Udacity - 21st Century University. Move Over Harvard And MIT, Stanford Has The Real “Revolution In Education” Lectures are often the least educational aspect of college; I know, I’ve taught college seniors and witnessed how little students learn during their four years in higher education. So, while it’s noble that MIT and Harvard are opening their otherwise exclusive lecture content to the public with EdX, hanging a webcam inside of a classroom is a not a “revolution in education”. A revolution in education would be replacing lectures with the Khan Academy and dedicating class time to hands-on learning, which is exactly what Stanford’s medical school proposed last week.
Stanford realizes that great education comes from being surrounded by inspiring peers, being coached by world-class thinkers, and spending time solving actual problems. So, last week, two Stanford professors made a courageous proposal to ditch lectures in the medical school. Skeptical readers may argue that Khan Academy can’t compete with lectures from the world’s great thinkers. [Image via the University of Waterloo.] Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8. When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive, and thoughtful, and in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it's finger friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: they were told that all their experience, all their knowledge, and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.
Key to the new Windows 8 look and feel, and instrumental to Microsoft's bid to make Windows a viable tablet operating system, are new-style full-screen "immersive" applications. Windows 8 will include new APIs for developing these applications, and here is where the problem lies. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Windows developers have invested a lot of time, effort, and money into the platform. A justified reaction Hopes dashed Microsoft did have a point.
Future U: Classroom tech doesn't mean handing out tablets. Future U is a multipart series on the university of the 21st century. We will be investigating the possible future of the textbook, the technological development of libraries, how tech may change the role of the professor, and the future role of technology in museums, research parks and university-allied institutions of all kinds. A couple of decades ago the most advanced technology to appear in an average classroom was a mini-cassette recorder and a calculator.
For most students, however, typical classroom technology ran the gamut from yellow legal pads to theme books, from pencils to ballpoints. Computers were restricted to the computer lab. There, the green blinking DOS cursor would excite and intimidate. Most of the thrill of the computer lab, aside from a few basic computer games, came from the fact that you could type up a paper without using Wite-Out. For those excited by the possibilities in the new medium, the hyperlink was king. Adjusting to new tools Web space and hardware.