Once upon a time it was considered weird and creepy to begin a romantic relationship online. Online dating sites circa 2000? Ew! Now, of course, meeting potential partners online is par for the course.
Could it be that online education — once considered sub-par compared to traditional in-class lectures — is likewise on its way to becoming the norm?
To stage a lecture today, it is no longer necessary for either professor or student to enter a classroom. Instead, they can connect via YouTube or iTunes.
General education lecture courses vary little from one university to the next. Students know they can log on to their laptops and watch the very same lecture — or a better one by a celebrity professor at a rival university.
The spread of online courses has raised the currency of top faculty at Harvard, Yale and MIT, who now lecture to the world. But this transformation also has reduced the lecture to a commodity that can be bought or shared. University leaders view the format with rising unease.
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