I just got word from Brianna Victor at the ANA that Colorado College has cancelled all on-campus summer activities this year, which includes the ANA Summer Seminar. Disappointing, but understandable and not surprising. Hopefully, students return next summer in record numbers due to "Coin Camp" withdrawal. The plan for the Morgan Dollar class I teach is to offer it again in 2021.
Thanks for the update. Excuse my ignorance of how these courses are run, but couldn't the majority of these be given online?
No. While there are some courses that could be done online, most are hands on with a certain amount of individualized instruction. The instructors try to make the classroom experience something that you just couldn't duplicate online. The classroom accounts for only about 24 hours of the week. There are other aspects of "Coin Camp" that you can't replace with an online course. This is not to say that the ANA shouldn't develop structured online courses, perhaps augmenting their correspondence courses with lectures and monetizing them through Coursera or other similar venues.
I'm not surprised as I hear those classes get many takers! That's a shame but certainly a sign of the times!
I just received the same notification. I was awarded a scholarship to attend this year's Summer Seminar. This would have been the first time I was able to attend since 2013, and I was beyond excited. Although disappointed, I am grateful to see that they are taking the necessary actions. The good news is that my scholarship automatically transfers to the 2021 Summer Seminar. To echo what @messydesk said, the Summer Seminar is so much more than a series of classes that can be easily converted to an online platform. I took an EAC course in 2013 that was extremely hands-on and, to some extent, was very personalized. That class would have been nearly impossible to convert to an online platform. This also ignores the fact that learning at the Summer Seminar is not limited to the classroom. I learned a great deal through casual interactions. In my opinion, it would be impossible to replicate the atmosphere and camaraderie of the Summer Seminar on an online platform.
It doesn't have to be easily transferable or even the same which is obviously impossible. That said if they don't start coming up with online versions when people are desperate for time killers and some normalcy being stuck at home it just shows how behind the times and out of touch they are
Shut it baseball. Thanks for the info on the classes. @Coinsandmedals how did you get a scholarship to attend the courses?
If you can design a 10 to 20-hour class that can be effectively taught online in a format like Coursera, I'm sure they'd be receptive. Contact their education director, Rod Gillis, or Sam Gelberd and pitch the idea. All classes taught at the Summer Seminar, with the exception of the grading classes, are proposed by the instructors themselves.
I've had ID people work for me on a project... they will spend 100s of hours to plan and pilot a 4-hour course.
I took a Summer Seminar mini-course on making hammered coins a few years ago. It was an amazing course and nothing that could probably ever get taught online. Here are some pictures I took from the course. Everyone had a work station with a bisected bowling ball. The hole in the ball's center held the die for punching. A hammer and some punches can be seen at the lower left. It worked amazingly well. We even made one of our own punches with a grinder. It was a very hands on course. And then we had the privilege of hammering the dies into a variety of metals: aluminum, silver and even billon. It was difficult but fascinating. Well worth the trip and the effort.
@baseball21 I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this comment came from a place of ignorance. I am a very dedicated instructor at a large flagship university, and I can tell you first hand that developing an effective online course is no easy task. Online instruction essentially negates many of the critical factors that are taken for granted while teaching in-person courses. This isn’t to say that it couldn’t be done, but it would be extremely difficult and likely require more resources than readily available at the moment. I can say with complete confidence that you are grossly underestimating the entire educational process. As a side note, the ANA does have a series of correspondence courses.
@Coinsandmedals We did haven good time in that class didn’t we? Congrats on the scholarship to attend again.
The ANA provides a limited number of scholarships every year. You can find more information here. I would encourage you to check it out. I genuinely enjoyed the application process.
I can say with absolute confidence you completely missed my point and I am well aware of the educational process if this is going to turn into a childish measuring contest. As I already said it doesn't have to be an equivalent or even close, all it has to be is either helpful, entertaining, thought provoking or some combination of all three. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the potential benefits of something so simple as soliciting questions to answer on a video, or doing a closed off live stream with interested students where they could ask questions or pick a topic to discuss once a night or week to discuss. People are and have been doing it already There's countless ways where everyone stuck at home could be used to get more into the online world while passing the time for people and being helpful at the same time that require nothing more than a webcam or smartphone to run It's going to be a long time until we really see in person shows again, people need to start adapting trying to make the best of it or we can just keep waiting letting time pass for the next 6 months or so. Elective gatherings like coin shows will be one of the last things to come back
A childish measuring contest? Okay @baseball21, whatever you say. If you think you are so equipped, then, by all means, get to it.
I would expect such a "dedicated instructor" at a "large flagship university" to actually read what was written before making a response Sit around and do nothing and then wonder why the organization continues to fade into irrelevancy, doesn't make a difference to me
I will say, numismatic education tends to lag a few decades behind the modern world. Obviously, there is no direct replacement for in-person, hands on training like the Summer Seminar (which I've not yet had the privilege of attending). How many times have we said that grading from pictures is completely different than grading in hand? Or practicing the skills in person? However, I do think there is room and opportunity for high-quality online numismatic education. It will be different, and needs to be approached differently. But it is possible. I've built my career around developing high-quality, engaging training for the nuclear Navy. I'm consistently recognized for my excellent training (many of my students have commented that my "lectures" are the best they've ever had in their 10-20 years in the Navy). I've devoted the past several years to developing my skills in adult learning and instructor techniques. However, everything I do has been focussed on an in-person, classroom environment. Developing distance learning is one of the things I'm researching during the past few weeks, and how to make excellent online training. It really isn't easy. As @Burton Strauss III alluded to, I'll spend dozens of hours just to make a one hour lecture - and that's for something standard like an in-person classroom lecture. Imagine how much harder it is to invent new techniques for an engaging online version! This, in essence, is the key. My current research at work is focused on figuring out how to accomodate for that, and overcome these challenges.
Not to derail this thread on cancellation of summer seminar, but along the lines of numismatic event cancellation, any thoughts on what might happen to the Worlds Fair of Money in August? Surely this COVID thing will mostly be over by then. I would be quite sad to miss it this year since it is very geographically close to me this time.