Philosophy professors at a public California University have spurned an offer to be replaced by online courses which are part of the edX initiative to offer lectures from Harvard, MIT and other top-level colleges to students at other universities in the form of video clips delivered on line. The San Jose State University professors point out in a public letter that the drive to cut education costs by replacing hands-on teaching with film clips constitutes a gross degradation of the educational experience their students will receive; that video teaching isn’t half as good mind fodder as reading a textbook is; and that it would be crazy for them to passively agree that a video lecture can teach students better than themselves, as real life professors, can.
Don’t want to be replaced by video lecturers? Up your game.
