I know I know I know…..
I never EVER would have thought those words would come out of my mouth either.
But I was wrong. I heard a story today that absolutely stunned me. It’s a story of innovation within the public schools:
There is a school in Ohio that is exploring the use of online learning in the event of snow days:
About 700 students in a rural school district in western Ohio will be guinea pigs for the rest of the state this winter when they use the Internet to connect to their classes during inclement weather.
The program, a test that will be used to gauge the effectiveness of on-demand online education, could be an answer to the question of how the state will address calamity days in the future. Officials with the Ohio Department of Education want to see how the program at Mississinawa Valley Schools in Darke County works before other districts get a chance to try something similar.
Fascinating!
Modern technology being used to address a very critical short coming during a time when money is short.
And this isn’t just a good idea; this represents ground breaking type stuff. If this works, the conversations regarding class size is virtually over. So too about the need for teachers in each brick building. Imagine, if a teacher in Podunk, NC can teach an algebra class to her students in Podunk, what would stop her from also teaching algebra students Podink as well?
Discipline problems would be over.
Books would become a thing of the past.
Budgets would be slashed.
Learning would go up.
Test scores would go up.
The number of teachers needed would go down.
Uh oh.
Watch for the Teacher’s Unions jump on this one.
And the Leftists too.
I bet that the Union will try to make the point that the District can’t do this because not every kid in the county has access to a computer with high speed data line.
Watch!
Check out this article about a $15,000 robot. It could replace that expensive classroom teacher with a cheap worker living in India.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/150/bring-your-robot-to-work-day.html
It could replace that expensive classroom teacher with a cheap worker living in India.
Sure. Though I’m not sure that solves the problem. You still have a physical classroom with all of the discipline troubles.
But serious.
India has a massive tutoring industry. A friend of mine has a daughter having trouble with chemistry. For some low flat fee per month she had access to a PhD in chemistry via web conferencing. One on One.
She got an A in chemistry.
Innovation is the key to success in any enterprise. Education is no different.