping standards at Yale (parodied in Doonesbury as Walden College).
It might just be the case that it's the real-life experience of online college students, and the experience of their employers, that's giving the material here. As in any educational situation, it's all in the execution, not in the medium. If those of us in online education do it right, then these satires will go away (or at least change their form).
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Ken Burns, on The National Parks, America's Best Idea
Chris and I got hooked a couple of weeks ago on the Ken Burns multi-day special The National Parks, America's Best Idea. The photography was stunning, and since we're both national park fanatics, the early episodes were (to me) very interesting. I believe that I missed the last night or two.
It's interesting that some things never change: America in the late nineteenth century was as acquisitive and ecologically unaware as most people in America are today. Arizona and its rapacious water and development industry was, if anything, worse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Grand Canyon almost didn't become a national park because of some developer/miner from Arizona who became a senator. I don't remember his name, but that's OK, because he doesn't actually deserve mention. What an exemplar of a type that still exists in this state--someone who thinks that all we need is more water and development, that the landscape means little, except the view.
Anyhow, it's also interesting that Niagra Falls was used through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the poster child for how private development and tourist exploitation can wreck scenes of superb natural interest and beauty. The watchword seemed to be "don't turn Yosemite or Yellowstone into Niagra Falls." It was this attitude on the part of the public that was certainly a catalyst for the development of the national parks.
It was also a lesson in the way that individuals can move the national conversation and will in such a way that good things happen. Of course, John Muir was that spokesperson for Yosemite and Yellowstone, and interestingly, became the patron saint of most of the early national parks. Also, the first National Park Service director, whose name I can't now recall, used his advertising and promotional sense to popularize the parks to the nation at the critical time.
Finally, the early twentieth century also saw the birth of use-conservation as well as the classic Sierra Club environmental movement. Gifford Pinchot, the force behind the National Forest system, had a different, multi-use, idea, that probably saved much more acreage of wilderness than the National Park system did. So, are the National Forests America's second best idea?
It's interesting that some things never change: America in the late nineteenth century was as acquisitive and ecologically unaware as most people in America are today. Arizona and its rapacious water and development industry was, if anything, worse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Grand Canyon almost didn't become a national park because of some developer/miner from Arizona who became a senator. I don't remember his name, but that's OK, because he doesn't actually deserve mention. What an exemplar of a type that still exists in this state--someone who thinks that all we need is more water and development, that the landscape means little, except the view.
Anyhow, it's also interesting that Niagra Falls was used through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the poster child for how private development and tourist exploitation can wreck scenes of superb natural interest and beauty. The watchword seemed to be "don't turn Yosemite or Yellowstone into Niagra Falls." It was this attitude on the part of the public that was certainly a catalyst for the development of the national parks.
It was also a lesson in the way that individuals can move the national conversation and will in such a way that good things happen. Of course, John Muir was that spokesperson for Yosemite and Yellowstone, and interestingly, became the patron saint of most of the early national parks. Also, the first National Park Service director, whose name I can't now recall, used his advertising and promotional sense to popularize the parks to the nation at the critical time.
Finally, the early twentieth century also saw the birth of use-conservation as well as the classic Sierra Club environmental movement. Gifford Pinchot, the force behind the National Forest system, had a different, multi-use, idea, that probably saved much more acreage of wilderness than the National Park system did. So, are the National Forests America's second best idea?
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