The Designing Sound Blog posted a piece today about Edinburgh Napier University's new all-online Sound Design program. This is apparently the very first all-online Sound Design program, and it got me thinking about how successful one of these all-online programs could be. Certainly, there are things that could be done quite easily in an all-online fashion - final projects for film & game courses, programming, technology research.
On the other hand, there are plenty of things that you can't get in an all-online program. The two biggest things for me are face-to-face relationships with your students/faculty (which, for me, is a vital part of how I teach), and the fertile environment of a design studio (where many students work in the same physical space). Neither of these things could be done in an all-online format, and I think they'd be a huge loss.
ENU, to its credit, is really aiming their new program at a very specific group of students: working professional engineers who want to move into design. The course of study involves turning those professional relationships into educational opportunities as well, and the program of study is classified as part-time. So, if you've already got a professional career that you want to keep, this program might be of great use to you!
But, for me, I prefer teaching and working in meatspace, not cyberspace.
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