An article in the August 2013 issue of Scientific American, “Learning in the Digital Age,” addresses the abilities of gaming technology ported over for educational use in Massively Online Open Courses (MOOC). Sugata Mitra, BBC news, noted that students in rural Africa can use Skype to get the best teachers. These stories address the availability of knowledge, not the presentation of knowledge for comprehension, speed of transfer, or integration, and are chained to the two-dimensional world. …

Structural Forum is intended to stimulate thoughtful dialogue and debate among structural engineers and other participants in the design and construction process. Any opinions expressed in Structural Forum are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NCSEA, CASE, SEI, C³Ink, or the STRUCTURE^® magazine Editorial Board.

The complexity of calculations and the development of new materials and methods have increased the amount of knowledge necessary for engineers to learn. …