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  #1  
Unread 09-29-2014, 11:53 PM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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Default Robert Pinsky's online poetry class

It's not my cuppa, but some here might be interested in this.
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  #2  
Unread 09-30-2014, 06:40 AM
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W.F. Lantry W.F. Lantry is offline
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Thanks, Andrew. I just registered, the process was pretty painless. It'll be interesting to see what a well-funded technology initiative can do with the material.

Best,

Bill
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Unread 09-30-2014, 08:28 AM
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Quincy Lehr Quincy Lehr is offline
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MOOCs are, in the end, a way of undercutting already scarce academic jobs. Thanks a lot, Pinsky.
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Unread 09-30-2014, 12:04 PM
Sharon Fish Mooney Sharon Fish Mooney is offline
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Maybe will see you there Bill --I registered too ... I've taken (off and on--they are quite overwhelming content-wise) the Penn poetry course -- I have found the content very valuable for teaching purposes for various poetry workshops I've taught myself or with others and anticipate this will be too based on the syllabus -- in the Penn course I got involved with a forum group interested in translation and discovered many helpful resources
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Unread 09-30-2014, 02:03 PM
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W.F. Lantry W.F. Lantry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quincy Lehr View Post
MOOCs are, in the end, a way of undercutting already scarce academic jobs. Thanks a lot, Pinsky.
This is actually a fascinating question, and it's one that gives me pause. Are we, through our exploration of academic technology (an exploration in which I've played some little part) destroying the very concept of The University? We always said we wanted to change, to transform, what a university is and how it works. But will we end by destroying it?

It's also been the subject of the great Intellectual Property fights of the past decade. For example, who owns your syllabus? 10-15 years ago, you would have. Now, at most places, the University does. Who owns the instructional materials that sit up on Blackboard? You may never have asked that question. I'm pretty sure you won't like the answer.

On the other hand, MOOCs are not the horrific threat they're made out to be. Yes, hundreds of students may sign up for a course, but often you can count the ones who finish on one hand. On the other hand, last semester, 11 million (yes, you read that right, 11,000,000) students took at least one course which was developed by a textbook company, taught electronically, and graded by software. That's the real threat to the profession, and it's a clear and present danger, and it's growing by 10% a year.

The famous letter from San Jose State, protesting MOOCs, was heartbreaking. But while we were all wringing our hands, a cluster bomb was falling on our heads. Will there be Universities ten years from now? That 10% a year growth rate adds up fast, and it doesn't pay attention to romantic arguments about how much people love and need 'the university experience.' Are we the travel agents of the next decade? It's suddenly becoming a legitimate question, and it's one for which there is only a single answer.

Here's another example. When Kate got her Master's Degree, she had to be proficient in three foreign languages. That meant two semesters of university level instruction in each language. That kind of thing is the bread and butter of foreign language departments, it's what keeps them afloat, and funds their majors.

But guess what? There's a program online called Duolingo. It's kind of fun, she spends about 20 minutes a day on it. She's learning Spanish, because her parish is now mostly hispanic. They've done studies that say 36 hours on Duolingo are worth the equivalent of two years of university language instruction. And you can use the program to get your skills high enough so you can test out of those language requirements.

So it's goodbye, friendly neighborhood Modern Language department. Thus do we disassemble the university, brick by brick.

Thanks,

Bill
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  #6  
Unread 10-01-2014, 01:57 AM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Tony Blair thought you could teach with computers and make teachers redundant. He, of course, was a pig ignorant born bloody fool who had managed to grow up without an education in spite of going to a good Scottish school (almost as good as mine) and Oxford University. You can lead a horse to water...

Machines are machines and people are people. Teachers are people, or most of them are. I am sure you cannot be replaced by a machine, Quincy.
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Unread 10-01-2014, 02:37 AM
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Ann Drysdale Ann Drysdale is offline
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And neither can face-to-face interaction be replaced by catch-all communication on this scale. This very forum is an object lesson in the treachery of the written word. The relentless imposition of the emoticon is an indication of the inadequacy of the word per se in definitive exposition. Faces are irreplaceable; we do so at our peril.

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Unread 10-01-2014, 05:52 AM
Andrew Frisardi Andrew Frisardi is offline
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In defense of the written word, I'll pipe in here to say that I don't agree that it's any more treacherous than face-to-face communication. People in days of yore had epistolary relationships that lasted years, never meeting, often profound relationships at that. The difference on the internet is that it's the tossed-off written word, the quick fix of communication; those old letters were works of art. Speed kills, as they say.

And I agree that teaching online doesn't hold a candle to bodies being in the same room together. The problem is, sometimes there's no body around.
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