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Tales Cardeal

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To give acess to every children in the world to free, good and interesting education through web based services.

What if...?
We yet don´t know how the Universe begun...But we know how great ideas spark. A great deal of big ideas spark with a question: What if…? So… what if everyone could have elite-class education available for free on the most diverse topics. Can you imagine it? The possibilities of learning about anything the human conscience have yet dwelled? What if the children in Ethiopia could learn aero engineering? What if the people at Uruguay could learn, investigate and expand its thoughts about the same extent that people studying in the best Universities of the world? What if the leaders at G-20 could learn about peace? What if nations could learn about it´s neighbors? Maybe then would they stop fearing each other? What if more and more people could ask this exact same question? What if…What if the best of the best minds of the world could be reached and understood by everyone? What if a top-notch education was a reality and not a dream in the 21st century?

How to do this?
To give people access to worldwide, good and free education would not be that hard at all. Each one of us here know something useful to somebody else. You may know the four basic math operations but some poor child may not. You may know English literature much better than me, (my first language is Brazilian Portuguese, what does not hold me for liking Jack Kerouac).
The quest is simple if each one of us can "write" a class on a easy topic and someone else can digitalize it(through Flash, AAF, or any interesting way of presenting it) to a three minute video we could have a great database to children to learn from.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Anyone thinks this is achievable?

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Topics: education global community volunteerism
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  • Florian COUTAL

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    Apr 24 2011: hey guys, I am from France so in advance sorry for my english. Anyway, how much do you think cost a laptop? 200-300 dollars maybe you can get it for 150-200 if you find some help. So for a class of 10 to 20 students, it is going to be around 4000 dollars.
    How much would it cost to hire a teacher of to form one per year? It depends for which country, but I would say according to wages in developing countries 1500 dollars. Then for the price of laptop for 20 kids you can pay a teacher for 3,5 years... it is around the same time period that life expectancy for a laptop...
    The idea is great and of course it would be great to give all kids very good education and I really think education is the main ingredient for change and development but isn't it too easy imagining giving the same knowledges to all kids in the world. As Huntington said, we consider as "westerners" some knowledges more important than others while in some other places in the world customs are more valuable for example.
    One more time it is a great idea but you have to consider in this situation humanity as the amount of all the members rather than as a whole to give your project a chance...
    Anyway, I am really willing to help you in any way with this idea.
    Good luck
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    Scott Armstrong 50+

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    Apr 23 2011: The internet certainly has opened access to information of all kinds.

    Information is both good and bad.

    Students, especially children, will need the ability to separate fact from opinion.

    The more integrated digital technology becomes, the more vital people will become. You can't leave kids with a computer and say 'learn'. It's a pie in the sky idea.

    Knowing what you don't want to see, view, hear or 'know' will be important too and this is something young children have no idea about..
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      Tales Cardeal

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      Apr 24 2011: Scott, I do understand that knowing what is good and what is bad information will be more and more important as the number of data available grows and that is one big part of what is being proposed here: to organize useful information and knowledge in an accessible, interesting and free way so that children can get a good education.

      I never thought of this as ending the importance of the teacher but more on making the children a part of the teaching process. Like in modern society, consumer and producer are becoming "prosumers", maybe students and teacher may become more and more integrated into a "student+teacher system" or a "stucher"(if you don´t mind the bad sounding of the term).
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    Nicholas Lukowiak 50+

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    Apr 23 2011: You find, figure, or discover this possibility. E-mail me, I'll volunteer my time, give ideas, and give credible feedback.

    Great idea.
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    Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+

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    Apr 23 2011: Tales..thank you for your beautiful vision. you are seeing clearly and .we can't wait..our young children can't wait for our archaic education system to catch up..I would love to see a TED for children..TED talks done specifically for children (of different ages)..with on line skyped conversation either directly with the presenter of the talk or with a TED moderator. Maybe you? Maybe you & Nicholas?
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      Tales Cardeal

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      Apr 24 2011: Thanks for your support Lindsay. Would be a pleasure (and a honor) to moderate a TEDTalk for children. But what are your thought on this, how would be a Ted for children? I´m thinking about starting this idea with a "first year programme" series of videos covering basic math and world literature, specially the last one. What about representing children stories from around the world, like brothers grimm stories and old chinese children tales in different languages?

      And congratulate Seymour Papert for me for his great initiative!
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        Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+

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        Apr 24 2011: Tales & Nicholas..so glad you are exchanging ideas on this with one another. what I was thinking, and it is only a place to start would be to invite famous and creative people to do a TED talk for children which would be posted at TED and avilable just like all other TED talks. But I also love the idea of a young person like you or Nicholas actually doing pre-scheduled on line interactive classroom visits to do a sort of talk back on the TED presentation..maybe even some of our TED talks for Kids people would do that too.( a teleconference in which many many classroom all over america could particpate interactively at the same time. We could keep the video on those talks and post them as "media chats" in connection with the KID Talks just as we do for regular talks. Signs me up as admin support and legwork if you'd like to try.
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        Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+

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        Apr 24 2011: why not start at the top with your first ted talk for kids and invite Stephen Hawing to do one on cosmology with his daughter Julie..jhttp://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1559/hawking-pens-kids-cosmology-book..very serious..and here is the link to Seymours work..http://www.papert.org/ ..he is the leadimg thinker in America today on technology for children..he createdLEGO Mindstorms and a self discovery program language, LOGO for little kids among so much else. You would find his writings and his now interrupted work a tthe MIT Media Lab fascinating, insirational and visonary (Seymour suffered a serious head injury 3 years ago..which has interrupted his work)
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    Erik Richardson 500+

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    TEDx Organizer
    Apr 23 2011: What is your idea for making it accessible to children without tech resources in their villages?
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      Tales Cardeal

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      Apr 23 2011: Erik, I don´t know if you´re familiar with the UN´s Millennium Goals? One of them is to "Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling".
      If we achieve a good primary education database we could then plea for individuals and organizations to deliver tech resources to children worldwide in order to achieve this goal.

      Summarizing: I don´t have an idea on how "me" and "you" could make it accessible to those children beside translating it to the greatest number of languages possible and making the classes the most interesting we can so that maybe, one day, by social pressure, internet access, (and education), become as important as conventional education is today.
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      Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+

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      Apr 23 2011: Erik& Tales..One laptop per child initated by my friend Seymour Papert at the MIT Media Lab is well along in doing this..(http://www.media.mit.edu/people/nicholas)
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      Sky F

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      Apr 23 2011: The growth of technology is presently the fastest it's ever been. Every year, the technologies we pay for get 20% cheaper (we keep paying the same amount, but instead get 20% MORE), as such, some people around the world don't need the world's fastest laptop, they simply could use a LAPTOP. In the next few years, it will be very inexpensive to provide basic computer technologies that would be able to move in the direction of making this idea an actual possibility.
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