Open Education
With the recent, necessary rebranding of our country one of the key issues I’ve been debating is the future of education. I haven’t been debating its importance, but more so on how it will change and evolve with more pressure to be digitized and open-source.
After reading Wikinomics, I’m confident that the new leaders of our country will accept and apply the principles of an open-collaborative society, but I’m not sure how long it will take to make a substantial difference. The book is fantastic, and the examples are optimistic, but, two of the most important areas of our country’s sustainability, education and government, have been the most resistant to “open” movements.
In a few months I can officially call myself a product of this country’s education system. Although it’s been a positive experience, I’ve noted many of the faults in the college system, mostly due to the fact the systems are “closed,” and don’t support open-collaboration and peer-reviewing as technology suggests that we should.
Why is every student still “required” to buy multiple-hundred dollars worth of textbooks, when more up-to-date, accurate and fun information is available on the internet for free? I haven’t bought a textbook in years, just for this reason.
Why is group work discouraged, when it can be embraced with project management tools like 37 Signals? I can’t imagine any “real world” project where I wouldn’t have access to all of my peers, so why shouldn’t school work be the same way?
Why aren’t students encouraged to engage in independent studies, focusing on whatever they want, for course credit? You’d be amazed at the enthusiasm that students have to work on activities they are passionate about.
Why is the technology provided by the universities, some paid by taxes, not cutting edge? The fact that video games haven’t been embraced, especially in the elementary levels of education, is surprising, especially when studies scream at its effectiveness.
Why aren’t students encouraged to use Wikipedia? For those professors that still think Wikipedia is unreliable and inconsistent, I think you are out of touch, unreliable and inconsistent. If you are a professor and you find an error in an article, then use your expertise to correct it. Even better? Have your students correct it.
Jimmy Wales’ TED talk on the birth of Wikipedia is fascinating, but the inspiration of the presentation is linked with his comments on the future of Wikipedia. If you aren’t aware, Wikipedia has begun licensing open-source textbooks, for free, to schools across the country. This is an optimistic trend which will prove useful if teachers and professors across the country, especially the ones that have been hesitant about Wikipedia, use and adapt to the new tools.
The collaborative, open-source state of education will progress by acceptance of those with the power to make it happen. Open-source culture fuels creativity, and encourages the collaboration to fix many of our country’s problems. We need to cut organizational hierarchies and the archaic rules to adapt to the new state of the economy.
The way we educate and connect has changed, even if society hasn’t caught up yet. The tools are there, but just unevenly distributed.
These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history—a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: harness the new collaboration or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves even more isolated—cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value. – Wikinomics
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