TED Conversations

Ronald Vallecer

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

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.

Related Talks:
+4
Share:

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.

  • Carolyn Fox

    • 0
    Oct 8 2012: This is why so many parents, particularly gifted parents, are homeschooling/unschooling their children. Although we don't know how many parents are withdrawing their children from public/private schools due to the lack of an open source model or digital technology, I do predict there's a portion of parents who do and that this portion will grow. I think much of what John Holt, John Gatto, and Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society) wrote 30-40 years ago is probably more relevant today with open source.

    I actually think that the change to education will come from outside the present educational system. Already we're seeing parents, especially mothers, banding together to create 'learning webs.' We see parents getting political active with sites such as Race to Nowhere or End the Race or various blogs, wikis, support forums, etc. - and questioning the status quo. There are some mothers, such as Penelope Trunk, who are predicting that kids who are born between 2000-2010 and homeschool will help to revolutionize education as we know it. However, we're still looking at possibly years for any revolution to take hold.

    Globally, there is a growing shift and consensus to use open source in education. There is also a greater impetus to revolutionize the educational system to one base on creativity and innovation rather than rote. Already Australia has ICT standards/curriculum in place, but the emphasis on open source is still lacking. More work is needed, I think.

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.