The recent Davos forum attracted educational community of Russia. A dispute was launched whether online education will cause a revolution in in these sphere.  The discussion continued on the sites of main events in trendy clubs in Russia. Teachers fear that the game in online education will be picked up by domestic reformers.

 Interest in the subject fueled a speech of professor Daphne Koller at Stanford University, head of the educational portal which allows any user the access to courses of leading universities.  At the moment it is used by more than 2.3 million people from 196 countries. Investors in the project are the major American universities and companies.

“With the world on course” – Daphne called his project, which united in its opinion, the best rates of the best universities. The most popular of its courses – a course in philosophy and logic, the second most popular in gamification.

Daphne herself a scientist in third generation talking about the reasons that prompted her to take the theme of access to education cites a story that happened in January last year at the University of Johannesburg. There were still a few empty seats after the usual admissions. The night before the end of the deadline for these study places at the gates of the university emerged a queue of one kilometer of applicants. When the gates opened in the morning, the applicants started a crush. 20 people were injured, one woman died. It was the mother who gave his life for her child to get a chance a better life.

At a meeting with Daphne in the Digital October in Moscow was attended by lecturer from Moscower Universities (MGIMO and Bauman). Their direct question: “Does online education displaces traditional one?” The creator of educational portal said: “I hope so!” “It’s time to give students the opportunity to study at home and come to the classroom to discuss knowledge acquired, develop additional content – she said. – It is much more important to them to apply critical thinking skills and to work together. Instead of improving fast recording skills … I think this way we build a better society, not just a better education system. ”

Various point of views were presented at the Davos forum on the topic. Microsoft founder Bill Gates believes that distance education is the driving force in the development of education. Rafael Reif, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called the online education a major challenge of the modern university, and Larry Summers, president emeritus of Harvard University, says it is – a huge potential for the realization of completely new ideas. He also stressed that the most important influence of the online education will be in the developing world – it will open for the world many Einsteins from around the world, including the African village.

Relevant to the thesis presented the Russian pedagogic community was cautiously critical. “Businessmen dictate what we do in education”, “To educational systems of all countries war was declared”, “Through skillful marketing tricks first will be destroyed the traditional system of education, which would benefit the American university corporation. Then there will be two types of education – cheap online for all and very expensive – a traditional education for the elite. These changes are taking place in Russia, where schools are being consolidated into school holdings, reducing number of teachers”, “Online education is able to produce only half-educated, bachelors of third  tire”- that’s just part of the concerns expressed.

The authors of the more moderate assessment of what is happening, agree that distance education is no substitute for full-time study. But it may well take the field of coaching, media training and retraining of medium and low-skilled skills and will serve those who are willing to educate themselves and learn a life long.

But as for the question of who will lead the process and who will be in the tail … Daphne Koller, for example, believes that for those Russian universities that want to share the best, there will be a place in her project.

Translated from Russian

http://www.ng.ru/education/2013-02-05/8_moda.html