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While I agree that Gates is an ass who only has the bottom line of Microsoft in mind, I am not sure that most education today is any better than just listening to lectures out of context and regurgitating rote memorization.

I'm not sure it's ever been much different.

True, there are some individual teachers who make a difference. As you say, a teacher has the choice to just give a kid the answer or help her find it herself. I was lucky to have a succession of "good" teachers early in my education.

I had plenty of profs in university who expected nothing less than regurgitation and a few who managed to engage the class (I took more classes with those profs, and ended up changing my major because of them).

So, while I don't think web content can completely replace a good education, a lot of it could be seen as supplementary to the *average* education.

— Cheryl
I think the web can be great for a motivated learner or a learner who already has the skills to derive content AND intent behind information. It's the skills and context that teachers should be providing.

And you're right that you will occasionally run into an educator that has no desire to go beyond information transfer, but the social aspect of a classroom can often be used in that case to assist learning. Even if the instructor may not be instrumental in a student's learning, I would maintain that the school still is.

The web archetype is no different that the archetype of a textbook, and while the format of the archetype is antiquated, still workable, but not on its own... and I know I'm rambling more of the same from the podcast... :)

Thanks for listening!

— anthony marco
I agree that one has to have skills to actually glean the information otherwise you get bibliographies that say "Google" -- that was actually listed as the lone "source" for a science fair project that made it to the regional competition a couple of years ago. I wept.

Frankly, the biggest benefit of school is not the facts or lessons but all the social learning that you absolutely cannot get from the web.

Unless of course you want to grow up to be a troll.

— Cheryl