Thursday, August 12, 2010

Web Ed better than Higher Ed, Gates

Bill Gates has launched into a controversial space at the Techonomy 2010 Conference by stating that The Internet will be bigger than University in five years time. On closer analysis I think, he's not saying that Universities will be redundant, his main point is that location based learning will be less important, and therefore the cost and equality of access to education will change radically.

"The self-motivated learner will be on the web and there will be far less place-based [learning]," Gates notes.

"The web can offer feedback, you can have group discussion, you have video… you have all sorts of things that [prove] college needs to be less place based."

2 comments:

Solutionist said...

Being a "self-motivated" learner is something that i've had to learn since school.

Does the amount of structured learning we expect from young people disadvantage them?

Children have an innate desire to know things. Where does it go? Be interesting to see how education changes as younger peope gain greater control over what they learn.

Francis Kneebone said...

Good thoughts, thanks, Solutionist. I would like to see Schools help young people learn the structured skills needed to work in unstructured contexts.

Give them open ended tasks, but coach them in the skills needed to complete those tasks. Early reading and writing skills must surely lay a foundation for all of this though.