[jerf]

"But I can't help feel like some part of the experience is lost in the process."

Some of the experience is lost in the process. We need not really dance around or wonder about that, it is. But what will be gained will be greater than what is lost, or we'd go back to the old ways, which we won't.

A mass-produced medium-class bed isn't a magnificent hand-carved bed adorned with various and sundry Greek gods and goddesses. But the former scales, and the latter doesn't, and sitting and wringing hands about the experience lost when your bed isn't gloriously hand-carved is missing the point of the mass-produced bed quite badly.

"Is there going to even be a place for me in 20 years when I'm looking to teach Computer Science at a state school?"

A place? Quite likely. But probably not standing in front of a class giving a monologue, because in 20 years the whole "give a monologue to 50 people barely paying attention, hand out assignments to be done one week later, trickle out feedback about performance two week after that" model will be considered laughably quaint, and our grandchildren will ask us why on Earth we ever expected anyone to be educated with such a terrible model. It may not be a state school, either.

A moment of silence for some of the old nuances may be called for, but what is coming is a tidal wave, not a couple incremental advances. It won't be entirely 100% positive, but effectively nobody will be seriously advocating going back to the old ways in 20 years.

[dspeyer]

Rather than await a moment of silence, perhaps now is the time to carefully see what can be preserved. Somewhere in possibility-space is a model in which great minds teach in only the ways that they are well-suited to. Giving the same monologue year after year will likely die, but the teaching time that frees up could be used for some sort of mentorships or discussions or teaching of subtleties.

The first step is to characterize exactly what is lost moving from a traditional model to a Khan-academy-like model. Then to determine how to focus on those things. Then to experiment.

[SoftwareMaven]

Unfortunately, the people writing checks don't ask "how could it be better for the same money?"; they ask, "how could it be equal for less money?"[1] Yes, we have an opportunity to make education much, much better. With the exception of a few places like Harvard and MIT, most of it will pass right by the US.

[1] I see a small possibility where the strong teachers unions get behind this as a future-directed way to save teaching jobs, and that could make all the difference. However, unions aren't too smart at predicting and driving assive upheavals. Instead, they will likely fight any change kicking and screaming.

[jerf]

"Unfortunately, the people writing checks..."

You will know the true revolution is here when "the people writing checks" has moved far closer to "the consumer".

I actually expect about 80% of the true revolutionary reform to essentially come out of the home schooling movement, and trickle up to the universities, who will hold on to the traditional ways the longest. While what the universities are doing now is a critical step, I don't expect them to ever escape "University lectures and homework, but on a computer!" on their own, except that they will eventually have no choice.