There will be lots of junk graduate netcourses and net diploma mills. The network will make it easier to get credit from impressive-sounding institutions for little learning and less effort. Teachers will undertake the extra effort to master difficult courses only when excellence in scholarship, knowledge, and breadth of learning are more highly valued by schools, communities, and unions.
Predictor: Tinker, Bob
Prediction, in context:In 1995, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology commissioned a series of white papers on various issues related to networking technologies. The department convened the authors for a workshop in November 1995 to discuss the implications. The following statement is taken from one of the white papers, “The Whole World in Their Hands,” by Bob Tinker, the president of Concord Consortium, he has a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and a reputation as a pioneer in constructivist uses of educational technology. Tinker writes:”There will be lots of junk graduate netcourses and net diploma mills. The network will make it easier to get credit from impressive-sounding institutions for little learning and less effort. Teachers will undertake the extra effort to master difficult courses only when excellence in scholarship, knowledge, and breadth of learning are more highly valued by schools, communities, and unions.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: The Future of Networking Technologies for Learning
Title, headline, chapter name: The Whole World in Their Hands
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Futures/
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney