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> Online education isn't the solution Eh, speak for yourself, it is the solution for millions of people who want to learn something, not only have the degree a

> Online education isn't the solution Eh, speak for yourself, it is the solution for millions of people who want to learn something, not only have the degree as an end goal...

ghaff 11y ago
It's probably worth observing that he's specifically referring to his field: history. The couple of times that I've dipped into liberal arts classes online I've thought they were pretty horrible. I'm sure you can have captivating lectures but with limited personal interactions and feedback--especially with a MOOC--they don't really work as classes. Discussion boards don't scale that well under the best of circumstances. MOOCs can be reasonably effective as learning tools for things like programming. They don't have a real business or certification model but that's a somewhat separate discussion. But for history, literature, etc. I'd mostly rather just read a good book.
- mercer 11y ago
  There's no reason why MOOCs can't be effective in the humanities. I think the problem is that there's much less overlap between those who are skilled at teaching, say, history and those who are skilled at creating good online courses. I've noticed this same lack of overlap in the field of journalism. I know quite a few people who are really good (and successful) in their field, but despite being in their late twenties or early thirties, they're shockingly inept at operating computers. This is a problem, in my opinion, because much of what (specialist) journalist do is find the story in high volumes of data. And computers are great for that: RSS readers, DEVONthink (or other personal databases), good google searches, collaboration through, at the very least google docs, etc. And yet they settle for ordering books, reading huge stacks of newspapers, cuting out the good articles and writing in their paper notebooks, and composing word documents that they send around via email with -2 added to the filename. But I digress. My point is that there's significant low-hanging fruit in combining technology with the 'stuffy' areas of academia or fields like journalism, but relatively few people from either side collaborate in this area. In part, I think this is because of a fundamentally different personality/temperament and social surroundings, and in part I suppose it's because this 'low-hanging fruit' is not low-hanging when it comes to profit. That saddens me. But the fact remains that if I as a data/tech/web geek were to 'fuse' with one of my journalist friends, great things could happen. While such a 'fusion' is unlikely, I'm still trying to find a good starting point for collaboration.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    I concur to some degree with your points about data journalism--which are highlighted by the relatively few good examples that are out there. (OTOH, a lot of journalism also legitimately involves getting out from behind a desk, talking with people, and writing in paper notebooks.) >There's no reason why MOOCs can't be effective in the humanities. I think the problem is that there's much less overlap between those who are skilled at teaching, say, history and those who are skilled at creating good online courses. One fundamental question is what a MOOC can bring to a literature or a history class and I'm not sure I have a good answer. It's certainly not interaction with my peers--given the interaction mechanisms don't scale and there's such a wide disparity of background. It's not interaction with the professor; that certainly doesn't scale. It's not peer grading. It's not powerpoints. It's not video of a professor on a webcam. It's not multiple choice questions. Is it engaging video/multimedia/high quality lecture? Well, maybe but how is this now different from a quality PBS or History Channel series (or iTunes University or one of those Great Courses DVDs you can order)? Broadcast is a solved problem. Want to learn about the Civil War? Watch the Ken Burns series.
    - mercer 11y ago
      > One fundamental question is what a MOOC can bring to a literature or a history class and I'm not sure I have a good answer. [...] > Is it engaging video/multimedia/high quality lecture? Well, maybe but how is this now different from a quality PBS or History Channel series (or iTunes University or one of those Great Courses DVDs you can order)? Broadcast is a solved problem. Want to learn about the Civil War? Watch the Ken Burns series. To some degree yes, the advantage of MOOCs can be precisely that on a bigger scale we can use higher quality approaches. Local 'meet-ups' with professors or the like could be used in combination. Why not outsource the lecture part, or at least a significant amount of it? At the very least this could take care of all the <topic> 101 classes that I suspect are pretty similar across universities. But more importantly, I think there's a ton of stuff that computers can do in this area other than broadcast. Think of classics like the "Encarta Encyclopedia", or "The Way Things Work", or consider how games like Assassin's Creed result in tons of gamers learning a lot about certain periods in history. Or consider this recent post on HN, "The Pixel Factory"(http://acko.net/files/gltalks/pixelfactory/online.html#0 http://acko.net/files/gltalks/pixelfactory/online.html#0). The problems are cost and ability. A single teacher or university is not going to create interactive visualizations, 3D environments to explore, or 'games' (place-events-or-persons-on-the-timeline?). He doesn't have the time/interest/money, and unlike someone already working in IT he might not have a clue as to what's possible (or how to do it). With MOOCs, it should be possible to scale these efforts and bring together some of the best teachers with some of the best tech folk and create something that can be vastly superior to regular classes, and something that has a wider reach.
wvenable 11y ago
For profit online education (with a degree as an end goal) isn't a solution. If you want to learn something, it's never been easier. But post secondary education is as much (and for some, perhaps more) about the degree than it is about learning.
draw_down 11y ago
As some academics have noted with dismay, online education works best for people who already have the study strategies and other tools for success that those who need online education the most do not have yet.

> Online education isn't the solution Eh, speak for yourself, it is the solution for millions of people who want to learn something, not only have the degree as an end goal...

ghaff 11y ago

It's probably worth observing that he's specifically referring to his field: history. The couple of times that I've dipped into liberal arts classes online I've thought they were pretty horrible. I'm sure you can have captivating lectures but with limited personal interactions and feedback--especially with a MOOC--they don't really work as classes. Discussion boards don't scale that well under the best of circumstances. MOOCs can be reasonably effective as learning tools for things like programming. They don't have a real business or certification model but that's a somewhat separate discussion. But for history, literature, etc. I'd mostly rather just read a good book.

mercer 11y ago
There's no reason why MOOCs can't be effective in the humanities. I think the problem is that there's much less overlap between those who are skilled at teaching, say, history and those who are skilled at creating good online courses. I've noticed this same lack of overlap in the field of journalism. I know quite a few people who are really good (and successful) in their field, but despite being in their late twenties or early thirties, they're shockingly inept at operating computers. This is a problem, in my opinion, because much of what (specialist) journalist do is find the story in high volumes of data. And computers are great for that: RSS readers, DEVONthink (or other personal databases), good google searches, collaboration through, at the very least google docs, etc. And yet they settle for ordering books, reading huge stacks of newspapers, cuting out the good articles and writing in their paper notebooks, and composing word documents that they send around via email with -2 added to the filename. But I digress. My point is that there's significant low-hanging fruit in combining technology with the 'stuffy' areas of academia or fields like journalism, but relatively few people from either side collaborate in this area. In part, I think this is because of a fundamentally different personality/temperament and social surroundings, and in part I suppose it's because this 'low-hanging fruit' is not low-hanging when it comes to profit. That saddens me. But the fact remains that if I as a data/tech/web geek were to 'fuse' with one of my journalist friends, great things could happen. While such a 'fusion' is unlikely, I'm still trying to find a good starting point for collaboration.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I concur to some degree with your points about data journalism--which are highlighted by the relatively few good examples that are out there. (OTOH, a lot of journalism also legitimately involves getting out from behind a desk, talking with people, and writing in paper notebooks.) >There's no reason why MOOCs can't be effective in the humanities. I think the problem is that there's much less overlap between those who are skilled at teaching, say, history and those who are skilled at creating good online courses. One fundamental question is what a MOOC can bring to a literature or a history class and I'm not sure I have a good answer. It's certainly not interaction with my peers--given the interaction mechanisms don't scale and there's such a wide disparity of background. It's not interaction with the professor; that certainly doesn't scale. It's not peer grading. It's not powerpoints. It's not video of a professor on a webcam. It's not multiple choice questions. Is it engaging video/multimedia/high quality lecture? Well, maybe but how is this now different from a quality PBS or History Channel series (or iTunes University or one of those Great Courses DVDs you can order)? Broadcast is a solved problem. Want to learn about the Civil War? Watch the Ken Burns series.
  - mercer 11y ago
    > One fundamental question is what a MOOC can bring to a literature or a history class and I'm not sure I have a good answer. [...] > Is it engaging video/multimedia/high quality lecture? Well, maybe but how is this now different from a quality PBS or History Channel series (or iTunes University or one of those Great Courses DVDs you can order)? Broadcast is a solved problem. Want to learn about the Civil War? Watch the Ken Burns series. To some degree yes, the advantage of MOOCs can be precisely that on a bigger scale we can use higher quality approaches. Local 'meet-ups' with professors or the like could be used in combination. Why not outsource the lecture part, or at least a significant amount of it? At the very least this could take care of all the <topic> 101 classes that I suspect are pretty similar across universities. But more importantly, I think there's a ton of stuff that computers can do in this area other than broadcast. Think of classics like the "Encarta Encyclopedia", or "The Way Things Work", or consider how games like Assassin's Creed result in tons of gamers learning a lot about certain periods in history. Or consider this recent post on HN, "The Pixel Factory"(http://acko.net/files/gltalks/pixelfactory/online.html#0 http://acko.net/files/gltalks/pixelfactory/online.html#0). The problems are cost and ability. A single teacher or university is not going to create interactive visualizations, 3D environments to explore, or 'games' (place-events-or-persons-on-the-timeline?). He doesn't have the time/interest/money, and unlike someone already working in IT he might not have a clue as to what's possible (or how to do it). With MOOCs, it should be possible to scale these efforts and bring together some of the best teachers with some of the best tech folk and create something that can be vastly superior to regular classes, and something that has a wider reach.

wvenable 11y ago

For profit online education (with a degree as an end goal) isn't a solution. If you want to learn something, it's never been easier. But post secondary education is as much (and for some, perhaps more) about the degree than it is about learning.

draw_down 11y ago

As some academics have noted with dismay, online education works best for people who already have the study strategies and other tools for success that those who need online education the most do not have yet.