
Bill Gates' Hopes For Online Learning - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/annual-letter/2010/Pages/education-learning-online.aspx
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Scott_MacGregor
If we can handle this perceived need completely within our industry without
outside intervention it seems like it will present more of a money making
opportunity for a lot more people in our industry. To get this off the ground,
I think initially this should be viewed as a new product opportunity for the
search providers.

This really might be a case of _"If you build it they will come"_ , and if the
framework is put in place intelligently, a lot of money can be made quickly
from simple add on products.

From the blog: "There is a lot of online material being developed, but it
isn’t organized in a way where it is easy to find the best material that fits
what you want to do." "We need a simple way of taking all of the education
pieces and organizing them and then rating them in context."

I think we are at a point that the internet needs an agreed upon standard
specifically for educational material. A standard that developers can use on
their finished product to allow it to be considered for special educational
indexing.

It seems like this could be most easily accomplished by using a system of
appending the file type such as foo.aspe1 for formal educational level 1
material, foo.aspi7 for independent study material level 7, and so forth. The
level rating like the e1 and i7 used in the example should be left up to the
material developer to decide upon.

By further adding information to the file type, such as foo.aspEGe1, for
elementary geometry, the type of material could be easily set forth for
indexing. Material such as Cisco Certification Study material or MCSE study
material could fall under .aspcee9 for instance, for computer education
educational level 9.

It seems like this basic level of information in the file type would be
sufficient to handle the gross special indexing of the material, other
factors, for instance, Egyptian Prehistory, could be handled through normal
search indexing within the special indexing.

A concern with the indexing process will probably be spam and pornography
getting into the system. It seems like it would be fairly easy to control the
use of the special educational file types by requiring the use of a special
educational SSL certificate where the developing/posting party is definitely
known to the SSL authority. Rouge SSL authorities (those breaking the indexers
rules) could be delisted from the special indexing system. Using a special
certificate designation for this purpose, such as SSL2 or SSLE, would probably
be the easiest to implement and allow sufficient control by the indexer for
delisting purposes.

As far as add on products one thing that comes to mind is profiting from the
search providers implementing a system that allows user feedback into the
indexing system where searching users can _Blend_ the natural search results
with prior user feedback on any number of predefined factors. Users should be
able to easily propose new _Blend_ categories into the system for global
inclusion.

This _Blend_ in the search results would be to attract users and to allow add
on builders to financially capitalize on the fact that there are a number of
educational people and parents who have very strong feelings (complaints) one
way or the other about the specific content and presentation methods used in
the educational material.

