本文摘要：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 Sta

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 technologys role in education. Following an epiphany at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sankar shares her view in this Guest Post.两年前，我见过普加·桑卡尔，当时她已创办了增进师生间课堂辩论的协作平台Piazza。最初，这个平台只是在斯坦福大学（Stanford）的一些学生中用于。

如今，Piazza已被斯坦福大学、普林斯顿大学（Princeton）以及麻省理工学院（MIT）等顶尖大学所使用，并在全球25个国家获得应用于。取得红杉资本（Sequoia Capital）和贝西默风投（Bessemer Ventures）的750万美元融资后，32岁的桑卡尔期望能在教育改革中大展拳脚。但在其他企业家投身于这一极具变革性的领域之前，她指出我们必须新的检视技术在教育中充分发挥的起到。根据对达沃斯世界经济论坛（the World Economic Forum）的领悟，桑卡尔在本期客座文章中共享了她的观点。

As the founder and CEO of Piazza, Im 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.作为Piazza的创始人兼任首席执行官，我习惯于为高等教育中经常出现的技术摇旗呐喊。在达沃斯亲眼目睹了大家对网络教育几近乌托邦式的悲观后，我找到自己所要扮演着一个很不习惯的角色：牛虻。And since returning from Davos, Ive distilled my heresies to this: Education is a personal journey, and right now were offering students an online jumble.从达沃斯回去后，我仍然在筹划着自己对这个领域的异端邪说：教育是一段个人旅程，而现在我们为学生获取的网络内容却杂乱无章。I rode into Davos on a spouses pass, and Im not to the manner born. I came of age in interior India, where for seven years I didnt 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.我在获得丈夫的容许后才回到达沃斯，而且我也不是天生就合适这一行。

我在印度长大成人，其间有七年时间我未曾与家人之外的任何一个男孩子说道过话。我们小镇很多女孩子16岁就嫁人了，一些女孩子完全不怎么识字。我为什么能挣脱这种生活呢？因为，我父亲接受教育，他拒绝我自学。

他为我刻画了一种我从未见过的生活，一种不困受限于高墙大院的生活。如果没他的提示，我就不有可能到印度理工学院（Indian Institute of Technology）就学。

At a session in Davos, Salesforce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff and Sean Parker of Facebook (FB) and Napster fame hosted a roundtable focused on the question, Whats one global change youd 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.在达沃斯论坛上，销售力网络公司（Salesforce.com）首席执行官马克·贝尼奥夫和社交网站Facebook前总裁、音乐互相交换网站纳普斯特牵头创始人肖恩·帕克主持人了一次圆桌会议，注目的问题是：“你期望看见怎样一种全球变化？”我们这个座谈小组注目的是教育问题，大家都完全一致指出网络课程潜力极大。“政治宣传”和“变革”是被人们屡屡严正提到的两个词。当时有人回答我——因为我最少早已走进了俗话所说的小土屋——网络教育否本可以广阔我童年时期的视野。

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 whod 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.我的问不能是驳斥的。回想我的教育历程，确实最重要的是，在许多关键时刻，我能向往自己的未来。它往往是归功于良师的协助，或者最少获得过某个先驱的灵感。这就是我的个人经历，好在有过他人的提示。

这些提示比上任何特定课程或自学任何教育内容都更为重要，正是这些提示使我挣脱了像许多人那样早早嫁人和陷入贫穷的命运。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, theyll devour just as they would eat food if we airdropped it in during a famine.发达国家的人对第三世界国家的学生有一种怪异的、不切实际的观点：只要把教育内容放在他们面前，他们就不会像灾荒时期接到伞兵食物那样饥不择食地吞下去。Thats 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.这只是梦想。

现实是：要使网络教育在全球范围带给变革，我们必需从更加普遍的角度考虑到学生的贯彻市场需求。我们必须考虑到他们的整个教育历程，而某种程度是获取教学内容或自学课程。Every student needs three things:每个学生都必须以下三点：First, the plan. Imagine a child in Africa trying to cobble together an educational plan out of a series of online courses. Its 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，自学计划。

比如说，身在非洲的一个孩子于是以想方设法地从一大堆网络课程中胡乱拼凑出一个自学计划。这是不有可能已完成的。再行来想到这个，哈佛大学（Harvard）和麻省理工学院已合力投资6,000万美元推展网络教育。除开办网络课程外，这些资金还将用作协助学生制定自学计划，由教研人员或现有学生为他们获取咨询建议。

这两家学府于是以通过希望协助世界各地的学生制定教育计划，试问，还有谁比它们做到得更佳？Second, the peer group. If students dont have peers struggling with the same material at the same time, theyre 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，同龄群体。如果没同龄群体一起自学、一起努力奋斗，他们不会深感疏远和决意。在Piazza平台，不免开办大班自学课程时，我们总能看见学生们自发性构成自学小组。

网络教育软件必需更加社会化、即时简化和趣味化。比如说，要是印度农村的小女孩能与世界上其他地方的小女孩一起自学某种程度的内容，那该是怎样的惠益啊。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，导师。去年秋天，我创立了网络社区WitsOn，为500位职业女性和上千名大学生搭起了交流的桥梁。

学生们社会各界发问，理解如何均衡自己的生活和工作。有意思的是，这些职场女性中有很多人热切地向学生们自学，她们找到很多学生在某些科技领域比她们更加有作为。这就是一个可观的学习者网络。

三人行必有我师，大家自发性地互相自学。Im a big fan of learning online. But we arent 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. Its a means to envision a different life from the one youre living. Lets give every student a shot at that.我十分热衷网络自学。但是，我们的目标过于远大。

比如说，在发达国家，如果有孩子瓦解了教育的轨道，那么对大多数这样的孩子来说，仅有为他们获取电脑是足以协助他们的。教育不只是讲课、作业和考试。

教育是憧憬未来、转变现有存活状态的一种方式。竟然我们为每个学生都获取一次这样的机会吧。

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