Insight

I’ve been a fan of computer based education for years now.  It has begun to emerge as online classes, and there are a host of education games for kids to play-but it doesn’t seem to be as much as it could be.  I’ve even been tempted to try to get some form of psych/compsci/edu degree, but feel it is too much of a gamble at my age.

There are several principal benefits to CBE as I see it.  1.) No longer limited by geography, we can gear educational techniques to smaller populations in our society.  In a school with a few hundred students, it would not be economical nor very feasible to coach education to one specific student.  However, when sampling a population of a few hundred million, there may be several thousand or more students similar to him/her and warrant such an endeavor.  2.) as an extension to premise one, rooting out learning difficulties would be much easier.  We could compare students with other students who had similar difficulties and have since moved on.  We could also extrapolate which problems the current student ‘will’ face based on how the similar students fared.  Specific learning programs could be generated to solve those problems before they occur.  3.) During the CBE course how students peform can be recorded.  Later during review sessions (or before an exam) the ’software’ could remember what the student had gotten wrong before and focus specifically on those issues.  4.) as an extension to 3 the software could be used as reviews later on down the road to upgrade their class credit or merely for self benefit.  5.) the course content can always be kept up to date with current events.  It may also be possible that as an extension to 4, people could take a condensed version of a modern version of a course where changes may have occured-such as new technologies or theories.  6.) a Computer Based Education system can be much cheaper to export to nations without adequate education, the infrastructure would not be nearly as intensive as school systems are today.  This is already in effect in part with donated used computer systems to developing nations.  It is much more cost effective and students can get access to information comparable with what developed nations students receive.  The education requirement on the teachers part is minimal, the cost of maintaining dozens of books is offset-in fact some text books are released for free via the internet.  7.) CBE systems can make use of video, audio, and games for a student rather than just straight text.  It can be far more interactive and therefore entertaining.  8.) The most important aspect to CBE in my opinion, is that subjects can be divided up into individual units rather than full semesters.  Students can progress at their own rate.  There is no need to lump it all together into one 4 month class.  Also, if done properly the full information could be available through the CBE program.  Students could follow ‘links’ to gain further knowledge that may not be a requirement of that specific class, but can go towards the credit for a future course.  9.) The feedback can be instant.  Each time using the CBE program, the student can see how much of the subject he/she has learned.  One of the most addictive components to games and online games, is seeing a "you have gotten better at" or "you have leveled up".  With the online classes I’ve taken through the university, often weekly quizzes will give my grade back after completing it.  I don’t need to wait a week for a returned test, of several months for a grade, of even several years for a degree.  I see that my work has went towards something immediately.  There is a reward factor to it.  Too often I get into cycles will I find my work is wasted.  Having that instant feed back keeps me going.

There you have it.  The main benefits to computer based education as I see it.  The technology is here now, we just haven’t fully made that leap.  I used to have a few business models.  The problem is having it count as much as a normal school.  I find that if it were done privately rather than on a federal or state level, the program would have to begin as a tutoring system.  With a set payment fee every month to access to the resources.  One resource which would help would be the use of tutors, preferably college students who would have access to a large database to assist students over the internet via some messaging system.  Generating information would have to be paying teachers to create lectures and units of information for a set price rather than through royalties.  The goal would have to be that the information grows over time, rather than being replaced-royalty payments would get in the way of that.  I do not think totally getting rid of school as is would be feasible, the system would have to start off as assisting education as it is now, which is why I suggest a tutoring system.  If developed enough it would serve as a replacement for school for people who need it, but from numerous conversations people don’t feel confident giving their childrens education over to a computer rather than a classroom.  Not to mention school is often considered daycare.  The number one wall I run into is that students would not get the socialization necessary to function in the world.   

Humans will not truly integrate computer technologies in our lives till they are as readily available as the sense of smell or touch.  We cannot put on hold our activities or actions to run to a computer terminal, pause a conversation to type in data-or even merely to sub vocalize to access information.  The ideal, is that if someone were to mention a country I know nothing about,I could pull up a map of the nation in question and some basic background data.  A similar situation will be if someone mentions a band, I could quickly and readily access the bands biography and perhaps even here a sample of the music-without interrupting the conversation a beat.  Saying hold on, or rapidly plugging characters into my cell phone is not good enough.

The question is how to input information covertly without taking too much mental effort.  First on the list would be to minimize the flow of data.  This could be possible with a system likened to autocorrect with microsoft word.  The system would learn your personal nuances, learn to project with some degree of certainty what information you are trying to enter before you have completed the information.  Casting your eyes around to surf through a gigantic encyclopedia is not effective, nor do we have the technology anytime soon to merge computers directly with our minds [with any real useful degree].  Virtual gloves may do the trick, or an advanced form of a twiddler, but still that would involve a good deal of mental effort that may distract us from our current activity. 

The solution may lay in this fact, that most of the questions and assistence we would need is not to much creating data but responding to stimulus.  Why should we have to create a search query if the reason for the search has just come to our attention?  Either we saw some piece of information that we want to learn more about, or we heard something we would like to know more about.  The input would already be there, all we need to do is ’send’ or ‘key’ the data for a computer enhancement.  This could be minimally more time consuming and taxing than memorizing information and storing it within specific mental schemas, processes that go on relatively unconsciousnessly.

One benefit of computers that we could use today to enhance our mental capabilities is that computers can extend our short term memory perfectly, limited only be hard drive space and access times.  With a simple camera on our glasses and microphones as earrings, we could record everything we see and hear for as long a period of time as would be usable.  If there is any dispute about an incident that occured 20 minutes ago, such as what you ordered in a restaurant, it would be easy to scroll back to that moment in time with perfect clarity.  It would also be possible to ‘publish’ that ‘memory’ as you saw and heard it.

Extending on the above mention premise of extending our memory, we could also manipulate that memory.  It could be possible with minimal effort to ‘pull’ or ‘tag’ some stream of information flowing through the microphone and camera to call up more information.  This would prevent the need to create any data, as we are only manipulating data.  This should also be within the realm of human capabilities in such a way as not to be overly mentally taxing.  During a conversation you could ’select’ the input of a countries name, ’send’ it to a data query engine,’select’ the type of information to recieve, similar to scrolling through windows menus.  The data could be displayed most likely visually on glasses or physically on a small device similar to a braille reader.  We could use the movement of our pupils to control the flow of information, or we should be able to use our own minds directly.

There is technology for people suffering from a stroke and troubled children to control limited computer games with their minds.  It is controlled by their thoughts, and in the case of some children the goal would be to be calm to control the game character.  If they get anxious or stressed out the player will go out of control and they will lose the game.  It is very limited and is nowhere near recording a single thought.  Yet it could be enough to serve the purposes of manipulating data.

Even without mind hook ups or tracking cameras for our pupils, the problem even with a small handheld device for manipulating data is merely how much data is entered in.  If we presume that in daily life we’re not going to be creating data so much as processing data, than we can work on minimizing the amount of work needed to manipulate the data. In which case anything from tapping our toes, to fletching a muscle or nodding our head could serve as enough ‘input’ to control the flow of data.  We still need voice to text technology to advance enough where data we ‘hear’ can be understood by the computer as easily as the human mind, we would also have to train the video feed to recognize if we are looking at the word ‘dam’ or if we are looking at a fire hydrant.  These advances are most likely not limited by current technology, but current understanding.  If we knew how to code the perfect image recognizer, or speech to text software, we should be able to do it with commercially available tools.  The only real limit is merging the various technologies that exist now together.