Getting that online tutoring

One of the things that this internet stuff might really change is a shake up of how the whole K-12 education business works. At the moment we're still doing everything in a very 19th century manner: everyone goes to the big education factories every day. Then someone stands up and talks at them: then they all go home again. It surely cannot be beyond the wit of man to design a better system which incorporates all of the new technologies?

There are colleges out there which have all of their lectures online for example: buy the textbook, do the tests and watch the lectures: OK, so you won't get a degree at the end but you will have learned.

And example of the sorts of things I'm talking about is this company that offers Math help. the basic concept is that there an awful lot of very good teachers in India: many more than there are in the US in fact. So why not communicate with them over the net and get that personalised, one on one algebra help which the American schools can't and don't offer? I mean, let's face it, algebra is one of those subjects where you really do need someone holding your hand while you try to unravel it.

They also offer fractions of course: and most other areas of math. You can get a certain amount of help for free and then can sign up to get much more by paying for it.

But back to the major point. Education used to be a very personalised thing, like almost all production was. Then we had mass education, as with mass production. We're now moving back to personalised production of most things: shouldn't we be using these new tools to be doing the same with education?