COURSERA: Technology + Education = Peaceful Revolution
On the hunt for a TED Talk for our next “Three Fork” session I came across Stanford Professor Daphne Koller sharing an online education platform set to change the world…
You must visit the page: https://www.coursera.org/ – so impressive! A massive network of FREE education from 16 of the world’s best universities.
- life-long education,
- development of critical thinking skills,
- encouraging and inspiring creative solutions to the world’s problems…
There are presently 116 courses, from Calculus to Social Network Analysis to Quantum Mechanics, Astronomy, History, Psychology and Photography.
This Introduction to Philosophy course looks interesting, starting in January 2013: https://www.coursera.org/course/introphil
At the moment there are 16 categories:
Computer Science: Programming & Software Engineering
Economics & Finance
Health and Society & Medical Ethics
Mathematics
Statistics, Data Analysis, and Scientific Computing
Business & Management
Computer Science: Systems, Security, Networking
Education
Humanities and Social Sciences
Medicine
Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Vision
Computer Science: Theory
Electrical and Materials Engineering
Information, Technology, and Design
Physical & Earth Sciences
While it’s exciting to see this platform it seems there are still many gaps:
1. getting technology (internet, computers/smart phones, etc) into the hands of people who lack access to the education
2. develop a much larger range of courses (language courses, writing courses, basic accounting, business, and others that would open the world market for all)… that will be most useful to those lacking education
3. increasing the interest, time availability and perceived value of these education services to those who might benefit from them
Barriers and pending challenges aside, it’s exciting to imagine how technology + education may lead to the evolution of a more peaceful and sustainable global society 
