Peer-grading, robo-grading, or multiple choice only assessments is where this is all headed, and Coursera has tipped their hand already-- both in statements made to the media and also in partnering with Pearson. That is not real "education" in my estimation. There's just no way to teach Composition without interaction. Oh, and another thing-- it's not really possible to teach introductory chemistry or linear algebra without it, either, in spite of what some reports have said in recent days.
The NYT has a column today "The Trouble With Online Education" by Mark Edmundson
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/opinion/the-trouble-with-online-education.html that expands on your thoughts:
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But can online education ever be education of the very best sort?
It’s here that the notion of students teaching teachers is illuminating. As a friend and fellow professor said to me: “You don’t just teach students, you have to learn ’em too.” It took a minute — it sounded like he was channeling Huck Finn — but I figured it out.
With every class we teach, we need to learn who the people in front of us are. We need to know where they are intellectually, who they are as people and what we can do to help them grow. Teaching, even when you have a group of a hundred students on hand, is a matter of dialogue.
In the summer Shakespeare course I’m teaching now, I’m constantly working to figure out what my students are able to do and how they can develop. Can they grasp the contours of Shakespeare’s plots? If not, it’s worth adding a well-made film version of the next play to the syllabus. Is the language hard for them, line to line? Then we have to spend more time going over individual speeches word by word. Are they adept at understanding the plot and the language? Time to introduce them to the complexities of Shakespeare’s rendering of character.
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