2010-07-25

Free Standardized Education Package

Please do read previous idea (here) which is a preface to this one.



Straight away I would like to share my life's biggest dream which is: for every person in a world will have a free access to well-organized world's knowledge.
Please note this proposal is a draft for now, which will hopefully be improved

PROBLEMS with current world's education:

- Education access is unequal and unfair, for example, amongst people of different:
  - levels of welfare
  - country of residence
  - gender
  - religion
  - ethnicity
  - etc
- Education is disorganized:
  - different countries have different education systems
  - courses with the same name can have very different content
  - same degrees can contain very different courses
  - employers cannot easily compare job candidates
- Education is difficult to access:
  - most of the education is based on books, which comparing to electronic format are much more expensive and less portable
  - educational materials in some languages can much bigger than in other and are slow to be translated
- Education is closed:
  - most educational books are licensed and copy-protected what makes them not-free even in electronic format
- Education is innefficient:
  - employers tend to require specific degree which takes more time to get actual relevant for the job courses
  - since education is mostly based on books, it's very slow and expensive to modernize it

PROPOSAL

Used terms:
- Package - the whole knowledge repository and software to use it
- Module - piece of knowledge on a topic, e.g. English Verb Formation or Exponentiation with Integer Exponents
  Module contains following properties:
  - Author(s) - anyone should be able to create a module
  - Author organization - some modules will be created by organizations
- Course - subject, e.g. Mathematics, Physics, Arabic language
- Degree - collection of modules. Different degrees will be approved/accepted by different organizations and countries.

PROPERTIES Education Package should have:

- free, equal
   - all people should have equally full access without exceptions
- open
   - package content should be fully public
   - processes which lead to knowledge collection and organization should be fully public
   - software, both package and tools, should be open source
   - all people should be able to contribute
- universally accessible
   - translated to as many languages as possible
   - electronic format should be the main one, but should be easily printable for people without electronic devices
   - should support as many electronic devices as possible
   - should have support for people with disabilities
- simple
  - software should be very simple to use for students of all ages
  - software should allow to simply create own educational modules
  - should be optimized for self-learning since having teachers increase price of education,
    of course teachers will help largely in the system, but they should not be required
- standardized, organized, modular
   - people should be able to personalize their education by choosing parts they are interested in
   - people should have a more clear sense of what parts of world's knowledge they covered and what parts are left
   - modules can be made by anyone (see property 'open') but should follow the same predefined style and organization
   - there should be a system to rate usefulness of a module including normal votes and experts votes and commentary
   - modules can be organized in subpackages as small more precise degrees, different countries and organization can approve different subpackages

PROCESS.

- Student downloads the package or uses latest online version
- Student with possible guidedance of parents and teachers decides what courses to take and what degree(s) aim for.
- Student starts learning.
- Student will have an option to take big supervised (but still possibly online) examination after different levels similarly to annual school exams.
- Supervised exam result will be reflected in person's exam history in the online repository, employers could request from students (alumni) to review the results.

ACTION ITEMS

- Gather feedback (your feedback) to finalize the proposal
- Create a team to found an organization
- Find supporters and sponsors
  Possible candidates: Wikimedia Foundation, UNESCO, MIT, Google, 1 Goal
- Create a committee/panel of experts to define standards
- Design software, standard and system
- Implement, release and iterate



ADD YOUR FEEDBACK IN PLACE - [HERE]. THANKS!

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