Thiel Fellow Dale Stephens explains how "Does it scale?" applies to education.
In Silicon Valley, one often hears the question, "Does it scale?"
What a technologist means by this is: How can a specific technological innovation be applied in a broad manner to affect a wide range of people? If Google only searched two websites it wouldn't be terribly useful. But because Google scaled effectively to search the entire Internet, it became extremely engaging.
Technologists wonder the same thing about education. And projects like the Khan Academy have risen to prominence because they scale--a single video can be watched by millions of people. But while it's wonderful to give millions of people access to knowledge, we should be careful when scaling education.
Often educational experiences don't scale. I don't think you can replace the learning that comes from an intimate five-person discussion about Shakespeare with watching a video from MIT, the Khan Academy, or anywhere else. I don't care who makes the video, or how great a teacher the person is, having people to support and challenge your ideas is irreplaceable.
I become frustrated when people talk about OpenCourseWare or the Khan Academy as revolutionary. Don't get me wrong, both are doing wonderful things for education, but they still follow the same pedagogical model as the classroom--a one-to-many model. The student is a recipient of knowledge and only passively engaged. Certainly there are steps in the right direction--the Khan Academy now offers exercises and some interaction. I am thankful that resources such as these exist, but putting knowledge onto the Internet is only the first step. A revolution is when students become active participants in learning, improving, and sharing knowledge. A revolution is when students take on the role of teachers.
My friend Alex Peake, a fellow Hackademic who skipped college entirely, has built a game called Code Hero to help you learn how to code. What I ...
[Source: Fast Company]
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