Tailor designed

I would like to know about how government works. I use one of many search engines.  I can get overviews of my own government or the government of others.  Actually now, there are many YouTube explanations, complete with graphs, of varying lengths to fit the amount of time I have available and mood I am in.  So, I click on the ones I want, or all of them, put them on a playlist, set a time for being finished with them, and presto... I know about government.

And that is just one way.  Maybe I want to study modern film or television.  I can use a cable or satellite service and get on-demand movies of television series, documentaries, etc.  I can go to a website such as Hulu and see what is free or see what is subscription and see the variety of film and television series that I need for my study.

And that's just one way.  Maybe I want a foreign language.  Many courses are available for free off the internet, like Coffee House Spanish, and off of YouTube with native speakers.  But maybe I want to follow a Spanish blog or belong to a small group of people learning with one native speaker.  I can join the group.  I have a friend who is learning Greek with a small group. It is a group of 5.  None of the five lives in the same country and my friend lives in Nigeria.  What an authentic way to learn.  Virtual immersion.

And that's just one way.  I can learn labs for science a variety of ways.  The internet has many experiments to try.  However, one really neat method is to go to sites like Second Life, visit a virtual school or world that has been built for science, and see actual exhibits or 3D graphic designs of many different kinds of physics, chemistry, astonomy labs.  It works much the same way as a video game where you have a character and visit certain "rooms," learning what is available in each room as you go.

And that is just one way.  I can hear stories from audio.com and many other sites.  I can virtually learn anything I want to learn.  I can also learn things not in the so-called "academic core."  I can learn anything I want about fixing engines or doing body work on a car using schematics or watching people perform a task while they are explaining it.  I can visit any virtual gallery, such as fotosearch.com, and see thousands of actual pictures of any geographical feature in the world, visit every major city, even play games helping me to familiarize myself with  a particular region of the world.  I can study about alien visitation to the earth or walk on Mars alongside the rover Curiosity.  I can learn about dinosaurs, fossils, and extinction.  I can learn about genetics, farming, truck driving, information technology, electronics, plumbing, air conditioning.  I can learn anything, anywhere, anytime.  I can learn when I am ready to learn, when I am the most alert.  I can design my own course of study.

Even at the university level, there are 3 online universities that offer online courses taught by bonafide professors, some of them famous in their fields, in which you can piece together your own courses for your own reasons.  All you need is a particular number of courses.  You can choose the courses you want whether or not they fit some predetermined package of courses.  You may want courses only in a certain field, you may want interdiscplinary courses on a subject.  You may want courses out of your field.  Or you may want to follow one of the pre-designed packages offered.  It's up to you.

I can get so much more and get it in a tailor-designed fashion.  And this is not a vision of the future.  It's education available now.  Why would I want to go to a school, when I can avoid the crowds, the bullying, the indifference of a teacher, or incompetence on occasion, the constant moving from one part of a building to another, the drive to a building not close to my house, and the social games that are associated with present day schooling?   Why would I?