Online education is gaining momentum and ground. Massively Online Open Courses are changing the way education happen. This links are worth exploring :
http://www.udacity.com/
https://www.edx.org/
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/distance-education/online-course-offerings
https://www.coursera.org/
You just need a broadband Internet to self learn.
Now one may argue that this approach may not suite laboratory based subjects etc.. But in my opinion those things can be taken care of and are not the hard challenges. One of the fundamental problem is we are no more getting excellent teachers in many places. Our alma mater is no exception. This courses comes from the best teachers whose credentials are beyond question.
Can we plan something to exploit this opportunity ? For example there are courses like “Listening to the world Music” or the “The history of Internet” . There is no pre-requisite to participate in those. We can do a seminar in school introducing such a course and then give the students a challenge of completing the course. Whoever completes the course and comes up with the accomplishment certificate and is able to give a seminar in front of a panel is eligible to receive an award from the alumni association as “best advanced learner for the session …… “. The judges can be existing / ex-teachers and folks from the association who too have to undergo the material of the course ( otherwise how can they judge ).
This small window may open a whole new world to the students who strive to learn and learn but don’t know the right way.
Thoughts ?
-debansu
