Foerster Sees The Light?

[Dennis Ruhl]

I agree, Steve's come a long way from his pseudo-Maseldorf days. I don't mind the guy's posts now.

[ham]

he said he had changed his point of view on a lot of those issues.

How do you change the hooker's opinion? Buy her another beer...

Honestly, my ideas have remained the same since I first got involved in DE.
Some say I am boring & repetitive because I always go around the same concepts, but I actually consider it a compliment.
I'm no longer fifteen years old.

[Don Dresden]

Honestly, my ideas have remained the same since I first got involved in DE.

Too bad everyone is not blessed with such innate wisdom.

Give a guy credit when he admits he misjudged the situation.  Often a decision seems right based on the facts available, but then as more facts are learned it's appropriate to rethink the situation.  It takes courage to stand up against dogmatic mindguards and admit you took a bad direction.  

Your hooker metaphor is well-taken when applied to politicians and others with self-serving motives.  But here it just seems like a guy who wants to get it right.  One size does not fit all.

[Little Arminius]

Getting back on to the topic of Steve Foerster (sorry Steve, but you knew we would eventually)...

IIRC he's working on a doctorate at AT Still, which is a fine DL program.  I wonder if, when he first started posting, he wasn't like a lot of newbies, eager to jump on the Klempner Klone bandwagon.  

But then, as he got smarter and better educated, both in terms of his general knowledge and as to his understanding of DL issues, he began to see how being an agent for the wealthy higher education cartel is really not the same as being an agent for change or freedom.

When he got called out about being "Jenny Masseldorf" he said he had changed his point of view on a lot of those issues.  Now, it would be nice if he had changed his viewpoint on, say, paying his child support too. But overall it seems like he's a guy whose aim is getting better as he begins to see the targets more clearly.  The Klones are not about freedom at all, but rather about control and limiting choice.  

Most of us grow over time, given the opportunity and the inclination.  Steve seems like a guy who appreciates having choice and having a place for a thoughtful comment.  Now it seems he more fully realizes who stands for that and who doesn't.

I agree, Steve's come a long way from his pseudo-Maseldorf days.  I don't mind the guy's posts now.

Honestly, my ideas have remained the same since I first got involved in DE.

Too bad everyone is not blessed with such innate wisdom.

Give a guy credit when he admits he misjudged the situation.  Often a decision seems right based on the facts available, but then as more facts are learned it's appropriate to rethink the situation.  It takes courage to stand up against dogmatic mindguards and admit you took a bad direction.  

Your hooker metaphor is well-taken when applied to politicians and others with self-serving motives.  But here it just seems like a guy who wants to get it right.  One size does not fit all.

I commend Steve, doctoral student that he is, for reassessing the situation based on the totality of the information available - not just the nonsense spouted by the likes of Bear Gollin and the late Uncle Janko. I suspect that Steve looked at how technology is revolutionizing education and yet how the education cartel (led by their #1 shill George Gollin) has done its best to keep the "club" of "authorized" (RA) providers as small as possible to keep the demand for their degrees high. This enables them to continue to raise tuition and fees every year without regards to outside economic factors.

There are plenty of open, online course materials from Tier 1 schools available. Thus the question of course development by qualified faculty is no longer the obstacle it once was. At one point that was a serious concern, places like the unaccredited Century University were known to use simple multiple choice exams to as a testing mechanism. That lack of quality control contributed to the notion of inferior degrees. That no longer needs to be the case due to the technological advances of recent years. Give Steve some credit for recognizing the change in conditions.

[Tanya Heddankoff]

In the "credit where credit is due" department, Stalkin' Steve is published:

Solving India's PhD Shortage through E-Learning

I see he's not above pimping it himself ("My Article Was Published!"), but a good word in the right places never hurts.

[ham]

Now, I have to admit that I'm not exactly expecting decision makers in India to read my article and say, "Wow, so that's what we ought to do. Let's implement Steve Foerster's brilliant plan immediately!" But it would be nice to find out that it influenced someone's thinking along the way, even to some smallest extent. I suppose that's what a life of this sort of scholarship would mean, that one hopes one's ideas will have any influence at all on what happens in the real world. After all, scholarly papers aren't known for being the primary catalyst for societal change.

Another egomaniac...

[Yancy Derringer]

Another egomaniac...

I can see his problem.  On one hand, as India and China edge toward the first world, their growing pains present some interesting topics of academic study.  On the other hand, unless you are Indian or Chinese, who cares?  

The Indians themselves seem to take a rather parochial view of "foreigners" in most contexts, particularly those who would comment on their situation.  "You aren't Indian, WTF would you know about it?" seems to be their attitude.  That he got published in an Indian journal is itself a major victory.

So for Steve to do some good work on a relatively esoteric topic only to be ignored both at home and abroad, I can see where maybe he feels he needs to give it a little push.  On the Klempner/Gollum Scale of Obnoxious Self-Aggrandizement he's still way down toward the bottom.