Kentaro Toyama has a great piece in The Chronicle - Why
Technology Will Never Fix Education
Toyama notes:
“The real obstacle in
education remains student motivation. Especially in an age of informational
abundance, getting access to knowledge isn’t the bottleneck, mustering the will
to master it is. And there, for good or ill, the main carrot of a college education
is the certified degree and transcript, and the main stick is social pressure.
Most students are seeking credentials that graduate schools and employers will
take seriously and an environment in which they’re prodded to do the work. But
neither of these things is cheaply available online.”