Sir Ken Robinson Interviewed by Riz Khan

Much like the TED Video, a delightfully refreshing insight into the modern education system. Take 20 minutes off for this one.


Part 1:


Part 2:



[via: Presentation Zen]

Flat World Knowledge - Democratised Learning

Finally, a solution to the recurring issues of expensive college textbooks ....

We set out to solve problems – the silly cost and inflexible nature of textbooks, the lack of choice for students, and others. We did not set out to create problems. Making it hard to use our stuff would create a problem. Making you change your life in any significant way would be create a problem. So we didn’t.

EDUCATORS

+ Find & Review a Flat World Textbook
+ Adopt It
+ Make It Your Own (if you want)
+ Get The Supplements

LEARNERS
+ Find the Free Book For Your Class
+ Exercise Your Freedom To Choose
+ Participate in the Learning Network
+ Manage Your Stuff

Free knowledge for all!

[ more: Flat World Knowledge ]

(US) College textbook prices up 186% since 1986

As any student knows, the costs of textbooks are an increasingly significant burden on the pocket. And while some professors do try their best to help alleviate the problem by being on selective on choice of class textbooks, sometimes there really isn't much of a choice they can make. On the supply side, publishers are able to control how often textbooks are revised (most of the time very minimally) to prevent a secondary market from forming; and distributors can control which books are available (due to profit-interests). From the demand side, it doesn't really help that most students are information aggregators rather than assimilators either.

But at the crux, the economic problem students face here is cost of books VS value of education. And that's a really hard one to argue against that.

Business Shrink brings an interesting article on this issue, highlighting the financial problem in the States and various alternatives :

Before you start to assume who is getting all of the profits in the business, let’s take a look at the numbers as released by the National Association of College Stores. They breakdown the price distribution in an easy to view layout.

College Textbook Profits
Publisher: 64.3 percent
Bookstore: 22.4 percent
Author: 11.6 percent
Shipping: 1.7 percent

The college textbook revolution is now ringing in with a new model and ideas with the power of the Internet, Web 2.0 companies and also environmental minds pulling together. There are offshoots of a variety of companies that are aiming to fix the rising textbook problems.

But my contention at the end of the day is still that given today's technological standards, educational information could be and should be available freely. Or publishers/distributors should become more creative in their handling of this issue of rising costs. On-demand publishing anyone?

Read the full article here: College textbook prices up 186% since 1986; enter revolution

Let loose the waves of knowledge

There has been a lot of talk going on constantly about the importance of education as a fundamental developmental catalyst for third world countries. The premise lies in the notion that if we were effectively able to propagate basic education and hence promote the pickup of basic life skills for the people (especially the young) of these said nations, there would be a much greater potential for these better educated youths to grow up to bring their country out of poverty.

But to further expand on this notion - that the bringing of an increased level of awareness and knowledge to people spurs development. Does it not also apply generally to all peoples of all nations that a further level of understanding of how various things work works in the long haul to improve humanity's condition? Key difference being that we need to stretch beyond what we take for sufficient and push the boundaries of what we want to know.

For most it seems, the quest for knowledge ceases at their penultimate educational milestone of a university degree (which has seen it value plummet somewhat due to educational inflation, but that's another story). Do we therefore only educate ourselves to the mere extent which is necessary to enable us to be identified as having successfully overcome this gauntlet we call the education system?

I believe that educational curiosity does still exist. But somehow, it exists predominantly within a very small population of intelligentsia made up mostly of professors who swap knowledge amongst themselves through journals, conferences and whatnot. Academic style and complexity being a massive hurdle for most mere mortals who wish to read these and comprehend them in a useful fashion. These knowledge then become trapped within ivory towers of the academic elite.

So here's the idea -- what if we could have a system of propagating these new found ideas and intellectual exchanges to a more massive audience, in a simpler fashion. My belief is that the infrastructure already exists in the form of the internet so why are we not making more use of it to push more information outwards?

Hopefully, with the freer flow of ideas and information, a widespread education curiosity can be re-sparked once more.

(To be continued ... ?)