On 2014 May 09, Chandan Kumar commented:

Is there a middle ground between Dystopia and Utopia?! May be the real, organic world, with or without the internet driven education system. Methinks, as well as the brick and mortar business has survived, nay thrived in an internet world, so the academic community has and will- if for no other reason, than that Education is Big Business!

On 2014 May 06, Madhusudana Girija Sanal commented:

Dr. Norman is picturing the great progress in education as a result of the information distribution revolution as if it is an ‘unavoidable evil’! Probably, many of his generation expresses high inertia, still consider, 'physical' universities, libraries, books, lecture halls etc. very much essential! I understand their nostalgia! You know what this means for humanity? Rich countries such as USA hold only a small fraction of the world’s population. Through virtual universities more and more people across the world, irrespective of rich and poor, would be able to attend the best schools and courses. They would be able to take the same exams and get ranked along with the most privileged, rich or intelligent. This would be great! This is 'new' justice! (Although I believe “Justice is ‘man made’ or artificial”). All we want is better tools to evaluate human intellectual qualities, online. I do not think face to face lectures will be better than online recorded, interactive lectures, may be multidimensional (3D-4D-5D) lectures by several professors of the learner’s choice. Lectures will be ranked and paid by based on their quality by student communities and not by bureaucrats or by administrators and politicians. This system is great especially when I consider the advantages! On demand, personalized lectures would be "ready-made" for commonly observed (student) personality traits -say there are 100 personality subtypes and intellectual levels! Custom lectures are available for them all because there are much more people to teach online-lectures need not be real time. You can learn from a "personality" who matches your rare personality, perhaps, one who lived 10 years back. His lectures had to wait for ten years for a student like you! Is not this a very exciting possibility? However, I do agree that face to face lectures can be more individualized and beneficial (for the rich, because they only have money to ‘buy’ good teachers!) Nevertheless, I do not think there is a huge benefit for extreme personalization except for exceptional children who are extremely out-of-the-box in a positive or negative way. It may be, however, noted that overall poor but brilliant students have a better opportunity to come out and stand before the world. This global free learning system will benefit specially those brilliant minds in less privileged countries. Do Dr. Norman has any evidence to support his statements in the editorial? I do not know what Dr. Norman will write if tomorrow we find a new technology which allows direct transmission of knowledge to brains! Then what will happen? Think! Everyone will have equal opportunity to accumulate the same amount of information if he or she wants. Now who will win this game? Those who have money? Probably not! Those fractions of the society who are blessed with right genome, epigenome and the best neural connections!

On 2014 May 06, Madhusudana Girija Sanal commented:

Dr. Norman is picturing the great progress in education as a result of the information distribution revolution as if it is an ‘unavoidable evil’! Probably, many of his generation expresses high inertia, still consider, 'physical' universities, libraries, books, lecture halls etc. very much essential! I understand their nostalgia! You know what this means for humanity? Rich countries such as USA hold only a small fraction of the world’s population. Through virtual universities more and more people across the world, irrespective of rich and poor, would be able to attend the best schools and courses. They would be able to take the same exams and get ranked along with the most privileged, rich or intelligent. This would be great! This is 'new' justice! (Although I believe “Justice is ‘man made’ or artificial”). All we want is better tools to evaluate human intellectual qualities, online. I do not think face to face lectures will be better than online recorded, interactive lectures, may be multidimensional (3D-4D-5D) lectures by several professors of the learner’s choice. Lectures will be ranked and paid by based on their quality by student communities and not by bureaucrats or by administrators and politicians. This system is great especially when I consider the advantages! On demand, personalized lectures would be "ready-made" for commonly observed (student) personality traits -say there are 100 personality subtypes and intellectual levels! Custom lectures are available for them all because there are much more people to teach online-lectures need not be real time. You can learn from a "personality" who matches your rare personality, perhaps, one who lived 10 years back. His lectures had to wait for ten years for a student like you! Is not this a very exciting possibility? However, I do agree that face to face lectures can be more individualized and beneficial (for the rich, because they only have money to ‘buy’ good teachers!) Nevertheless, I do not think there is a huge benefit for extreme personalization except for exceptional children who are extremely out-of-the-box in a positive or negative way. It may be, however, noted that overall poor but brilliant students have a better opportunity to come out and stand before the world. This global free learning system will benefit specially those brilliant minds in less privileged countries. Do Dr. Norman has any evidence to support his statements in the editorial? I do not know what Dr. Norman will write if tomorrow we find a new technology which allows direct transmission of knowledge to brains! Then what will happen? Think! Everyone will have equal opportunity to accumulate the same amount of information if he or she wants. Now who will win this game? Those who have money? Probably not! Those fractions of the society who are blessed with right genome, epigenome and the best neural connections!

On 2014 May 09, Chandan Kumar commented:

Is there a middle ground between Dystopia and Utopia?! May be the real, organic world, with or without the internet driven education system. Methinks, as well as the brick and mortar business has survived, nay thrived in an internet world, so the academic community has and will- if for no other reason, than that Education is Big Business!