Tim O’Reilly Interview on Education and Web2.0
2 Comments Published May 5th, 2007 in Education, Web 2.0This interview is full of great, thought provoking stuff. You’ll need to listen yourself, but I particularly liked his response to a question about spending on technology in education. He says something like “spending on educational technology is a bad idea [with some exceptions]… if there’s one thing you could to do to make better experiences in education it’s smaller class sizes - more interaction with passionate adults who have time and ability to focus on kids.”
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This is, essentially, why I’m so persistent about free software and cheap, reliable hardware. If I had a million bucks to spend on a school, I certainly wouldn’t spend it all on “technology.” Maybe a quarter or a third, and it had better keep running without constant hand-holding.
Spot on Tom! Public bodies in the UK seem to place huge emphasis on the notion of “value for money”, and yet are willing to countenance massive expenditure on proprietary software for which excellent Open Source alternatives exist. Crazy.