How will our current system cope with internet education?

[cityimrov]

Here's a website: http://www.khanacademy.org/

This is a project currently backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  According to various anecdotal evidence I find, kids are enjoying this resource and younger people like those 4th graders are now learning concepts from advance algebra which isn't taught until high school (if at all). 

How will our current education system deal with this crisis?  All of a sudden, you now have a classroom with a bunch of students knowing what the typical 4th grader knows and another group of students who are completely bored and probably know way more then the teachers since they are now learning advance algebra happily from the internet.  Do you guys think our old system will be able to handle this change or will it go back to the old style way of teaching?

"Old Style Way" meaning sit down, don't move, don't talk, and don't sleep for the next 8 hours until the kid next to you learns the stuff you already know!  If you don't do what we say, we'll punish you.   

[wsansewjs]

They are focusing on the quality of education itself. They haven't understand that the only way to keep kids entertained and being part of it is to create a culture around it.

This is where FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) comes in. www.usfirst.org

-Josh

[emptycagegirl]

I am somewhat against internet education, due to its rampant cheating. There are ads on craigslist for people to do your internet course for you which is so sad. I really think that if we continue with internet education and college level courses online we need to do something about accountability.

[danem]

Bright kids using the internet on their own time to learn stuff? Awesome!

I say teachers should have the freedom to say that if half their class is bored because they learned stuff on the internet, those kids can spend some time helping to teach the other half. Instead of sitting there bored, they are engaged and they have a greater chance of retaining that they learned already. I'd imagine that kids bright enough to learn on their own would jump at the opportunity to show others what they know.

[urbanlibertarian]

Q. How will our current system cope with internet education?
A. It can't.  Human on human teaching will become more and more rare because it's just too expensive.  The internet can do the heavy lifting very cheaply with teachers only needed occasionally to help.

From reason.com's Public Education's Silver Bullet:

http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/21/public-educations-silver-bulle

Still, Moe optimistically argues that the education monopoly’s days are numbered. He says the revolution in information technology, which has placed huge amounts of information at everyone’s fingertips, will do to teachers unions what a meteor did to dinosaurs: wipe them out and make way for new life forms.

[Tacachale]

The effects of the new technology on the education system has been discussed (including by people much less partisan than Terry Moe) for years now. The general thrust is that we will probably see a substantial increase in what are called "blended learning" or "integrated learning" approaches, which combines the strengths of traditional teaching models with the new technology.

Regardless of what the libertarians like to believe, however, in terms of K-12 education, we're not going to see a decrease in the number or size of physical schools anytime soon, if only because they serve a necessary "daycare" function allowing parents to go to work. If we approach the new technology correctly, it could be a great asset creating positive change at our schools. If we don't it will have no measurable effect and become yet another blown opportunity for American education.

[Garden guy]

Somehow i just can't see how removing people from the group learning environment is going to be a good thing. With parents spending less and less time teaching their children before entering school on day one...how in the heck are we going to get these same parents to make thier kids do school work while at home...we've got the worst educated kids in america at this time and so many want to take away that structure that teaches life skills that can't be learned on a screen...has anyone noticed how disconnected some of the teens are today? Many can't even sit and have a decent conversation without half of the conversation checking to see who wants to talk to them...so..personally i;m for more time in the class room and off of the internet...people talking face to face..hand to hand...that's how we're going to make this world a better place...not on a screen.