Stephen Downes

Following close on the heels of the David Wiley's 'end of the university' interview comes a less-informed but more widely circulated (isn't that always the way?) copycat article from the New York Times. But while Wiley goes in one direction, speaking of a muich more distributed and learner-centered world, Mark Taylor takes a much more managerial approach: "If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured." It`s an interesting argument - but the problems facing education are more like the problems facing newspapers and broadcasting, not the problems facing finance and manufacturing. There's a lot more commentary on this, including posts from John Connell, Dan Coleman, Crooked Timber, Daniel Lemire.