Education in the Information Age

[Lone Wolf]

The Internet is an incredible conduit for information.  If education is primarily about transmitting knowledge between individuals, we have better tools now (or at least, the potential for better tools) than we ever had in the past.  A homeless person sitting at a public library computer has access to a collection of knowledge more vast than virtually anybody that died before the 21st century.  It's an incredible thing and it all makes me very excited about the future.  (And the present isn't looking too shabby either!)

If you're looking to receive world-class instruction on virtually any subject, I highly recommend The Khan Academy.  They have a vast library of short, clearly presented videos personally recorded by the very gifted Sal Khan: http://www.khanacademy.org/#browse

Whether you're looking to learn about basic addition, matrix multiplication, the Krebs Cycle, basic probability, or what this whole "SOPA and PIPA" thing was all about, it's all there.  3000 videos worth.  All of the ones that I've seen have been excellent.  Well worth checking out if there's anything you missed the first time around or just want to brush up on.

If you're interested in a deep dive into computer science, Udacity should be a great resource.  They're offering free, university-level courses with a current focus on computer science (although this is supposed to expand in the future.)

MIT provides free course materials for a huge number of their classes via OpenCourseWare.  MIT's also offering a completely free full online course on Circuits and Electronics.

What I'm driving at here is that with an internet connection, a basic computer, and sufficient determination, the cost of learning about any subject that you wish is rapidly approaching zero.  Incredible.

As someone with young children (and "529" education accounts that I'm building up), I'm still processing what all of this means for the future of education.  Can the tuition "inflation" we see today (around 8% last year) really be sustainable?  The internet dramatically lowers the cost of disseminating knowledge yet current models tell me that I should expect a college education to cost a quarter of a million dollars by the time a 2-year-old is college age.  It leaves me wondering -- what will a college education have to offer in order to be worth this much money in a world where knowledge is so abundant?

Anyone else love learning and have other recommendations to share?

[moda0306]

LW,

I am agreeing more and more... in spite of economic woes that I see as a problem, what you are talking about is unprecedented, and a huge source of information for people.

Unfortunately, I feel like we're in a society where there is a certain segment that aren't raised with the psychological tools to WANT to seek out information and knowledge.  They'd rather play World of Warcraft (I'm bound to be pissing some people here off with this) than come to the PP forum to learn how to invest.

However, it seems to me every society thinks the people younger than them are going to hell in a handbasket.

[craigr]

Don't forget iTunesU where you can obtain university lectures from places like Stanford. I watched their iOS/Objective C course and it was excellent.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itunes-u ... 17893?mt=8

[stone]

The terms "information" and "knowledge" are used interchangably in the OP, but, of course, they are not the same thing.

I'm ashamed to say that I had to look it up on wikipeadia

Information, in its most restricted technical sense, is an ordered sequence of
symbols that can be interpreted as a message.

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include
information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or
education.

So I guess the internet  only has information. By checking out the internet you might gain knowledge of that information

[Lone Wolf]

I am agreeing more and more... in spite of economic woes that I see as a problem, what you are talking about is unprecedented, and a huge source of information for people.

Unfortunately, I feel like we're in a society where there is a certain segment that aren't raised with the psychological tools to WANT to seek out information and knowledge.  They'd rather play World of Warcraft (I'm bound to be pissing some people here off with this) than come to the PP forum to learn how to invest.

True.  Just like any of life's gifts, there's nothing written that says we can't squander them.  I think that in general I'm much happier with a world where ignorance is more and more of a choice rather than a circumstance that an individual can't control.

Don't forget iTunesU where you can obtain university lectures from places like Stanford. I watched their iOS/Objective C course and it was excellent.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/itunes-u ... 17893?mt=8

Good one, Craig!  I will definitely check that out.  I lack an Apple tablet so we'll have to see how the ol' iPod Touch holds up. 

[flyingpylon]

As someone with young children (and "529" education accounts that I'm building up), I'm still processing what all of this means for the future of education.  Can the tuition "inflation" we see today (around 8% last year) really be sustainable?  The internet dramatically lowers the cost of disseminating knowledge yet current models tell me that I should expect a college education to cost a quarter of a million dollars by the time a 2-year-old is college age.  It leaves me wondering -- what will a college education have to offer in order to be worth this much money in a world where knowledge is so abundant?

There seems to be an "education bubble" right now fueled by the student loan racket. Perhaps that will burst before our kids make a decision about college.

While you're right about information and knowledge being plentiful in the internet age, much of the "value" of a college education seems simply to be in the diploma you receive at the end (you have one or you don't) as opposed to any true knowledge or skills you've acquired.

[Alanw]

What I'm driving at here is that with an internet connection, a basic computer, and sufficient determination, the cost of learning about any subject that you wish is rapidly approaching zero.  Incredible.

As someone with young children (and "529" education accounts that I'm building up), I'm still processing what all of this means for the future of education.  Can the tuition "inflation" we see today (around 8% last year) really be sustainable?  The internet dramatically lowers the cost of disseminating knowledge yet current models tell me that I should expect a college education to cost a quarter of a million dollars by the time a 2-year-old is college age.  It leaves me wondering -- what will a college education have to offer in order to be worth this much money in a world where knowledge is so abundant?

Anyone else love learning and have other recommendations to share?

There is no doubt that there is a vast amount of information available on the internet both educational and informational (even some trivial).  I believe that this along with texting may leave some young adults lacking in social skills and personal communication skills that a college education could provide.  Will we have a generation that is well adept with computers and cell phones but will lack in inter personal relationship building?


When I attended college several decades ago, my personal experience with others was as valuable as the classroom experience.  Maybe  more so.

Will the same be true in the future?  I don't know.

[Lone Wolf]

There seems to be an "education bubble" right now fueled by the student loan racket. Perhaps that will burst before our kids make a decision about college.

While you're right about information and knowledge being plentiful in the internet age, much of the "value" of a college education seems simply to be in the diploma you receive at the end (you have one or you don't) as opposed to any true knowledge or skills you've acquired.

I think you're right on both counts.  While the educational process itself is magnificent, a college degree also serves as a sort of certification or trial by fire.  "Generally people that get into and graduate from school X with degree Y and get a GPA of Z will be able to do what you need done."  As your career is built up with real-world experience, employers tend to care less and less about that aspect of your resume.

I wonder what will happen when the "educational process" part of things becomes cheaper and cheaper.  It reminds of Peter Thiel's 20 under 20 fellowship.  The selected teenage applicants are given $100,000 to work with entrepreneurs at starting a high-tech business.  The catch is that they have to drop out of college to do it.

Not a decision I'd have made.  I loved my time in college and wasn't mature enough by 19 to strike out on my own.  But at some point, it becomes cheaper for parents to bankroll a startup than to fund a university education.  I don't see how the higher education bubble pushes past that without letting out some air.

There is no doubt that there is a vast amount of information available on the internet both educational and informational (even some trivial).  I believe that this along with texting may leave some young adults lacking in social skills and personal communication skills that a college education could provide.  Will we have a generation that is well adept with computers and cell phones but will lack in inter personal relationship building?


When I attended college several decades ago, my personal experience with others was as valuable as the classroom experience.  Maybe  more so.

Will the same be true in the future?  I don't know.

I believe you're on to something here.  Technology's showing real promise at helping us get better at learning things.  The next hurdle to clear will be building up that experience of really, really collaborative learning that only came together (for me, at least) during the college years.

What can technology provide that matches those late night, caffeine-fueled dorm-room design sessions?  That sense of accomplishing something greater than what you alone could do on your own?  I guess we'll find out.

[l82start]

i have been looking into and inspired to do some self education by the trivium education system (aka "classical education")  this site gives an overview but there are many other good videos and pod-casts on the subject available out there as well, http://www.triviumeducation.com/ it is essentially the method to teach people the necessary critical thinking and reasoning skills to learn any other subject with relative ease, and is the polar opposite of the memorize and regurgitate method of education used in modern schools throughout the world.. 

[Alanw]

LW

I agree with you completely.  The internet will never replace the personal interaction with others be it an all night study session, an all night card game or just going out with friends in general.  We can learn everything we want or need on the internet and many students are getting degrees at on line universities.  But this will never replace attending classes with others, socializing, brainstorming or whatever young college students care to do.  This experience cannot be replaced with the internet or an on line degree.

As far as I know,  hireing in the work place is still often done by submitting resumes and going on job interviews.  If you do not have the necessary social skills to handle the interview, you are not likely to get the job regardless of your educational background.

[Gumby]

Everyone is talking about Kahn Academy after last night's 60 Minutes broadcast...

60 MINUTES: Khan Academy: The future of education?

Truly amazing.

[Lone Wolf]

i have been looking into and inspired to do some self education by the trivium education system (aka "classical education")  this site gives an overview but there are many other good videos and pod-casts on the subject available out there as well, http://www.triviumeducation.com/ it is essentially the method to teach people the necessary critical thinking and reasoning skills to learn any other subject with relative ease, and is the polar opposite of the memorize and regurgitate method of education used in modern schools throughout the world.. 

This looks interesting but intimidating!  What path did you take to get acquainted with this system?  Was there a site or podcast that you felt constituted a good introduction to the concepts?

Everyone is talking about Kahn Academy after last night's 60 Minutes broadcast...

60 MINUTES: Khan Academy: The future of education?

Truly amazing.

Thanks, Reub.  That's a good piece.  I'd seen a mention of this on my Facebook feed earlier.  Before this, I'd had no idea that these ideas were being used in actual classrooms.

The idea of "flipping" the classroom is interesting.  The idea presented in the video is that students learn the initial material at home by watching videos then perform actual classwork while they're in school with the instructor there to mentor them through it.  (Versus the classic "listen to the lecturer during the day, do homework at night, get stuck, ask parents for help" pattern.)  It's an interesting idea.  I'll be looking forward to seeing how that works in practice.  It's a pattern that could only be enabled for widespread use with this kind of tech.

[l82start]

i have been looking into and inspired to do some self education by the trivium education system (aka "classical education")  this site gives an overview but there are many other good videos and pod-casts on the subject available out there as well, http://www.triviumeducation.com/ it is essentially the method to teach people the necessary critical thinking and reasoning skills to learn any other subject with relative ease, and is the polar opposite of the memorize and regurgitate method of education used in modern schools throughout the world..  

This looks interesting but intimidating!  What path did you take to get acquainted with this system?  Was there a site or podcast that you felt constituted a good introduction to the concepts?

i will have to look up some links to post for you later in the week when i get back to my desk top computer, i am working off my lap-top that doesn't have them bookmarked (you could probably stumble on some good ones just by Googling trivium education),
 its not as intimidating as it might seem at first, i have a personal affinity for logic so i have been brushing up on my logic as a personal starting point (much to Gosso's dismay  :P ).  there are also some great overviews of the system, and the history of modern education and the trivium education out there that i have been watching as a part of my getting started on a self education (about education),
 the trivium was the type of education that was common during the time of the United State's founding.  it is in many ways an autodidacts dream! once you have a understanding of grammar, logic and rhetoric they can be applied to any subject and used to produce a level of understanding that greatly transcends the memorization of bits of information or the memorizing of the ideas/understanding of other people,  

the tragedy and hope web site/group is a pretty good place to find information, resources and other people involved with the trivium. http://www.tragedyandhope.com/ this is a summary of the trivium from their web site http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/59477946

[murphy_p_t]

looks to me like traditional schools should be heading for extinction.

Is the idea that 20-30 students are put together to learn at the same pace an outmoded concept?

[Tortoise]

Great thread.

Salman Khan gave a great TED talk about his Khan Academy about a year ago. That's when I first began to realize how much momentum this new approach to education was gathering.

As high-quality educational resources rapidly approach zero cost for most people, it seems to me that the new bottleneck will become time. If I could spend the majority of my day in self-directed study--free of the burden of exams, papers, and projects--I would do so in a heartbeat, because I love learning. Alas, I simply don't have the time. (I have to work for a living.)

Too much good stuff out there to learn... and far, far too little time in which to learn it.

[stone]

Is their some truth in the idea that you don't really learn something until you have created something new and worthwhile yourself using that knowledge? Perhaps the value of educational establishments is not as libraries or as lecture courses (that can be done by the internet) but at assessing and giving expert feedback on what students produce themselves?

[MachineGhost]

Anyone else love learning and have other recommendations to share?

The single biggest advantage of college is the networking.  This is most valuable and prized at the Ivy League schools where alumni and cronyism lasts for life, hence the huge cost premium, otherwise it is far more cost-effective and time-effective to get an online distance degree.  But, like other have said, if Generation Z/Y is lacking in social skills (and all indications so far is they are due to multitasking & IMing), then schools will need to reform into places for learning social and experiental skills over intellectual.  I think pre/kindergarten/elementary are all still crucial incubators during the critical years, but beyond that schools should increasingly reform into specialized vocational experiences.

Nowadays, responsible parents spend all their time trying to prevent their children from adopting the marketed values of society (celebritism, consumerism, materialism, instant gratification, lack of consequences to drugs/sex, etc.) as opposed to just 60+ years ago where the parents job was to make sure their children adopted the values of society (thrift, hard work, honesty, self-learning, morality, critical thinking, etc.). 

There is de facto privatization and decentralization of education occuring due to the Internet and the school choice movement.  Like any open secret, it is not widely admitted to politically, lest certain stakeholders become alarmed and riot (you know who you are!).  But, the nails are in the Prussian coffin and there is no going back.

MG

[stone]

I guess the most important job of an educator is to instill the self belief in students that they are capable of doing anything even if no one else has previously been able to. To my mind that is somewhat separate from providing information. Perhaps internet communities are also able to communicate such self belief? Obviously deluded hubris is just destructive but carried through positive accomplishment does require self belief and lack of self belief does dampen a lot of people.

[Gosso]

Salman Khan gave a great TED talk about his Khan Academy about a year ago. That's when I first began to realize how much momentum this new approach to education was gathering.

That was a great TED talk.  I loved how he mentioned that the lectures can be given by YouTube videos, and then the students go back into the classroom and interact with the teacher and other students.  So what we have now is a hybrid system, where we take the best parts from both systems.

That is powerful.

I have been watching a lot of Carl Sagan videos lately, and I was thinking to myself how incredible it would be to have had watched these videos back in school.  Now would I rather have Carl Sagan teach me about the Universe or a high school teacher (no offense to high school teachers, since many were wonderful, but there were also many that weren't so great).

[stone]

Gosso, the Brian Cox TV shows might be a bit like the Carl Segan ones.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w5mnn/episodes/guide

[flyingpylon]

The single biggest advantage of college is the networking.  This is most valuable and prized at the Ivy League schools where alumni and cronyism lasts for life, hence the huge cost premium, otherwise it is far more cost-effective and time-effective to get an online distance degree.

Aside from "checking the box" of getting a degree, I think this is true (very clearly true for Ivy League grads).  When I was in college the emphasis seemed to be on "gaining knowledge" but now that I've been out in the real world for a few decades I can see how important networking is.  I will emphasize that to my kids (hopefully while also distinguishing between networking and simply socializing).  Of course the internet has also opened up all kinds of opportunities for networking that didn't exist when I was in school.

Nowadays, responsible parents spend all their time trying to prevent their children from adopting the marketed values of society (celebritism, consumerism, materialism, instant gratification, lack of consequences to drugs/sex, etc.) as opposed to just 60+ years ago where the parents job was to make sure their children adopted the values of society (thrift, hard work, honesty, self-learning, morality, critical thinking, etc.). 

Another excellent point. Thanks.

[Lone Wolf]

the tragedy and hope web site/group is a pretty good place to find information, resources and other people involved with the trivium. http://www.tragedyandhope.com/ this is a summary of the trivium from their web site http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/59477946

Thanks, looks like interesting material!

Is the idea that 20-30 students are put together to learn at the same pace an outmoded concept?

It really does seem so.  People are just so different that if you try to fit them all into the same mold there is by definition a loss of efficiency as many are left behind and many are held back and bored.

One thing that the Khan Academy system allows is for it to become very obvious when a handful of students might be falling behind the pace of the rest of the class.  That would help a mentor understand where they could best focus their energies in order to get a student "unstuck".

As high-quality educational resources rapidly approach zero cost for most people, it seems to me that the new bottleneck will become time. If I could spend the majority of my day in self-directed study--free of the burden of exams, papers, and projects--I would do so in a heartbeat, because I love learning. Alas, I simply don't have the time. (I have to work for a living.)

Too much good stuff out there to learn... and far, far too little time in which to learn it.

I totally agree.  I almost feel like mankind should be entering a sort of post-boredom phase.  I find myself less and less able to understand how a person is able to experience anything like boredom in the face of this many affordable educational opportunities and entertainment experiences.  It seems obvious that we're far more likely to run out of time well before we run out of things to see and do.

There is de facto privatization and decentralization of education occuring due to the Internet and the school choice movement.  Like any open secret, it is not widely admitted to politically, lest certain stakeholders become alarmed and riot (you know who you are!).  But, the nails are in the Prussian coffin and there is no going back.

I think this so too.  The trouble for me is that this is something that I want to believe and so I never quite trust my own opinion.  Am I seeing things as they are or am I just picturing the world in a way that makes me feel good?  Glad to see that I'm not alone.

[Gosso]

i have a personal affinity for logic so i have been brushing up on my logic as a personal starting point (much to Gosso's dismay  :P ).

You be Spock, I'll be Scotty. (I don't believe there are any logical fallacies in that statement...or crap was that a logical fallacy...wait is my own thinking a logical fallacy...oh no is a logical fallacy a logical fallacy...) 



Also I realized my comments above were exactly the same as Lone Wolfs on the previous page...I should really read all the new posts before I post something. 

[Tortoise]

I have been watching a lot of Carl Sagan videos lately, and I was thinking to myself how incredible it would be to have had watched these videos back in school.  Now would I rather have Carl Sagan teach me about the Universe or a high school teacher (no offense to high school teachers, since many were wonderful, but there were also many that weren't so great).

Yes, Carl Sagan was great. He really had a way with words. I recently watched a couple of episodes of his early-1980s documentary series Cosmos and was impressed by how engaging of a speaker Sagan was.

Has anyone else noticed that prominent people in decades prior to, say, the 1980s--politicians, actors/actresses, and TV and radio personalities, for example--had a way of speaking that tended to sound much more refined and polished than the way prominent people speak today? They enunciated their words clearly and spoke in complete sentences. They seldom said "um," if ever--even in interviews. They had poise. Carl Sagan was one of them.

Were most of them explicitly taught that way of speaking in formal speech and rhetoric classes, or did they simply pick it up by imitating their teachers and peers? I find it interesting and a little disturbing that this subtle aspect of culture seen in prior decades--the ability of people in the public sphere to speak eloquently and with style--appears to have eroded away almost completely in the present day.

[l82start]

Has anyone else noticed that prominent people in decades prior to, say, the 1980s--politicians, actors/actresses, and TV and radio personalities, for example--had a way of speaking that tended to sound much more refined and polished than the way prominent people speak today? They enunciated their words clearly and spoke in complete sentences. They seldom said "um," if ever--even in interviews. They had poise. Carl Sagan was one of them.

Were most of them explicitly taught that way of speaking in formal speech and rhetoric classes, or did they simply pick it up by imitating their teachers and peers? I find it interesting and a little disturbing that this subtle aspect of culture seen in prior decades--the ability of people in the public sphere to speak eloquently and with style--appears to have eroded away almost completely in the present day.

  for an interesting comparison of literary skills, try reading letters to home written during the American revolution and civil war by the average solders in the field, the difference in skill level will shock and put to shame most modern internet posters and even many professional writers...