Why & How TDTYTIS Aims To Be The Other Side To Education

Posted: June 9th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Business, Education, Web/Tech | Tags: , , , , | 5 Comments »

There are really two reasons why I started TDTYTIS. One is quite well known and easy to understand: TDTYTIS aims to pass on knowledge between generations in an effective way. It’s about taking all the experiences of the adult generation, bundling them up into one minute videos, and making them accessible to young people worldwide so that they can get ahead faster.

But there is another reason. It’s a larger focus, that could play a major role in the progressing education sector.

I’ve written a lot about how I think services like Khan Academy are the future of education, and how I believe in the near future all education will be done online. Schools will simply be a place you go to get help with things you don’t understand. However, we have to remember that school also serve a different purpose entirely. They give a social, and an emotional education, that young people cannot easily gain elsewhere. It’s about interacting with different people, being exposed to different world views, and hearing different ideas and opinions. Currently there is no online service that could replace this aspect to a physical education.

But TDTYTIS aims to change that. If you think about it, a lot of the experiences and knowledge that the adult generation will be passing on actually covers a lot of the social and emotional education that young people need. It’s life lessons, ideas, opinions, regrets. All the things that young people need to be exposed to.

Over the long-term, we plan to develop TDTYTIS into a platform that allows people to record their own videos straight from the website. This will allow for a much greater quantity of videos to be created. Also included will be a voting feature, that allows the community to decide what the most interesting and useful videos are.

It is my hope that eventually young people will also upload videos with lessons they learn on a daily basis. Sharing information, ideas, and knowledge isn’t really a one-way thing. One of the key bits of feedback we’ve received since the launch of the initial TDTYTIS version is that adults are learning a lot from the videos too. That’s why we’re building out the website in stages, to make sure that each subsequent version is better suited to our users. We’ll just have to build out the feature in time, and see if young people actually take to recording videos.

Eventually I see TDTYTIS as “the other side to education”. Khan Academy, or whatever video education service goes fully mainstream, will provide the intellectual education. TDTYTIS will provide a part of the social and emotional education that young people need.

I’m super excited – in my opinion this is the kind of technology that helps to progress societies and make people’s lives better. But we’ll be listening to feedback from users and will see whether my hypothesis is correct!

  • Quentin Todd

    School is definitely a social learning centre. However, you are right about school will no longer be the centre of the universe. One thing that needs to change first is the curriculum towards a future centred curriculum not a past centred curriculum. There are definitely subjects that are no longer relevant and there are not enough “non-compulsory” subjects either. Meaning why compulsory classes for those who have no bent towards a certain subject – Physics comes to mind, and silly Maths (thats what I call those x+y=0 stuff- really, does it need to be said the sum x+y will only equal zero????? hello!). I heard the Rudolph Steiner School system is pretty neat. Perhaps that’s a model? 

    Internet advancement has challenged the status quo of schools. If we look also to Apple’s new software revealed Wednesday (iOS 5, iCloud, Lion) it shows just how advanced Operating Systems are now, and much of it will directly affect school soon I predict – if not already(?). 

    The central issues for me of schools and universities is the concept of meritocracy. If you gain units at schools who are passing by merits but I believe the future lies not in that kind of system because learning means an individual would be able to gain by choosing what they want to learn and prove their worth by challenging others rather tan showing a piece of paper with a whole bunch of grades A B C E- 2%, 89% etc. What does that do for you? Me? not much.

    Just a few thoughts

  • Stephen

    Here’s an interesting infographic I just found on Mashable.

    http://mashable.com/2011/06/11/online-education-infographic/

  • Bjhguerin

    I think the big question here is the reasoning behind our education system. Are schools about simply memorizing facts? Or is it the learning of vital skills such as research, analysis, critical thinking, and evaluation?

    If you view school as simply the vehicle for information transfer, then sure the internet offers an effective, accessible, viable alternative.

    If, however, you regard school as a springboard for developing the tools that will be used throughout life, then it becomes complicated. Effective communication and teamwork skills can only be learnt through actual trial and error, working on projects with a group of people. Now that’s just one example off the top of my head as I write this. I do feel that there is more behind school than just absorbing facts; the sort of things that can’t be taught (at least not yet or not effectively) over the internet.

    Interesting perspective though. I totally agree that there is more to “education” than what we learn at school. The question is what this is, and what is the best way of sharing it with the world. What we have for education at the moment is far from perfect, but its the best that we have.

  • http://mmoorejones.com Michael Moore-Jones

    There are some things that school does teach you which cannot be replicated through the Internet, yes. But in no way am I saying that people should stop going to physical schools – I don’t think that will happen for a long, long time. The role of schools will simply move to being a social place and a place where you can get help with things you don’t understand.

    I think the amount of time we spend at a physical school will be decreased, however. And with that comes less time to learn the social/emotional lessons that you may if you were spending every day.

    So I hope TDTYTIS is able to help people continue to be able to learn these things, plus much more. After all, high-profile leaders and thinkers don’t show up to school to share things they’ve learned!

    Thanks for commenting Ben :) Good to see your view!

  • http://mmoorejones.com Michael Moore-Jones

    Brilliant! Super interesting – thanks :)