BTW, whenever I have children, they will most likely be *home-schooled* as well, because when I was in school, we didn’t learn anything, LOL!

Sincerely,

Thomas Anderson

It’s mostly about how colleges spend money and set priorities, but in the middle is an interesting example of educational re-invention via the “Virginia Tech Math Emporium”.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0811.carey.html

Everything else is just a measuring stick. Too many discussions about education these days focuses on the stick, and not actual learning.

Learning need not be for the sake of a diploma. Without the diploma as a goal, grades are less of a concern, and in turn testing isn’t as much of a concern. Learning is a goal unto itself.

The GED is not an appropriate metaphor for what’s being discussed in the presentation, in fact that’s more the “E-learning” model that’s critiqued as taking the same educational model and putting it online.

What’s being discussed is the creation of new models for education altogether, and not an alternate form of delivering the same content.

The GED is all about bypassing learning (or bypassing an experience where you will not or cannot learn) for showing you can measure up to a stick. Hell, I probably could have passed a GED exam before I was in high school.

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On a separate note, the presentation got me to thinking about how the teacher’s role would change in a more connected, personal, and open educational system. I think teachers will find themselves in the same role as reporters and editors do in journalism.

Teachers will offer up information, discussions, and such to the world via blogs, wikis, videos, and other means much as reporters would as Jeff has suggested. Teachers will also act as “DJ’s” (to repeat a metaphor presented ealier) to find and assemble this information and guide students through it. Much like editors will in Jeff’s model of the future of journalism.

Home schooling for High School students is viable because we have broadly accepted standardized tests at that level. In lieu of a diploma, in the US, you can pass the GED or some other High School Equivalency Exam. However, we don’t have broadly accepted standardized tests that are accepted as substitutes for post-secondary education — other than those that test narrow “vocational” skills.

Post-secondary school online learning can’t really take off until we have broadly accepted standardized “University Equivalency Tests.” Online teaching is only part of the solution…

bob wyman