As with most aspects of society that we take for granted, courses have been with us for so long that we simply accept that they have the structure, length, and characteristics that they have and leave it at that. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Web courses are basically parodies of existing courses. They have what the real courses have, only less. No real interaction with faculty, no real doing, no real excitement. But, this state of affairs will not continue for long. In a competitive market, the web will open up competition in university education (and later on in secondary education) in a way that few have imagined. Web courses will undergo a transformation over time and that transformation will begin to change education (and perhaps society itself) forever.

Web courses will be different from existing college courses for three reasons. (1): current college courses aren't very good; students are often dissatisfied with what their school is offering; (2): the length, material covered, and general methodology in college courses were derived from practical considerations that are irrelevant in this new medium; (3): it's on a computer, dammit — and computers are inherently doing devices rather than listening devices, so courses can be based upon doing.

JB: Is doing important to how people learn?

SCHANK: That people learn by doing is an idea that has been around for a long time. In fact, John Dewey (1916) lamented that even though everyone knew that people learn by doing and cannot "learn by pouring in" there seemed to be no way to change the schools. Well, now there is. Learning by doing needs a medium and computers can be that medium. Existing college courses, when they allow for doing can succeed. But, a great many courses, especially introductory courses and service courses have little or no doing in them at all. This will change when the Virtual University ascends.

Current college courses fail not only in their means of delivery, but also in what they are trying to deliver. This is true for a variety of reasons, the two main ones being the idea of a curriculum and the concept of service courses. Colleges have the sense that they know what students should learn so they create curricula that require students take a course in X or fill the Y distribution requirement with a number of possible courses. So students who are interested in learning to do Y find a set of hoops to be jumped through in order to do Y, including a variety of prerequisites.