Cloud re-routeing - David Roberts and Blaine Greteman, London Times Higher Education

More than 2,000 years ago in The Clouds, Aristophanes complained that universities, or “Thinkeries”, left students heavily indebted and without practical skills. Digital platforms certainly make possible higher education that will re-engage students and teach them critical thinking – but only if we move away from the unidirectional model that persists even in well-run lecture classrooms and Moocs, and abandon traditional notions of classes, evaluation, even graduation. We could do this in a way that avoids the pitfalls of the Thinkery. Let’s call it “Cloud U”. No doubt Cloud U has drawbacks we haven’t foreseen – as Aristophanes knew, this is the problem with Thinkeries old and new. But reorienting higher education so that many students pay a little to acquire skills, rather than a chosen few paying a lot for uncertain results, might help to bring educational costs down to earth while making university a little more universal. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/complete-the-digital-learning-revolution-take-to-the-cloud-say-david-roberts-and-blainegreteman/2006498.article