[ExI] I don't understand students: help !

[Fred C. Moulton]

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 21:00 -0500, natasha at natasha.cc wrote:
> It seems reasonable that more children would be willing to study (be  
> educated)if they loved what they are learning and/or the educational  
> methodology were in keeping with trends - like gaming as a means for  
> learning, or interactive simulations for learning.  Now if this were  
> free, I'd bet along with you that more would be inclinded to  
> experiment with learning (willing to be educated) if it were free.   
> But I don't have the stats either ...

Natasha

Reading your message reminded me of some of the ideas in the book Flow
by Mihly Csszentmihlyi.  I found a short piece that he wrote on
education:
http://www.newhorizons.org/future/Creating_the_Future/crfut_csikszent.html

The original post to which I replied used the expression "public/free
education" which is why I indicated that it would be helpful to
distinguish between "public" and "free".  Both terms have a variety of
definitions and need further clarification as to meaning.  Also I have
been hearing more about studies at the intersection of psychology and
economics looking at how individuals value things based on how much they
pay for them and related topics.  There is a variety of free course
notes, texts and lecture videos now on the web so it will be interesting
to see if people use these for "sampler" tastes to see if they are
interested in a subject or a professor.

Fred