[ExI] chain rule

[William Flynn Wallace]

BillW, ponder this please sir, for you are perhaps the most qualified
person here on this topic, being an educator yourself.  We value your
opinion, and your own grandson values your opinion on this, and your
thoughts and speculations on where this leads.
spike

What may happen may benefit my field tremendously.  A person shows up to
take tests for a job with that company.  The industrial psychologist
administers them and then hires or not.  This means that the company has to
very carefully define what they are looking for in a candidate, something
they do not often to, or not to very specific degrees.  Sometimes a person
is hired just because they come off well in an interview (the least valid
method of choosing, as proven over and over).  Gut feelings about someone
does not substitute for objective tests.

This may be relatively easy in engineering and other science venues.  But
what about management and sales?  Passing tests is no substitute for the
person to person interactions that those jobs require.

I think we all want the world wired - everyone able to get to a wifi and at
least rent some time on it.  Government should underwrite this big time.
It's as if you could beam electricity to backwoods areas that it is too
expensive to lay wire to,

Really good point about GPA - data show that lawyers averaging C in grad
school make the most money.  A students stay and teach, B students become
corporate lawyers.  Another thing:  we simply cannot define what some would
call 'heart', or 'drive'.  Or a near inability to quit.

What is happening now, and so fast as Spike says, will require tons of
studies on what really delivers the goods online.  My students while I was
in grad school took Psych 101 by TV.  I took roll and turned on the TV.  I
was available to answer questions as the end but few were asked.  At the
end of the term a survey showed that they hated it with a passion.  Now the
teacher was sitting at a desk and reading his notes and it was boring as
hell (why do we use that phrase?  I can't think of anything less boring
than hell would be).

So we will eventually wind up with the very best teachers, who are going to
be showmen and women, not necessarily the smartest people, and depending on
how this goes, they may become very rich, with students all over the
world.  A fine thing that would be after teachers having been underpaid
since the beginning.

But who is selling these ideas?  I never see any reference to online
courses.  OK, Phoenix and others - questionable.

This may wind up costing millions of local jobs as online competes with sit
down local classes.  A problem?

bill w

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 2:02 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 20 May 2016 at 19:25, spike  wrote:
> <big snip>
> > Conclusion: Sal Khan has offered a free ticket out of the poverty trap,
> for
> > anyone who will stretch out and grab it, with intentional emphasis on
> > “stretch out” because a free education with credentials does not mean
> > credentials will be handed to you like the scarecrow from the Wizard of
> Oz.
> > It still takes a lot of work.
> >
> > BillW, ponder this please sir, for you are perhaps the most qualified
> person
> > here on this topic, being an educator yourself.  We value your opinion,
> and
> > your own grandson values your opinion on this, and your thoughts and
> > speculations on where this leads.
> >
>
>
> Spike, I appreciate your enthusiasm for educating your son and applaud it.
> (So please don't take my comments as criticism).
>
> The Sal Khan Academy is one extreme.
> Looking at education from the opposite extreme, I have read articles
> worrying about smartphones causing the dumbing-down of the population.
> With a smartphone, nobody needs to remember or know much at all.
> Google gives you any info you need. Apps do calculating for you, give
> directions, organise schedules, buy stuff, etc.
> That's why the younger generation are addicted to gossiping on their
> smartphones.
> There's not much else left for them to do.
>
> BillK
>
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