On technology reducing costs in Higher Ed: Virginia Tech

[Update: Kevin Carey blogged about us!]

......
In designing the Math Emporium, Williams started by rethinking the issue
of space. Campus space is inevitably a scarce resource, subject to
bloody administrative battles between professors and departments. But
all Williams needed was someplace cheap that students could get to
easily, with enough room for hundreds of computers and little else. He
also wanted space that other academic departments wouldn’t want to
steal. So he leased the vacant former home of Rose’s Department Store, a
now-bankrupt regional discount chain, for the bargain price of three
dollars per square foot.

Then Williams rethought the student learning experience from the ground
up. Undergraduate education, particularly at big state universities, is
often passive and regimented. Students sit and receive information in
the form of lectures that occur at a time and place of someone else’s
choosing. The Math Emporium courses that Williams designed—there are
currently nine—work in a very different way. Each course is broken up
into a series of "modules," available on Emporium computers or the
Internet, that students are required to complete within a certain amount
of time. Each module outlines a specific set of mathematic principles
and concepts. These are translated into specific examples to review and
problems to solve.

Once the module materials are completed, students can take randomly
generated practice tests that draw on a central bank of thousands of
potential questions. If they get questions wrong, the computer refers
them back to the appropriate materials, and there’s no limit to the
number of practice tests they can take. When they decide they’re ready,
students come to the Emporium to take an official, proctored test that’s
generated in exactly the same way as the practice quizzes. Then they
move to the next module. Instead of marking progress by time—the number
of hours spent in proximity to a lecturer—Emporium courses measure
advancement by evidence of learning.

-Kevin Carey

I think this is genius by the way...
along with how Yale is using technology.

Damn Yale, you so fine!

P.S. Kevin Carey is coming to my Higher Education class today- kind of excited!