Jumping the Curb: Educating at Warp Speed

It is very difficult to believe in a "singularity" when government school systems are so dysfunctional and counter-productive. Jack Uldrich suggests ways to change all that--ways to jump the educational curb.

For example, innovative teachers are now using Curriki—an open source curriculum development tool—to continually modify their curriculum with the latest information.

Other cash-strapped school districts are considering following the example of Insight Schools in Oregon which educated 600 students last year with an all-digital curriculum—and they did it for a cost of $4,500 per student. The program now has a waiting list of 3000 students.

...educators in Japan are now using video technology to both engage students and help them learn better. In early studies, schools using DS Nintendo to teach writing and vocabulary have noted that 80 percent of the students using the technology have mastered junior-high-level competence in English. This compared with only 15 percent under the standard method....programs such as LanguageLab.com are exploring how virtual reality sites such as SecondLife can help students learn languages better by creating more realistic situations in which they can interact with native speakers.

...The field of education is ripe with opportunity and technology offers the educational community an exciting opportunity to do its job better and more effectively.___Source_via_futureblogger

Check out Uldrich's links to learn a bit more about the future of education. If the obstructionists in the government education departments, the teachers' unions, the school boards, and the university schools of education would step back, relinquish a bit of control, and get the *^&% out of the way(!), the future of education just might be enabled by innovative minds working in the creative marketplace of ideas.