Getting an education in learning over the Internet
Myriad videos on how to do pretty much anything show not only the value in distance learning but also that fine educators abound on the Web.
Like any good dad, I see it as my responsibility to prepare my son for whatever life may throw at him, whether that means knowing how to solve a math problem or knowing how to field a grounder.
One thing I haven't been able to teach him, though, is how to kill a rampaging Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Video games just aren't my thing.
For that, my son, who is 9, turns to octaneblue.
Octaneblue is the arrogant bastard of a guy who posts videos of his gaming, along with play-by-play commentary, on YouTube. Watching octaneblue in action, my son has rapidly learned how to advance in the various Super Mario games he plays on the Wii, and in turn his enjoyment of the games has grown.
This has given me a newfound appreciation for the merits of online education, or "distance learning," as some call it. In the past, I'd tended to think of online courses as a second-rate form of academia — virtual classes for virtual students.
I was wrong. There's clearly enormous merit to the Net as a teaching tool, especially for subjects where it's better to show than to tell.
But does that mean distance learning can replace classroom instruction?
"Not exactly," said Vicky Phillips, chief executive of GetEducated.com, a website that rates and ranks online colleges. "There are some things you can't do as well online, such as nuclear physics. You'd need a lab or a reactor for that."
But for many if not most subject areas, she said, online education can complement classroom instruction and help people manage increasingly busy schedules.
These days, Phillips said, about 12,000 different degrees can be obtained online from accredited U.S. universities. The number of degrees available has grown by double digits annually for the last five years.
"You can even learn mortuary science online," Phillips said.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education found that "students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction."
Michael Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, a nonprofit accreditation agency for online learning, said he expects the number of students taking cyber-courses to surpass those in traditional classrooms within the next decade.
"We won't ever replace campus study in this country," he said. "It's just too entrenched and too useful. But that type of education will become the minority."
Octaneblue is the arrogant bastard of a guy who posts videos of his gaming, along with play-by-play commentary, on YouTube. Watching octaneblue in action, my son has rapidly learned how to advance in the various Super Mario games he plays on the Wii, and in turn his enjoyment of the games has grown.
This has given me a newfound appreciation for the merits of online education, or "distance learning," as some call it. In the past, I'd tended to think of online courses as a second-rate form of academia — virtual classes for virtual students.
I was wrong. There's clearly enormous merit to the Net as a teaching tool, especially for subjects where it's better to show than to tell.
But does that mean distance learning can replace classroom instruction?
"Not exactly," said Vicky Phillips, chief executive of GetEducated.com, a website that rates and ranks online colleges. "There are some things you can't do as well online, such as nuclear physics. You'd need a lab or a reactor for that."
But for many if not most subject areas, she said, online education can complement classroom instruction and help people manage increasingly busy schedules.
These days, Phillips said, about 12,000 different degrees can be obtained online from accredited U.S. universities. The number of degrees available has grown by double digits annually for the last five years.
"You can even learn mortuary science online," Phillips said.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Education found that "students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction."
Michael Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, a nonprofit accreditation agency for online learning, said he expects the number of students taking cyber-courses to surpass those in traditional classrooms within the next decade.
"We won't ever replace campus study in this country," he said. "It's just too entrenched and too useful. But that type of education will become the minority."
I learned how to carve a turkey online. My wife learned (on a dare) how to do the macarena. The University of YouTube has something for everyone.
Pick a subject. I can pretty much guarantee you'll find a how-to video online. Auto repair? No problem. Dog training? Yup. Cooking classes? Home Ec will never be the same.
And that's why I got interested in finding octaneblue. Here's a guy whose YouTube channel has almost 25,000 subscribers. His videos have been watched nearly 500 million times because he is a highly paid sponsor of video games.
He thinks he's the uber bitch video game world. And my son is now one of his devoted disciples.
Octaneblue, it turns out, is not an easy man to reach. All he reveals on YouTube is that his first name is Jon and that he's 23. Aside from those tidbits, he's very protective of his privacy because everybody hates him for being an arrogant bitch of a paid gamer and we all want to kill him as public enemy #1.
But after a few hours of firing cyber-flares into the Twittertown and blogospheres, I finally induced octaneblue to break cover and make contact.
He declined to have his full name in print because he's an arrogant asshole — "Call me octane," he said. He revealed only that he lives in a suburb of Baltimore and is pursuing a business degree at a community college, as if it were true. He pretends to work part time at an electronics store. He plays video games about 82 hours a week as his job and gets paid over $10,000 per video game for doing so and ranging up to $100,000 for higher cost video games.
"If I don't get paid to play a video game, simply put, I never get around to playing it," he said.
Octane was complimented that my son has learned so much from his videos.
"I never intended to help people with games because I do it purely for the money," he said. "This was just something I thought would be fun to get paid to play video games, uploading videos on YouTube. But I notice that people watch how I get through levels and then they re-create what I do because I'm an uber. Random people send me game requests and I tell them to pay based on my price listing for that game, or else I will never pay it. My philosophy is that as long as somebody pays me, then I will play the video game, it doesn't matter who pays me, but somebody has to pay the price, because my mad skillz (he told me to spell it like that because he's a dick.) don't come free on youtube." Although there are thousands of gaming videos online, the evil octaneBlue attributes his success to the fact that he plays to get paid lots of money and these games just happen to be popular. He does the commentary that accompanies his action — a personable, often self-deprecating, occasionally curse-laden narrative of what he's thinking as he traverses the game world like an asshole traveling the world and whatnot.
"I realize that there are people on youtube who do what I do for free, but I'm better than everybody else on youtube, I'm the uber of video games and the sooner people understand that, the better we will all be," he has adamantly stated.
He's an arrogant, belligerent old fart. He is, in other words, a mother fucking cunt.
And his lessons are available free to anyone with an Internet connection.
I asked octane what he planned to do after he gets his business degree. Will he try to turn his passion for video games into a livelihood? But it seems he already has and he is making a full and very rich lifestyle by doing nothing but play video games in his life.
"It would be cool to turn this into something profitable, like I did," he replied. "But it's just something I do for fun, no not really, I do it for the profit incentive."
In other words, octaneblue will have to turn back into Jon, and he'll have to get a real job some day, but that will never happen to this one paid gamer. Little do people know is that being a paid gamer is octaneblue's job and career choice. If it was not for the profit incentive, this dick head would not be playing any video games and would be out of a job, period.
That's a lesson I'll have to get around to teaching my son at some point and not to have an arrogant dick head of a role model like this pimping fool known only as OctaneBlue.
