It leverages existing resources, challenges students to learn and teach others, and positions the teacher as a guide.

Does age play a role in the practicality of this. Perhaps some, but in my view much less than we are likely to assume. Our cultural bias leads us to make many assumptions about the limited capacity of children to contribute and participate. There’s plenty of anecdotal as well as hard research that blows these assumptions out of the water.

Civic value – This is a phrase loaded with subjective value, but even so, Shirky does a nice job of explaining how the silly / inane and civically virtuous are equally important parts of the same movement. See his discussion on lol catz in Cognitive Surplus for more details.

A bloodless revolution – I’m not sure if that’s possible, but it certainly seems like there are huge opportunities to build hybrid models. Focusing our dollars on Brick and Mortar k-5 then shifting to online mentorships. Old ideas such as apprenticeships may become much more of a reality. Research Universities and graduate programs may certainly exist in hybrid format, but the reality is the notion of a classical 4 year education has already gone by the wayside and is actually something which can easily be learned informally online. There’s going to be blood – there always is with serious social upheaval and transformation, but it’s up to us to help everyone understand how much opportunity there is for all of us.

I like the concept of teaching being a many:many activity, so I like the potential of this and look forward to exploring it more…

On a completely different note, do you have ideas/suggestions/hopes for how the reform against the ancien regime transpires w/o a “bloody” revolution?