require the student to take a proctored comprehensive exam over all the material for a course for a grade.

I personally know of colleges that offer courses where instructors never see a student, students take online multiple choice or true-false tests, and receive a grade. That from a college that is regionally accredited.

That's a diploma-mill, a scam, and leaves graduates with debt, a worthless degree, and no prospects for a job.

Today it's too easy for human-resource managers who expect job applications to be on-line to filter out applicants with such degrees.

I expect MIT and Harvard have higher standards but the lower end colleges are despicable.

Teachers will accuse YOU of hating your days in school and being traumatized.

Some people will swear that YOU are stupid and that it is't possible to learn anything online.

Still others will state that YOU are trying to cheat young people out of the positive social experience that brick and mortar schools can be.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again - I think in the near future some public school districts will give online education a try out of a willingness to cut expenses.

I wasn't aware of that. There's plenty to learn and the internet is one way to learn some of it.

To them, there's only ONE acceptable way of teaching and learning and that's in a brick and mortar school.

Why do you want to take their jobs away? Why do you HATE teachers?

for education.

They're just not so open to using computers in place of education. Or of slobbering over things like Khan academy as 'innovative,' etc.

There are already kids doing completely computerized schooling (K12 Inc for one). It's been an abject failure.

Districts who go computerized 'to save money' are supposed to be some kind of exemplar? I think not.

Traditional classroom colleges are an anachronism because distance education is just as effective, cheaper and more accessible except perhaps for rigorous topics like sciences, mathematics and technologies.

Nationally recognized accrediting agencies have already established required courses and rigorous topics for most degrees with job opportunities.

Students should choose one degree with job opportunities, and taxpayers should fund only required courses for that degree, classroom courses for rigorous topics and distance education for all others. Students should pay for all general studies courses.

Accredited colleges, public or private, could offer courses at an established price like Medicare rates. Students could choose from those courses and taxpayers would pay only if a grade of “C” or better is earned.

A student’s state university system would award a degree when required courses are completed regardless of where they are taken.

education (K12 Inc) has proved to be an abject failure, so far as actual educating students goes.

The model is more like, "Hey, would you like to try learning something this way?"

No threat to the status quo, though it may lead to dual credit or college credit courses for high schoolers.

I hope.

university level as well. and for credit.

but it *is* a threat to the status quo -- because even though distance learning could be used otherwise, all these things are being deployed in a way that threatens the entire structure of education.

much worse than the status quo for the majority of students.

and most certainly worse for the majority of teachers & professors -- or aspirants to the professoriate or the university culture generally.

similar programs that are difficult.

Cost and convenience will drive that.

Problem is preventing diploma mills.

K12 students enrolled in on-line schools. You have to buy all the equipment for the experiments & do them at home. It's not significantly cheaper (you'd be amazed what they charge, say, for a couple of plastic bowls, measuring spoons, and a couple of baggies of corn starch or whatever).

Also, STEM classes are routinely done on-line at colleges and universities throughout the nation.

Cost (& supposed 'convenience') will drive it all -- for all but elite students. Because the rest aren't going to be doing anything 'important' anyway.

who will become the scientists and mathematicians who will lead us into the future.

you miss the point. Elite students -- maybe the top 10% -- will be educated in a traditional rich university setting.

Other students, if they can pay the cost, will make due with an impoverished online education, suitable for their increasingly impoverished circumstances and their mindless jobs.

Perhaps you wouldn't mind living in that kind of world. Others would.

IMO, nothing those elite students discovered would make up for it.

Just like there's nothing that's been discovered in the last 30 years that makes up for the increasing meanness of social life for the majority of the population.

benefits cadets receive at West Point, Annapolis, Coast Guard Academy, Merchant Marine Academy, and Air Force Academy.

The military services already select their best officers and send them to the best universities for graduate degrees including PhDs from the most respected universities.

We need to create federal programs that identify "elite" students and offer them university programs from undergraduate to Post Doctoral without the obligation of military duty.

Someone will post that we already have them but I already know that. They're piecemeal, not focused on math & science as I propose.

Perhaps we could create a Department of Peace at the same time and focus on economy building instead of nation building with all its abuses.

The students? Ha! They aren't even shareholders!

I teach both online and in a brick setting. As always, differentiation benefits all students, so some do better in some courses online, while others do better in some courses in a brick setting.

Some do better with an emphasis on text, some on visual, some on projects, and some on various mixtures of all these. Some of my brick courses have an online component, as well.

As usual, no one thing is the best answer, and now we have more tools to benefit each student, if we will.

I hold a double bachelor's degree in English and Economics from a brick school, and I also have a master's in adult and distance education from an online school. This has changed and benefited my teaching tremendously, and that means my students get better service from me, as well.

If the 4% benefit, what's the problem?

and lost it yet (other than me).

Maybe we're growing up here at DU.