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by IvoDankolov 5240 days ago
I do agree on that point, but I'm not sure if pragmatic is the right word. Need of a specialized work environment, perhaps. Programming needs one, too, I suppose, but it just happens to be a computer.

Approaching other subjects the same way we do math and programming would be quite monumentally stupid. Could you trust a "doctor" to make the right decisions if his/her experience consists of watching lecture videos on YouTube and answering quizzes?

However, should we completely give up on those fields that require specialized practice? I see it as more of a challenge than a reason to despair. For one thing, you can combine online education with offline practice (provided willingness of all parties involved to experiment with new approaches, which is certainly not a trivial thing to ask). Also, an approach I'd try is having games that simulate the real-world task as close as possible. At some point, you probably would need specialized equipment and/or test subjects. Reducing that to a minimum, though, is in my opinion a very good thing, as it would drive down the cost of education.
1 comments
RuchitGarg 5240 days ago
My thoughts on why a real university will always make sense, but for different reasons http://blog.siliconverse.com/2011/12/29/why-you-need-to-go-t...
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johnohara 5240 days ago
Read your blog Ruchit. I agree with your thoughts on human interaction.

I think in a couple of years we will discover that the key benefit to online education is the ability to consistently deliver high quality instructional content to very large numbers of students.

The social component of learning should benefit from this. My hope is that online delivery of instruction will free up time in the classroom for the human dynamic of discussion, problem-solving and shared inquiry.

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ippisl 5240 days ago
It's too early to conclude what are the limits of computer mediated human socialization.It's still a pretty young field.For example, just before something like 6 months , google came out with google+ hangouts, and now some people are cooking together using it, which seems pretty unexpected.
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