Will classrooms become irrelevant by 2020?

  • 1
    56.02% (498 votes)
    No, they'll remain the best means for educating the masses.
  • 2
    43.98% (391 votes)
    Yes, they're a waste of time in this modern era.

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  1. Rick Cain said on Apr 22 2009, 22:04 PM:

    Universities are fast pricing themselves out of existence. How many other institutions have increased their fees by 1000%? None that survived long.

  2. Steve D. said on Apr 22 2009, 08:04 AM:

    I work for IT in a junior college. While I see a change to more diversified methods of education I cannot see such a dramatic shift happening in a little over only ten years. I do see downloads and on-line activities supplementing or replacing many lectures and classroom presentations. However, the best method of education is not the lecture. In fact the lecture is the least effective method for the transfer of knowledge. If this were true then all of us who sit around and watch the Discovery channel and Nova would have PHD's by now. The best methods in education for knowledge acquisition involve guided interactive activities within a social framework directed by trained instructors. Computer simulations cannot always replace the actual thing. Take music for example. We have synthesizers that can replicate any type of musical instrument. They have been around for over 30 years. They are compact powerful devices that in may ways exceed the capabilities of the original instrument. Yet we have not seen a large scale abandonment of traditional music creation. The synthesizer has been embraced as a new tool, but not a replacement.

  3. leigh said on Apr 21 2009, 22:04 PM:

    I'm a college student, albeit, a 27 year-old student who is just now a junior, and I have taken lots of on-line course, and loved 'em. But they are only relevant to so many courses; many will still require classroom settings.