I completely agree, in theory. I think that competency based skills are far more important then the piece of paper from a university; however, I think that instead of decreasing the value of the paper, universities will be forced to adapt or perish. I graduated from a program that doesn’t stress the learning of skills, but rather the learning of learning. How to think critically, how to break tasks into subtasks and organize them properly, How to demonstrate ideas and concepts to others in a logical way; this is what made up my piece of paper. The IST program at Penn State doesn’t seek to prepare people to be “really good programmers” or “really good consultants”, It prepares people to be able to think critically in the work place. It’s not a philosophy that I bought into while going through the program, but I know see how it’d benefited me on a near daily basis. I know many others are skeptical because they say “well, what skills to the students learn” and there’s no definitive answer like “php” or “sql”. You don’t learn any one “thing”, you learn how to process and construct all topics of a related field.

Universities need to stop thinking that students are there to learn facts. The internet has allowed information to pass seamlessly from one area of the world to another. We’re no longer going to college to get facts stored in textbooks that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise; we are attending college to go through the process of thinking critically and then be able to apply it in the real world. We live in an information society / economy; it’s about time educators start acting like it!

“It is essential to the future peace and prosperity of the world that learning opportunities be expanded and that we finally achieve the long-espoused goal of universal education.”

I’ll agree slightly with this as well. I unfortunately think their are some (too many) rooted in tradition and ignorance who don’t care that the knowledge / thinking is out there contrary to their own beliefs. I’m not talking religious believes or political believes; i’m talking about denial of facts that many people in the developed world understand. Traditions like predigest and hate, concepts preached in some cultures where the word of the elders / those in power is fact. Places where information is regulated and the truth distorted. It is CRITICAL that we get OER and other diverse, factual publications pushed out to the developing world to help battle the world’s number one killer: ignorance.

Teachertube looks great. I had never seen that site before. I’ll have to spend some more time looking around there, um, after the semester is over in a couple weeks.