Over at dy/dan, Dan put up a great post recapping some of his weekend reading. I got lost thinking in Cringely's post. Re: Cringely. My dissertation topic (I'm almost done, which is why I've been absent from the blogosphere...not like anyone noticed save my 5 followers :-) focuses on learning in the online environment through differing methods of communication (real-time chats vs. message boards) so his post was of particular interest to me. In higher education I can see this happening to some extent. When the internet can erase the geographical barriers that a student faces then it's a great solution. But, I don't see online education rising to such a popular point that a student would be willing to give up the "college experience." Moving away from home, tasting freedom, tailgating at a football game...all irreplaceable experiences. At the high school level, I suppose this could happen at some level, but his idea of an education floating around the internet would never replace the brick and mortar buildings that we call home. Why? We're babysitters. OK...OK...calm down. Don't get upset. We're much more than that. But, allowing high school students to learn from home would require a major shift in how society operates. However, our high schools could be replaced by "learning centers" with a one-to-one student to computer ratio. For every 35 or so students there is a proctor of sorts that would get the students logged on and direct them to the best source of...ERROR: UNDEFINED.
THIS is ultimately where this idea fails. This would require that most districts, and ultimately our government, be forward thinking and ahead of the curve. This just won't happen. I'm thinking of this possible solution within the confines of technology and education today as we know it. By the time this could become a reality, desktop computers will be old school. All of the teachers publishing content would either have to work for the government or textbook companies and those information traffickers would end up suffering from the same restrictions that we do today, just in some different form. Think about it. In my own classroom I can't access streaming video, some of the best pictures out there is blocked, and Youtube is a distant memory.
The greatest merit in these ideas is that they're on the bleeding edge of thinking in our field, and that is what some of the failing districts and schools around us need: ideas and the green light to implement them. I know too many teachers that don't bring forward good ideas because they know the answer before they bring forward the question. Stifled creativity is what is being penned right now as the C.O.D. in our schools' obituaries.
