The 12th century witnessed the birth of the first predecessors of the modern university; many educational futurists argue that the division between town and gown is rapidly fading and that the 21st century is the cusp of another revolutionary educational paradigm. According to these forecasts, the 21st-century college student may well be someone sitting at his or her personal computer miles from a college campus. Graduation may or may not include the traditional commencement ceremony. These reformers argue that for graduating students, the gown may be left hanging in the closet, with the graduate interacting more seamlessly within the global community. However, such views are currently dismissed to a greater or lesser extent by leading universities, who admit the importance of technology and the diminution in town/gown rivalries but stress the continuing value of traditional learning and teaching methods.