This post is about the future of education. First to the plate is Robert Epstein. Epstein's commentary talks about competency based learning, something clearly evident in the Alternative Schools; something I think that should be the future of education. He mentions his own son: he is fifteen and very "mature" for his age. This then leads into the discussion of why he isn't allowed to drive a car or vote or do other "adult" things, simply because he is only fifteen years old. From here he displays the history of child labor and education laws in the US which can be summed up with this: in the beginning there was no mandate that required kids to go to high school if they could prove they knew the material (competency) but because of all the poor starving immigrants and the Great Depression the wanted jobs for 'grown ups' so they started forcing kids to go to school.

Although Epstein doesn't exactly promote the idea of abolishing high school, he realizes that something has to change. Kids in other nations where there is no federally regulated education systems essentially have no teenage angst. But think about it; there is so much going on in a teenager's life, especially in America and especially when the rigors and demands of school are implemented. He mentions in one part that it is unfair to cram an entire education into twenty years of one's life; that we should be learning throughout our lives and the Internet makes this possible. This sounds vaguely familiar, I wonder where I've heard this...

In the Baltimore County Public School system, they now have an on-demand video service used throughout the entire district. Teachers work together to create curriculums. This collaboration is exactly what needs to happen for students to be fully engaged. If all of the teachers are on the same wavelength, then that will help streamline the student's own educational experience. This is also good news because everyone knows that all students learn differently; so to implement a school wide visual-learning based program, it will only compliment the lesson plans and encourage those students who are not reading/aural based learners to become more engaged.

The Technorati report reports that there are now 70 million blogs worldwide, 1.7 million posts per day (make that 1.7000,001), and over 120,000 new blogs a day. What does this mean? This means that people are becoming connected. They realize that they have something to say and are hoping that people will read what they write. People are becoming contributors to the machine; they are creating content that they want others to notice.

What does this all mean? That people, mainly educators but not excluded to, are realizing the benefits of our current technologies. In Baltimore, they realize that students will become the beneficiaries of a school wide video service. Epstein realizes that students shouldn't be forced to learn everything they need in life in two decades, we have the technology (and wikipedia) to make education a life long experience. The excess blogging shows that people are using technology to express themselves in ways that only diaries had seen before (and honestly, it's one thing to admit that you have a blog, but no one will 'fess up to owning a diary). Technology is the base of tomorrow's enlightenment.

Are you pumped?