Some more college talk: great links

If you just can't get enough of this college talk, here are some more fun bits to keep you thinking about it.

This American Life: "Hey Mister Deejay"

I really wanted to include a reference to this episode of PRI's "This American Life" in my original article, but there just was not any room for more content. I've uploaded the pertinent portion of the show, in which contributor Adam Davidson tries to convince his younger brother D.J. (now a ditch digger) that dropping out of college was the worst decision he ever made. Davidson enlists the help of a Georgetown economics professor, whose advice might surprise you. It's worth a listen just to hear D.J.'s spectacular Massachusetts accent. Click here to access the MP3 from my Box.net account.

TED: Celebrating "Dirty Jobs"

Mike Rowe, the host of Discovery's show Dirty Work, gave a fantastic presentation at the TED conference in 2008. It hits home right at the end, when he begins to discuss the quality of some of the people he has met while hosting the show. Warning: there is some fairly graphic talk of sheep castration in the video. Not for the faint of heart. (Thanks to commenter J. on the original post for this link.)

David Wiley: "Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education"

This is a SlideShare link to David Wiley's slides from his presentation at the 2008 E-Learn Conference. The first slide warns, "Your institution will be irrelevant by 2020." Spend a minute or two scanning the slides; they contain some very interesting information.

Jeff Jarvis: "Hacking education: Google U "

This article by Jeff Jarvis is the same one I linked to last week to whet your appetite for the topic. It's a nice blend of futurist realism (read: pessimism toward the future of the university as we know it) and futurist solutions (read: optimism about the continued role of teachers, certification, etc.)

And of course, for reference's sake, my original article can be found here, and my follow-up article is here. If you're still hanging with me here, I'd love to get your thoughts on any or all of these links. Leave them in the comments!