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> In some sense Gutenberg ought to have obviated the need for the lecture format in college but it didn't. Radio didn't, television didn't and I suspect the int
by FrojoS 14y ago
> In some sense Gutenberg ought to have obviated the need for the lecture format in college but it didn't. Radio didn't, television didn't and I suspect the internet won't either. At least not for the majority of students.
Interesting perspective! I'm not sure I want to agree, but thanks for sharing.
One of my friends, a particular smart one, always said:
"Not only is a book a better teacher, it also has more character."
And I generally agree. Very few classes, even at top universities can compete with a well written book.
Its hard for me to tell, how effective a "book only" education would be when I spend most of my life getting degrees, accompanied with lectures. The few home schooled people I know are very knowledgable and smart but I'm not sure if that proofs anything.
- yequalsx 14y agoThank you for your response. I strongly disagree with the notion that the book only approach is efficacious. Very, very few people learn through this method. If it was effective I think a lot more people would go this route instead of through university. In 500 years or so of books being cheap they never even once came close to disrupting the lecture format.
- alberich 14y agoI'm not sure that books were so cheap in the last 500 years. Many people didn't even know how to read back then. Or did they? Besides, it is questionable how many of those books of 500 years ago were good books for learning. One most presume that the books were cheap, analphabetism were very low, and most books were truly good for the common people to understand it. I'm not sure this situation was entirely true :)