There’s no online substitute for a real university classroom

August 20, 2012

Article by Clifford Orwin published in The Globe & Mail

You hear a lot of talk about how universities and teachers are expensive dinosaurs and how the future of teaching lies online. Don’t believe a word of it. The classroom experience – live – remains the heart of real education.

One necessary word of distinction: By “education” I don’t mean training or even mere instruction. Widget-making (however complex the widget) may well be teachable online. By education I mean formation of the whole person, to which the humanities have traditionally aspired – as have the natural and social sciences in their noblest conceptions of themselves. Continue reading this article at The Globe & Mail.