Blackberry and Palm are both trying to dethrone the iPhone's smartphone market dominance by offering App Stores of their own, touch-enabled screens, and numerous interface improvements. A recent article suggests that this will be difficult -- simply put, there are so many high quality apps for the iPhone to choose from, that iPhone users have crafted devices that are uniquely their own simply by installing numerous customized apps that provide a fully personalized workflow. In order to persuade a user to give up their iPhone, what you have to provide -- as a competing manufacturer -- is a phone that not only can replace what that user has created, but does it better. And that's going to be impossible with a "one size fits all" approach.
My iPhone is a combination voice recorder (for my interviews with teachers), panoramic photo studio (I love photography), game device, appointment book, and all-purpose Internet portal (my own Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) I have probably purchased three times as many apps as I ultimately use, trying them out and systematically deleting the ones that I don't like in a Darwinian natural selection that has resulted in a very refined, powerful set of apps that is uniquely personal. Many of my friends like some of the same apps that I do, but no one has exactly the same selection.
What if students took courses the way I choose apps?
Last year for the first time, I had a student take the AP Computer Science exam -- and score a 5 -- without the benefit of my teaching brilliance. In fact, not only had this student never taken my class, I had never even heard of him or seen him in any of the various extracurricular activities we have at my school, where the computer-oriented kids tend to come out of the woodwork.
"How did you study for the exam?" I asked him. He told me he took an online AP course that fully prepared him for the exam. He said it only took him about six weeks to study for it. He was already taking the maximum six courses that our school allows anyway, so he didn't have the time for my full year course. "Nothing personal," he assured me, as I openly wept in front of him.
Kids are increasingly able to craft their own learning experience by studying from some of the best college professors at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Even science museums and discovery centers are offering online courses that are engaging and interactive. Most of these courses are free or very low cost. What happens when kids craft their high school academic experience the way I customize my iPhone, collecting, evaluating, and discarding courses like apps?
I think what they end up with is a very personalized learning experience, grounded in their own choice, chosen in a sort of fast-twitch Darwinian selection process (hey, just like shopping period at Harvard!) and with a course load that may share some favorite courses with others, but no one with exactly the same selection. And maybe, some students have a course that only 2% of the population find useful or relevant, but for those students, it is invaluable.
As traditional schools come to terms with the online revolution, I think it is vitally important that we realize that we may not be competing with this model yet, but it may be a lot closer than we think. And if this does come to pass, how do we provide a student experience that is as personalized, as relevant, and cost-effective as what students can get elsewhere? How do we ditch the "one-size-fits-all" approach to course load, course requirements, or course structure itself?
Perhaps most intriguing is the idea of how we might combine elements of freely available online courses to supplement our own classroom learning environment, and provide the best of both worlds -- allowing our own students to "mix and match" and customize their own learning experience within the context of our course. I am already experimenting in having a Stanford professor "guest lecture" in my computer science course, by assigning his videotaped lecture on Arraylists as homework. I work with my students directly in class after they have watched the lecture, and spend my time working with them on labs. I still have a long way to go before my kids are creating the "iPhone experience" in my class, but it's a start.
My iPhone is a combination voice recorder (for my interviews with teachers), panoramic photo studio (I love photography), game device, appointment book, and all-purpose Internet portal (my own Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) I have probably purchased three times as many apps as I ultimately use, trying them out and systematically deleting the ones that I don't like in a Darwinian natural selection that has resulted in a very refined, powerful set of apps that is uniquely personal. Many of my friends like some of the same apps that I do, but no one has exactly the same selection.
What if students took courses the way I choose apps?
Last year for the first time, I had a student take the AP Computer Science exam -- and score a 5 -- without the benefit of my teaching brilliance. In fact, not only had this student never taken my class, I had never even heard of him or seen him in any of the various extracurricular activities we have at my school, where the computer-oriented kids tend to come out of the woodwork.
"How did you study for the exam?" I asked him. He told me he took an online AP course that fully prepared him for the exam. He said it only took him about six weeks to study for it. He was already taking the maximum six courses that our school allows anyway, so he didn't have the time for my full year course. "Nothing personal," he assured me, as I openly wept in front of him.
Kids are increasingly able to craft their own learning experience by studying from some of the best college professors at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Even science museums and discovery centers are offering online courses that are engaging and interactive. Most of these courses are free or very low cost. What happens when kids craft their high school academic experience the way I customize my iPhone, collecting, evaluating, and discarding courses like apps?
I think what they end up with is a very personalized learning experience, grounded in their own choice, chosen in a sort of fast-twitch Darwinian selection process (hey, just like shopping period at Harvard!) and with a course load that may share some favorite courses with others, but no one with exactly the same selection. And maybe, some students have a course that only 2% of the population find useful or relevant, but for those students, it is invaluable.
As traditional schools come to terms with the online revolution, I think it is vitally important that we realize that we may not be competing with this model yet, but it may be a lot closer than we think. And if this does come to pass, how do we provide a student experience that is as personalized, as relevant, and cost-effective as what students can get elsewhere? How do we ditch the "one-size-fits-all" approach to course load, course requirements, or course structure itself?
Perhaps most intriguing is the idea of how we might combine elements of freely available online courses to supplement our own classroom learning environment, and provide the best of both worlds -- allowing our own students to "mix and match" and customize their own learning experience within the context of our course. I am already experimenting in having a Stanford professor "guest lecture" in my computer science course, by assigning his videotaped lecture on Arraylists as homework. I work with my students directly in class after they have watched the lecture, and spend my time working with them on labs. I still have a long way to go before my kids are creating the "iPhone experience" in my class, but it's a start.
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