Internet's Power To Educate

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Click to play audio podcast

Length: 1:45 minutes (1.61 MB)
Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

August 10, 2009

Interview with Curtis J. Bonk, author of The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education

Mike Carruthers:
As the Internet continues to evolve it's becoming a very powerful tool for education. Or put another way…

Curtis J. Bonk:
Anyone can now learn anything from anyone at any time.

Curtis Bonk

Curtis Bonk, author of the book The World Is Open …

There are people learning language online on LiveMocha.com and ChinesePod.com and other places - millions of people. And these sites had nobody two or three years ago. Last week I taught a webinar to China, to South China Normal University. When they wanted me to fly there, I said, "Hey, I don't have time." We have Arctic explorers and Antarctic explorers putting up their research on the web and kids asking them questions through their online blogs.

If you want to learn something someone is teaching it on the web. In fact you can now learn from teachers and professors at well-respected universities.

When you have Berkley and Stanford recording every lecture (and I didn't have the test scores to get into Stanford) I can learn from almost every professor now with their work on Itunes and Youtube (and there's now Youtube.edu) - you've got real possibilities.

People are actually attending online universities and getting degrees which brings up the question…

"Will the degrees be as respected?" is a continual question. But when Harvard and Stanford and Berkley and others join in the fray (and they have) to offer Master's degrees or certificates, you start getting branded names out there and people recognize it.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.