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Beu, ºÚÁÏ´óÊÂ¼Ç State College’s senior director in Student Affairs, and his wife, Gail, who is also an educator, have raised four children, all who have attended college. One attends CSC full-time, one is a college graduate, and two others are working on their degrees.

“This talk has a lot to do with our efforts in raising four kids for college,” Beu said.

He reflected on a time when teachers and parents wondered if an elementary school student using a calculator in a math class was cheating and an instance in the 1980s when a professor on his master’s committee forbid Beu to let his wife type his papers with a word processor because it had spell check.

With technology-driven changes occurring rapidly, Beu said research shows college freshmen are often preparing for jobs that don’t yet exist.

Beu shared a YouTube , “The Future of Education: Epic 2020,” highlighting alternative modes of education such as Khan Academy, Udacity, MITX and TED-Ed for free.

Following the video, audience members discussed whether or not online learning is an adequate delivery system for disciplines requiring hands-on or laboratory work.

The costs and benefits of face-to-face learning, the role of adjunct faculty, a well-rounded education compared to career prep and the value of liberal arts courses that challenge status quo belief systems were also discussed.

Following a second YouTube , “Future Learning,” Beu said an observation by Sugata Mirta, professor of educational technology at Newcastle University in the UK, was worth considering.

Mirta said although riding a horse and shooting a gun were basic life skills 200 or 300 years ago, they are now sports. He mused that maybe math, currently viewed as a life skill, will be a sport in 2061.

—Tena L. Cook, Marketing Coordinator