Despite all the pontification about how learning online is “THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION,” this SNL sketch (as well as the comments section on any article regarding online education) certainly points to a continuing belief that anything short of a face-to-face education is somehow second-rate.

This is rather curious, seeing as the University of Phoenix (the logo of which is spoofed in the sketch) is the largest institution of higher education in the U.S. by enrollment. Add to that Kaplan University’s brilliant ad campaign arguing for education on-demand and the popularity of the state-supported, entirely online Western Governors University.

I bring this up mainly to compare it with my own recent experience at a large public university. The mix of classes between online and face-to-face was roughly 50/50, and I honestly wouldn’t give an edge to one or the other. This despite the pretty obvious bias I have favoring the online side (given both my academic concentration and the content of this blog).

I’ve never taken a class at an entirely online university, but I highly doubt this fact is necessarily an indicator of quality. Many state schools even tout the fact that they have entire academic programs online to appeal to those who live too far to commute to campus.

The thing about the SNL sketch that really caught my eye was the bit about them sending your diploma via email. A few days after my graduation this summer, I got an email with a link to a website where I could see my diploma in a choice of lovely yet ridiculously overpriced frames. Of course, the company that made this website used a CSS trick to try and keep me from downloading it.

I’d rather have the printable diploma, but I guess I should just be happy they made the university font legible. Thanks University of Mumblemumble!

Coincidence? Or evidence of the incredible influence that I have?

This is the first time that I’ve ever had anything like this occur, so I don’t want to blow this up and pretend that stuff like this happens all the time. It really doesn’t. I also don’t want to sound like I’m totally trashing this professor. He made it fairly clear (admittedly not until before the midterm) that he was not really down with delivering the class online, and much preferred lecturing. This became evident the few times I saw him in person, when he was engaging, passionate and funny – really an all-around great lecturer. The Blackboard site for the class, however, was a bit of a mess. Content was scattered, disorganized, and confusing.

I’ve come to understand that professors are busy: they’re under enormous pressure to do original research, teach classes, answer questions. It’s a 7 day a week job where they have to constantly be at the top of their game, demonstrating their expertise. With other such lofty concerns, I can imagine organizing Blackboard content and grading papers probably falls pretty low on the priority list.

I think it just may be a symptom of a systemic problem within higher learning that really has never been addressed. Andre Malan, a student at the University of British Columbia, gave this really fascinating talk about the future of education, where he discusses the paper grading problem.

His argument is that the traditional mode of doing so relies on one person – the professor, who may or may not grade papers reliably or accurately (his picture of papers thrown down a staircase, with the heaviest papers at the bottom and most deserving of an A – is freaking hilarious). He cites Jon Beasley-Murray’s Murder, Madness and Mayhem Wikipedia project as an example of a community-based grading system. In this project, the articles students wrote stayed relevant, even months after their completion. In many cases, student articles became top search hits for particular topics.

I appreciate the 100% the professor gave me on my paper. But 2 months out from finishing it, that grade just doesn’t seem relevant anymore.

That’s a billboard I must pass a dozen or more times a month, but I only recently noticed it. Clearly in these hard economic times, the U is really trying to push distance learning… but this attempt feels more like a feeble shove than a real push.

There’s several other billboards around town, most noticeably the one on I-275 downtown that makes me feel like I’m about to launch into near-Earth orbit. They also had a real big outdoor ad campaign during football season, where they tried to implant the respective images of Matt Grothe and George Selvie into everybody’s brain. During any type of USF game on TV, there’s also a commercial they run made with still photographs (remind you of anything?) and music that sounds like Kraftwerk (unfortunately no one has deemed it interesting enough to post it to YouTube).

I bring this up in order to contrast it with the commercials that Kaplan University have been rolling out:

Really, they’re just breathtaking. Others have reacted similarly, some even go so far as to call it e-learning’s equivalent to Apple’s 1984 ad. It did come with a hefty price tag: the cost for the campaign was supposedly in the millions.

I’m not asking USF to spend that kind of cash. I only ask that they heed some advice from Uncle Phil: