Robot Vs. Higher Education: Robots Vs. Higher Education

Robots vs. Higher Education
Every morning you wake up to the lovely sound of a screechy alarm clock that causes you to react in one of two ways; you roll over and shut it off just to roll back over and go to sleep or you drag yourself out of bed and get your day started. Off to school you go, feeling sleep deprived, wanting nothing but to be back in your warm bed. You repeat this sort of cycle every single day, but there is a point in time where you stop and realize, as each day passes you are feeling less and less motivated to attend school. Well, the solution is here, Robots. Robot proofing education will allow more people to partake in an education. Why you may ask? With an increasing rate in technology, all higher education classes and
Community colleges and Universities see this as a opportunity to increase prices in tuition and decline people from enrolling. While this catastrophic event is occuring a new technology is forming, MOOC’s. MOOC’s is described as Massive Open Online Courses, that allows students to receive a higher education at a much lower cost. Martin Ford author of Rise of the Robots as stated previously, refers to Thomas Friedman columnist of the New York Times perspective on MOOC’s, “online courses had the potential to ‘unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest problems.’” The basis of Friedman’s argument is that online courses, has the ability to allow more people to recieve an education and with that it can lead to greater possibilities in the job industry. Open online courses would require you to complete all course objectives with the help of a computer as your teacher. The advantage to having a computer as your teacher is that, it’s made from the knowledge of millions of qualified databases. Therefore, no question of a student will go unanswered. According to Ford, “About 70 percent of US college students borrow, and the average debt at graduation is just under $30,000.” In other words, Martin Ford is showing the pit college can make in your pocket no matter the degree you are pursuing. With online courses
Others may argue that it’s not right for a human to lose a job to a computer that has no emotion. I agree, a computer cannot communicate on a interpersonal level because they are not programmed to do so. Also some might argue, that a computer can’t adapt to a student who’s giving a confused face or slouching in their chair, meaning their mind is elsewhere from what they should be paying attention to. Which is what is valued in a teacher and what creates a trusting relationship between the student and instructor. I do believe relating to your instructor on some sort of level can help your level of success in the class. I don’t believe, if higher education were to turn to online only, that there would be students whose minds were in the gutters. Joseph Aoun author of article, “Millions of jobs will soon be done by robots and they don’t pay taxes” claims that, “It’s essential that we rethink what it means to have a “useful” education. People of all ages will need literacy in technology and data, but also immersion in the human subjects that elevate us above the most brilliant machines — nourishing our empathy, cultural agility, and creativity.” In other words, Aoun asserts that the education that humans need can only be taught by another human. Though a computer can’t provide emotional support for a student, it can provide what it’s meant to