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Ronald Vallecer

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Who wants an open source curriculum based Education?

Inspired by Clay Shirky's recent open source talk, I thought about having an educational curriculum that is open sourced to students. Wouldn't it be exciting if students are taught to take ownership of their own learning journey. No more vague and unhelpful teacher feedback, instead students come into educational institutions knowing that their perspective counts and that they are in charge of their learning. Conceptual.understanding at their pace and language.

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  • bart hsi

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    Oct 1 2012: I agree that the increased pressure from the States and the Federal government in the U. S. by pouring money into, or initiating, education programs under the PRETENSE of improving education have actually DESTROYED the educational system nationwide. Why do we have to regulate the content of the textbooks or the teachers' teaching methodology? Why do we have to require students to pass a unified test, but sometimes restrict the promotion or retention of grade levels of the students? The current "learning approach" seems to emphasize too much on memorization and drilling on materials relevant for passing a test than the learning of the principles within the knowledge/philosophy. The result of this regimental approach ended up in the CONSISTENT DETERIORATION OF PROFICIENCY of the U. S. students in INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION in reading, writing and math scores/ranks in the world. The average score of reading skill of the U. S. students this year fell to the lowest ever in the history on record. Yet, the money thrown by the governments into the K-12 education is by far higher than that of many countries which ranked highest in the world.
    I have seen some videos showing a private school using open source materials to let individual students plan their own paces of learning under the "supervision" or rather advice of several teachers in a computer-equipped classroom. I believe that this is probably a good approach because a school setting will facilitate the searching of appropriate teaching/learning materials, but not too much restriction on the so-called authorized textbooks or references. The qualifying tests of the students' achievement can be done by the businesses or industries , or for students in the lower grades by the testing arms of the next level academic institutions. Finally, through the internet communication system, the students and their parents would always be "connected" to the school and the teaching materials, is not limited to the class time.

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