Coetail

But both are missing the point: the global demand for learning and scholarship is not being met by the contemporary publishing industry. It cannot be, not with the current business models and the prices. The users of library.nu - these barbarians at the gate of the publishing industry and the university - are legion.

They are a global market engaged in what we in the elite institutions of the world are otherwise telling them to do all the time: educate yourself; become scholars and thinkers; read and think for yourselves; bring civilisation, development and modernity to your people.

Library.nu was making that learning possible where publishers have not

but unless you get buy in from your whole school community then you’re going to be up against it.

it is about getting the infrastructure in place

And this does not only mean things like wireless: it includes the intellectual, pedagogical infrastructure that brings with it an understanding of both the benefits and pitfalls of bringing these devices into the classroom

Their guidance counselor was their adviser, consulting with them when the group flagged in energy or encountered an obstacle. Though they sought advice from English, math and science teachers, they were responsible for monitoring one another’s work and giving one another feedback. There were no grades, but at the end of the semester, the students wrote evaluations of their classmates.

The students also designed their own curriculum, deciding to split their September-to-January term into two halves.

each of them focused on specific mathematical topics, from quadratic equations to the numbers behind poker

Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it.

An inevitable consequence of the knowledge explosion is that tasks will be carried out with far more collaboration.

New technologies will profoundly alter the way knowledge is conveyed.

The notion that the central problem in American education is lack of teacher motivation is ludicrous.