Comments on: Does learning keep the web free? OR How can the web free learning? http://diyubook.com/2010/11/does-learning-keep-the-web-free-or-how-can-the-web-free-learning/ Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of higher education Thu, 18 Jul 2013 18:44:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Alfredo Mathew http://diyubook.com/2010/11/does-learning-keep-the-web-free-or-how-can-the-web-free-learning/comment-page-1/#comment-3075 Alfredo Mathew Fri, 03 Dec 2010 23:24:55 +0000 http://diyubook.com/?p=356#comment-3075 Hello Anya, I just bought the book last week, read it up and enjoyed it thoroughly. I appreciate your commitment to popular education and exploring digital learning. There is a gap between the tech/business community and educators who are too tied to the current system to embrace the changes. The future is painful, but it does not have to be... As per learning, freedom and the web... learning is not the narrow dichotomies of the Western mind. A canon that does not include West African dance, Mayan cosmology, or Chinese calligraphy... very different ways of experiencing the world and transmitting culture is a stunted view. Education reform is very in the box thinking as the management/labor debate of Waiting for Superman, and so much of the Race to the Top innovation is focused on. So is a definition of learning that is relegated to scholastic or empirical... learning as accumulated knowledge versus the discovery of direct experience. There is no such thing as a new experience, an original idea, a true innovation, as all advancements are built on the shoulders of those that have influenced us and I tend to think we arrive at novel ideas spontaneously but as a small mass. Most of what gets published or recorded in history has been thought before, but the record is lost. What the web promises is a place to record our collective thoughts, the more people join the conversation, the more complete the map. That's exciting. The problem as I see it is that public and private education institutions have attempted to monopolize learning in the past 100 years, and its not working out very well. The education system is producing a growing gap between winners and losers, very few at the top, too many at the bottom and not enough social mobility. Learning is and will always be free, because it is an autonomous experience enriched by collaboration. Everyone learns, and there are multiple intelligences. The shame is that academic achievement is narrowly defined with how well you do from the neck up, as Sir Ken Robbins humorously describes in his Ted talks. We have a one size fits all approach that elevates people with social capital and rejects those without. Too many talented people are excluded from participation. I see the web as a tool, an important tool to make explicit an interdependent world, but it is the people that are paramount. I fear we have a tendency to get so caught up with the tool, whether it be a school or a smart phone, we lose sight of the people it is designed to connect. I like your work and will continue to follow you on this. All the best... Hello Anya, I just bought the book last week, read it up and enjoyed it thoroughly. I appreciate your commitment to popular education and exploring digital learning. There is a gap between the tech/business community and educators who are too tied to the current system to embrace the changes. The future is painful, but it does not have to be…

As per learning, freedom and the web… learning is not the narrow dichotomies of the Western mind. A canon that does not include West African dance, Mayan cosmology, or Chinese calligraphy… very different ways of experiencing the world and transmitting culture is a stunted view. Education reform is very in the box thinking as the management/labor debate of Waiting for Superman, and so much of the Race to the Top innovation is focused on.

So is a definition of learning that is relegated to scholastic or empirical… learning as accumulated knowledge versus the discovery of direct experience. There is no such thing as a new experience, an original idea, a true innovation, as all advancements are built on the shoulders of those that have influenced us and I tend to think we arrive at novel ideas spontaneously but as a small mass. Most of what gets published or recorded in history has been thought before, but the record is lost. What the web promises is a place to record our collective thoughts, the more people join the conversation, the more complete the map. That’s exciting.

The problem as I see it is that public and private education institutions have attempted to monopolize learning in the past 100 years, and its not working out very well. The education system is producing a growing gap between winners and losers, very few at the top, too many at the bottom and not enough social mobility. Learning is and will always be free, because it is an autonomous experience enriched by collaboration. Everyone learns, and there are multiple intelligences. The shame is that academic achievement is narrowly defined with how well you do from the neck up, as Sir Ken Robbins humorously describes in his Ted talks. We have a one size fits all approach that elevates people with social capital and rejects those without. Too many talented people are excluded from participation.

I see the web as a tool, an important tool to make explicit an interdependent world, but it is the people that are paramount. I fear we have a tendency to get so caught up with the tool, whether it be a school or a smart phone, we lose sight of the people it is designed to connect. I like your work and will continue to follow you on this. All the best…

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