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Your comment makes an important point though: who will take care of people who are visually impaired or who need other accommodations? The online MOOCs aren't

Your comment makes an important point though: who will take care of people who are visually impaired or who need other accommodations? The online MOOCs aren't going to introduce braille. I am kind of glad they spent that money to accommodate those students. Aren't you? That's not what is raising the cost of education. EDIT: I did work on a mouse that provides haptic feedback including texture years ago, so I am aware that it is possible to provide braille like feedback over the web. EDIT2: Many people have pointed out that MOOCs do add accessibility features. This is true, and good. I think the MOOCs are largely run by well meaning people.

jkot 10y ago
Door labels in brail are useless. Just close your eyes and try it yourself. And even with brail it should cost under $40 Blind (or otherwise disabled) people should have an assistant to help them around. Some MOOCs are already brail reader friendly. And online education in general has very little barriers.
orbitur 10y ago
> The online MOOCs aren't going to introduce braille. No, but they can (and do) add accessibility features.
jkaptur 10y ago
> The online MOOCs aren't going to introduce braille. In general, putting content online makes learning more accessible. As a specific example, Khan Academy has done important work developing tools in this area: http://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/tota11y.htm http://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/tota11y.htm. I see where you're coming from - many "dispuptive" services have (shamefully, in my opinion) resisted making their services accessible, but I don't think MOOCs really fall into that class.
- inputcoffee 10y ago
  I think MOOCs are run by well meaning people, but it also doesn't cost that much to make them accessible. I suppose that is the point though: the market decides, as opposed to an entity deciding that it is in the public good.
- GauntletWizard 10y ago
  Disclosure: I work for Uber, so I'm more than I little biased. Tell me; How many blind or deaf people did you know who took a cab before Uber? I went to RIT, which hosts a school for the deaf, and while there wasn't really a call for cabs at the school, I knew a couple people who did co-ops in big cities and were frustrated by how hard it was to get around. When asked why they didn't take a cab, they explained how much of a pain it was to communicate with their drivers, even with the fairly advanced assistive devices (every student had a sidekick, at the time a very advanced phone, and could usually pass around notes using such). It was still too hard; the barrier of entry on the communication was too high, and taxi drivers were easily frustrated trying to communicate fares and routes to deaf students. I can't even imagine a blind person hailing a cab. How would they know where to hail? How would they know when it stopped in front of them? Now, I see posts on the RIT subreddit from time to time from deaf students who've just taken an Uber. It's not a problem anymore. There's a distinct group of blind users of the uber app; It works, the interface is consistent, and I just tried it myself (it wasn't easy, but I called a cab, and I think it'd work decently with practice).
  - jkaptur 10y ago
    That's fair. I mentioned Uber because I remembered the criticism from the National Federation of the Blind [1]. However, it's tangential to my point, so I've edited my post to remove it. [1] https://nfb.org/groundbreaking-settlement-end-discrimination-against-blind-uber-riders-who-use-guide-dogs https://nfb.org/groundbreaking-settlement-end-discrimination...
tomjen3 10y ago
No they are not - you don't need braille on the internet. Their biggest expense would be to subtitle all their videos, but that is going to be a one-time fixed cost, and help them with ESL students too.
jonlucc 10y ago
I don't know much about it, but I was browsing Apple accessories the other day, and in the accessibility section, there is this amazing device[1]. As I understand it, somehow it takes the text on screen and raises tiny dots to make braille that can be re-written very quickly. I assume blind people knew about this, but I was stunned at how difficult I assumed it was to control the hundreds of dots on even a small display. Similarly, MOOCs with good captions plus these kinds of devices probably works at least as well as being in a classroom. [1] http://store.humanware.com/hus/brailliant-bi-40-new-generation.html http://store.humanware.com/hus/brailliant-bi-40-new-generati...

jkot 10y ago

Door labels in brail are useless. Just close your eyes and try it yourself. And even with brail it should cost under $40 Blind (or otherwise disabled) people should have an assistant to help them around. Some MOOCs are already brail reader friendly. And online education in general has very little barriers.

orbitur 10y ago

> The online MOOCs aren't going to introduce braille. No, but they can (and do) add accessibility features.

jkaptur 10y ago

> The online MOOCs aren't going to introduce braille. In general, putting content online makes learning more accessible. As a specific example, Khan Academy has done important work developing tools in this area: http://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/tota11y.htm http://engineering.khanacademy.org/posts/tota11y.htm. I see where you're coming from - many "dispuptive" services have (shamefully, in my opinion) resisted making their services accessible, but I don't think MOOCs really fall into that class.

inputcoffee 10y ago
I think MOOCs are run by well meaning people, but it also doesn't cost that much to make them accessible. I suppose that is the point though: the market decides, as opposed to an entity deciding that it is in the public good.
GauntletWizard 10y ago
Disclosure: I work for Uber, so I'm more than I little biased. Tell me; How many blind or deaf people did you know who took a cab before Uber? I went to RIT, which hosts a school for the deaf, and while there wasn't really a call for cabs at the school, I knew a couple people who did co-ops in big cities and were frustrated by how hard it was to get around. When asked why they didn't take a cab, they explained how much of a pain it was to communicate with their drivers, even with the fairly advanced assistive devices (every student had a sidekick, at the time a very advanced phone, and could usually pass around notes using such). It was still too hard; the barrier of entry on the communication was too high, and taxi drivers were easily frustrated trying to communicate fares and routes to deaf students. I can't even imagine a blind person hailing a cab. How would they know where to hail? How would they know when it stopped in front of them? Now, I see posts on the RIT subreddit from time to time from deaf students who've just taken an Uber. It's not a problem anymore. There's a distinct group of blind users of the uber app; It works, the interface is consistent, and I just tried it myself (it wasn't easy, but I called a cab, and I think it'd work decently with practice).
- jkaptur 10y ago
  That's fair. I mentioned Uber because I remembered the criticism from the National Federation of the Blind [1]. However, it's tangential to my point, so I've edited my post to remove it. [1] https://nfb.org/groundbreaking-settlement-end-discrimination-against-blind-uber-riders-who-use-guide-dogs https://nfb.org/groundbreaking-settlement-end-discrimination...

tomjen3 10y ago

No they are not - you don't need braille on the internet. Their biggest expense would be to subtitle all their videos, but that is going to be a one-time fixed cost, and help them with ESL students too.

jonlucc 10y ago

I don't know much about it, but I was browsing Apple accessories the other day, and in the accessibility section, there is this amazing device[1]. As I understand it, somehow it takes the text on screen and raises tiny dots to make braille that can be re-written very quickly. I assume blind people knew about this, but I was stunned at how difficult I assumed it was to control the hundreds of dots on even a small display. Similarly, MOOCs with good captions plus these kinds of devices probably works at least as well as being in a classroom. [1] http://store.humanware.com/hus/brailliant-bi-40-new-generation.html http://store.humanware.com/hus/brailliant-bi-40-new-generati...