This will seem kind of short compared to my last post, but I guess I just don’t have as much to say. I watched Michael Wesch’s speech (here and here), and though it was long, it was definitely worth my time. Every minute was fascinating, thought-provoking, and spot-on. He brings up an excellent point about modern education: it’s aimed to make people knowledgeable, but that’s no longer what really matters. Knowledge – that is, information – is everywhere now, and what’s important is not obtaining it, but learning how to filter it. Wesch brings up some excellent points about the implications this has for today’s learning environment.

The problem, of course, is that professors used to be the ultimate authority over knowledge, and obviously that’s how they would want this to stay; they don’t want to admit that information is everywhere. Plenty of people in academia loathe tools like Wikipedia, despite the fact that I’ve probably learned more there than I have in any of my classes, and possibly in all of my classes combined. So progress will probably be slow in changing the goal of education, but I have faith that eventually the right thing will be done, especially once the online generation starts taking control of the universities.

One minor point I think is odd is how much time students were said to waste in their classes going online. I have yet to attend a class where the professor allowed the use of laptops during lectures. Maybe it’s different at other colleges. Or maybe I just have yet to be in those classes.