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  • you go there and argue with SOPA !

  • I like this video

  • I hate you Rechard, our english teacher wants us to write an essay about this video, I am really facing hard time now in getting ideas ):

  • Lol you don't get it... Art is worth something. it would never do to have people produce something and not get paid for it. it takes work. it takes talent. why should the people who have what it takes to make these things not make money??

  • Download textbooks 100% FREE @ LibraryPirate.me

  • To me the way forward is for children to learn by creating their own text books or on-line resources. Plenty of open resources on-line to do so and free publishing to a professional standard with eg Lulu.com.

  • It's another Wikipedia

  • I didn't know that Kevin Spacey was also an innovator in the field of education.

  • And then there was wikipedia

  • even my dog in our days has to be a star in front of a camera - amazing phenomenon

    This idiot is actually being paid by some university to teach people? :)))

  • @LohengrinT So you're against what he's saying? You'd rather pay $100 for a text book that gets updated every few years rather than get it for free online and can be updated as soon as the publisher gets the info together so it's more updated and accurate? I'm glad you have money to afford $400+ in text books every semester. And imagine how much money schools will save. Maybe they could use that to NOT fire most of the teachers due to budget constraints. This guy is not the idiot...

  • Realised I replied to myself. Facepalm.

  • amazing lecture and idea. i can see this becoming very big, especially since obama passed the TAACCCT grant.

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  • Good information.

  • A comprehensive and exciting talk! Open-source learning is education's future.

  • Some interesting or potentially useful concepts, some not nearly so much. But, ideas, thought and concepts are just that. Take what is useful, discard the rest.

  • What is the authenticity of content created by community authored books? Doesn't seem sustainable. Wikipedia has much information which is inaccurate and keeps changing.

  • @MarioBMenezes You should read "The Hive" by Marshall Poe. Google it.

  • Regarding a vast digital deposit of books in which anybody could come in and "improve" a book, and author?

    Gee, That is simply outrageous, there are people who simply are the brightest in certain areas and can not be improved upon. Imagine trying to improve on Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Lincoln's Gettysburgh address?

    There are certain things that are attainable but the ideas of this buy, being a genius in his field makes me laugh.

  • @MsGnorts I somewhat agree. His idea sounds nice, but is very impractical. Many people would probably stop making books, because if they're all free, that's no money to them. No incentive. Shakespeare did make mistakes, as everyone else did. No one is perfect. Still though, it would be tough to live in a system where versions of books come out in a matter of seconds. There could be disagreements, and versions would branch out.

  • @JimmaWetcha There could be two versions of a book with good unique info, but no one to recognize this and bring the two together in a way. The world already has things similar to which this guy mentions: Open source software, wikipedia, and P2P.

  • @JimmaWetcha

    Yes, you are right.

    

  • @JimmaWetcha But some ppl who just have a love for education and a passion for teaching & sharing knowledge will gladly share their knowledge for free. Others of course do it for profit.

  • @paisleyyama Those people already share their knowledge for free.

  • Lennon, Bob Dylan would laugh about the first comments because that's exactly what they did: Mis different ideas and create brand new musical ideas without digits...

    The Beatles incorporated into their musical instruments the sitar, an oriental instrument. Today we just have wanna-be's songwriters in their majority specially in the mainstream insdustrialised musical scene.

  • He sounds a bit like Kermit

  • blah blah blah == wikipedia

  • I love this!

  • Effing brilliant! Real education for anyone, of any means, anywhere!

  • Just like with music, not every change is an improvement.There is a lot to be said for editting and tiered access to who can speak.

  • Connexions is amazing! There is ton of development going on and it really is exciting. epub format export coming soon!

  • 3:08 to 4:10 : it's already been invented. It's called Wikipedia, Google, and the Internet.

  • @linkfan22 all this dont work at all its just a bunch of shit,i need serious open sourse shit

  • @leparditas What the hell are you talking about? Speak english!!!

  • @linkfan22 i was drunk.:D im just saying that you cant found information you need.google gives you list of shit and sometimes you have spend an hours in order to get what you realy need...

  • this already exists, its called wikipedia, and its bad because people write false stuff on it, teachers wont let you write essays with it, since its not a 'repuidble source' due to the false things that anyone can write, as u can see it didnt work out in the end due to all the jackass's out there in the world :(

  • @jackster1990

    Wiki's integrity's actually fairly robust. People who lie on it are edited out within the hour at times or sooner.

  • This is inspiring. The problem is many (most?) people don't value education and education in the US is constantly having funding cut. I'd like to believe that good ideas like those presented in this video could transform education. I find rather depressing the anti-intellectualism popular in the US. I wish there was more freely available information because I think people have been taught to hate education, but if given the opportunity I suspect most people would find they enjoy learning.

  • Just found this - awesome!

    Great work in progress and shows that there is hope for better education worldwide and how much the Internet is and will impact it.

    I especially appreciate the concepts described about the relative significance of serious educational resources versus entertainment ones. The former seems to almost be a right of humankind to share fundamental knowledge, like partial differential equations. Music & entertainment must still cost... for a while!

  • All the comments about wikipedia similarities... a big difference between connexions (Rich's idea, just check out the website) and wikipedia is that connexions requires the author's name and references must be appropriately credited to authors. Who made a widipedia update? who knows, but it's clear w/ connexions.

    So if you don't like an author, avoid them; which you can't do in wikipedia (besides the point that encyclopedias are hardly enough of a foundation to teach from).

  • he seems to be describing wikipedia O.o

  • There's nothing that needs to be converted for blind students, just put everything online, go to (for Macs) "system preferences" then "universal access" and a digital voice will speak all the text on the screen. Any book can be scanned to Word text by the new premium Adobe program. No more trees have to die, no more students have to starve, no more peasants have to remain ignorant, and no more disabled have to remain patient. Also, we should get human translators for the deaf and blind.

  • The digital textbook revolution must support all people, especially those with disabilities. Bookshare just rec'd $100K supplemental funding to convert 16 math and science textbooks for students in California.

  • This guy hasn't heard of Wikipedia. It is exactly what he is describing.

    This video is only 2-3 years old.

  • @schnappy00 he isn;t referring to just a internet encyclopedia

  • this isnt all shiny work as you all may think. first this guy is clearly political and he s doing it for a bigger agenda.

  • @analyst2004 Clearly? how so?

    Bigger agenda???? And that's what, exactly?

  • @analyst2004 Which bigger agenda?

  • @malicea4thought i cant remember what i was thinking at the time.. im too busy these days but if i remember i will let you all know

  • Ah, the beautiful connection of all the dots.  Nice.

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  • This video is great. I'm trying to apply this technology in my community. Richie you'll be a prof of a unique kind. Keep the spirit of open-source movement on.

  • Cool, I like it. I'm signing up for this thing.

  • but.. what he is looking for is right here... the internet.

  • we should in my opinion try and work toward a more free internet, in all ways. For example all books etc should be free for viewers, on the net.

  • @mickehill So authors should not be rewarded for their work?

    Are you willing to work for free? I'm certainly not.

  • @malicea4thought well, yes, I'm not willing to work for free. But if u mean free monetary wise, then yes. I am more than willing to work for free to educate and help people. Now, if your understanding of this is that by not being rewarded with money, one does not gain anything worth gaining, then lets stop there. =)

  • @mickehill If I may rephrase what @malicea4thought asked: Would you say that money holds no motivation for you? Could it ever make you work harder?

    Most people will choose to do good if they can. But it's easily demonstrated that good feeling + money gets more work than feeling alone. It may not always be necessary to produce good results but the use of quantifiable rewards encourages quantifiable effort.

    Hopefully my point is clear. But I'm not getting paid, so I only proofed it once. :)

  • @notme222 I agree, but I hope u see my underlying thought that I wish we could have other "quantifiable rewards" than rewards that produce inequality, segregation injustice and a never-ending race and competition. But I guess that is another discussion perhaps. :P

  • @mickehill Wouldn't any "quantifiable reward" inevitably "produce inequality"?

  • @mickehill That would be great, but then how would writer's earn a living? What incentive would their be to write?

  • @TheAgavi What do you mean? Are you saying the only incentive is the possibility of making money on it? :P I love writing, but I don't love writing because I want to make money.

  • @mickehill @TheAgavi I love to write too and I don't make any money from it, but the world's leading writer's do, like a couple of my favourites; Stephen King, Matthew Reilly or Bryce Courtenay. These people can afford to spend all their time writing because the financial reward is so great as to not need to work also, therefore producing a well thought out, higher quality product, produced in their own time.

  • @TheAgavi haha nice one.

    At the same time in some very poor places, some people might get the opportunity to see the wonderfully written words of Stephen King, through an internet connection. ^^

  • @TheAgavi I love to write too and I don't make any money from it, but the world's leading writer's do, like a couple of my favourites; Stephen King, Matthew Reilly or Bryce Courtenay. These people can afford to spend all their time writing because the financial reward is so great as to not need to work also, therefore producing a well thought out, higher quality product, produced in their own time.

  • @mickehill How would the publishures make any money then tho? without profit no one will want to write.

  • @mickehill Or type in this case.

  • @mickehill People write because they're paid though, if there's no money in it, who would do it?

  • @mickehill People write because they're paid though, if there's no money in it, who would do it?

  • @EigoKikitori if nobody got paid for writing books, then we would just get rid of the shitty books. =)

  • @mickehill ARE YOU CRAZY??? Can you IMAGINE is J.K. Rowling's book's (Harry Potter) was FREE. SHE SPENT SEVENTEEN YEARS WRITING THOSE BOOKs!!!!! SEVENTEEN YEARS!! ARE YOU OUT OF YOU MIND??? Books are inventions, and the inventors desesrve to be rewarded for their inventions. Should the creators of movies not get paid for their work??? Should artists not get paid for their books??? ARE YOU CRAZY???

  • @DamionCrane Well, I don't think I am crazy, but I can see how people might think my views are crazy, allthough I am a little shocked when people are stunned, because I really don't see how it is crazy, but I guess not all people are very visionary, all brave new ideas might seem crazy at first.

  • @mickehill Now, friend, we are on the same page. Books that children need to haul to school every day should not need to be paid for by their parents. I live in the Caribbean, in a country called trinidad and tobago, and i can only speak for my country, not for America.

  • I believe that the state should be obligated to pay for its own education (the education of its children) with its own money (taxpayer's money) but this should be done only for books that need to taken to school every day, or read from in order to pass an exam. I'm not saying that its writers should not get paid, but that the state should be the ones to pay them, not the students. As for PLEASURE reading... well... obiously one would have to pay for that themselves.

  • I am an aspiring writer, you see, and a fan of King, Rowling, Zusak, Chopra and others. The mere thought of writers having to work for free scares me. I hope that you will escuse my vehemence on the subject

  • @DamionCrane

    If you're a fan of King you should actually look up Dean Koontz considering this is where he got most of his inspiration from.

  • @DamionCrane I think you are missing the point. I hope to clarify. First, have you had to pay for a college textbook in the past two years? If so, you would immediadely recall the COST of the 188 page paperback that will be useless in 6 months because McGraw Hill will publish a new edition of the same worthless crap that our schools are obligated to make required reading. Why aren't we training our children to use the internet...since the whole working world revolves around it?

  • ehh, this already exists, Rice University. Wikipedia? Millions of instantaneous authors, citing sources, a review board... all you have to do is combine your publishing, development, and presentation programming with their existing, vast databases, making it more accessible and understandable. Duh. How old is this anyway?

  • Nah, this goes far beyond wikipedia. As cool as wiki is, it's still basically just an encyclopedia. He's talking about the next stage; adding applets, interactive stuff, and he seems keen on somewhat more rigorous quality control.

  • Yes boomtao, we understand the differences between a amature and a professional. A professional does what he/she does regardless of financial gain, a amatuar thinks about the contents of his bank acount before he thinks of why he chose to do what he does in the first place.

  • I don't agree. A professional musician loves music, of course! That love is so strong, he has no choice but to become a musician. It is a calling! Will he stop making music if he cannot survive doing it? Many will, since it is very frustrating to make music on a lesser level. And the level will drop once you have to do some other job. They loose their chops, so to speak - and they love music too much to bear it! Some will not stop making music, but still their 'chops' will suffer!

  • The Future is gonna be so cool!

  • Great lecture. Great lecturer. Highly motivational!

  • Copyrights and royalties are extremely important but are rapitly vanishing! It will be a great loss to menkind. Think of a great composer, or writer who dedicated his life, intellectual powers and talents to deepen and cultivate his abilities and in doing so enriching the world - without royalties and copyrights this will end!!! Music, like the music you enjoy so much (and download for free!) will no longer be produced. It will stop and the world will have to do with the work of amatures!

  • Then, imagine a great, talented mathematician of the past could copyrighting his ideas. Imagine Pythagoras doing this, or Euler. How many aspects of our life wouldnt even exist now? Almost everything...

    Knowledge and ideas MUST be open. They are not meant to be selled, they are MADE to be shared, and improved and to be shared again...

    ...the same goes for music. Music affects people so its natural for people to produce feedback.

  • There is a fundamental difference between idea's, knowledge and someone's product. Excactly because of the fact that music affects peoples lives it must be protected!

  • Commercialization made music a product. Music is someone's expressions using sounds. This expressions does not describe one persone, therefore they cannot defined as protected or personal. Today there is music with art ethics and without... the one without ethics is the commercialized one.

    If someone wants to consider himself a true artist then he must not sell his art.

    Thats capitalism's fault. Everything can be bought and selled...

  • How are musicians meant to earn a living? Are they to be paid for by the state then? Most mathematicians sell there theories in text books and get given grants by the goverment. Until musicians and other creative types are financed by the state then they HAVE to sell their art.

  • Musicians can earn a living playing live music / making concerts etc. Also their music can be free for non-commercial use and payed for any other type of use...

    Musicians also MUST promote/give away/sell their music through internet. Because they have less costs and so more income. I know when i buy an album for 18-20 Euro that only 3-5 goes to the artist himself. The rest are for publishers, cover artists, distribution costs etc.

    Give music to the masses...

  • I don't understand your argument about the 'less costs and so more income'.

    The fact that publishers and such take a large cut from the revenue (after all they do provide a service) does that mean the composer, or musician should therefore better not get anything at all?

  • boomtao- music is not a necessity. I think the author should usually feel pretty humbled and greatful that people are willing to listen or watch his 'creativite' things. I think loyalties should be valuntariy if anything. One sits on his bottom to make a music all day and some other works in a lab to come up with a new cure. Why should a musician be paid more? or a foodball player? This is totally messed up if you ask me.

  • "One sits on his bottom to make a music all day and some other works ...". The enormous amount of time, effort, money, dedication and energy that it requires to acquire the professional skills necessary to be able to write music for an orchestra is staggering! The amount of knowledge and craftsmanship are misunderstood by you! A PhD in music at least equals the same qualification in medicine. Music may, or may not be essential for life, neither is your TV, it has never the less tremendous value!

  • Look at how many amateurs are contributing to Wikipedia. They don't have to be well-trained or get paid generously to do what they do, and the vast majority of Wikipedia writers will write in professional-level quality.

  • Unfortunately that comparison doesn't apply to making music. Making music (either as a performer or composer) is like top-sport.

  • @reddaygr Pythagoras did hold a strict rule of secrecy, it wasn't until he was long long dead that his followers dared to oppose him...

  • @reddaygr Isn't this what Kevin Flyyn from Tron thinks?

  • boomtao are you saying that if it wasn't for the money nobody would produce anything? Why making a movie or a song should bring someone millions in revenew,but the hard non intelectual work of the most should only pay the minimum wage? It's pretty rediculus if you ask me

  • I am certainly not saying that nobody would produce anything anymore. But nobody would be doing it professionally! That will be a loss to the world. Everybody understands the difference between the work of an amature and a professional, right? Everybody seems to think all professional musicians are cashing in, I have no idea where you get that idea from.

  • Jamendo artists sound professional and creative to me... some times even more than commercial artists.

  • Look at how popular Bach is. Was he this popular in his lifetime? No! He didn't make much money, and when he died his wife was left behind with nothing. We appreciate Bach's music because he was a great musician, not because he cared about the posthumous royalties that he would never be able to see.

  • Bach was pretty well known in his time and he was very well off. He was paid by the royal court for his work as a composer (and conductor/ performer). He was indeed a great musician and all he did was making music, he dedicated his life to it. This kind of dedication that will not be possible if royalties disappear.

  • Mkay?

  • 4:20

    8:50

  • i think they may already have this. Wiki is my hero.

  • Wikipedia. I read it everyday.

  • this is wikipedia to the tenth power

  • If everyone could have an input then there would be no accountability for the information you read.....if i'm reading up a health book i want one written by a physician, not by some garnd mother and her years of experience with sick kids hahah.....this is a nice pipe dream, but not pragmatic.

  • The nice pipe dream has quality controls

  • The first sentence in your post doesn't make any sense. Having a certain credential, such as MD, is obviously great for marketing purposes, but in the end, it's the stuff that counts, not the title the author/knowledge-deliverer holds. There is a vast ocean out there, of physicians who know very little about health.

    Pipe dream? I would say it's just a different way of looking at knowledge and the ways it can spread. Knowledge being much more than the accumulation of facts.

  • My claim that there needs to be credentials doesn't imply that everyone with that credential is going to be the best in their field....however, there is a reason why people go to school and spend years on learning a subject. If you are going to talk about specialized fields you need to have sufficient knowledge that only years of education and training can provide....

  • ...i rather take medical advice from a mediocre doctor (M.D) than from someone like you whom i'm assuming is not a physician....no need to take offense to that, i'm sure you're more knowledgeable in other areas than a physician and that's precisely the point....everyone should stick to what they know.....this idea is like wikipedia....

  • i didn't say medical advice, but 'health'. nor did i imply my personal expertise in any way, but besides the point.

  • you have no idea how much shit is going in hospitals. Remeber one thing Todays doctors and dentist are no better than car sellsmen (there are exceptions but!) Health care is a product for sell in this country whether you like it or not. So is the big pharma. They don't produce to cure. They produce to keep people sick and needing. That s how they make their big bucks. Wake up!

  • ...no self-respecting university will ever accept wikipedia as a source....they won't even accept web MD and that's monitored....if you're going to source something it better be from someone who knows what they're talking about and isn't hiding behind a computer screen...this idea will never take off.....at least not at the academic level.

  • guyincognito84 perhaps you right, but don't you think that there is something terribly wrong with the education system in this country? The secret thruth is that they want to make the bottom line. Sure they are intrsted in science and progress but they are not really intrested in educating.

  • his lisp is bothering me

    it sounds like he has hair in his mouth lol

  • He didn't forget about Wikipedia. He specifically list it on the slide at 17:48 into the presentation along with Bloggers when asking the question "Who is the authority when it comes to peer review of information".. His next slide also gives credit for "inspiration" to Flickr and Delicious as original examples of social software "lenses". I view Wikipedia as a repository of knowledge like an encyclopedia. That doesn't mean it's a great tool for instruction. That "lens" may be Connexions...

  • Wikipedia?

  • lol he forgot maybe

  • right , ok

  • anything that can chip away at the college industrial complex is fine by me.

  • Lol. I didn't know Peter Parker was also invited! Shouldn't he be busy saving Mary Jane? Let me search for Batman, he must be here somewhere too.

  • Not a good idea. They SHOULD digitize text books, but they need to be more reliable than a wikipedia-like resource.

  • wikipedia? isn't that basically what that is?

  • This is the first TED talk I've disliked (of about 30 I've seen). Music can't be wrong. Textbooks can. North American schools are failing because they refuse to stream. "No Child Left Behind" means that they dumb down the curriculum so much that half of the students down learn anything, and everyone ends up ignorant.

  • Admittedly, the lens idea of peer review seems pretty good.

  • When should people learn to think critically about the information they receive? Perhaps the problem with education is that it causes people to blindly trust information from authorities. Perhaps questioning whether what you think is correct is a useful skill for a lifetime.

  • reading some of the comments below, those text books were a complete waste of money. anyone else notice they read less and watch more youtube thanks to broadband? TV what's that? if i need news it's online again. open learning.

  • Sorry to break it you, guy. But this already exists. They're called e-books and available for free via BitTorrents.

  • by the way, if there is ONE industry he should be trying to put an end to, why the hell would he choose the textbook industry? Also, does he have any idea how susceptible "open-source" websites are to vandalism/misinformation?

    Even Wikipedia has had to make significant compromises to atone for the problems that come with a website being "open-sourced", and last I heard Wikipedia is in dire need of a large amount of money in order to continue operating.

  • i bet the textbook publishing corporations are going to put a hit out on this guy =O

  • 'be nice if they'd say somewhere on this page what exactly TED stands for, other than 'ideas worth spreading'.

  • TED = Technology, Entertainment, Design

  • who's this "mckay" fella then eh?

  • this guy, right?, is the worst, right?, public, right?, thpeaker, right?, ever, right?

  • nah ur just a lame cunt "thpeaker" haha

  • Blobadelics,

    Everytime a joke goes over an idiots head, an angel gets their wings. Merry Christmas.

  • lying to urself again

  • You're just making fun of him. If that's meant to be a joke then it's not funny. It's just mean.

  • Cosmo,

    He is a TERRIBLE speaker, I wouldn't make fun of him if he were teaching high school students, but he is at TED. I expect a higher standard from TED.

  • Wikipedia?

  • They've go a textbook initiative, though it doesn't seem to have really taken off yet.

  • I remember one of my chemistry professors who authored our text book explaining to us how the publishing companies required him to create a new text book every few years. The common practice (and what he would do) would be to move content/chapters around in the book (the chemistry itself of course did change). The reselling of used text books cuts into the publishing companys margins. This is the method they use to force books to become obsolete.

  • Who's gonna take that pay cut? Or a better question is: Who's gonna dictate who's gonna take the pay cut?

    Its a great idea that works perfectly in theory. As soon as it is implemented into reality it is flawed and unsustainable.

    Who thinks that office politics and social hierarchy will not have any bearing on a co-worker who has a "paid for" degree and one who got one of them new-fangled "free" ones?

    If I didn't know any better I would think that Snowball from Animal Farm was talking.

  • Greed, suspicion and envy will definitely slow the progress of this...but it won`t halt it.

  • This is a similar concept which twidox is working on

  • now this is something for me !!!

    This is what i like Ywah

  • Finland the best education in the world!

    whole education from start to the academic level totaly free for eeeeveryone :)

    bad side prolly is that finnish is a bit hard to learn :)

  • It's paid for by threat of murder.

    You forgot that part.

  • ^The Broken Window Theory of Economics

  • Just cannot beleive i got so many negatives for speaking little truth. Seems like we are living in jungle.....

  • You've got negatives because you were speaking big none sense not little truth.

  • Beg to disagree, some people cannot take truth......

  • Cannot accept anything contrary to their pipe dream

  • a1onlinecourses(.)com

  • America claims to be the richest country,However many are economically exploited,oppressed,disadvanta­ged,and simply don't have a chance to persue their college education in this evil system.

  • Some universities are making available advanced lecture series online under creative commons. You only need one instance of a course to be available for free. Information we learn we share. The system is in the process of changeling itself. The most openly shared information is the most free to grow,be learned copied and emulated and finally built upon. I woke and found I wasn't dreaming. I looked and found a lecture series from college online of advanced courses for me at my pleasure to view.

  • "Many are..." Yeah? How many? And even if I were to agree with your Bolshevik definition of exploitation, to which other country would you point as an ideal?

    Strange that this terrible country is the well-spring of virtually all open-source education right now. Bourgeois Oppressors!

    History, worldwide political trends, and mass human migration made the ruling on your worldview a long time ago. Learn. Grow. Evolve.

  • America is too capitalistic,greedy,and economic controlling to offer free college education to the masses,Beside who will be left to do the dirty work that most people rather not do.