網絡教育的變革與反思範例

I met Pooja Sankar two years ago after she founded Piazza, a collaboration platform that facilitates class discussion among students and teachers. Starting with a few students at Stanford, Piazza now is used at top universities such as Stanford and Princeton and MIT and in 25 countries around the world. With $7.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Bessemer Ventures, Sankar, 32, aspires to play a key role in the transformation of education. But before other entrepreneurs get too revolutionary in this field, she thinks we need to reassess technology's role in education. Following an epiphany at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sankar shares her view in this Guest Post.
兩年前，我見過普加·桑卡爾，當時她已創立了促進師生間課堂討論的協作平臺Piazza。起初，這個平臺只是在斯坦福大學（Stanford）的一些學生中使用。如今，Piazza已被斯坦福大學、普林斯頓大學（Princeton）以及麻省理工學院（MIT）等頂尖大學所採用，並在全球25個國家得到應用。獲得紅杉資本（Sequoia Capital）和貝西默風投（Bessemer Ventures）的750萬美元融資後，32歲的桑卡爾希望能在教育改革中大展拳腳。但在其他企業家涉足這一極具變革性的領域之前，她認爲我們需要重新審視技術在教育中發揮的作用。根據對達沃斯世界經濟論壇（the World Economic Forum）的感悟，桑卡爾在本期客座文章中分享了她的觀點。

As the founder and CEO of Piazza, I'm used to cheerleading for technology in higher education. But in the midst of an almost utopian optimism about online education that I witnessed in Davos, I found myself playing an unaccustomed role: gadfly.
作爲Piazza的創始人兼首席執行官，我習慣於爲高等教育中出現的技術搖旗吶喊。在達沃斯目睹了大家對網絡教育近乎烏托邦式的樂觀後，我發現自已要扮演一個很不習慣的角色：牛虻。

And since returning from Davos, I've distilled my heresies to this: Education is a personal journey, and right now we're offering students an online jumble.
從達沃斯回來後，我一直在醞釀着自己對這個領域的異端邪說：教育是一段個人旅程，而現在我們爲學生提供的網絡內容卻雜亂無章。

I rode into Davos on a spouse's pass, and I'm not to the manner born. I came of age in interior India, where for seven years I didn't talk to a single boy outside my family. Many girls in my town were married off by their parents at 16, some of them barely literate. The reason I got out? My father, an educated man, demanded that I study. He painted a picture of a life that was different from the one I could see just beyond the wall that separated our home from the street. Without that guidance, I would never have gone to IIT, Indian Institute of Technology.
我在得到丈夫的允許後纔來到達沃斯，而且我也不是天生就適合這一行。我在印度長大成人，其間有七年時間我從未與家人之外的任何一個男孩子說過話。我們鎮上很多女孩子16歲就嫁人了，一些女孩子幾乎不怎麼識字。我爲什麼能擺脫這種生活呢？因爲，我父親受過教育，他要求我學習。他爲我描繪了一種我從未見過的生活，一種不困囿於高牆大院的生活。如果沒有他的指引，我就不可能到印度理工學院（Indian Institute of Technology）求學。

At a session in Davos, (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff and Sean Parker of Facebook (FB) and Napster fame hosted a roundtable focused on the question, "What's one global change you'd want to see?" Our panel focused on education, and all agreed that online courses showed great potential. The words "disrupt" and "revolutionize" were spoken solemnly and often. Then someone asked me -- as the person at the table least removed from the proverbial mud hut -- whether online education would have broadened my childhood horizons.
在達沃斯論壇上，銷售力網絡公司（）首席執行官馬克·貝尼奧夫和社交網站Facebook前總裁、音樂交換網站納普斯特聯合創始人肖恩·帕克主持了一次圓桌會議，關注的問題是：“你希望看到怎樣一種全球變化？”我們這個座談小組關注的是教育問題，大家都一致認爲網絡課程潛力巨大。“顛覆”和“變革”是被人們頻頻鄭重提及的兩個詞。當時有人問我——因爲我至少已經走出了俗話所說的小土屋——網絡教育是否本可以開闊我童年時期的視野。

I had to answer, "No." What was really most important in my education was that at key moments, I was able to envision to the next step. And usually I did it with the help of a mentor, or at least someone who'd taken that next step before I had. The journey was personal, but guided. And that, more than access to any particular class or bit of educational content, was what saved me from the fate of early marriage and poverty that befell so many others.
我的回答只能是否定的。回憶我的教育歷程，真正重要的是，在許多關鍵時刻，我能憧憬自己的未來。它往往是得益於良師的幫助，或者至少得到過某個先驅的啓發。這就是我的個人經歷，好在有過他人的指引。這些指引比上任何特定課程或學習任何教育內容都更爲重要，正是這些指引使我擺脫了像許多人那樣早早嫁人和陷於貧困的命運。

In the wealthy world, we have an oddly romantic view of students in the global south: If we can just put educational stuff in front of them, they'll devour just as they would eat food if we airdropped it in during a famine.
發達國家的人對第三世界國家的學生有一種奇怪的、不切實際的看法：只要把教育內容擺在他們面前，他們就會像災荒時期收到空降食物那樣飢不擇食地吞下去。

That's the dream. The reality is: If online education is going to change outcomes on a global scale, we must think more broadly about students' actual needs. We need to think about their entire educational journey, not just the content or the classes we provide.
這只是夢想。現實是：要使網絡教育在全球範圍帶來變革，我們必須從更廣泛的角度考慮學生的切實需求。我們需要考慮他們的整個教育歷程，而不僅僅是提供教學內容或學習課程。Every student needs three things:
每個學生都需要以下三點：

First, the plan. Imagine a child in Africa trying to cobble together an educational plan out of a series of online courses. It's impossible. Consider that Harvard and MIT have pledged $60 million for online education. In addition to building online classes, some of that money should go toward helping students make iterative plans for their education, with help from advisory staff or current students. Who better than Harvard and MIT to help students around the world put together educational plans?
第一，學習計劃。試想，身在非洲的一個孩子正想方設法地從一大堆網絡課程中胡亂拼湊出一個學習計劃。這是不可能完成的。再來看看這個，哈佛大學（Harvard）和麻省理工學院已聯手投資6,000萬美元推廣網絡教育。除開設網絡課程外，這些資金還將用於幫助學生制訂學習計劃，由教研人員或現有學生爲他們提供諮詢建議。這兩家學府正通過努力幫助世界各地的學生制訂教育計劃，試問，還有誰比它們做得更好？

Second, the peer group. If students don't have peers struggling with the same material at the same time, they're likely to feel alienated and hopeless. At Piazza, we see spontaneous peer group formation every time we run large online classes. Online educational software must become more social and immediate and fun. Imagine what a gift it would be to a girl in rural India to connect with other girls studying the same material in other parts of the world.
第二，同齡羣體。如果沒有同齡羣體一起學習、一起奮鬥，他們會感到疏離和無望。在Piazza平臺，每每開設大班學習課程時，我們總能看到學生們自發組成學習小組。網絡教育軟件必須越來越社會化、即時化和趣味化。試想，要是印度農村的小女孩能與世界上其他地方的小女孩一起學習同樣的內容，那該是怎樣的惠益啊。

Third. the mentors. Last fall, I helped create WitsOn, an online community connecting 500 professional women with thousands of college students. Students asked the women questions about how they had managed their lives and careers. Interestingly, we saw many of the professionals eagerly learning from the students, many of whom were more accomplished than they were in certain facets of technology. This suggests a giant network of learners, with mentors and mentees learning simultaneously.
第三，導師。去年秋天，我創建了網絡社區WitsOn，爲500位職業女性和上千名大學生搭建了溝通的橋樑。學生們踊躍提問，瞭解如何平衡自己的生活和工作。有趣的是，這些職場女性中有很多人熱切地向學生們學習，她們發現很多學生在某些科技領域比她們更有作爲。這就是一個龐大的學習者網絡。三人行必有我師，大家自發地相互學習。

I'm a big fan of learning online. But we aren't being ambitious enough. If children in the developed world fall off the educational track, giving them computers is not going to help most of them. Education is more than lectures, assignments, and exams. It's a means to envision a different life from the one you're living. Let's give every student a shot at that.
我非常熱衷於網絡學習。但是，我們的目標不夠遠大。試想，在發達國家，如果有孩子脫離了教育的軌道，那麼對大多數這樣的孩子來說，僅爲他們提供電腦是不足以幫助他們的。教育不只是聽課、作業和考試。教育是憧憬未來、改變現有生存狀態的一種方式。就讓我們爲每個學生都提供一次這樣的機會吧。