Thursday, November 8, 2012

Special Assignment

A World Where Grades Will Be Lifted
This entire article is based around revolutionizing education. "A single class might enroll tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of students, but "there will be no more one-size-fits-all," Thrun says. "Education will respond to you." Grades will no longer exist. Sebastian Thrun describes grades as the "the failure of the education system". In this type of education system students will learn at their own pace and take as much time as they need to master a certain skill. Thrun taught an online artificial-intelligence class with over 160,000 students. The aim of this type of system is to make online education cheap, and as affordable as a cell phone bill. "Instruction will be free, but related services might involve a fee. Among those are certification and exams, which will be conducted separately from the learning process." Thrun explains that his aim is not to take over traditional education. He explains it with such that traditional education is to theater as online education is to film. Film did not end the theater. Film replicated theater into its own being and made it available for a wider audience, which is his aim for revolutionizing education.

One section of this article that I enjoyed reading about was a metaphor Professor Thrun discussed about choosing a blue pill or a red pill, in terms of education. If you choose the blue pill, you return to class and lecture to students but if you decide to take a gamble and choose the red pill, you see your class in a new light and make some changes to your class. Overall, this article has given me a new outlook on what the future holds for educators.

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