What about Obamacare? Should college students be forced to have Obamacare?

That’s all I could think of when I read this piece by Kevin Drum of the very left leaning Mother Jones.

No, University Students Should Not Be Forced to Have Facebook Accounts

Thoreau attended a teaching conference this weekend. The keynote speaker had some things to say about communicating with the kids these days:

One small observation: The guy was insisting that we need to move all of our digital communication with students away from email and course management systems (Blackboard, Moodle, etc.) and instead communicate with students entirely via Facebook, posting assignment links there. I shall refrain from speculating on what sorts of stocks are in his retirement portfolio. Instead, I will note that while he was standing up there saying “Look, I’m old, you’re old, we’re all old, so we need to get with the times or become obsolete, now move your class to Facebook already!”, the Kids These Days are actually becoming less interested in Facebook. You could say that he proved his own point about faculty being old and out of touch, except he’s an administrator in his day job. So he actually proved that administrators are out of touch.

I am completely out of touch with both kids and universities, plus I’m an old fogey. And if you really want to know the truth, I’m not sure why university professors need to communicate with their students digitally at all. Don’t they still meet a couple of times a week in meatspace, like we used to when I was a lad? Can’t assignments and office hours and so forth be sufficiently communicated during class time?

But fine. I get it. We all communicate digitally these days, so university professors need to do it too. But you know what? University students actually do know how to use email…

But my real point is this: If I were a student, I’d be pissed if I were actually forced to get a Facebook account in order to communicate with a professor.

What about Obamacare?