A new era for edu?

Titled "Is Google-fication of education underway? Among tables and 3D TV at CES, one-size-fits-all education is facing a digital death knell." The Jan 7, 2011 article on Fortune revealed the trend of increasing partnership between schools and online learning companies, claiming that virtual classroom not only ensures access of eduction to students, it also helps deliver better results.

Having long been a skeptic of online education, I just don't think anything could replace the intimate setting of a classroom: the personal attention from teachers, and the teamwork environment with fellow classmates. But it's not like the online education can't provide all that. Teachers can still provide support remotely, and peer discussions can take place virtually via online chatting. Then what else is holding me back, when the whole world is seemingly moving toward virtual-ity?

Going back to the article, the author argues that by having students taking classes online, valuable data such as correction rate of practices, improvement over certain subject, or even a student's best time to study are all captured and can be utilized to improve the quality of education. Similar to Google's model, the e-learning companies can use the captured data to continue improve their program. But, isn't it the student's job to identify his or her own weakness and work hard to improve that? If we all rely on a computer server to do all the work for us, what is point of learning in the first place? and will that student ever learn to study on his own without some sort of software feeding information to his/her brain?

Maybe I am just old school, but I still feel that one should never rid education of the personal element. Even if the whole world is going virtual, and people will never need to leave their homes for anything, I would still hope that education will be an exception, because haste does make waste, especially with learning...