As Peters describes, this is a revolutionary event. In his view, the creation of learning spaces, combined with the advent of the Internet will create the "future university," the "three elements" of which are "distance education," "online education," and "scholarly face-to-face discourse" (Peters 2003), thus rendering the traditional university obsolete.
Chapplow (nd) reminds students that technology still has limits that humans do not in her article, "Online Higher Education." Despite Peters' ambitious view of educational technology, Chapplow's argument still reigns true. The future university may make the traditional university obsolete, but only if the future university makes adequate provisions for Peters' (2003) third element of that university -- "scholarly face-to-face discourse." Technology, in its infinite ability to move quickly and concisely toward a goal, may not be able to provoke the true questioning nature of education. Even via "learning spaces," where educators...
Serious students need physical professors with office hours who are willing to grapple the most intense questions of life over a cup of coffee.
This being said, one can still claim that educational technology, most especially the advent of the Internet, will change the face of the modern university. More online courses, which are wonderful programs for certain types of degree seekers, will be added, and students may have to spend less time in the physical classroom. Thus, Peters' (2003) assessment of the future of education can be described as mostly correct, though one must be careful about what conclusions can be drawn from it.
References
Chapplow, Cathy. (nd). Online Higher Education. Retrieved November 26, 2008, at http://www.studentaffairs.com/ejournal/summer_2000/grad2.htm
Peters, Otto (2003). Recording.
