I would like to offer another vision of learning opportunities. In Neal
Stephenson new novel "The Diamond Age - A Young Lady's Illustrated
Primer", he describes a high tech book that bonds with a ragamuffin littel
girl and educates her till she becomes an adult. It was programmed with
the skills of culture, human relations, academic topics, self defense,
etc.
We could build the Illustrated Primer using VRML (a virtual reality
version of the web's HTML now becomming available) and the internet. The
tools now exist.
Each academic discipline could build multiple learning modules containing
what is known and what is not in their discipline. Information would be
presented in various ways (experiential, lecture, virtual laboratory,
text, etc) to accomodate various learning styles. The same applies to each
of the organizational improvement disciplines we discuss in this group.
Because students would have avatars (active visual projections of
themselves in cyberspace) and chat, etc, they could interact in virtual
labs annd environments with other students and teachers.
This could replace most of what our schools now do, at reduced cost. No
guns at school, bussing hassles, curriculum arguments, etc. The students
could explore and learn their way, their speed, and in their desitred
direction. Standard curricula would be published as web pages for them to
get to certain knowledge levels for various degress or certificates.
We would then offer world wide access to learning opportunity, customer
driven, tailored to each individual. Students should be able to offer
changes to the teaching materials to correct things they found hard to
understand, offer suggestions, etc. Thus the whole learning system would
learn from the experience of the students.
More sophisticated versions would have knowbots that could watch students'
progress, and make suggestions for additional references, suggestions as
to why they are making mistakes, etc.
The internet would be the real "learning organization."
-- Mel Dickover <dickover@umd5.umd.edu>