Networks in Education

A few months ago I was thinking about ways in which social networks fit into education. At University (I obtained a Bachelor of Science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania) I used two intra-school networks: Blackboard and the Wharton proprietary Webcafe. Both are quite good, you can upload files, manage folders and e-classrooms, etc. Both nevertheless are pretty encapsulated – when you have an online discussion its only 30-50 people that participate. What if we had an open e-classroom?

Today I read about uProdigy and was reminded of my musings. uProdigy basically serves as an intermediary between offshore tutors and students in need of tutoring. They filter MA and PHD tutoring candidates and mediate the interaction between tutor and pupil.

I think this concept is fine, but it is time and labor intensive given that uProdigy has to evaluate candidates, test them, and supervise them. The result is probably a superior tutor base but, like I said, it comes at a cost.

My experience from University was that much of the learning comes from interaction you have with your own peers. After all, you spend much more time with them than with professors. Peers are a great source of knowledge; if you get a good study group together much learning can be done.

Taking this thought a little further – what if you could have a website, where you could upload your homework, and then people (friends or strangers) could come over and read your work, make changes directly on the website and send you a tracked version? People would appreciate the help, no? What if you could then rate the proofs that different people provide? What if this could lead to the creation of dialogues between students studying the same subject but on different sides of the country?

I think this would be a fantastic resource to have, especially while at University but also in High School. It would not be the same thing as a one-on-one online tutor, but with sufficient users it would still be able to provide assistance 24-7.