????1981年8月1日12點01分，MTV頻道開始第一次播放節目，播放的是巴吉斯樂隊（Buggles）的名曲《錄像帶殺死廣播歌星》（Video Killed the Radio Star）。音樂行業革命的大幕由此拉開，許多人通過電視預測到了音樂行業的未來，這引起了他們相當大的擔憂。當然，如今MTV已經讓位于YouTube，因為和DJ相比，YouTube可以讓音樂家更快成名。但錄像帶并未殺死廣播——多項調查顯示，超過90%的美國人仍會每周聽廣播。這可不是一個窮途末路的行業該有的跡象。革命或許確實發生了，但是并未產生許多人預想的那種破壞性后果。

????如今，隨著大規模在線公開課程（MOOC）的激增，高等教育界也出現了類似的擔憂。從2008年第一節在線公開課程出現至今，人們一直在問，我們是否還需要傳統課堂？既然只需要連接互聯網就能聽到最優秀的大學教授授課，我們為什么還要上昂貴的大學？畢竟大學學費的增速遠遠超過了通脹速度。著名的免費MOOC提供商可汗學院（Khan Academy）和EdX等，都曾多次引發媒體類似的發問。

????然而，在擔心大學命運的時候，我們不能忽視傳統課堂的獨特優勢——正是這些優勢，使得課堂教育抵擋住了歷史上的無數次創新，例如函授課程或電視大學等。畢竟，人們在很久以前就可以從圖書館里借閱知名教授的教科書，免費汲取知識，但這種免費的、易于獲得的教育，并未減少大學申請人數。很顯然，坐在課堂里與教授和其他學生互動，是有效學習的一個不可替代的部分。在真實課堂教學中，教授也可以更有效地評估學生的學習，根據直接的、非語言反饋對課堂策略進行調整。他們還可以創造一種很舒適但具有挑戰性的環境，讓學生實現知識上的突破。

????高科技帶給高等教育的沖擊力既可以說太多，也可以說太少。

????商學院本身可以作為一個研究案例。在線課程便可以滿足人們對證書的需求（例如，你知道如何做某件事情嗎？），甚至成本更低的在線學位，有可能取代課堂體驗——前提是這種課堂體驗無法帶來學生之間、師生之間豐富的知識、信息與觀念交流。

????而商學院所面臨的在線課堂的競爭，并沒有那么激烈，因為在商學院，學術效益主要取決于學生、教師和商學院從業者網絡之間的有形聯系。因此，在線教育對優秀商學院造成的破壞，遠遠低于評論家們的預測。

????At 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, MTV began its first broadcast by playing a video for the hit Buggles song, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” It was an opening salvo for a revolution in the music industry, which caused no small amount of anxiety for many who foresaw a future of music via television. Of course, MTV has since given way to YouTube, which will make musicians famous far quicker than a DJ will. But video has not killed radio—multiple surveys show that more than 90% of Americans still listen to radio every week. That is hardly the sign of a dead industry. A revolution may have happened, but it did not have the destructive effect a lot of people thought it would.

????There is now similar anxiety about a revolution in higher education, as massive open online courses, or MOOCs, proliferate. Since the first such course appeared in 2008, people have asked whether we still need traditional classrooms. Why attend expensive colleges and universities—where costs have far outpaced inflation—when you can receive an education from world-class professors for the cost of an Internet connection? Popular free MOOC providers, like Khan Academy and EdX, have prompted many a headline of this variety.

????To worry about the fate of universities, however, you have to overlook the unique advantages of the traditional classroom—advantages that have allowed residential education to withstand numerous innovations in the past, from correspondence courses to television academies. After all, it has long been the case that you could receive a free education from a world-class professor by borrowing his or her textbook from a library, but that free and easy access has not lessened the volume of university applications. Clearly, being physically in a classroom, interacting with a professor and other students, is an irreplaceable component of effective learning. Professors can better assess a student’s learning in person, and adapt their in-class strategies based on immediate, non-verbal feedback. They can also create a comfortable but challenging environment where students will make the leaps that lead to intellectual breakthroughs.

????Too much and too little is being made of disruptive forces from technology shaping higher education.

????Business schools can serve as a case study. Online courses can meet a demand for certification (i.e., do you know how to do a particular thing?), and even an online degree can be a potentially lower-cost alternative to classroom experience—if that classroom experience does not offer a rich exchange of knowledge, information, and perspectives with fellow students and faculty.

????That competition is much less for the best business schools, in which so much of the academic benefit reflects physical connections among students, faculty, and the schools’ practitioner networks. In that sense, the disruption from online education for top schools is likely smaller than many commentators think.