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While I understand I only met a small fraction of the people trying to "disrupt" education, my experience with Ed-Tech was that the absolute wrong people were b

While I understand I only met a small fraction of the people trying to "disrupt" education, my experience with Ed-Tech was that the absolute wrong people were behind it. I interviewed at Coursera in 2012, and much of the interview focused on my academic background. Every round I'd sit down with an interviewer and they'd look at my transcript and say, "hmm what happened here!?" as they would point to my C+, the only grade that was below a B on an overall 3.7GPA history. Every one of them had a Stanford-or-similar background. The juxtaposition of cliche-academics telling me they were disrupting academia was really something to behold.

duxup 7y ago
> "hmm what happened here!?" as they would point to my C+ Man that would be an instant turn off for me. Having said that I'm unlikely to end up in a room with folks who would say something like that anyway, mostly because I wouldn't make it past the resume filter... for good reason, and a good outcome for everyone involved probabbly.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Which is weird. Because as GP inpugned, how are a bunch of hyper-conventional learners going to 'disrupt' education? We have a lot of people who haven't been served by the current educational system. Wouldn't you rather hire people who did poorly in school and yet were still very successful in their careers and find out what they know?
  - duxup 7y ago
    Yeah I would seriously wonder how focusing on a staff of excelent ... but traditional learning types could change much. I was a terrible college student and worked my way through PC support drone, some proprietary mainframe networking stuff, traditional networking, data center networking...to web development. That and sometimes the folks who really just grok something...are terrible at teaching and advice. I'm really wary when highly successful traditional learners tell me how or even what to learn, not because I think they're wrong, but their path is likely not best for me.
  - Aloha 7y ago
    The biggest thing I would tell someone trying to do that is - make the work engaging, solving real world problems - use real world problems to teach theory in action. Too much of my schoolwork was hypotheticals that were questions no one would need to ask (and obviously so to me at the time), or by rote memorization of facts and figures, without teaching much understanding of why those things are important to know.
Nursie 7y ago
I did one of their early courses, crypto 1, which I found useful and enlightening. Shamr it didn't take off but then there was no business model AFAICT
- ghaff 7y ago
  I took a few courses. The certs were never really worth much and, without the certs being valuable, not many people were willing to pay. Some of the videos were good. But there's no shortage of videos online. Mostly for programming specifically, autograding had some value--when it worked. Discussion forums were mostly worthless and any meaningful interactions with the people teaching the courses were limited at best. There are plenty of relatively inexpensive options for motivated people who don't care about a piece of paper to learn about stuff. Some MOOCs did a bit better than OCW or iTunes University sort of things. But there wasn't a business model for anything beyond Lynda type of instruction.
  - rasz 7y ago
    I did a bunch of courses too, mainly so my mum could parade Certs with Stanford stamped all over them in front of our family ;-). Other than that 100.0% grade in online machine learning or cryptography course is pretty useless.
- unreal37 7y ago
  Coursera had $140 million in revenue in 2018.[1] No business model you say? https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-2018-revenue-140-million/ https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-2018-revenue-14...
  - ghaff 7y ago
    They raised over $300 million and I don't know their profits. Like one or two other of these firms, they basically pivoted to corporate training which has long been a reasonable if hardly breakout business. That's where Coursera (and I believe Udemy is) is today. It's not the disrupt education MOOC idea that was the original plan though.
fouc 7y ago
Yeah makes sense. Coursera isn't actually a disruption of education.
- tchaffee 7y ago
  Where are the physical classrooms?
  - Retric 7y ago
    Eduction without physical classrooms aka correspondence education is a really old idea. Using the internet to host videos, is a take on using TV to broadcast videos to remote area, which is a take on doing the same with radio. And as the name suggests before this people would get degrees via mail with known examples going back to 1728. Though coupling this with formal degrees only dates back to the 1840s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      > is a really old idea Yup. My grandfather got his college degree via correspondence classes around 1910.
    - tchaffee 7y ago
      Taking something that exists, and making it hugely popular or more accessible (think ride sharing or house sharing ala AirBnb) can be disruptive. I'm not talking about who invented it. I'm talking about how disruptive it is. Seems like others disagree which is fine, but for me personally, online education has been a game changer that I've greatly benefitted from.
      - Retric 7y ago
        More accessible seems seems like an good argument, but I disagree that more popular is a disruption as the option already existed. Anyway, I was looking to get an online masters in 2000 and there where several to choose from. On the other hand Coursera was founded in 2012 so I fail to see the disruption. Better marketing?
droithomme 7y ago
A C+ is a reasonable thing to ask about.
- axbytg 7y ago
  I disagree, unless you are hiring straight out of college and the C+ is in an immediately relevant or "red flag" class. I can't imagine being asked this. I studied philosophy, I'm interviewing to write software, who cares about my grades?
  - droithomme 7y ago
    You submitted your transcripts. I am going to ask about your C+. It's a reasonable thing for me to ask you about, don't you agree?
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      No, I do not. When someone has 2 or more years of work experience, one slightly low grade stops having meaning. Ask about projects they’ve worked on instead.
    - seattle_spring 7y ago
      I only submitted them because the recruiter required I submit them, which was dumb in the first place.
- pretendscholar 7y ago
  Maybe im just mediocre but it doesnt seem like a big deal. Sometimes you get a shit teacher and check out. The kind of ass kissing and begging that I saw among my peers that got all A's is real alarming
  - droithomme 7y ago
    The grade may or may not be a "big deal" as you mention, but it is certainly and with total absolution, a reasonable thing to ask about. Do you agree?
pmiller2 7y ago
Were you more than a couple years out of college at the time?
bane 7y ago
Why for goodness sakes would a job interview need your college transcripts?
- CalRobert 7y ago
  To satisfy an interviewer who thinks it's important because it's what they base their own sense of importance on. Or, because you took a specific course(s) relevant to the task you're being hired for and don't have industry experience in that material.
j45 7y ago
Having worked in and around EdTech in both industry for longer than most I meet.. a few themes seem to arise regularly that explain why so much of EdTech is stuck in the past., including hiring: - academic institutions generally have leadership inept at understanding technology - when academics try to make decisions by committee about technology when they are not competent in tech, it rarely works out - few academics actually learn how to teach, let alone how to learn. But a degree will make someone an expert, I suppose. - Education for hundreds of years has been linear, to match the linear nature of the factory floor and professional careers. Math hasn’t changed in 500 years. But, the world is no longer linear and the linear lenses that attempt to put tech, innovation in to linear paths will fail. - The world is changing faster than any curriculum can keep up. Courses can take 1 to 3 years to update once, and in the meantime, entire industries are upended by Uber and Airbnb. There are, many smart academics who understand this, but too many academic environments are far too toxic because they run like small countries who don’t answer or listen to their founders, students. The gates and metrics being used to assess those capable of innovation in education, when the decision makers might be the ones most standing to be supplanted will be a large barrier. If you’re interested to learn more about one academic has found ails academia, Tony Bates is worth a read.
- username90 7y ago
  > Math hasn’t changed in 500 years. What do you mean? Almost all math you learn in college were invented in the last 500 years. I think the last big things in math which they teach in undergrad were invented 50 years ago, so it is still a bit stale, but not that stale.
  - Bahamut 7y ago
    Most math you learn in undergrad was invented 200-300 years ago - 50-200 years ago is grad level material.

duxup 7y ago

> "hmm what happened here!?" as they would point to my C+ Man that would be an instant turn off for me. Having said that I'm unlikely to end up in a room with folks who would say something like that anyway, mostly because I wouldn't make it past the resume filter... for good reason, and a good outcome for everyone involved probabbly.

hinkley 7y ago
Which is weird. Because as GP inpugned, how are a bunch of hyper-conventional learners going to 'disrupt' education? We have a lot of people who haven't been served by the current educational system. Wouldn't you rather hire people who did poorly in school and yet were still very successful in their careers and find out what they know?
- duxup 7y ago
  Yeah I would seriously wonder how focusing on a staff of excelent ... but traditional learning types could change much. I was a terrible college student and worked my way through PC support drone, some proprietary mainframe networking stuff, traditional networking, data center networking...to web development. That and sometimes the folks who really just grok something...are terrible at teaching and advice. I'm really wary when highly successful traditional learners tell me how or even what to learn, not because I think they're wrong, but their path is likely not best for me.
- Aloha 7y ago
  The biggest thing I would tell someone trying to do that is - make the work engaging, solving real world problems - use real world problems to teach theory in action. Too much of my schoolwork was hypotheticals that were questions no one would need to ask (and obviously so to me at the time), or by rote memorization of facts and figures, without teaching much understanding of why those things are important to know.

Nursie 7y ago

I did one of their early courses, crypto 1, which I found useful and enlightening. Shamr it didn't take off but then there was no business model AFAICT

ghaff 7y ago
I took a few courses. The certs were never really worth much and, without the certs being valuable, not many people were willing to pay. Some of the videos were good. But there's no shortage of videos online. Mostly for programming specifically, autograding had some value--when it worked. Discussion forums were mostly worthless and any meaningful interactions with the people teaching the courses were limited at best. There are plenty of relatively inexpensive options for motivated people who don't care about a piece of paper to learn about stuff. Some MOOCs did a bit better than OCW or iTunes University sort of things. But there wasn't a business model for anything beyond Lynda type of instruction.
- rasz 7y ago
  I did a bunch of courses too, mainly so my mum could parade Certs with Stanford stamped all over them in front of our family ;-). Other than that 100.0% grade in online machine learning or cryptography course is pretty useless.
unreal37 7y ago
Coursera had $140 million in revenue in 2018.[1] No business model you say? https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-2018-revenue-140-million/ https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-2018-revenue-14...
- ghaff 7y ago
  They raised over $300 million and I don't know their profits. Like one or two other of these firms, they basically pivoted to corporate training which has long been a reasonable if hardly breakout business. That's where Coursera (and I believe Udemy is) is today. It's not the disrupt education MOOC idea that was the original plan though.

fouc 7y ago

Yeah makes sense. Coursera isn't actually a disruption of education.

tchaffee 7y ago
Where are the physical classrooms?
- Retric 7y ago
  Eduction without physical classrooms aka correspondence education is a really old idea. Using the internet to host videos, is a take on using TV to broadcast videos to remote area, which is a take on doing the same with radio. And as the name suggests before this people would get degrees via mail with known examples going back to 1728. Though coupling this with formal degrees only dates back to the 1840s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_education
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > is a really old idea Yup. My grandfather got his college degree via correspondence classes around 1910.
  - tchaffee 7y ago
    Taking something that exists, and making it hugely popular or more accessible (think ride sharing or house sharing ala AirBnb) can be disruptive. I'm not talking about who invented it. I'm talking about how disruptive it is. Seems like others disagree which is fine, but for me personally, online education has been a game changer that I've greatly benefitted from.
    - Retric 7y ago
      More accessible seems seems like an good argument, but I disagree that more popular is a disruption as the option already existed. Anyway, I was looking to get an online masters in 2000 and there where several to choose from. On the other hand Coursera was founded in 2012 so I fail to see the disruption. Better marketing?

droithomme 7y ago

A C+ is a reasonable thing to ask about.

axbytg 7y ago
I disagree, unless you are hiring straight out of college and the C+ is in an immediately relevant or "red flag" class. I can't imagine being asked this. I studied philosophy, I'm interviewing to write software, who cares about my grades?
- droithomme 7y ago
  You submitted your transcripts. I am going to ask about your C+. It's a reasonable thing for me to ask you about, don't you agree?
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    No, I do not. When someone has 2 or more years of work experience, one slightly low grade stops having meaning. Ask about projects they’ve worked on instead.
  - seattle_spring 7y ago
    I only submitted them because the recruiter required I submit them, which was dumb in the first place.
pretendscholar 7y ago
Maybe im just mediocre but it doesnt seem like a big deal. Sometimes you get a shit teacher and check out. The kind of ass kissing and begging that I saw among my peers that got all A's is real alarming
- droithomme 7y ago
  The grade may or may not be a "big deal" as you mention, but it is certainly and with total absolution, a reasonable thing to ask about. Do you agree?

pmiller2 7y ago

Were you more than a couple years out of college at the time?

bane 7y ago

Why for goodness sakes would a job interview need your college transcripts?

CalRobert 7y ago
To satisfy an interviewer who thinks it's important because it's what they base their own sense of importance on. Or, because you took a specific course(s) relevant to the task you're being hired for and don't have industry experience in that material.

j45 7y ago

Having worked in and around EdTech in both industry for longer than most I meet.. a few themes seem to arise regularly that explain why so much of EdTech is stuck in the past., including hiring: - academic institutions generally have leadership inept at understanding technology - when academics try to make decisions by committee about technology when they are not competent in tech, it rarely works out - few academics actually learn how to teach, let alone how to learn. But a degree will make someone an expert, I suppose. - Education for hundreds of years has been linear, to match the linear nature of the factory floor and professional careers. Math hasn’t changed in 500 years. But, the world is no longer linear and the linear lenses that attempt to put tech, innovation in to linear paths will fail. - The world is changing faster than any curriculum can keep up. Courses can take 1 to 3 years to update once, and in the meantime, entire industries are upended by Uber and Airbnb. There are, many smart academics who understand this, but too many academic environments are far too toxic because they run like small countries who don’t answer or listen to their founders, students. The gates and metrics being used to assess those capable of innovation in education, when the decision makers might be the ones most standing to be supplanted will be a large barrier. If you’re interested to learn more about one academic has found ails academia, Tony Bates is worth a read.

username90 7y ago
> Math hasn’t changed in 500 years. What do you mean? Almost all math you learn in college were invented in the last 500 years. I think the last big things in math which they teach in undergrad were invented 50 years ago, so it is still a bit stale, but not that stale.
- Bahamut 7y ago
  Most math you learn in undergrad was invented 200-300 years ago - 50-200 years ago is grad level material.