The document discusses how the internet is revolutionizing education by enabling open access to educational resources through various platforms. It describes several online initiatives like MIT OpenCourseWare, Khan Academy, Academic Earth, and Open Culture that provide free access to course materials, lectures, and cultural/educational media. It also discusses how technologies like Skype can be used to improve literacy worldwide by connecting students to remote storytellers. While acknowledging the benefits of online learning, it questions if the internet can fully replace higher education and cautions that some careers still require formal training and certification.

1. How the Internet is
Revolutionizing Education
“Learning is not a product of schooling
but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” -
Albert Einstein

2. In April 2001, Charles M. Vest, the MIT
President at the time, created
OpenCourseWare. It had enabled
other teachers and lifelong learners
around the world to listen and read
what was being taught at MIT.

3. 5 years later, in April 2006, UC
Berkeley announced its plan to put
complete academic courses on Apple’s
iTunes U. The school has had well over
120 million downloads since first
sharing videos online.

4. The Web has unlocked the keys to a
worldwide virtual school, potentially
leveling the playing field for students
around the world.

5. Open Culture
Almost 5 years old, Open Culture is the
largest database of free cultural and
educational media in existence. Open
Culture is edited by Colman who
received his PhD from Stanford in
1997.

6. The site has two dimensions:
First, it acts as a portal, collecting
external links
Second, it includes blog-style
content with 2-3 posts a day of
handpicked media bites

7. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is an online collection
featuring over 2,100
educational videos ranging in intensity
from 1+1=2 to college level calculus
and physics.

8. Every time you work on a problem or
watch a video, the site remembers
what you’ve learned and where you’re
spending your time.

9. Academic Earth
Academic Earth is working its way up
to being the Hulu of academic videos
and courses. However, they don’t
cover audio. Academic Earth features
the videos on their site, as opposed to
pushing you directly to iTunes if it’s
available.

10. Skillshare
Skillshare is a community marketplace
that enables users to learn anything
from anyone. Teachers can host
classes anywhere, literally; classes are
happening everywhere from NYC to
Boston to San Francisco right now.

11. Scitable
Scitable is a free science social
network with a peer-reviewed on
library built on top of it. The network,
which launched in 2009, is a product
of the Nature Publishing Group, one of
the largest, most prestigious science
publishers in the world.

12. It’s dedicated to encouraging students
to take part in science education and
science in general, which is a huge
problem today.

13. Skype’s Role
And Skype’s global platform and
massive user adoption makes it one of
the most influential technologies in
changing the reach of education.

14. “The Granny Cloud“. A professor of
education technology at UK’s
Newcastle University named Sugata
Mitra, decided he could use Skype to
improve literacy and education around
the globe by getting 200 story telling
Grannies to read to children in India
over Skype.

15. But can the Internet really replace
higher education?
Education is a bubble in a classic
sense. To call something a bubble, it
must be overpriced and there must be
an intense belief in it.

16. Housing was a classic bubble, because
they were both very overvalued, but
there was an incredibly widespread
belief that almost could not be
questioned. Probably the only
candidate left for a bubble — at least
in the developed world— is education.

17. If you want to be a fireman, you don’t
need to go to graduate school. But if
you want to be an orthodontist, please
don’t just watch YouTubes and practice
pulling out cavities on your dog.

18. Thank you!!!