Nearly everyone agrees the online education is going to be huge, but ask what exactly that means in practice and how that will impact students, and the bickering begins. Except about one thing. As Pulitzer Prize winner Tina Rosenberg recently wrote in the New York Times, “online education is highly controversial. But the flipped classroom is a strategy that nearly everyone agrees on.”

幾乎所有人都同意在線教育有燎原之勢，但如果問在線教育在具體教育實踐中的作用、乃至對學生的影響，人們的意見分歧就出現(xiàn)了。正如普利策獎得主蒂娜-羅森堡最近在紐約時報中所言，“在線教育含有極大的爭議性，但翻轉(zhuǎn)課堂是大家都贊同的策略。”

What is it? A model where “students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call ‘homework’ in class,” Rosenberg explains, before going on to report that though research is still in its early stages, “many people are holding it up as a potential model of how to use technology to humanize the classroom.”

翻轉(zhuǎn)課堂是什么?羅森堡稱，這是一種學生們在家里看老師們講課，在課堂上完成我們一貫稱之為“家庭作業(yè)”的功課的模式。羅森堡接著就相關(guān)問題進行了概括，指出雖然相關(guān)研究還在早期階段，“許多人十分支持這種教育模式，認為這一模式極具潛力，體現(xiàn)著科技使教室人性化的效果。”

Among them is Sumner Murphy, the 22-year-old founder of London-based startup Mobento. Oh, and the investors who gaved him 1.1 million this summer to pursue his vision of education technology for a flipped classroom future in one of Britain’s biggest ever seed funding rounds.

薩姆-納墨菲是這種新型教育模式的支持者之一。這個22歲的青年在倫敦創(chuàng)建了馬本多創(chuàng)業(yè)公司。為他的公司投資了110萬英鎊，幫助他實現(xiàn)未來教育技術(shù)支持下的翻轉(zhuǎn)課堂模式的投資者是倫敦最大的種子基金提供者之一，這位投資者同樣是新型教育模式的支持者。

What exactly is Mobento offering? A public library of curated educational videos and the ability to search within them for specific phrases. The service is free to the public, while schools can pay for accounts which allow them to create and assign courses and get metrics charting students’ progress.

馬本多公司可以向用戶提供什么呢?一個收集有大量組織化的課程視頻的公共圖書館，用戶可以查找自己需要的門類。這一電子圖書館服務(wù)對公眾免費開放，學�？梢愿顿M購買使用賬號，從而創(chuàng)建和上傳課程視頻，查看學生學習進度數(shù)據(jù)等等。

But the actual tech, Sumner feels, is only part of a larger vision for a radical shift in education. “The educational system, whether it’s in the U.S. or Europe, definitely needs some revamping because it hasn’t really changed much in the last 100 years,” he said in an interview, adding that “video is a really great way of getting students to be engaged and to be interested in what they’re studying at school.”

但是薩姆認為，技術(shù)支持只是教育發(fā)展的激進轉(zhuǎn)折這一宏觀視域下的一個小部分。他在一次采訪中說，“教育體系，無論是美國還是歐洲的教育體系，都需要進行確實改進，最近一百年以來教育系統(tǒng)幾乎沒有變化。”他又補充道，“教育視頻是一種增加學生互動性的極好的教學方法，這能是他們對課堂知識產(chǎn)生興趣。”

It’s also more personalized to students’ individual ability levels. “If you’re sitting in a classroom and your teacher gives you a lecture, it’s a one-off deal. If you don’t understand it, you’re going to be left behind, and if you’re a really smart student, you’re going to be bored in class,” Murphy says. By moving lectures to video — and thereby adding the benefits of pause, fast forward and rewind — students can learn at their own pace.

在線教育還可以適應(yīng)學生個性化的能力增長需要。“當你坐在教室里，聽著老師上課，這是一種一次性的教育模式。如果你不理解教學內(nèi)容，你的學習進度就拖后了。如果你是一個特別聰明的學生，你會覺得課堂知識十分乏味，” 納墨菲說。通過將課程轉(zhuǎn)化為視頻——這樣一來還加上了可以暫停、快進、后退等等便利——學生可以以自己的節(jié)奏來學習。”

Such a radical shift in teaching style comes with changes that Murphy seems quite comfortable with but which may raise eyebrows in others. Take the idea that, with Mobento’s search function, students can skip straight to the exact content they need. Could that be seen as exacerbating our tech-enabled inability to focus or deprive students of mind-expanding context or serendipitous learning? Murphy shrugs off the suggestion, calling the ability to quickly find only the exact content you need a “win-win.”

對教育模式劇烈變革引起的變化，納墨菲的態(tài)度是欣然接受，而另一些人則可能驚恐不已。例如，在馬本多電子圖書館的服務(wù)功能之下，學生們可以跳過課程進度，直接學習他們想學的內(nèi)容。這會不會使我們在信息技術(shù)下出現(xiàn)的注意力渙散的情況加劇，剝奪學生學習發(fā)散性的學習內(nèi)容，以及溫故知新的機會呢?對這種可能弊端，納墨菲只是聳聳肩膀，他稱，快速找到自己需要的學習內(nèi)容是一種構(gòu)成雙贏的學習能力。

Still, given the magnitude of interest in the flipped classroom idea as measured by pounds invested in Mobento, it’s clearly an idea worth watching not just for those interested in educational reform, but also those interested in the business of education.

無論如何，根據(jù)馬本多公司那些自豪的投資者們的考量，翻轉(zhuǎn)課堂的理念具有巨大的利益。不僅對那些關(guān)注教育改革的人，也對那些關(guān)注教育產(chǎn)業(yè)的人來說，這一理念都是值得看好的。