The faculty senate at my college has 4 standing committees, one of which is
"Academic Technology." I recently recommended that any on line course have some
minimum number of proctored activity, preferably with the students and teacher in
the same room. This was not greeted with much enthusiasm. Not a few of these
folks have a futuristic glaze in their eyes when they speak of how things will
soon be; and how if we don't, somebody else will; and there's potential for fraud
with traditional courses; and anyway there are correspondence courses . . .
Cool2Math's description of the on-line professor who actually works full time at
Nissan and so can't quite be reached at all, even for the final exam . . . reminds
me of the cartoon showing a classroom with a little tape recorder on each desk and
a big tape player in front. Sheeze. But still that glow emanating from somewhere
just behind the retina...in the future, nobody will need a brain; we'll all be
part of that one big brain in the sky.
On the other had, it would be really really nice to be able to do some graduate
level study in mathematics, which I can't since the nearest real university is 70
miles away...
geoff
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