Technological change has made online coursework very competitive with the traditional means of teaching. Will it lead to dramatic change in college, or have only a minor impact? Consider the analogy to music.
随着科技的发展，在线教育相对传统教育方式所具有的竞争优势正不断增加。在线教育会促使传统教育产生巨大变革吗？还是仅仅产生微小的影响呢？我们可以参考一下音乐领域的例子。

From the dawn of time until the early 20th century, when people wanted to hear music, they either had to play it themselves or go to a performance where someone else played. All music was live. Then the technology for recording and reproducing music developed.
有史以来，人们想要听音乐就必须自己演奏，或者去欣赏他人的表演。所有的音乐都是现场演奏的。直到20世纪早期，录制和复制音乐的技术产生了。

Primitive at first, the technology rapidly improved and today humans spend far more time listening to recorded music than to live performances. Live music hasn’t disappeared and performances can be more exciting or moving than even the greatest recordings, but recordings give us fantastic variety, high quality, and complete freedom of choice at low cost.
这种技术一开始并不完善，但后来得以迅猛发展，现在人们听录制音乐的时间远远超出了听现场演出的时间。现场表演的音乐形式并没有消失，而且现场表演可能比最好的录制音乐更激动人心、更感人，但不可否认的是，录制音乐为我们提供了完全自由的选择空间和非凡的多样性，让我们可以随心选择价格低廉的高品质音乐。

Similarly, for eons humans learned “live” – listening to and working with teachers and mentors. Beginning in Renaissance Italy, colleges and universities attracted students who wanted to study with established scholars. For some 800 years, college education meant students in a room with professors.
与之相似，长久以来人类一直都是“现场”学习——倾听教师或导师的演说，与老师互动。自意大利文艺复兴以来，大学机构吸引着学生们来接受专业学者的指导。约有800年的时间里，大学的教育模式都是学生和导师共处一室，现场学习。

Then, late in the 20th century, another learning possibility emerged, namely distance learning through the Internet. Just like recorded music, at first the quality of online courses was poor, but for some students it was the best option available. The technology steadily improved and now a large percentage of college students take at least one course online and quite a few take all of their work online through institutions such as Western Governors University.
然而，在20世纪后半叶出现了另一种教育模式，即网络远程教育。就像录制音乐一样，起初网络课程的质量很低，但对一些学生来说，这已经是他们所能获得的最好的教育机会。随着网络教育技术的稳步发展，现在大部分的高校学生都有一门以上的课程是通过网络学习的。在西部州长办大学这样的院校机构里，所有的课程都是通过网络进行教学的。

The fact that online college courses have continued growing in popularity has led to a raging debate: Will this fundamentally transform higher education? With online education improving (and not just the much-discussed Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, but also more individualized modes), more and more students will partake of the learning they want, when and where they want it online.
网络教育大受欢迎、不断升温，由此引发了学术界的激烈讨论：网络教育是否将会使高等教育出现巨大变革呢？随着在线教育的发展（不仅仅是现在引起广泛热议的大规模在线开放课程，还有很多个性化的在线教育模式），越来越多的学生会参与到自己需要的学习模式中，不论时间和地点他们能够在线学习课程。

Peter Boettke, professor of economics at George Mason University, suggests that a hybrid model will emerge. He’s probably correct. The demand for the kind of quality educational experience will never vanish, any more than the demand for live music performed by virtuosi will vanish. I suspect, however, that the proportion of college education that occurs that way will shrink dramatically in the years ahead, while the proportion that occurs online will keep growing.
乔治梅森大学经济学教授彼得·勃特克预言了一种混合教育模式的产生。他大概是对的。正如著名演奏家表演的现场音乐不会消亡一样，对高品质现场教育的需求也永远不会消亡。但是，据我推测，未来数年内现场教育在高校教育中所占的比重将大幅萎缩。而网络教育所占的比重将持续增长。