During unity week here at RCHS, The Catamount has decided to write about things that involve unifying different cultures. For my article I’ve chosen to write about a rather interesting project called the School in the Cloud. The School in the Cloud is a project that is attempting to revolutionize how people learn information by using the technology we currently have today. The main idea behind this is that research has shown that when groups on children are given internet access and a question they want answered, they can really learn just about anything. Knowing this, the School in the Cloud has created Self-Organized Learning Enviroments (or SOLEs, because why say ten syllables when you could just say one), which is not specifically one place in the world. It’s actually more ANYWHERE THAT YOU HAVE INTERNET ACCESS. So roughly 40% of the planet.
Not only is this way of learning more in line with what technology allows us to do now, it also lets people from completely opposite sides of the world to be able to learn with each other (well, technically the exact opposite side of the world from the United States is the Indian Ocean, but you get the point.) A person in the USA can be in the same class learning just about the same thing as someone from India. This is really a great idea in my opinion.
The way that this works as much as I understand it is students will connect together with these SOLEs and “grannies” (basically adults who supervise the learning sessions over Skype) and work together trying to figure out the answer to a big question they were asked. I feel like this way of learning is a great idea. If there’s one thing the internet is good for (besides cat videos, funny videos, disturbing videos, and disturbingly funny cat videos) it’s finding information. There are several things that I’ve learned not from school or asking somebody who already knew, but from typing something in onGoogle. In fact, there’s even a website dedicated to telling people to look something up on Google when they need an answer. (Another thing the internet is good for is sarcasm.) This is just a way to use this as an actual form of learning. I really think this idea can work, and I wish this organization luck for the future.
I mentioned that any place in the world with internet connection can be a part of this. That’s about 40% of our planet. Maybe in the future we can expand that so that everybody can be connected. That would make us one step closer to cultural unity.
Not only is this way of learning more in line with what technology allows us to do now, it also lets people from completely opposite sides of the world to be able to learn with each other (well, technically the exact opposite side of the world from the United States is the Indian Ocean, but you get the point.) A person in the USA can be in the same class learning just about the same thing as someone from India. This is really a great idea in my opinion.
The way that this works as much as I understand it is students will connect together with these SOLEs and “grannies” (basically adults who supervise the learning sessions over Skype) and work together trying to figure out the answer to a big question they were asked. I feel like this way of learning is a great idea. If there’s one thing the internet is good for (besides cat videos, funny videos, disturbing videos, and disturbingly funny cat videos) it’s finding information. There are several things that I’ve learned not from school or asking somebody who already knew, but from typing something in onGoogle. In fact, there’s even a website dedicated to telling people to look something up on Google when they need an answer. (Another thing the internet is good for is sarcasm.) This is just a way to use this as an actual form of learning. I really think this idea can work, and I wish this organization luck for the future.
I mentioned that any place in the world with internet connection can be a part of this. That’s about 40% of our planet. Maybe in the future we can expand that so that everybody can be connected. That would make us one step closer to cultural unity.