Philosophy and Human Transcendence

"So who am I? Since I am constantly changing, am I just a pattern? What if someone copies that pattern? Am I the original and/or the copy? Perhaps I am this stuff here—that is, the both ordered and chaotic collection of molecules that make up my body and brain."

Ray Kurzweil asks this question in The Singularity is Near. A classic metaphor, the Ship of Theseus, makes one wonder of we are who we were yesterday, or even last week.

"But there's a problem with this position. The specific set of particles that my body and brain comprise are in fact completely different from the atoms and molecules that I comprised only a short while ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks, and even our neurons, which persist as distinct cells for a relatively long time, nonetheless change all of their constituent molecules within a month.14 The half-life of a microtubule (a protein filament that provides the structure of a neuron) is about ten minutes. The actin filaments in dendrites are replaced about every forty seconds. The proteins that power the synapses are replaced about every hour. NMDA receptors in synapses stick around for a relatively long five days."

So will it be that unexpected when we merge with our technology to become God's? Arthur C. Clarke said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."  Rest assured that what we may do someday would look like magic to us today.

The Future of Education is Homeschool

The future of education is homeschool, but it's not what you might think. In his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, inventor and futurist Ray looks at past trends in science, technology and even education, drawing natural conclusions about the course of progress in various fields and markets. He takes a very rational and systematic approach, careful not to delve into fantasy, but staying quite grounded in his analysis of what our futures hold.

For education, like many other facets of society, Kurzweil believes that we will see a decentralization as the technology improves. The persistence of a centralized model for a variety of industries, education included, was built upon a past that saw knowledge concentrated, resources inefficiently applied to challenges, and politics impeding progress.

As with all of our other institutions we will ultimately move toward a decentralized educational system in which every person will have ready access to the highest-quality knowledge and instruction. We are now in the early stages of this transformation, but already the advent of the availability of vast knowledge on the Web, useful search engines, high-quality open Web courseware, and increasingly effective computer-assisted instruction are providing widespread and inexpensive access to education. 

The future of education is likely to become not only destabilized, in a way that promotes the most innovative educators, but could see the institutions themselves shift toward a location-independent model where the students spend the majority of their learning time wherever they choose to call the classroom.

Most major universities now provide extensive courses online, many of which are free. MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative has been a leader in this effort. MIT offers nine hundred of its courses—half of all its course offerings—for free on the Web.56 These have already had a major impact on education around the world. For example, Brigitte Bouissou writes, "As a math teacher in France, I want to thank MIT ... for [these] very lucid lectures, which are a great help for preparing my own classes." Sajid Latif, an educator in Pakistan, has integrated the MIT OCW courses into his own curriculum. His Pakistani students regularly attend virtually-MIT classes as a substantial part of their education.57 MIT intends to have everyone of its courses online and open source (that is, free of charge for noncommercial use) by 2007.

Since Kurzweil wrote The Singularity in 2005, not only have we seen online education come into its own, but institutions such as MIT realize the social value in bringing high-quality learning resources to the public for little to no cost. And they're not alone. There has been much hype surrounding the MOOC phenomena, but the long-term course seems to be more stable for these online education systems. Entrepreneurs are investing billions of dollars into underdeveloped regions.

The U.S. Army already conducts all of its nonphysical training using Web-based instruction. The accessible, inexpensive, and increasingly high-quality courseware available on the Web is also fueling a trend toward homeschooling.

As with much of Kurzweil's research, he often notes that as technology improves, costs fall, and society is better for it. He often notes The Law of Accelerating Returns in his research, that "we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate)." Each incremental improvement in cost or quality will come in less time and for less money than previous improvements. Costs for access to educational resources are continually falling, with technology spanning even physical divides, with learners in the most underdeveloped regions soon gaining access to the same quality education that can be found in developed regions.

The cost of the infrastructure for high-quality audiovisual Internet-based communication is continuing to fall rapidly, at a rate of about 50 percent per year, as we discussed in chapter 2. By the end of the decade it will be feasible for underdeveloped regions of the world to provide very inexpensive access to high-quality instruction for all grade levels from preschool to doctoral studies. Access to education will no longer be restricted by the lack of availability of trained teachers in each town and village.

Access will be guaranteed through low-cost technology and the entrepreneurship of innovators that understand that the way we have been providing services like education is based on outmoded models that have little place in the modern world.

As computer-assisted instruction (CAl) becomes more intelligent the ability to individualize the learning experience for each student will greatly improve. New generations of educational software are capable of modeling the strengths and weaknesses of each student and developing strategies to focus on the problem area of each learner. A company that I founded, Kurzweil Educational Systems, provides software that is used in tens of thousands of schools by students with reading disabilities to access ordinary printed materials and improve their reading skills.

The world is changing faster than ever before, and the future will make your head spin.

Sherlock Holmes on Discrimination

From Doyle's story A Case of Identity, reminding us that to discriminate is simply the act of making reasoned, informed decisions:

"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts."

Another great book focusing more on the act of making reasoned decisions is professor Walter Block's the Case for Discrimination, available from Mises.org. 

Checkers

After Thing 1 learned to play chess, and actually has been enjoying the game, Thing 2 has become interested in checkers and starting to think strategically.

Why we are betting on Washington State charters

It is nice to see alternatives to the public school system coming from within, changing the nature of the schools through the charter concept, which has turned out to be more than just a good idea:

"Washington’s charter law, while not perfect, is surely one of the best any state has had coming out of the gate with new schools. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ survey of state charter laws, Washington’s comes in six out of forty-three states. This despite the law’s capping of schools at forty. Washington’s charters will operate in a policy environment where they have operational freedoms but are held accountable for student performance."

More:
http://edexcellence.net/articles/why-we-are-betting-on-washington-state-charters

Five Trends to Watch in Higher Education

Leaders of U.S. universities and colleges are navigating a challenging economic environment. Revenues from enrollment, government, and other sources have fallen, leading many institutions to raise tuition to unsustainable levels and putting a number of the weakest schools at risk of failing.

This is an unfortunate effect of subsidizing public education, making it more expensive in the long-term.

Meanwhile, the return on investment of a degree is increasingly subject to debate. After years of low graduation levels and high unemployment rates for those students who do complete college, the spotlight has shifted firmly toward improving outcomes.

One thing to note, that the article could have done, would have been to look at long-term trends in the student success rates and spending levels to see if a tenfold increase in spending led to any significant increase in student success.  

Additionally, college as we know it—what it looks like, how it gets delivered, and who it serves—is being altered.

And this is a good thing. The world has change, so should the way we learn and teach.

These and other forces are transforming the U.S. higher-education system. The fundamental model of universities and colleges has been called into question. Experiments large and small across the nation point to a multitude of paths forward.

More: Five Trends to Watch in Higher Education

Results from the SRI Study of Khan Academy

I'm a fan of the Khan Academy, both for myself and for my daughter. I use the site to learn new skills and refresh old ones, from economics to math, astronomy and more. I use it to help my daughter with her studies, mostly math, but I try to encourage her to explore and try new things. We both end up learning something when I help her, and despite the lack of cost, I feel there is a tangible value in the service. 

Overall, the study identified many positive findings relevant to educators, developers, and education leaders, and shows that the schools serving diverse student populations can make use of Khan Academy as a component in their mathematics instruction. Teachers in the pilot schools reported that they found value in using Khan Academy to support their instruction, that it helped their students, and that they planned to continue to experiment with different models for integrating Khan Academy into their math curricula. Students also indicated in focus groups and on surveys that they liked using Khan Academy. In addition, early evidence from one site suggests that a math instruction approach using Khan Academy in combination with close teacher monitoring and extended periods for math instruction can improve student learning. For now, these preliminary findings should be interpreted cautiously and should not be over-generalized. No single implementation model was used across all the sites, and Khan Academy was not used as the sole, or even primary source of math instruction at most sites, making it difficult to isolate its effects. 

Teachers and schools leaders are attracted to using Khan Academy because it is available for free, offers a modular set of resources, engages students, provides immediate feedback, and offers opportunities for students to direct their own learning. At the same time, fundamental challenges remain that constrain how schools use Khan Academy. These challenges include accountability pressures, restrictions on instructional time, and limited access to one-to-one computing.

More:

Research on the Use of Khan Academy in Schools | SRI International

What I appreciate most about these types of resources is that it recognizes that all students are different. Everyone learns at a unique pace. Some of us fly through some subjects while others need a bit of extra time to absorb the material and concepts. Sal Khan's videos are great in this regard; he doesn't assume that the viewer is a certain age, only at a certain skill level. Grouping students by age may be efficient in volume, akin to mass production, but is hardly the most effective way to teach. 

Favorable Findings: Khan Academy was generally well-liked by both students and teachers. Student engagement seemed high and teachers liked the modular nature of the materials, which made it easy to use as a supplement for the regular curriculum. At two research sites, increased time spent on Khan Academy was associated with better-than-expected test scores, decreased math anxiety, and increased confidence in math ability.Again, don't jump to conclusions — this represents just some of the students and the methods weren't rigorous. Increased time on something leading to improvement isn't all that surprising, and we should want to see further study.

More:
MathEd.net: Results from the SRI Study of Khan Academy

Resources like these put the power and pace to learn in the student's hands where it belongs. Integrating solutions like these into educational institutions helps us move away from a homogenized, one-size-fits-all school system toward individualized learning processes. These studies are encouraging, and I am sure that more refinement is necessary to take these resources into the classroom as integrated components of the schooling system, but I am optimistic that these technologies will help us get there from here.

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
― Isaac Asimov