The gushing spigots of money poured into analog educational materials manufacture a scarcity that belies the reality of 21st century learning resources. Billions alloted into the printed walled gardens of textbooks and digital walled gardens of for-pay school resources deepen economic woes — to say nothing of dumbing down kids because open online resources are long tail instead of bell curve, and are more and better.
Teaching and learning should now, and inevitably* will, use the open internet instead. An individual’s mobile internet browser will become the primary access to knowledge for each student and teacher. We should be working to make this happen soon. “Shame on us” when we do not do so.
I grabbed the “shame on us” phrase from a post today by Carlo Longino at a leading mobile blog called MobHappy.com. As I read the post, I realized the phenomena being described are inevitably going to reshape education. This bit is key:
The idea that “people will be more than willing to pay” is only correct in an environment of scarcity. But we’re past that point in the internet space, either wired or wireless. Any scarcity has to be contrived and manufactured, with things like walled gardens — which, of course, didn’t (and don’t) work.
Because education is “public” (socialism), the decisions about to paying are far removed from the minions spending the money. In this milieu, the scarcity myth endures, muddled up in politics, special interests, and bureaucracy. Billions are spent on educational resources that are or easily could be globally available for free online. Abraham Lincoln observed that you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. How long will taxpayers be willing to pay?
*Even if the taxpayers don’t catch on, this change is inevitable because network laws rule. Now that learning resources are emergent online, it is only a matter of time before they break down the garden walls of learning resources. What broke the grip of the music industry and is now going on with main stream media will happen soon to educational materials. It has already begun.
