Sunday, August 15, 2010


The Problem With iCollege...




Professor Brian Fogarty of St. Catherine has an excellent op-ed in the Strib:

… A student taking classes online is immersed in a whirl of distractions — the gong of arriving e-mail, instant messaging, Facebook updates, online games and all the rest. The problem with i-College is that it fails to provide the one thing that a genuine college experience offers: an environment completely dedicated, if only for short periods at a time, to the world of ideas and the process of learning…

Magaret Soltan, an English professor at George Washington University comments on her outstanding blog, University Diaries:

Although your professors wish you well, they are not thinking, as they engage you in their classrooms, about what job you’re going to get when you graduate. They are thinking about lighting a fire under your ass about a certain subject matter. They scan your faces, they ask you leading questions, in order to see whether there’s any smoke coming out of you.

Did you read any of Tony Judt’s obits? If a student of his missed one class — just one class — Judt sent the student a hectoring email. Get back in here! I want to see you every day! I’m giving you my all. You give me your all.

And, having taught at St. Kates, I am sure Professor Fogarty and his colleagues are still doing this. There are some pretty serious students (and faculty) there...


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