

South Korea to Digitize Entire Curriculum by 2015 - ajhit406
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15175962

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mindstab
So california teacher's union want's to ban digital classroom tech at the same
time Korea as a country is pushing into it full speed ahead. Calafornia
teacher's are worried about themselves and their jobs, Korea's are worried
about giving their kids the best education they can.

Which system do you think is going to prosper in the decades to come?

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dmerfield
Taking the wishes – negative or positive – of one group of people and
extrapolating them to condemn or praise a society is a dangerous strategy.

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hugh3
Y'know, for a random BBC news article, that was pretty well written, and set
out pretty well the advantages and disadvantages of these sorts of things.

I strongly reckon that the best way to learn anything is in a one-on-one
conversation with an expert. The second best way, I've always thought, is a
small interactive lecture where you can ask questions. The third best way is
with a well-written book, and the fourth best way is in a non-interactive
lecture.

However, I can see that there's an opportunity for a new second-best option
just below the one-on-one conversation with the expert, and that's one-on-one
interaction with software that simulates an expert. (An infinitely patient
expert, in fact.) It can explain something to you, test your knowledge of it,
and if you don't understand it then it'll go back and explain it again. A
really well written teaching system like this could make learning things _far_
easier than it currently is.

Writing these sorts of things, though, is incredibly difficult. I may be an
expert on certain subjects, but I can't anticipate all possible lessons in
advance. It would be a huge time and money committment to put such a lesson
together -- you'd write it, test it, improve it, and slowly get to the point
where it really worked well. In order to make this worthwhile, you'd need an
assurance that the lesson, once finished, would be widely used for some time
to come.

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mahyarm
You have to do a lot of practice and prep work before you talk with that
expert, and all of the time in between. Khan's (of khan academy) cousins
started preferring his youtube recordings vs his live tutoring, because it's
far more flexible. I think the best combination are recordings, automated
drill software and tutoring when you need it with no social or official
penalty.

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hugh3
Right. One-on-one lessons are the most efficient way to learn things, but not
necessarily the most practical, because experts generally don't have infinite
patience for stupid questions. If I were Unquestioned Emperor Of The World,
I'd learn everything from calling the appropriate expert into my office, but
as it is I can only do this sometimes.

Still, I'm often amazed by how long I can spend trying to understand something
tricky in a book, and how quickly I can get un-confused as soon as I start
talking to someone who really understands it.

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itsnotvalid
I just feel sorry for the kids, that, they have to use a notebook or something
to read is just painful. They should have limited the thing to e-ink(tm)
tablets to make it easy on eyes that are vulnerable to myopia.

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taiyangong
I think it should be eink screen.

