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Colleges Without Campuses
| Article
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16313 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1989 |
1,757 Words |
| Author
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W.J. Elvin
W.J. Elvin is a columnist for the Washington Times and a
frequent contributor to THE WORLD & I. |
My father used to say that if you don't have a college degree by the time you're twenty-five, you're never going to have one. As the target of his wisdom, I went on with career, family, and the other adventures of adulthood looking back only occasionally to lament that I'd never added a bachelor of arts or other credential to my resume.
The world my father gained his wisdom and experience from has changed. Today, my schedule is so erratic I'd never be able to commit to a classroom regime. But actually, there's no need. With the benefit of modern electronic classrooms, the restrictions that have kept many people from earning college degrees have been challenged. Via computer, a student completes a homework assignment, files it with a distant instructor, and upon returning to the computer finds comments from the instructor waiting.
It's not quite the same as raising your hand in the classroom, but the process does give some sense of personal relationship. Although the student may be in Calcutta or Cairo and the professor in College Park, Maryland, phone links and message storage have greatly reduced the problems of long-distance communication.
The electronic university concept uses computers, cable television, VCRs, and other technologies to make education readily available to those who, primarily for reasons of career and family responsibilities, cannot attend regular classroom courses on a college campus.
"Colleges without campuses" also aid those who live far from institutions of higher learning, as well as the handicapped, persons recovering from immobilizing injuries, and prisoners behind bars.
During the early years of experimentation, many problems emerged regarding electronic universities. Advances in technology have eliminated some of those problems, such as balky computer software. And electronic education, said to short-circuit the pupil-teacher relationship many students find essential to developing a learning style, now uses interactive cable television to overcome the problem of lack of contact. Live cable television classes combined with speakerphones enable questions and answers to be processed just as they would be in a regular classroom. For the at-home student who is not part of a group effort, interaction by computer messaging is among the ways the often-defeating loneliness of the long-distance learner is being
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