[OT] tele-education

[Bryan Richard]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 11:06:30AM -0600, Garrett Goebel wrote:
> Bryan Richard wrote:
> > 
> > I actually had something like this in High School. Pre-Internet, they
> > hooked three classrooms up via video cameras and you watched
> > televisions of the teacher and students from as far off as the next
> > county. Woohoo!
> > The teachers rotated each semester.
> > 
> > Zero discipline, couldn't read the chalkboard, worksheets were faxed
> > back back and forth, &c. This was high technology back then -- I don't
> > recall computers be involved -- and I imagine that the video
> > link cost a pretty penny. It would probably not take much more than
> > a couple of modern PCs and an ISDN line to do the same thing now.
> > 
> > Not an ideal way of handling the education of Seniors in High School,
> > even if it was a bunch of nerds in AP Lit. I mowed through several
> > Stephen Kings in that class. 
> 
> Sounds like failures in implementation.

Could be but one wonders what the point was. Even the semi-rural area I
grew up in had what would be considered excellent education when placed
against the majority of what can be found overseas.

> Australia is supposed to have pioneered solutions a lot of the
> tele-education problems in order to improved the educational opportunities
> in the outback. I'd be curious to hear what their implementation looks like.
> Though I wouldn't be surprised if the same solution still wouldn't work with
> America's undisciplined uninterested attention span challenged youth. -I
> fell asleep in the classes when the teachers were present...

We are what we are; such is the burden of being overprivileged. Had
school challenged me more I probably would have stayed awaked but as it
was leveled to include everyone $physics == "nap time" == "easy A."

- Bryan