Hindsight · review build · data not yet validated

Remote learning is commonplace

Ray Kurzweil, Books and essays, 1999, published 1999-01

Learning at a distance (e.g., lectures and seminars in which the participants are geographically scattered) is commonplace.

Source

Verdict

hitTwo blind graders agree (D7, rule D16). Not in the audit sample (D11).

Grader A: hit

Distance learning was commonplace in US higher education by 2008-2009: over 4.6 million students (over a quarter of all higher-education students) took at least one online course in fall 2008, and the figure grew to about 5.6 million in fall 2009.

Test: At least 20% of target users: over 25% of US higher-education students took at least one online course in fall 2008 (Sloan Consortium).

Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States, 2009 (Sloan Consortium) (2010-01): Over 4.6 million students took at least one online course in fall 2008; over one quarter of all higher-education students.

Grader B: hit

By 2011 about one third of US postsecondary students had taken an online course, and web lecture and seminar use was widespread.

Test: User test: ~33% of US postsecondary students took online courses by 2011 (>20%).

Wikipedia: Distance education (accessed 2026-09-28): In the US in 2011 about one third of postsecondary students had taken an accredited online course.

All captured fields

rank: 45
kind: decade_prediction
section: Education
subject: Remote learning is commonplace
target year: 2009
timing: in
position: Chapter 9, "2009"; item Education 19 in Kurzweil 2010, p. 43
confidence: high
note: Wording as reproduced by the author in "How My Predictions Are Faring" (2010); book page not given there. Subject label is the essay's own item heading.