paypaul's comments

I think the whole thing can be flipped. Assign the lectures as homework. Do the homework in class. This is exactly how Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/) is structured.

Technology opens up entirely new teaching methodologies. We should be encouraging mastery of concepts rather then praising good marks on tests. What does getting 80% on a test mean. It means there was 20% you didn't know. I sure hope that 20% wasn't important. When you consider that concepts build upon each other that 20% deficiency compounds pretty quickly. It leads to students thinking they are stupid when maybe there was just a concept early on they struggled with and never mastered that has caused them to stumble from that point forward.

I breezed through High School only to later stumble with high level university Math courses.

Khan Academy has helped me correct this problem and I think it should be integrated into the school system. It demands mastery, it is addictive to use (earn points, achievements) and it standardizes the lecture quality. Being able to watch a great teacher on video and having control of the pace (fast forward, rewind) is a much better use of time then copying notes off a blackboard.

Teachers can have a dashboard view of how all of their students are doing and exactly what concepts each student is struggling with. Smart students can take it as far as they want without being slowed down. Students that are struggling can get help in a much more constructive way (and can stop being convinced they are stupid). Teachers can use class time to actually help the kids learn something. Pair students who excel with the ones that struggle and use them as tutors.

Make the classroom a collaborative experience. That's where I think things need to go.

I have always liked this excerpt from the video game Deus Ex. It to me foreshadows where the security state seems to be heading --- When one maniac can wipe out a city of twenty million with a microbe developed in his basement, a new approach to law enforcement becomes necessary. Every citizen in the world must be placed under surveillance. That means sky-cams at every intersection, computer-mediated analysis of every phone call, e-mail, and snail-mail, and a purely electronic economy in which every transaction is recorded and data-mined for suspicious activity. We are close to achieving this goal. Some would say that human liberty has been compromised, but the reality is just the opposite. As surveillance expands, people become free from danger, free to walk alone at night, free to work in a safe place, and free to buy any legal product or service without the threat of fraud. One day every man and woman will quietly earn credits, purchase items for quiet homes on quiet streets, have cook-outs with neighbors and strangers alike, and sleep with doors and windows wide open. If that isn't the tranquil dream of every free civilization throughout history, what is? -- Anna Navarre, Agent, UNATCO