第七章作者提到MOOC對教育的衝擊。這部分的大趨勢, 跟作者其他章節的資本主義倒台, 物聯網的普及, 未來的大同世界, 都沒有必然的因果關係。這是一個正在發生的事實, 值得我們認真思考與期待。因為網際網路的普及, MOOC的興起, 開始打破傳統的教育模式。我把本書看到的精華摘要如下。
資本主義時代的學校教育, 比較像是就業訓練版。The classroom was transformed into a microcosm of the factory. Students were thought of as analogous to machines. They were conditioned to follow commands, learn by repetition, and perform efficiently. The teacher was akin to a factory foreman, handing out standardized assignments that required set answers in a given time frame. …Education was supposed to be useful and pragmatic. The “why” of things was less discussed than the “how” of things. The goal was to turn out productive employees. …In the Collaborative Age, learning is regarded as a crowdsourcing process and knowledge is treated as a publically shared good, available to all, mirroring the emerging definition of human behavior as deeply social and interactive in nature. (page 91)
Service learning is predicated on the assumption that learning is never a solitary affair but ultimately a shared experience and a collaborative venture that is best practiced in real communities where people live and work. Students generally volunteer in nonprofit organizations where they learn by serving the larger interests of the community of which they are a part.(page 93)
在大學學費高漲, 即將造成貧窮人口求學門檻的高牆, MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses)成為創造協同共享的教育平台。包含Couresa, edX等。
Coursera’s founders brought on the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Princeton, and the University of Michigan for starters, giving Coursera the academic heft to build out their vision. Coursera was followed by edX, a nonprofit consortium put together by Harvard and MIT. Coursera now has 97 participating universities as of this writing. EdX has also expanded to more than 30 universities. (page 95)
這種模式有三個基礎: (1) 5~10 分鐘的影片, 學生可以暫停或重看, 有一些輔助教材; (2) 學生必須練習, 小考,然後有成績, 甚至由同學互像評分; (3)形成跨國或跨領域的同學交流。(page 96)
By February 2013, Coursera had approximately 2.7 million students from 196 countries enrolled in hundreds of courses. EdX’s first course, in 2012, had an enrollment of 155,000 students. One recent study found that 32 percent of the students failed or withdrew from online courses compared to only 19 percent that took the course in a traditional classroom. …Educators have pinpointed a number of causes for the lower completion rates. At the top of the list is the feeling of isolation. …Participating MOOC universities are beginning to address the sense of isolation by offering what they call “blended classes” in which students enroll online and also take part in classroom projects with other students and faculty…. Another reason for low motivation was that early on, the MOOCs only offered “a statement of accomplishment” and a grade, but in 2013, they began to offer course credits as well. (page 97)
Stanford University courses cost approximately $10,000 to $15,000 to put online. Courses with video content can cost twice that amount…. The participating universities pay Coursera around $8 a student to use the Coursera platform and an additional $30 to $60 a student to take the course—all in all, nearly free. By contrast, the University of Maryland, a typical public institution of higher learning, charges about $870 per course for in-state students and about $3,000 for out-of-state students. (page 98)
問題是, 這些名校如果都開授網路課程, 跟學生不收費, 那不會排擠到哪些到校註冊繳學費的學生嗎? 當未來網路上課也可以拿到學位, 企業主也接受網路文憑時, 名校想的也許是透過免費課程, 可以吸引少數學生來付高學費. 如果他們不做, 他們的名校地位會往下滑, 還有, 他們也要及早參與網路課程, 以便邊走邊學。(page 99)
作者在第8章提到勞工與知識白領都將失業, 會被新科技所取代。作者描寫的現象, 在許多類似的文章都出現過。這個趨勢, 並不是物聯網興起造成的, 也不表示資本主義即將崩壞。我記錄書中提到的下列幾點, 這是所有上班族或是藍領勞工需要提醒自己。
當這麼多人失業後, 從企業,零售業, 司機或是工廠失去工作, 那他們要做什麼呢? 作者沒有交代未來的樣貌, 沒有提到全球幾億失業人口造成的問題,似乎只提到人人都是prosumer (producer+consumer), 人人都在家中用zero marginal cost 發電, 人人都在協同共享。
我把作者提到的一些重點摘錄下來, 當做我們反思的參考。
The Economist noted that this is what Jeremy Rifkin, a social critic, was driving at in his book The End of Work, published in 1995. . . . Mr. Rifkin argued prophetically that society was entering a new phase—one in which fewer and fewer workers would be needed to produce all the goods and services consumed. . . . The process has clearly begun. (page 100)
In the period of the Great Recession, economists discovered that while millions of jobs were irreversibly lost, productivity was reaching new peaks and output was accelerating around the world, but with fewer workers at their stations…. Between 2008 and 2012, while the Great Recession was bleeding workers, industry was piling on new software and innovations to boost productivity and keep profitable with smaller payrolls. The effect of these efforts is striking. (page 101)
作者引用許多數字來解釋歐美各國電腦化與自動化生產後,刪減工人確提升產能的現象。他舉台灣郭台銘的話, Foxconn, the giant Chinese manufacturer that produces iPhones, plans to install one million robots in the next few years, eliminating a large portion of its workforce. Terry Gou, CEO of Foxconn, whose global workforce totals more than one million, joked that he would prefer one million robots. “As human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”(page 102)
If the current rate of technology displacement in the manufacturing sector continues—and industry analysts expect it to only accelerate—factory employment, which accounted for 163 million jobs in 2003, is likely to be just a few million by 2040, marking the end of mass factory labor in the world.While some human labor is required to manufacture robots, create new software applications to manage production flows, and maintain and upgrade programs and systems, even that professional and technical labor is diminishing as intelligent technology is increasingly able to reprogram itself. (page 103) …There are currently over 2.7 million truck drivers in the United States alone. By 2040, driverless vehicles, operating at near zero marginal labor costs, could eliminate much of the nation’s truckers. (page 104) On the surface, brick-and-mortar sales appear healthy, if not robust. They made up 92 percent of retail sales in 2011, versus only 8 percent online. …With online retail stores expected to double by 2020, many more brick-and-mortar retailers, already stretched by falling profit margins, are likely to succumb to virtual retailing. (page 105)
IT, computerization, automation, Big Data, algorithms, and AI are quickly reducing the marginal labor costs of producing and delivering a wide range of goods and services to near zero. The First Industrial Revolution ended slave and serf labor. The Second Industrial Revolution dramatically shrank agricultural and craft labor. The Third Industrial Revolution is sunsetting mass wage labor in the manufacturing and service industries and salaried professional labor in large parts of the knowledge sector.(page 108)
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