Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Oni's vision - Education for All

Here is my rough translation from the Hebrew to Oni's vision (Oni is my partner in developing QTsaver):

Behind the idea of Education for All there is a claim that the welfare of each
world citizen influences the welfare of the others' . Helping the others without
jeopardizing ones' own existential interests may help him and may
contribute to basic human dignity.



Expected problems
1. High costs
2. Language problems
3. Accessibility to Internet
4. Problems of internal government policies in different countries
5. Building methods of distant learning, in which pupils have difficulties to be in contact with an invisible teacher. There are families who don't want their kids to get education because they are needed in the fields.
6. Acknowledging the learning achievements and promising practical use to the education in the future.
The solution
Today we are in a situation in which we can give immediate answers to most of the above problems:

The system's framework
We shall prepare educational programs on a centralized computer (from kindergarten to high school) in the best possible level. The programs will be in any subject that can be learned from a distance, so that they can be relearned in each stage without dependence on the teacher. Such programs will have a fixed cost and there will be no more costs except for maintenance and help. These programs will be translated into many languages and after this stage there will be no further costs on languages.

Satellite programs
1. Around the basic programs there will be a system of help for all those subjects that need help, such as complementary lessons, tests and exercises.
2. Another logistic system will be responsible to help needy people or to assist in existing learning systems.
3. Personal teaching systems will be built in the most important subjects:

  • English
  • Math
  • Computer
  • Human health


To these subjects there will be added any other subjects which have prospects to succeed.

Working method
All basic programs will be accessible online and offline in many languages.
Each teacher will have a working plan on the computer so that he will know when he is teaching or whom he is meeting and in which language.
The teacher will be connected to the Internet, behind him there will be a blackboard seen by the pupil or pupils on the other end of the Internet. The pupils will be able to write in this stage in one of 20 different languages and the teacher will get the texts in any language he will want it. Both the teacher and the pupils will have free access to Internet phone (Skype) so that they will be able to exercise and to discuss the subjects. Each teacher will have an option to refer the pupil to existing resources on the Internet so that the pupil will be able to proceed even without the teacher.


Optimal exploitation
In order to exploit the system fully there will be an option to recruit teachers that will build the basic programs and lecture on air to many pupils at once. From time to time lessons will be broadcasted by celebrities in order to make the system more popular.

Tasks

  • Management and technical development
  • Building methods for distant learning
  • Recruiting volunteers and sponsors
  • Supervision
  • Assessing results
  • Ambassadors in different countries to get collaboration
  • Recruiting educational institutions to acknowledge the achievements of this system.


Outlook
In our opinion the contribution of this system to the world welfare will be recognized by many Institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, rich countries - and they will be willing to backup this system.

1 comment:

zeevveez said...

I just heard about a group that already is trying for a few years to implement a similar vision - the 2B1 Foundation at MIT. They started with $1M of funding from two Japanese benefactors, and now they are backed up by AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation, and Red Hat. MIT works also with the not-for-profit company One Laptop per Child (OLPC).