I don’t dispute that for many other fields that it requires college training – especially with the sciences. And most of all, I don’t discount the necessity of human coaching and interaction in teaching and encouraging a student. Personally, I do horribly with computer-based training, but that could have also been the fact that it was for subjects I held no interest for. But when it comes to computer programming, I simply do a search on a topic and read tons of blog posts, tutorials, forum questions and documentation on the subject. Practically anything that you need to solve in a computer program has been solved somewhere else before.

I know that when it comes to my children, it is my responsibility to help them become motivated as well as financially savvy at a young age into adulthood. But that is my personal responsibility. I am uncomfortable with the idea of subsidizing everyone else’s children with whom I have no relation, nor influence, nor insight into their upbringing. All the more reason that I think that the few who are responsible should not pay for the many who aren’t. I think that people should be self-determined both in their successes and failures.

Plus, I would argue that computers are really good at teaching us facts. They can be good at teaching us how to turn those facts into data. However, where they fail in a number of situations is giving people the skills to turn data into knowledge.

Let alone everything that isn’t a number driven field. Within my MBA program I am scary good. Part of that is my drive. Part of that is the fact that since college, I’ve become far more comfortable talking in front of large crowds (mostly by teaching and educating in a 1 to many situation), but a large part of it is become comfortable with the give and take thanks to having a BA undergrad which taught me to how to interpret and respond to information within a everyone present.

The computer is a useful communication and information tool, but it is not going to the panacrea for everything – every single class that I’ve taken electronically has been less useful than a similar class in person, because I find that the key is the interplay and experience of the professor to bring knowledge, versus mere data and facts to the classroom. Yes, there are professors who only do that latter, but you know what, I call them crappy professors.