Intellectually gifted young people are the primary active agents in organizing and pursuing their education and all other aspects of their growth and development. They are less in need of a traditional top-down educational system with “one-size-fits-all” programs and external motivation. Things they can really use include:
When bright young Learners are motivated they can learn a lot faster than conventional instruction can spoon-feed them. Our best approach for empowering Learners is to leverage their passion for learning and their natural orientation towards self-direction by getting them involved in collaborative projects which give them room to learn at their maximum rate. It is essential that the best materials they use, especially reference materials and software, can be adapted and improved by the Learners themselves so that they can continue to utilize those materials as they advance and so that the improvements in those materials are available to the next generation of Learners. Materials with suitable Creative Commons licenses should be strongly preferred.
Our best role is in the training of peer facilitators and expert mentors, who will increasingly consist of the graduates of our programs. We should make maximum use of the amazing range of existing materials which are increasingly available through the Internet and we should engage the Learners in projects which adapt and improve those materials based on their experience in using them. This strategic approach will maximize the success of our Learners and the growth of our enterprise.
There are an enormous number of useful individual software applications designed to be used in education. There are also some powerful software systems which create an environment in which open-ended learning can take place. Here are a few of the latter. LOEL Resource Map will eventually contain an exhaustive list of both kinds of software, properly indexed and classified.
Perhaps the most promising environments which can be used for education is software developed originally for Computer Games. Computer games are high-quality Simulations of Imagined Worlds. When those worlds are created by Domain Experts for educational purposes they can be highly effective at supporting educational objectives with the enthusiastic cooperation of a generation of students raised on cognitively challenging computer games.
A number of software research and development projects for improving effective collaboration are promising for education. Some of these are new and some are past projects which were never fully exploited. Developing and adapting these systems for educational purposes can be excellent projects for our Learners.
A great model for Learners developing Software is the Google Summer of Code Program. The model could be improved by putting students in teams and using peer facilitators with recently acquired skills as well as expert mentors.