"Ivica Ico Bukvic" <ico@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
RTaylor
> > Michael T Nelson <m_nels@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > In retrospect, I'd have been better off finding a degree in Computer
> > > Science with Music Technology. But they don't do that at York, which is:
> >
> > I've always thought that Gnu {I suppose any organization with a
> > sufficiently large following and a decent reputation...} should do
> > something like this... all it would really require is a chartered tour of
> > several existent web pages, some test with which to judge yourself over
> > the course of a term and some sort of certification when the candidate
> > feels that they know enough to be qualified.
> >
> > Teaching could be done by intelligent, interactive websites from a
> > knowledge base with a few simplish functions... administering tests,
> > meteing out the next parts of the lesson plan... maybe a bit of very
> > specific advice once in a while...
> >
> > I can't think of a more comfortable way to go to school... you could
> > schedule stuff however you wanted, etc, etc...
>
> While I agree that a volume of knowledge regarding GNU/audio stuff is
> already available online, for a newcomer it is too fragmented and
> incoherent. Furthermore, even if a single unifying resource existed such as
That's the point of a "teaching" website. If it were set up as a knowledge base it could give users very specific information regarding any specific subject. If there were several that were linked it you could use them all to provide the user with information according to their likes, dislikes, strengths, needs, etc...
> the one you suggested, due to ongoing development in this field, it would
> require a significant amount of work to keep it up-to-date (and imho
> keeping-up a well-composed prose that could be used for studying something
> that is constantly changing requires a lot more work than verbally
> explaining them).
If the knowledge base were set up properly it could be updated by educators, developers, etc, etc... it could likely be done through email... entered information would be automatically incorporated into the scheme of things... all the person submitting information would need to do would be fill in a form with various parameters like subject, section, score, etc... You would need folk to verify and fine tune stuff.
> Finally, not everyone is prone to learning just by reading and they require
> additional stimuli via lectures, assignments, and hands-on work.
Hands on and multimedia work is easily done... you could use text to speech or recorded lectures, all of the multimedia capabilities of the web... tutorial packages could be provided for "hands on" stuff and even graded and placed into a database of user statistics... Employers could get access to a summery of user stats and hire accordingly.
> Hence, I believe that relying only on the Web content for the general
> educational purposes would not carry very far. Sure, it would work for the
> minority (esp. those who have mathematical/programming mind and are capable
> of learning programming in a particular toolkit just by looking-up API's)
> but for the broader population it would end-up being nothing more than a
> reference.
I'm not just talking programmers. I'm talking everyone. It would be perfect for folk stuck in dead end jobs or jobs they don't like... in their free time people could study what they wanted and have it really mean something. All they'd need to do would be flag their profile as available to be entered into the lists of people searched by employers. It could be a much more accurate measure of someone's true worth as an employee and a method by which folk could evaluate and improve themselves. Anyone could use it.. people would no longer be stuck behind a retail store counter if they simply made the effort to learn.
> As far as Website content being able to offer you the pace of learning that
> fits your needs, this in practice never works as it is in human nature to
> postpone that which is the least urgent. This would inadvertently lead to
> non-systematic learning and therefore mixed results. School programs impose
> assignments onto students for reasons other than grading, most importantly
> to stimulate student to work hard in order to master the given material.
That's ultimately up to the student... I've met lots of morons with high level degrees... and lots of really bright people that just didn't have the opportunity to get past their circumstances. This would place folk according to their abilities not how "close" they get to the professor.
This sort of thing might provide immediate and real rewards... There ain't no better motivator.
