Handwriting on the wall dept. for educators

Online classes are not big on or off Columbia's campus, though we have a few. I had a grant in the late 90s to introduce internet and digital communications into college teaching, and as I saw how you could hook up students and teachers via e-tools, I began to envision new organizational patterns for higher education. The valuable parts of the college learning environment involve interacting with others -- fellow students or teachers. Why not off-load rote learning and the passive parts of classroom life (the "lecture" beloved by teachers and often dreaded by students...) to online situations. Make face to face time in class a social setting with an emphasis on problem solving and talking about the concepts students could read about out of class. At the time, my ideas were not taken seriously. Now the trend is for online classes offered by colleges for distance learners to be taken more and more by on campus students. In Arizona, 11,000 students take online classes exclusively. Hmmm, isn't that the size of my college. Now what if students came to class every couple of weeks for debriefing and discussion sessions. Let's say they had to sucessfully complete a series of online readings and assignments to be eligible for the F2F meetings. Wouldn't this save on gas and other energy costs both for students and for the college? That's something to think about for sure. onlineeducation