MIT Open Courseware -- why make it free? Something really dramatic is happening!
The argument: the best learning is still face-to-face: the "memorization piece" is important, but the "conversation piece" is valuable.
Flexbook -- open textbook initiative -- you can mix/match content to your heart's delight.
What Skype does for education, from hiring to the classroom, is amazing. It connects people on a global scale.
Internet is now facilitating how we get things done...there is an explosion of collaboration. Connectedness is leading to innovation.
The Long Tail -- why the future of business is selling less of more. The "long tail" is a plotted curve that shows publication of books that don't "make it" on major stores and such. About one year ago, Amazon began to sell more product in the "long tail," ie. more product that wasn't in book store versus what was in book stores.
What's interesting is that the technologies are now allowing us to "return to participation, pre-broadcast, pre-factory model." In other words, communication is super-important -- kids are getting feedback, sharing writing and ideas with others...and not in the Henry Ford-like model of education.
Redistribution of our cognitive surplus, says Clay Shirky. The internet has unleashed this cognitive surplus. It is unleashed energy.
Where do schools live? In structure or in freedom? Where does cognitive surplus thrive?
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