Education Roadblocks and Gaps
Thomas Frey Explains Why We Do Not Absorb The Data Around Us
Apr 12, 2007
Courseware Vacuum
The volume of information available in the classroom and online is overwhelming. But, how do we transfer all this information into a vehicle that is easy to use and accessible? Schools are using technology like never before but research shows that students are learning about the same with computers as chalk and a chalkboard. Stanford University is offering a virtual high school for the gifted. The University of Phoenix is having great success allowing many to earn college credits from their homes. These attempts to improve education are minor changes made to an antiquated system. Frey wants to leap much farther into the future--and within the next few years.
Open Education Movement
Linux inspired the open-source software movement. Linux combines the communication abilities of the internet with teaching and learning materials. They take the form of textbooks and course notes using images, text, audio, interactive simulations, video and games. These are free and re-used by anyone in the world.
Who Will Emerge as the Leader?
More than 150 initiatives are working toward the development of courseware. Frey believes that one initiative will be the best model and become the leader in the field. Microsoft has emerged as the leader in software. Who will emerge as the leader in courseware? While the following projects are fragmented, this is much activity to develop a usable model.
- MIT OpenCourseWare is used by nearly all of MIT's students. Actually, it is free to anyone in the world that has internet access and MIT claims 1.4 million visits per month from all over the world.
- The OpenCourseWare Consortium offers 1,800 courses at 12 universities. Students don't have to register for classes but have access to syllabi, video or audio lectures, notes, homework assignments and illustrations.
- Connexions (Rice University) offers 3,768 modules and 199 courses and claims that more than one million people from 194 countries are tapping this source.
- Wikiversity is a division of Wikipedia, a multidimensional social organization for learning. Wikipedia hosts free content, learning materials, resources for all age groups.
- Moodle is free and designed to help educators create learning communities. Moodle claims to have 20,000 sites and over 820,000 courses. There is some duplication in the courses.
- Curriki.org has 3,000 members and 450 courses in development.
While these services are growing, the gap between what is available and the information that should be available as a course is huge--leaving a vacuum that some service will fill.
Words, Words, More Words
Another challenge in keeping up with information is learning the new words that come with new data. According to the New York Times, There are 20,000 new words added to the English language each year. The majority of these words come from science and technology. There are 2,000 most commonly used words allowing us to understand a typical social conversation at 90-95%, However, the English language has over one million words. Some engineers use 200,000 words to communicate in their specialty area leaving the rest of us in the dark. How do these highly literate individuals communicate with the rest of us?
That will be the focus of the next installment of the Thomas Frey series.
Source: Thomas Frey, DaVinci Institute, with permission.
Related articles: The Future of Education, Changing Education, Education and Society Are Changing, Paradigm Shift in Learning, Confidence-Based Learning, Future Look of Education.
Read previous articles on Educational Issues.
Copyright article 2007 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
