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I've thought about your "de-schooling" point a lot. I think building software to support teachers is orthogonal to de-schooling the system. Because there's too

by Denzel 10y ago

I've thought about your "de-schooling" point a lot. I think building software to support teachers is orthogonal to de-schooling the system. Because there's too much cruft, I don't think you'll ever get contemporary schools to fully adopt de-schooling. It has to be new. I'm actually working on a very small (but lucrative) experiment on building such a de-schooler, in a very specific vertical, as proof that it can be done. Then, after proving the process, I planned to take the lessons to their logical extreme. If you'd like to talk more, please email me: denzel dot morris 1 at that google mail service.

germinalphrase 10y ago
I absolutely agree that schools will never accept de-schooling, but I don't agree that it's orthogonal. I see de-coupling education from the school as parallel to the educational mission of schools, even if politically unpalatable. It won't mean that schools will go away, but it might mean that someone somewhere else may not go to a school to educate themselves beyond a young age. One goal of creating such a system is to collect and make re-usable (and re-mixable) all curriculum materials, performance related interactions, and assessments that are being created and used everyday in our schools. Perhaps, US students won't take advantage of the fact that a few decades of this material might mean that personalized learning opportunities can be created for them without the intervention of a human being - but it could develop as a parallel capability underneath the current school system to support learners anywhere in the world who have non/minimally functional schools (or, for that matter - anyone who would prefer not to spend their days in a school). It might not perfectly rival a high quality flesh-and-blood instructor, but it sure might be better than the status quo for that person elsewhere. It's the difference between [Sugara Mitra's hole in the wall] or [Negroponte's OLPC] and real education. Computers are wonderful - but most young learners need structure. Likewise, when Facebook/Google/? blanket the world in free internet we will see a flood of brand new educational products, but why create an entirely new army of curriculum developers when we already have an army of 3.1 million trained school teachers creating educational content every day? All of that labor is silo'ed within the individual classrooms, both preventing us from self-improving as well as providing educational opportunity broadly. Also, the outcome would not be to close your neighborhood school. After all, community schools exist for a variety of reasons that are distinct from education. Schools won't go away just because education can be done without them (as that is already explicitly true).

by Denzel 10y ago

germinalphrase 10y ago

I absolutely agree that schools will never accept de-schooling, but I don't agree that it's orthogonal. I see de-coupling education from the school as parallel to the educational mission of schools, even if politically unpalatable. It won't mean that schools will go away, but it might mean that someone somewhere else may not go to a school to educate themselves beyond a young age. One goal of creating such a system is to collect and make re-usable (and re-mixable) all curriculum materials, performance related interactions, and assessments that are being created and used everyday in our schools. Perhaps, US students won't take advantage of the fact that a few decades of this material might mean that personalized learning opportunities can be created for them without the intervention of a human being - but it could develop as a parallel capability underneath the current school system to support learners anywhere in the world who have non/minimally functional schools (or, for that matter - anyone who would prefer not to spend their days in a school). It might not perfectly rival a high quality flesh-and-blood instructor, but it sure might be better than the status quo for that person elsewhere. It's the difference between [Sugara Mitra's hole in the wall] or [Negroponte's OLPC] and real education. Computers are wonderful - but most young learners need structure. Likewise, when Facebook/Google/? blanket the world in free internet we will see a flood of brand new educational products, but why create an entirely new army of curriculum developers when we already have an army of 3.1 million trained school teachers creating educational content every day? All of that labor is silo'ed within the individual classrooms, both preventing us from self-improving as well as providing educational opportunity broadly. Also, the outcome would not be to close your neighborhood school. After all, community schools exist for a variety of reasons that are distinct from education. Schools won't go away just because education can be done without them (as that is already explicitly true).