11 Nov
2004
11 Nov
'04
4:19 a.m.
"Ivica Ico Bukvic" <ico(a)fuse.net> wrote:
RTaylor
While I agree that a volume of knowledge regarding GNU/audio stuff is
already available online, for a newcomer it is too fragmented and
incoherent. Furthermore, even if a single unifying resource existed such as
That's the point of a "teaching" website. If it were set up as a knowledge
base it could give users very specific information regarding any specific subject. If
there were several that were linked it you could use them all to provide the user with
information according to their likes, dislikes, strengths, needs, etc...
> Michael T Nelson <m_nels(a)gmx.net> wrote:
In retrospect, I'd have been better off finding a
degree in Computer
Science with Music Technology. But they don't do that at York, which is:
I've always thought that Gnu {I suppose any organization with a
sufficiently large following and a decent reputation...} should do
something like this... all it would really require is a chartered tour of
several existent web pages, some test with which to judge yourself over
the course of a term and some sort of certification when the candidate
feels that they know enough to be qualified.
Teaching could be done by intelligent, interactive websites from a
knowledge base with a few simplish functions... administering tests,
meteing out the next parts of the lesson plan... maybe a bit of very
specific advice once in a while...
I can't think of a more comfortable way to go to school... you could
schedule stuff however you wanted, etc, etc... the one you suggested, due to ongoing development in
this field, it would
require a significant amount of work to keep it up-to-date (and imho
keeping-up a well-composed prose that could be used for studying something
that is constantly changing requires a lot more work than verbally
explaining them).
If the knowledge base were set up properly it could be updated by educators, developers,
etc, etc... it could likely be done through email... entered information would be
automatically incorporated into the scheme of things... all the person submitting
information would need to do would be fill in a form with various parameters like subject,
section, score, etc... You would need folk to verify and fine tune stuff.
Finally, not everyone is prone to learning just by
reading and they require
additional stimuli via lectures, assignments, and hands-on work.
Hands on and multimedia work is easily done... you could use text to speech or recorded
lectures, all of the multimedia capabilities of the web... tutorial packages could be
provided for "hands on" stuff and even graded and placed into a database of user
statistics... Employers could get access to a summery of user stats and hire accordingly.
Hence, I believe that relying only on the Web content
for the general
educational purposes would not carry very far. Sure, it would work for the
minority (esp. those who have mathematical/programming mind and are capable
of learning programming in a particular toolkit just by looking-up API's)
but for the broader population it would end-up being nothing more than a
reference.
I'm not just talking programmers. I'm talking everyone. It would be perfect for
folk stuck in dead end jobs or jobs they don't like... in their free time people could
study what they wanted and have it really mean something. All they'd need to do would
be flag their profile as available to be entered into the lists of people searched by
employers. It could be a much more accurate measure of someone's true worth as an
employee and a method by which folk could evaluate and improve themselves. Anyone could
use it.. people would no longer be stuck behind a retail store counter if they simply made
the effort to learn.
As far as Website content being able to offer you the
pace of learning that
fits your needs, this in practice never works as it is in human nature to
postpone that which is the least urgent. This would inadvertently lead to
non-systematic learning and therefore mixed results. School programs impose
assignments onto students for reasons other than grading, most importantly
to stimulate student to work hard in order to master the given material.
That's ultimately up to the student... I've met lots of morons with high level
degrees... and lots of really bright people that just didn't have the opportunity to
get past their circumstances. This would place folk according to their abilities not how
"close" they get to the professor.
This sort of thing might provide immediate and real rewards... There ain't no better
motivator.