[iDC] iCollege

[Trebor Scholz]

Roughly four minutes into this conversation with Jon Stewart of "The
Daily Show," governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, brings on the Good
News. There really is an efficient business model for higher education
where networked learners can simply pull down their just-in-time
education onto their iPads, he claims. 

“Do you really think in 20 years somebody’s going to put on their
backpack drive a half hour to the University of Minnesota from the
suburbs, hault their keester across campus and listen to some boring
person drone on about Spanish 101 or Econ 101? . . . Is there another
way to deliver the service other than a one size fits all monopoly
provided that says show up at nine o’clock on Wednesday morning for Econ
101, can’t I just pull that down on my iPhone or iPad whenever the heck
I feel like it from wherever I feel like, and instead of paying
thousands of dollars can I pay 199 for iCollege instead of 99 cents for
iTunes, you know?” 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-10-2010/exclusive---tim-pawlenty-unedited-interview-pt--1

Quality online courses are in fact neither cheap nor easy to teach but
such nuance does not fit into the shtick of the Republican governor. The
subtext of his appearance on the national stage is an alarming crusade
by for-profit online-education companies that try to activate an
understanding of their money-making courseware as being more deserving
of state funding than, say, liberal arts education, which is cast as
Luddite and stuffy -if not obsolete- ivory tower where administrators
just don't get today's "digital natives." When students default on their
loans, for example, let's stick the debt with the government. 

Pawlenty proposes to "put the consumer in charge, whether it’s education
whether it’s health care to the extent we can technology can help a
lot." and Jon Stewart retorts that, well, it's “hard to disagree with
that.” 

Really, Jon?