HOW THE HOW THE INTERNET IS INTERNET IS

REVOLUTIONIZING REVOLUTIONIZING EDUCATIONEDUCATION

Gousseva Xenia, 3rd year, group 2Gousseva Xenia, 3rd year, group 2

As connection speeds increase and the ubiquity of the Internet pervades, digital content reigns

Free Education

Tools to become autodidacts, eschewing exorbitant tuition

“Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

((Albert Einstein)Albert Einstein)

10 years ago in April 20012001, Charles M. Vest, the MIT President at the time, announced that the university would make its materials for all its courses freely available on the Internet. This initiative, found at OpenCourseWare, has enabled other teachers and lifelong learners around the world to listen and read what is being taught at MIT.

5 years later, in April 20062006, UC Berkeley announced its plan to put complete academic courses on Apple’s iTunes U, beginning what is now one of the biggest collections of recorded classroom lectures in the world.

One year later, in October 20072007, the school launched UC Berkeley on YouTube. According to Benjamin Hubbard the Manager of Webcast at UC Berkeley, the school has had well over 120 million downloads since first sharing videos online, which they began doing in 2001.

“I think there’s a wide array of reasons why faculty should be engaged in recording and publishing lectures online. The first The first is wanting students to have access to materials. The second The second is for cultivating a really great affinity for a public university. The third The third is closely aligned with this opportunity to provide educational resources all over the world to those from all walks of life.”

(Benjamin Hubbard, (Benjamin Hubbard,

the Manager of Webcast at UC Berkeley)the Manager of Webcast at UC Berkeley)

The world’s encyclopedia is as weightless, free and instantly accessible as Wikipedia, which is quickly gaining legitimacy in the education sphere. Using the Internet, you can learn a new language or delve into the depths of metaphysics with just a click of a mouse. The Web has unlocked the keys to a worldwide virtual school, potentially leveling the playing field for students around the world.

Should knowledge be open to all Should knowledge be open to all

to both use and contribute to? to both use and contribute to?

Yes, and it’s this intuitive philosophy that forms the base of The Open Education Movement, which has been gaining momentum since 2006, the same year Dr. Dan Colman, launched Open Culture, the greatest free cultural and educational media website I’ve ever come across. Almost 5 years old, Open Culture is the largest database of free cultural and educational media in existence.

“I’m trying to bring the best good ideas to the rest of the world. There currently exists too much of a gap between the university world and the general public.”

(Dr. Dan Colman)(Dr. Dan Colman)

The site has two dimensions: First, it acts as a portal, collecting external links so users are able to access materials directly from the distributor, whether the media be on a site, YouTube or iTunes. Second, it includes blog-style content with 2-3 posts a day of handpicked media bites like “The Existential Star “The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader.”Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader.” 

Khan Academy

Khan Academy is an online collection featuring over 2,100 educational videos ranging in intensity from 1+1=2 to college level calculus and physics. Khan Academy includes an important recording feature; every time you work on a problem or watch a video, the site remembers what you’ve learned and where you’re spending your time. It keeps all of this data private but exposes powerful statistics to each user. Coaches or tutors can also log into Khan Academy through Google or Facebook and track their students progress.

“With just a computer and a pen-tablet-mouse, one can educate the world! Even better, the content never goes old. My (or your)great-great-great grandchildren could learn from the very same videos! ”

(Sal Khan, Founder of Khan Academy)(Sal Khan, Founder of Khan Academy)

Academic Earth is working its way up to being the Hulu of academic videos and courses. However, they don’t cover audio, which is a shame because a lot of courses are only taped and released in audio since it’s easier on the budget.

John Britton, now a developer evangelist at Twilio, spent his first year at RPI studying nuclear engineering, then switched to computer science. He quickly realized he didn’t like school, but not wanting to drop out, he had to game the system.Britton now works with the founders of P2PU, “a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements.” P2PU’s Founders include Philipp Schmidt, Delia Browne, Stian Haklev, Neeru Paharia and Joel Thierstein.

“I don’t like school. It’s why I’m working on starting my own.”

“It’s kind of like couchsurfing but for learning.”

(John Britton, (John Britton,

Entrepreneur and Unicycler)Entrepreneur and Unicycler)

P2PU started in 2008 and launched its first 6 peer-based, free courses on 09/09/09. The courses had 15-20 people enrolled for 6 weeks. Each subsequent cycle, the number of courses nearly doubled. The most recent, 4th cycle had 60 courses with 20 people in each course. P2PU had to turn down nearly 17,000 additional people who applied.In the past year, they teamed up with Mozilla to create the P2PU School of Webcraft, a new way to teach and learn web developer skills. Classes are globally accessible, 100% free, and powered by learners, mentors and contributors.

Simply put, Skillshare is a community marketplace that enables users to learn anything from anyone. Teachers can host classes anywhere, literally; classes are happening everywhere from NYC to Boston to San Francisco right now.

“Technology has the opportunity to completely disrupt education by democratizing learning. There’s something fundamentally wrong when a college degree can cost upwards of $100,000 when all of the information can be learned for free on Khan Academy. We need to go back to the true goal of education: learning new skills.”

(Mike K, founder of Skillshare)(Mike K, founder of Skillshare)

Scitable is a free science social network with a peer-reviewed on library built on top of it. The network, which launched in 2009, is a product of the Nature Publishing Group, one of the largest, most prestigious science publishers in the world. It’s dedicated to encouraging students to take part in science education and science in general, which is a huge problem today. In fact, science high school education has a depressing 40% attrition rate in undergraduate science students. The site, which has just over 1 million users, recently launched The Green Science and Science In Africa sections, as well as a mobile site.

Want to learn about genetics? Cell biology? Ecology? 

As our Midwest Editor Alex Wilhem wrote earlier this year, without a doubt, technology has changed education in the classroom. And Skype’s global platform and massive user adoption makes it one of the most influential technologies in changing the reach of education. A professor of education technology at UK’s Newcastle University named Sugata Mitra, whose work inspired the film “Slumdog “Slumdog Millionaire,”Millionaire,” decided he could use Skype to improve literacy and education around the globe by getting 200 story telling Grannies to read to children in India over Skype.

Skype’s roleSkype’s role

Jacqueline Botterill leads Skype’s CSR (corporate/social responsibility) initiatives for Skype in Europein Europe. Skype in the Classroom, which launched March 30th, 2010, is one of the company’s first forays into the education sphere. Since it’s launch over 12,000 teachers have signed up for Skype in the Classroom.Betsey Sawyer, a middle school teacher in rural Groton, MassachusettsGroton, Massachusetts integrated Skype into her classroom to regularly connect students with an Afghan youth peace volunteer group.

Teach the World Online Teach the World Online is using Skype to give young students in Haiti and Cambodia access to English teachers. The News Literacy Program The News Literacy Program is also using Skype so journalists can give guest lectures to students all over the world on how to sort fact from fiction in the digital age. At the moment, Skype is speaking with a number of different organizations that are trying to level the playing field of access to education.

But can the Internet really replace higher

education?

There’s a lot of debate right now about whether or not paying for a degree is worth it, a particular problem facing entrepreneurs. TNW’s U.S. editor Brad McCarty Brad McCarty recently wrote a piece titled, “Stay in or drop out? The entrepreneur’s education fiasco.” Entrepreneur Peter Thiel has recently sparked a big debate lately focused on: you don’t need to go to college, smart people should go out in the world and do.Education is a bubble in a classic sense. It’s basically extremely overpriced. People are not getting their money’s worth, objectively, when you do the math.

“Education is going to move away from antiquated accreditation systems and towards a focus on real-world skills.  Our vision is to unlock this knowledge and allow people to share their skills with those who want to learn them. Let’s be honest – by the time a college has a class on how to build an iPhone app or use social media to market your business, it’ll be completely outdated because the world is moving so fast.”

(Mike K, Founder of Skillshare)

Likewise, innovators such as John Britton, Sir Ken Robinson and Mike K of Skillshare, see the future of education as something of a necessary revolution, thriving on the powers of the Internet.

But what do the academics have to

say about this?

“I think courses on the Internet are a great way to continue learning and to acquire new information and new knowledge, but they only partially address furthering education. An education is more than just passively listening to lectures.”

(Dr. Dan Colman)(Dr. Dan Colman)

“Replace? Oh no. The Internet is an amazing tool. But it’s also a tool that’s built on the capabilities of the people who are using it. The Internet alone won’t be able to replace higher education. I’m looking to enhance the experience of the user whether they are sitting in their dorm room or half way around the world…I wouldn’t say hitting play and pause for an hour can replace the experience of being in the classroom and interacting with a faculty member but perhaps for a larger class size that’s less true…We need a better integration between the videos we’re capturing in the classroom and the experience learners have when interacting in a social context. Online, you don’t get that same sort of feedback. What are the ways we can take the data about these videos and analyze that and understand if students are having trouble understanding something?”

(Benjamin Hubbard, (Benjamin Hubbard,

the Manager of Webcast at UC Berkeley)the Manager of Webcast at UC Berkeley)

So where does that leave us?

To pay or not to pay for a quality education? Much of it depends on the job you want, but then again it always has. If you want to be a fireman, you don’t need to go to graduate school. But if you want to be an orthodontist, please don’t just watch YouTubes and practice pulling out cavities on your dog.

It’s clear that the world is moving faster than it ever has before. As we learn more about ourselves and more about the world around us through massive amounts of data collection and data transfer at ever increasing speeds, surely the foundations of learning must change too.

After all, it’s clear our current education system is broken, from the bottom up. If we’re going to continue to evolve as a species and as a culture, we’re long overdue for an education revolution.

«The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the

stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise

— with the occasion.»

Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 December 1, 1862

Thank you for your attention!