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As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

voiceofsandiego.org

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Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#31

Post by gcanyon »

This is an example of what I've been thinking about/warning about for several years now: we are entering a post-truth era, where there is increasingly no way to know what is real and what is not.

When I've thought about it, this scenario never occurred to me, but it's a perfect example: we're going to be increasingly unable to know what is "true" in a million different ways, and people are going to exploit that in every way possible.

We're headed for bad times, and I don't know what the answer is, if there is one.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#32

Post by redczar »

TrackerFF wrote: post #20
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

Why does online education suck? When I went to university, the first week we received the syllabus, and date for final examination. Lectures were some old professors pretty much just doing book recitals in a large auditorium - little to no interaction with the students. If you had questions, that's what the TAs were for. Any actual learning, you had to do in the library or study halls - and hopefully join a reading/s…

Very few students watch lectures online. There is massive amounts of cheating in online courses. Almost no online course requires proctored exams. Online education is overall worse, in terms of actual learning, than face-to-face courses.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#33

Post by tschoesi »

HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

Right below the title "fake students bent on stealing financial aid funds". Where's the dancing?

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#34

Post by gcanyon »

HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#35

Post by zulban »

mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

I currently have a full time job in government as a computer scientist. I'm also taking an online master's at georgia tech and it's fairly good so far - no other way I could study supercomputing. Why would I leave an AI job where I'm learning practical AI skills to study CS? Async with evening exams was my only option.

If you don't have a broad perspective on all life circumstances and types of education, don't just dismiss what you don't know.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#36

Post by scp3125 »

jjice wrote: post #8
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Stop offering online classes and expect students to show up in person. Online education sucks, everyone knows this. Everyone knows that they are making some kind of compromise when teaching or taking an online course. And if people are too poor to drive themselves to college or have to work too much or whatever else, then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education. Stop…

> then the state should provide opportunities for them so that they can continue their education I get what you mean, but saying that something _should_ be the case in response to not liking it doesn’t really make sense since that’s the reason it’s popular in the first place. States don’t do this, so that’s part of why online schooling is valuable. I agree that online school isn’t as quality as in person (in my exper…

The formal term is irony, because what they are presenting is actually a "Reductio ad absurdum", but they don't understand why their argument is absurd.

If you want a case and point of this, imagine a comedian proposing this idea dripping with sarcasm and clever little jokes, sort of what John Oliver does. The overall absurdity would be obvious, and everyone would understand the suggestion is a bad idea, with a little bit of honey to go with the vinegar.

The people often presenting this sort of unintentionally ironic argument don't seem to recognize the idiocy or exclusivity of the thing they're suggesting. Lacking understanding of the absurdity of the situation is the definition of their ignorance, because the burden of understanding and proof are on the person presenting the argument, not the audience. (Everyone is ignorant in some way, and nobody is even close to knowing everything. You're being dramatic if you really think that way, even for a second.)

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#37

Post by Geezus_42 »

gcanyon wrote: post #31

This is an example of what I've been thinking about/warning about for several years now: we are entering a post-truth era, where there is increasingly no way to know what is real and what is not. When I've thought about it, this scenario never occurred to me, but it's a perfect example: we're going to be increasingly unable to know what is "true" in a million different ways, and people are going to exploit that in ev…

I'd say we are already in those bad times you predict.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#38

Post by lukan »

Loughla wrote: post #24
lukan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they once told my wife this "expect students to show up in person", when she was pregnant and not all the time well. The result? Thrown out of the self paid language course at university with no refund.

Your wife should have received accommodations through the office of accommodation services or disability services or access or whatever they call it. The school should have had information about that in the syllabus. Either way, with appropriate accommodations, in person classes can be flexible as well.

I probably should have said, this was in germany. (So probably even more surprising)

And yes, we likely could have sued, but we kind of were quite busy with everything else required to start a family.

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#39

Post by nonethewiser »

UncleMeat wrote: post #16
apothegm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the point of sending a fake student to a community college? What’s the end goal of the people running these bots?

Financial aid fraud.

How are they able to profit off that? Doesnt the school cost money which the aid would just reimburse?

Re: As 'Bot' Students Continue to Flood In, Community Colleges Struggle to Respond

#40

Post by brainwad »

gcanyon wrote: post #34
HamsterDan wrote: post #22

The author tried really hard to dance around the real problem here: California is apparently paying students to attend online community college. If attending these classes was even just free, this wouldn't be a problem. Giving out student aid for online classes is just ridiculous.

Giving student aid beyond just free classes enables students who would otherwise need to spend time working to support themselves to instead attend school to get a better life. Generally that's considered a good thing, not worthy of the disdain you're displaying.

Well, the problem is obvious in hindsight, and perhaps even in foresight. Giving out free money attracts these scammers, who crowd real students out of not only the aid money, but also the actual class. So the net effect is to make it harder to access community college, not easier.

Perhaps I'm naive, but it seems like it would be a lot easier to avoid the scammers if they limited first time students to in-person classes.

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