[TriLUG] OT: PT One tech issue from tonight's debate

[Steve Litt]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2012 14:06:28 -0400, P L Charles Fischer said:

> If we lower the cost of STEM education and align it with the skills 
> needed we should be able to get more people into STEM. If the current 
> employment picture needs C# programmers (god help us), schools need
> to be turning out good C# programmers and not compiler writers. 

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. Imagine a United States where
employers dropped the requirement for a college degree, enabling
prospective employees to get educated at college, or via Khan Acadamy,
or CodeSchool.Com, or via actual work, or other alternatives, or via a
combination of these. Let's use Khan Academy as an example. You can
learn Calculus. You can learn Physics. You can learn C#. Khan Academy
is lightning quick at responding to new trends in the tech marketplace.
It's priced reasonably. Free, in fact.

This way, an eighteen year old slum dweller can become a twenty year
old professional Python developer. Better for American citizens, better
for corporations, better for America.

Of course, most people can't learn from resources like Khan Academy
alone. That's why we could form learning co-ops, to help people get
past the rough patches in their independent studies. It's obvious why
those seeking knowledge would join these co-ops, but why would already
knowledgeable people join them? Because we all know that when you
teach, you learn things beyond what you could learn just by doing. Your
understanding digs deeper, and you see the bigger picture. In fact,
when you think about it, TriLUG is just such a learning co-op.

Thanks

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
                          *  http://twitter.com/stevelitt
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance