Technology and Education

My cousin posted this link to our extended family's Yahoo newsgroup (yup, my family is THAT awesome).

My post in response:
Its definitely an interesting article. Very much aligned with the things I'm interested in. Actually just heard a really interesting talk by Amy Bruckman at Georgia Tech, who does research on Electronic Learning Communities (http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/elc/index.shtml). They've done some really interesting work with education and wikipedia and whatnot... I'm really fascinated by that group right now.

Wikipedia, however, is still not a resource that can be cited as a legitimate source. Then again, encyclopedias were never really legitimate, citable sources. But creating content is a valuable exercise in mastering new material.

With the MIT education, you pay for the social atmosphere, but also the evaluation (homework, tests, etc).

I read somewhere to compare and contrast multiple renditions of Shakespeare plays (ie videos of several different productions) the best essays were the ones that analyzed the differences between the videos side by side, rather than doing an in depth analysis of one particular production.) Or rather, information is becoming less about what you can FIND because its readily available, and more about how you combine information that is available.

It will be interesting to see where education goes, especially with the public education scenario being like this 20/20 documentary : http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw (if the link doesnt work, go to youtube.com and search "stupid in america"). Our public school system really just prepares people to be drones that fit into society, to make them good "workers" (think manufacturing), but we're moving from an industrial society to an information processing society. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q - If that doesnt work go to Youtube and search for "shift happens")

I think people are scared of the way technology could take education and society rather than a) acknowledging that change is inevitable and currently inadequate in the education system and b)using technology in a positive way.