Part - 1 of WHAT DO WE DO WITH KNOWLEDGE?

WHAT DO WE DO WITH KNOWLEDGE?
Initiatives towards freedom in teaching and freedom in learning

M. SESHAGIRI, Hyderabad, A.P. India



What do we do with knowledge? One direct answer may be "We share".
We share knowledge among ourselves, which means to give and take
knowledge. We take knowledge at one end (learning) and give it at
another end (teaching). But do we have freedom and opportunity to
learn whatever, wherever and whenever we want? Similarly, do we have
freedom and opportunity to teach whatever, wherever and whenever we
want? With the availability of advanced multimedia and web
technologies, can we not work towards betterment of learning and
teaching activities of mankind? This paper addresses these
questions.

For practical purposes, we may define our goals as under:

a) To enable teacher to develop content independently with freedom to
teach what he wants, irrespective of the place and time of teaching;
b) To enable student to learn independently with freedom to learn what
he wants, irrespective of the place and time of learning.

BACKGROUND

Problem of Students:
From the point of view of freedom to learn, the following questions
are pertinent:
· Why it is not possible for a student of Physics to study Botany in
similar situation to classroom session (not reading Botany books)?
· Why rural people have to move to urban places to get better
education?
· Why knowledge levels of people in different places differ even
though they have similar levels of intelligence?
· Why some students are lucky to get good teachers and can understand
their subject in depth, while others are not lucky even to meet them.
Well written books may be available in good libraries, but students
prefer to hear from a teacher rather than reading a new topic.
Availability of good teacher for every student is the most essential
in education system, but practically not possible in any country.

One may take pride in his degrees and qualifications, but in a
philosophical tone, what we know is just the result of time we had
spent in the past. It includes our personal effort and opportunities
that we got in the past. There are many people in the world who are
equally or more intelligent than the highly qualified intellectuals.
When Nature provided men with intelligence why not knowledge? Why
knowledge is not freely available everywhere like air and sunshine?
The gulf between haves and have-nots in knowledge has greater impact
on mankind than money.

Problem of Teachers - Freedom to teach
From the point of view of teaching, will it be possible for a teacher
to communicate beyond the limits of DESA(place) and KALA(time)?
"Standing on the shoulders of masters", man is progressing in
knowledge. But the pace of this growth is not in tune with the
possibilities. Experts lack opportunities to communicate themselves
fully. The expert's knowledge, if not communicated to others in his
lifetime, will be lost forever. He may write books / articles, but he
may not communicate fully in the book. He may be good in
communicating orally than in writing. Oral communication is limited to
DESA (place) and KALA (time). It was said that there are very few
people who can understand what Einstein told. It may be in the past,
but now, in the age of information technology, why it is not possible
to make every Physics student to understand what Einstein said. Can
we not create environment to spread the teachings of experts to all
students wherever & whenever?

Problem of Organizations - Necessity to impart knowledge to all
employees:
From the organization's point of view, companies prefer that all their
employees are well informed in their job knowledge. But, how
organizations can ensure that all employees get equal and complete job
knowledge?

End of Part - 1 of WHAT DO WE DO WITH KNOWLEDGE?