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Who Needs Harvard? 留学不必出国：上网就行了

 

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Free online courses, Wiki universities, Facebook-style tutoring networks: American higher education is changing  免费的网络课程、维基大学，或Facebook式的学习网络相继问世：在在显示美国高等教育正在转型中

 

Is a college education really like a string quartet? Back in 1966, that was the assertion of economists William Bowen, later president of Princeton, and William Baumol. If you want to form a proper string quartet, they noted, you can’t cut out the cellist, nor can you squeeze in more performances by playing the music faster. But Google scanned and digitized 7 million books and Wikipedia users created the world’s largest encyclopedia. Before YouTube Edu and iTunes U made video and audio lectures by the best professors in the country available for free, and before college students built Facebook into the world’s largest social network, changing the way we all share information. Suddenly, it is possible to imagine a new model of education using online resources to serve more students, more cheaply than ever before.

大学教育真的很像弦乐四重奏吗？经济学家、后来任职普林斯顿大学校长的威廉．鲍温，及同为经济学家的威廉．包莫，在一九六六年时断言，大学就好比弦乐四重奏。他们指出，如果想组成恰如其分的弦乐四重奏，就不能删减大提琴手，也无法藉由更快速地演奏来挤进更多首曲目；不过，那已经是过去的事了──早在MP3、iPod问世之前，在那个时候，Google（谷歌）还没有扫描七百万本书，并制成数字化版本；而当时维基百科的使用者也还没有共同创造出全球最庞大的百科全书；而YouTube Ed和iTunes U也尚未推出可以免费欣赏的全美顶尖教授的授课影音内容；而几名大学生（译注：Facebook 是Mark Zuckerberg还是哈佛大学生时和两名室友在宿舍所创立）也尚未成立后来成为全球最大社交网络的Facebook，而彻底改变了人们分享讯息的方式。突然之间，一切物换星移，利用在线资源来造福更多学生、成本也更低廉的全新教育模式，如今已非梦事。

 

Accessible resources  随手可得的教育资源

 

Jose Ferreira of education startup Knewton is among a loose-knit band of education 2.0 architects. Their first foray was at MIT in 2001, when the school agreed to put coursework online for free. Today, you can find the full syllabi, lecture notes, class exercises, tests, and some video and audio for every course MIT offers, from physics to art history. This trove has been accessed by 56 million current and prospective students, alumni, professors, and armchair enthusiasts around the world.

纽顿教育新创公司的荷西．费瑞拉是致力于教育2.0（译注：education 2.0为模仿Web 2.0的说法，意指衍生自Web 2.0的新型教育。虽然Web 2.0这个名词最早其实并不是由Tim O’Reilly所创，但却是透过O’Reilly与人合办的「Web 2.0 Conference」而闻名。Web 2.0是用来描述一种趋势，以便与之前的web 1.0网络时代有所区隔，在Web 2.0时代，网络成为一种平台，强调群众的集体智能、使用者的参与和互动等）的一群推手之一（译注：此architect为创造者、打造者），这群凑合而成的团队，组织结构较为松散，而他们首度尝试的创举则于二００一年在麻省理工学院实现，因为该校同意和他们合作把课程透过网络公开。如今，人们可以上网查到麻省理工学院推出的所有课程，从物理到艺术史都有，包括了完整的课程大网、授课笔记、课程的作业、考试和部份影音内容。麻省理工学院开放式课程网页这座宝库，吸引了全球五千六百万人浏览，他们的身分包括了该校学生及未来想就读该校的人、校友、教授和业余的热衷者。

 

But higher education remains, on the whole, a string quartet. MIT’s courseware may be free, yet an MIT degree still costs upward of $189,000. “Colleges have become outrageously expensive, yet there remains a general refusal to acknowledge the implications of new technologies,” says Jim Groom, an instructional technologist at Virginia’s University of Mary Washington and a prominent voice in the blogosphere for blowing up college as we know it.

不过，就整体而言，高等教育目前仍然还是弦乐四重奏。因为麻省理工学院的开放式课程网页或许免费，但若想取得该校的学位，仍然必须花费十八万九千美元以上。「大专院校的收费已经贵得离谱，但这些学府却一味排斥新科技，拒绝认可科技的种种潜力，」维吉尼亚州马利华盛顿大学的教育科技家吉姆．葛鲁姆如此表示，他也是在部落格圈中大声疾呼推翻所谓传统大学的主要人物。

 

 

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string quartet 弦乐四重奏；弦乐四重奏曲

quartet [kwɔrˋtɛt] n. 四重奏（曲）；四重唱（曲）

note [not] v. 提到; 指明

cellist [ˋtʃɛlɪst] n. 大提琴演奏者

squeeze [skwiz] v. 榨出; 挤出

accessible [ækˋsɛsəb!] adj. 易获得的

startup [ˋstɑrt͵ʌp] n. 新兴公司（尤指新兴网络公司）

foray [ˋfɔre] n. 初步尝试 a venture or an initial attempt, especially outside one's usual area

coursework [ˋkorswɝk] n.（计入最终成绩的）课程作业

syllabus [ˋsɪləbəs] n. 教学大纲; 课程大纲(名复: syllabuses, syllabi)

trove trov] n.（贵重的）收藏品

prospective [prəˋspɛktɪv] adj. 有希望的, 预期的, 将来的; 想要成为的; 可能成为的

alumnus [əˋlʌmnəs] n.【主美】男校友；男女合校之男女校友(名复: alumni)

armchair [ˋɑrm͵tʃɛr] adj. 脱离实际的；无实际经验的；不切实际的

on the whole 大体上; 一般说来 generally; considering everything

courseware [ˋkɔrswɛr] n.【电脑】专供教室电脑使用的教育性软件

outrageously [aʊtˋredʒəslɪ] adv. 不寻常地；惊人地; 令人不能容忍地

instructional [ɪnˋstrʌkʃən!] adj. 教学的；教学用的；教育的

prominent [ˋprɑmənənt] adj. 卓越的；重要的；著名的

blogosphere ['blɑɡəsfɪr] n. 部落格圈；部落格空间（部落格、部落格作者及其社群的统称）

blow up 引爆；（使）炸毁；（使）爆炸 to reprimand

 

 

 

 

 

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The architects of education 2.0 predict that traditional universities that cling to the string-quartet model will find themselves on the wrong side of history, alongside newspaper chains and record stores. “If universities can’t find the will to innovate and adapt to changes in the world around them,” professor David Wiley of Brigham Young University has written, “universities will be irrelevant by 2020.”

打造教育2.0的人士预测，紧抓住弦乐四重奏模式不放的传统大学，将会发现自己和报纸及唱片行一样，和时代潮流背道而驰。杨百翰大学教授戴维．维利写道：「如果大学没有意愿去创新，不愿随着周遭世界的改变而做出调整的话」，「那么到了二０二０年，大学就会变得无关紧要，无足轻重了。」

 

The challenge is not to bring technology into the classroom, he points out. The challenge is to capture the potential of technology to lower costs and improve learning for all.

他指出，真正的挑战并不在于把科技融入课堂中，而是在于如何利用科技的潜能来降低成本，并谋求为大众来改善学习的经验。

 

“When you put materials online …. you can pay to produce them once and they can be used by an infinite number of people.” In 1998, Wiley learned about open-source software – programs and operating systems that are produced collaboratively and shared freely. “I said, Hey, that’s exactly what we need to do with educational materials. Let’s call it open content.”

「如果想把教材在网络上公开…只要花钱制作一次，就能被不计其数的人重复使用。」一九九八年，维利发现了开放软件（译注：或译开放原始码软件，意指把软件的原始码公开，让人可以自由下载、改良或复制散布）──即合力制作而成、可免费分享的程序或操作系统。「我就告诉自己，『嘿，我们也该把这个应用在教材上，就称之为开放内容吧！』

 

Transforming higher education  令高等教育改头换面

 

Today, “open content” is the biggest front of innovation in higher education. The movement has spread to more than 200 institutions in 32 countries that have posted courses online at the OpenCourseWare Consortium. But, as Wiley points out, there’s still a big gap between viewing such resources as a homework aid and building a recognized, accredited degree out of podcasts and YouTube videos. “A sufficient infrastructure of freely available content is step one in a much longer endgame that transforms everything we know about higher education.”

如今，「开放内容」已经成为高等教育最创新的活动领域了，而且这项运动已经吸引了三十二个国家的两百多家机构响应，这些机构都参与开放式课程联盟，在网络上公开课程内容。不过，维利指出，观看这类教材资源来自习，和希望最终能透过播客和YouTube影音内容来取得被认可、认证合格的学位之间，仍有很大的差距。「拥有充裕的免费公开内容基础结构，还只是第一步而已，距离彻底改造高等教育的最后阶段目标，仍有很长的一段路要走。」

 

Wiley is pursuing several different strategies toward his endgame. His most recent open course was formatted as an online role-playing game, with students divided into a learning community inspired by the world of online gamers. “If you didn’t need human interaction and someone to answer your questions, then the library would never have evolved into the university,” Wiley says. “We all realize that content is just the first step.”

维利是透过几种不同的策略来迈向最终目标。他最近推出的开放式课程，被包装成角色扮演的游戏，学生会分组，形成一个学习的社群，而设计的灵感则来自于在线游戏。「如果人们都不需要人与人之间的互动，也不想要有人来回答问题的话，那么当初图书馆就不可能会演变成大学，」维利表示，「我们大家都明白，开放式内容只是第一步而已。」

 

 

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alongside [əˋlɔŋˋsaɪd] prep. 和…在一起

newspaper chain 报系

infinite [ˋɪnfənɪt] adj. 无限的；无边的

content [ˋkɑntɛnt] n. 内容，要旨

transform [trænsˋfɔrm] v. 改造；改革；改善

consortium [kənˋsɔrʃɪəm] n.(若干人或公司组成的)财团，联合企业; 共同体

accredited [əˋkrɛdɪtɪd] adj. 正式认可的; 鉴定合格的

podcast ['pɑdkæst] n. 播客（一种可订阅下载音频文件的互联网服务，多为个人自发制作）

endgame [ˋɛndgem] n.（比赛等之）最后阶段

pursue [pɚˋsu] v. 进行；从事；继续

format [ˋfɔrmæt] v. 设计一个版式 to plan or arrange in a specified form

inspire [ɪnˋspaɪr] v. 激发, 启示, 赋予灵感

 

 

 

 

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Reputation and reliability  声誉及可靠性

 

Bob Mendenhall, president of Western Governors University, is proudest of his college’s innovation in one of the hardest-to-crack dimensions of education: accreditation and assessment. WGU was formed in the late 1990s, when the governors of 19 western states created an online university to expand access to students in rural communities across their region. Today, it’s an all-online university with 12,000 students in all 50 states.

西方州长大学（简称WGU）校长巴伯．孟戴霍对于该校在教育最牢不可破的一环──亦即认证和评量──所作出的创新，感到最为自豪。WGU创立于一九九０年代晚期，当时美国十九个西部州的州长决定创办一所网络远距学校，好让乡下地区的学生也有接受教育的机会。如今，这所纯远距大学已经拥有一万两千名学生，遍布于全美五十州。

 

“We said, ‘Let’s create a university that actually measures learning,’” Mendenhall says. “We do not have credit hours, we do not have grades. We simply have a series of assessments that measure competencies, and on that basis, award the degree.” Multiple-choice tests are scored by computer, while essays and in-person evaluations are judged by a separate cadre of graders. WGU constantly surveys both graduates and their employers to find out if they are lacking in any competencies so they can continue to fine-tune their programs.

「我们大家异口同声说：『何不成立一所能实际评估学习进展的大学呢！』孟戴霍表示，「这所学校没有学分时数（译注：或译授课时数），也不分年级，只会进行一系列的评量，好测出学生的能力，并基于评量结果来授予学位。」选择题的考试由电脑评分，而申论文和面对面评量则由一群独立的评分者来加以评断。WGU经常向毕业生和其雇主进行调查，好看看学生在工作能力上是否有不足的情形，也让校方藉以持续调整课程内容。

 

“Technology has changed the productivity equation of every industry except education,” Mendenhall says. “We’re simply trying to demonstrate that it can do it in education as opposed to just adding technology on top.”

「科技已经改变了每个业界的生产力公式，唯独教育例外，」孟戴霍指出，「而我们学校只是想证明，科技照样能改造教育──但改造的是教育的方式，而非仅仅把科技强加于教育之上。」

 

The new version of education  教育的新版本

 

However futuristic it may seem, what we’re living through is an echo of the university’s earliest history. Universitas doesn’t mean campus, or class, or a particular body of knowledge; it means the guild, the group of people united in scholarship. The university as we know it was born around AD 1100, when communities formed around a scarce, precious information technology: the handwritten book.

虽然上面的描述听起来很像是未来才会发生的事，但我们目前所经历的教育变革，其实也呼应了大学早期的历史沿革。Universitas这个中世纪的拉丁文，并不是指校园或课堂，也非特定的知识体系，而是指同业公会，也就是因学术而结合的一群人。我们目前所知的大学，则是于公元一千一百年左右诞生，当时各社群环绕着一个稀有、珍贵的信息科技而成形：也就是手抄本书籍。

 

Today, we’ve gone from scarcity of knowledge to unimaginable abundance. It’s only natural that these new, rapidly evolving information technologies would convene new communities of scholars, both inside and outside existing institutions. The string-quartet model of education is no longer sustainable. The university of the future can’t be far away.

时至今日，人类已经从最初的知识匮乏，转变为知识超乎想象地浩瀚丰富；而新型、快速演化的信息科技，自然也将在学术圈内外汇集更多学者组成的新社群。弦乐四重奏的教育模式已经无法永续经营，而未来版大学的问世，指日可待！

 

−by Anya Kamenetz

 

 

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crack [kræk] v. 破解（密码）; 解开（难题等）

dimension [dɪˋmɛnʃən] n. 特点；方面

access [ˋæksɛs] n. 通道，入口，门路

credit hour 学分 a credit in a school or college, usually representing one hour of class per week for one term

competency [ˋkɑmpətənsɪ] n. 资格，能力，作证能力

award [əˋwɔrd] v. 授予，给予

essay [ˋɛse] n. 论文；论说文

in-person 现场的; 实况的; 当面询问的

grader [ˋgredɚ] n. 定等级的人

graduate [ˋgrædʒʊ͵et] n.【美】毕业生

fine-tune [ˋfaɪn͵tjun] v. 使稳定；调整; 对（收音机等）进行微调

as opposed to 而不是; 相对于

futuristic [͵fjutʃɚˋɪstɪk] adj. (电影或小说)幻想未来的; 极其前卫现代的

live through 经历过

earliest [ˋɝlɪst] adj. 早期的

scarce [skɛrs] adj. 稀有的，珍贵的

scarcity [ˋskɛrsətɪ] n. 缺乏，不足；匮乏

convene [kənˋvin] v. 集会；聚集

sustainable [səˋstenəb!] adj. 能维持的; 可持续发展的

 

 

 

 

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Vocabulary Focus

assertion [əˋsɝʃən] n. 主张;（意见等的）坚持; 断言 a statement that you strongly believe is true

loose-knit [ˋlusˋnɪt] adj. 松散型的 not directly connected to one another

armchair enthusiast 业余的热衷者  someone who is excited about something, or claims to know a lot about a subject without having direct experience of it

implication [͵ɪmplɪˋkeʃən] n. 含意；言外之意；暗示 the effect that an action or decision will have on something else in the future

cling [klɪŋ] to 坚持；墨守 to try very hard to keep something

irrelevant [ɪˋrɛləvənt] adj. 无关紧要的; 无关系的 not related to what is happening currently and therefore considered of no importance

collaboratively [kəˋlæbərətɪvlɪ] adv. 合作地；协作地 working jointly with others to achieve a common goal

front [frʌnt] n. (某个)方面，领域 a particular area of activity

accreditation [ə͵krɛdəˋteʃən] n. 鉴定合格; 认证 official approval or acceptance, especially in order to maintain satisfactory standards

cadre [ˋkædrɪ] n. 骨干队伍；基干人员 a small group of trained people who form the basic unit of an organization

guild [gɪld] n.（互助性的）团体，协会，联合会  an organization of people who do the same job or have the same interests