It's been quite a while since I've posted. I've started several times in response to what feels like an avalanche of negativity against education. There has always been those who claim that those with a higher education are "elite" and somehow no longer true Americans. But the war on education has taken on new fervor, as YouTube now has a rash of videos and there are numerous articles on the scam that is higher education (see Questions About Higher Education’s Value Go Viral on YouTube). As the cost of education continues to rise and jobs continue to disappear the value of a degree does seem to be questionable. Yet there are jobs, such as in engineering, that employers just can't fill because job seekers don't have the skills. Perhaps what is needed is less of a dialogue that contains school is bad and worthless, but more of a rework on how we train people for their careers. It may be worth taking a look at the "antiquated" apprenticeship model, using a mixture of liberal arts education with hands-on training in a field. These apprenticeships don't even have to paid, they just get credit for the time without costing the student any money. Student saves money, employers get free labor that are trained in the skills needed. Of course this means businesses will have to take the time and spend the money to develop a training program, they won't see profit right away, but if they want to remain in business they will need to invest in their employees. Seems counter-intuitive when there is unemployment of 9%, but the question we all must ask is what kind of a future do we want for this country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6 Technologies That Will Change Education?!?

The Journal just published an article looking at the new report by the Net Media Consortium (NMC) in collaboration with the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), " 2011 Horizon Report K-12 Edition ." My interest is in adult education, but the technologies work for K-12 or adults, the difference is often in how the technology is implemented. The near term technologies include mobile learning, a technology which interests me a lot, especially as one who deals with medical and military personnel. I think mobile technologies have a lot to offer, but one aspect that seems to be left out of the conversation is how to develop curriculum for these mobile devices. Do we use the same ISD as we do for WBT and just scale it down? Are students actually taking classes, accessing supporting material or using it for remediation? In fact as a developer I am stuck between the Flash issue. Are schools giving students the technology so all students have the same abilities or are we suppose...
Read more

Response to Learning Issues in Serious Games

I recently came across the blog Perspectives on Education by Dr Victor Lim Fei. The latest entry is entitled Learning Issues In Serious Games and contained an interesting perspective on the use serious games in education. There are a number of issue, challenges, and benefits of using serious games, many of which are reminiscent of Web 2.0 and the idea of participatory culture and being the producer of the content. Leaning on Piaget's social constructivism theories "when the student is involved in the construction of the game, the experiences of the student is either reinforced through assimilation or is realigned through accommodation. Learning thus takes place multimodally, by means of experience." The instructor is now a facilitator of learning, creating a learner focused environment. There are however, some issues inherent in the very concept of a game.Games typically mean there is a winner and a loser, they are competitive, and can rely on character stereotypes to...
Read more

A reason to GO to graduate school, you're surrounded by graduate students

I stumbled across a blog today via ProfHacker of The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School . The initial posting I went to go read, as my qualifying project has been on my mind this week, was Reason #60: " The Tyranny of the Dissertation ." But I ended up at #50. You are surrounded by graduate students. I was taken aback by the comment "The professor responded without the slightest hesitation: 'There is nothing to be gained from the company of graduate students.'"Is this really the reality of graduate school? I do remember having very little interaction with my fellow Master's students. Once class ended, we all went our separate ways. Now I worked a full-time job while doing my Master's degree, so by the time class was over at 10 pm I was ready to call it a day. But in truth, there was no feeling of community, and as there were only 3 required classes I rarely saw the same people from semester to semester....
Read more