Will the education industry bubble burst in the wake of covid? (Sears, companies)
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Yep, it pretty much depends on learning styles. If you have a learning style that both online and in-person learning can work, it can work. The biggest problem I see is the learning style and not the style of learning itself.
If we move to all online we start competing on online experience, which means the arms race moves to that arena. First it's video, the next step would interactivity.
If you ever actually tried produce even a semi-professional instructional video you'd know how much more time that takes than making a powerpoint slide and talking about it in person. A video has to be scripted, edited & produced, captioned, etc... By the time I upload a 20 minute video I've probably spent AT LEAST 4 hours working on it.
They are only good for maybe 2 years max. I get about 1-1.5 years use out of mine and plan on releasing new ones every 2 years. Students are savvy and they know when content is stale.
How many man hours is needed throughout a semester, or year, and to cover all students, and classes, year after year?
Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
Why hasn't that happened already? You think there are not smart people out there that thought of that in the past 20 years?
People thought that radio would replace teaching. Then they thought TV would replace teaching. Youtube is just TV that you can watch on demand.
What do you think is cheaper? Hiring a lecturer? Or hiring a lecturer, graphic designer, video editor, curriculum designer, etc., etc.,? Doing the former costs you 60k a year. Doing the latter requires a team of 7-12 people who all get paid at least 45-60k a year. Do you think running a production studio costs nothing? For quality eLearning you have to have the content experts AND the production team.
For "the BEST" content... do you think those creators are going to give that out for free? Hell no, they'll brand and copyright their content and it will be like textbook prices all over again. There goes your savings.
I predict that after covid, maybe 10% more students will want online education than before. At most. The vast majority will want to have real school.
There is already a ton of documentary series available. They get more and more specific on the topic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by riffle
Your assumption is that learning happens while sitting passively watching a one way lecture in a classroom. In which case, YouTube is a cheaper substitute. But I don't think that's effective pedagogy either way.
Far more valuable in my education were:
1. Asking questions about examples during lecture.
2. Attending breakout class sections to work problems with an instructor answering questions.
3. Going to office hours to get help on problem sets.
4. Laboratory exercises and projects.
1-3 can be done online, but you don't realize much instructional cost savings.
LOL college is mostly just sitting there and listening. I have been in classes, in which you are not allowed to interupt lecture to ask questions.
Labs are the one thing you cannot do through online though.
How many man hours is needed throughout a semester, or year, and to cover all students, and classes, year after year?
There is already a ton of documentary series available. They get more and more specific on the topic.
LOL college is mostly just sitting there and listening. I have been in classes, in which you are not allowed to interupt lecture to ask questions.
Labs are the one thing you cannot do through online though.
It costs about $8500 per student per year to deliver instruction. The man hours depend on tne instructor's preparation, efficacy and efficency. This wouldn't change or more likely would go up with a transition to all online.
The dream you have, of one instructor teaching thousands or tens of thousands of students was tried by the MOOC companies 8-10 years ago. They had hundreds of millions of venture capital behind them and hired the top professors in the country to be the face of their classes. They failed miserably and had to change their business model to one that works with colleges, not against them.
Oh documentaries! Because those are so cheap to produce! They were so cheap and profitable that History, A&E, and TLC got so exhausted from making huge profits off of their documentary content that they switched to reality TV.
Something I've been encountering lately are the legal issues regarding copyright. Showing something in class is protected by fair use. Posting something online has no such protection. Digitization of content is a whole new ball game in legal terms.
Last edited by redguard57; 04-30-2020 at 04:29 AM..
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redguard57
It costs about $8500 per student per year to deliver instruction. ...
The dream you have, of one instructor teaching thousands or tens of thousands of students was tried by the MOOC companies 8-10 years ago. They had hundreds of millions of venture capital behind them and hired the top professors in the country to be the face of their classes. They failed miserably and had to change their business model to one that works with colleges, not against them.
.
The $8500 / student seems to cover admin. and facilities (which would be the first thing I'd get rid of.) Sell the school buildings and buses.
SIL is in her 5th yr of 100% online teaching of k-12 special needs. Her student load exploded with Covid, fortunately she chose to 'shelter' in Hawaii at a beach cottage. 3 months she taught from a MTN resort. It has helped her overtaxed demands to have career change to online, especially her safety and health, of managing special needs students. The schools were not supplying proper support staff.
I would expect AI and VR will take a leading role in edu in next 10 yrs.
4th generation teacher here. We ALL homescooled our own this and subsequent generations, but stayed actively engaged in the school systems via employment or volunteering as a family. One of our kids is doing AI and VR innovation. (CFO). Their product interfaces and can communicate via Sign Language. (For the deaf clients).
Now is a very opportune time to remake USA edu. Not in a small way.!!!
The lobbyists will prevail and the USA will further decline in academic delivery for our vast needs.
The $8500 / student seems to cover admin. and facilities (which would be the first thing I'd get rid of.) Sell the school buildings and buses.
SIL is in her 5th yr of 100% online teaching of k-12 special needs. Her student load exploded with Covid, fortunately she chose to 'shelter' in Hawaii at a beach cottage. 3 months she taught from a MTN resort. It has helped her overtaxed demands to have career change to online, especially her safety and health, of managing special needs students. The schools were not supplying proper support staff.
I would expect AI and VR will take a leading role in edu in next 10 yrs.
4th generation teacher here. We ALL homescooled our own this and subsequent generations, but stayed actively engaged in the school systems via employment or volunteering as a family. One of our kids is doing AI and VR innovation. (CFO). Their product interfaces and can communicate via Sign Language. (For the deaf clients).
Now is a very opportune time to remake USA edu. Not in a small way.!!!
The lobbyists will prevail and the USA will further decline in academic delivery for our vast needs.
No. That's not correct.
Maintenance of the physical plant is a small part of my community college's budget. The public greatly overestimates what it costs to take care of the buildings, and greatly underestimates things like IT costs and health insurance. Personnel is far and away the biggest cost. Hell, I'll just post what the budget says, it's public information. You can google up any public institution you like to find this information:
Instruction and Instructional support - 55%
College Support (administrative) - 12%
Campus Service (physical plant maintenance) - 10%
Student Services - 10%
IT Services - 10%
Contingency - 2%
Financial Aid - 1%
If we went all online we could cut the campus service but we would incur more costs in IT service, which has far more high-paid employees. It costs a lot more to hire IT techs than it does groundskeepers.
Last edited by redguard57; 04-30-2020 at 10:52 AM..
LOL college is mostly just sitting there and listening. I have been in classes, in which you are not allowed to interupt lecture to ask questions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by riffle
That wasn't my experience. Too bad you can't get your money back.
Even within a single school, there are often choices of classes. If you choose the ones likely to be listen-and-regurgitate, and even more seek out the instructors known to put few demands on students, you get what you pay for.
But then, most college students are too stupid to make the best of what they have in front of them, instead of finding the path of least resistance to Big Starting Job Bux.
Honestly, 90% of the problem with higher education is cultural. Our society no longer has a strong work ethic and that includes how hard students work in school. Now they expect luxury dorms and entire shopping malls inside the "student activity center", well equipped gyms, swimming pools, restaurants, a "department of diversity", etc. etc.
Anyway... what is a college? A room, a white board, and a prof talking. I'd like to buy some old warehouse, subdivide it, get a bunch of chairs, hire a bunch of Ph.D.'s, and poof! a university. That's really all you need. I'd charge some minimal tuition, like $10K/year, students live at home and brown bag it. Minimal admin staff. A janitor or two. A wifi network. Maybe stream the lectures online for those who can't be there physically.
Oh, and have strict admissions policies. Only people who actually are qualified to be there should be there. Offer only the hard core arts and sciences, no gender studies majors.
Shave off all the overhead, eliminate the riff-raff and you could have a functional school with a minimal budget, focused on learning. Problem solved.
Honestly, 90% of the problem with higher education is cultural. Our society no longer has a strong work ethic and that includes how hard students work in school. Now they expect luxury dorms and entire shopping malls inside the "student activity center", well equipped gyms, swimming pools, restaurants, a "department of diversity", etc. etc.
Anyway... what is a college? A room, a white board, and a prof talking. I'd like to buy some old warehouse, subdivide it, get a bunch of chairs, hire a bunch of Ph.D.'s, and poof! a university. That's really all you need. I'd charge some minimal tuition, like $10K/year, students live at home and brown bag it. Minimal admin staff. A janitor or two. A wifi network. Maybe stream the lectures online for those who can't be there physically.
Oh, and have strict admissions policies. Only people who actually are qualified to be there should be there. Offer only the hard core arts and sciences, no gender studies majors.
Shave off all the overhead, eliminate the riff-raff and you could have a functional school with a minimal budget, focused on learning. Problem solved.
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