Filed under: Education, Freedom, Science/Technology | Tags: Bill Gates, Internet Technology, Potential
Everyone except College professors agree that college is too expensive. Articles have been appearing to that effect in greater frequency recently, some suggesting that big college loans are no longer worth it. Others suggest that higher education is only the latest of the bubbles waiting to explode.
Bill Gates suggests that education will increasingly become web-centered. If we can have full-length movies online, with special effects and full color, we can certainly have college-level classes. The potential for a few supremely effective professors to reach millions over the internet with far more effective presentations than the usual classroom, should have a lot of tenured professors shaking in their tweed jackets.
Education’s interaction with technology has been for the most part unfortunate. At least in our district, kids no longer learn cursive writing. The theory is that with an always present keyboard, they don’t need to learn anything beyond printing. But keyboards are not always present, and the act of writing fixes and clarifies things in the mind. It allows you to consider what you have written and see where you have been stupid. Boring math drill is considered no longer necessary when everyone has a calculator. Silly reasoning.
The potential for transforming education is breathtaking. The first priority is to get the fingers of the federal government out of public education.
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