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What’s worked in Ed-tech—ever? Bank street writer. It kept nascent computer classes from killing typing and made grading so much easier, saving the writing car

by brians 7y ago

What’s worked in Ed-tech—ever? Bank street writer. It kept nascent computer classes from killing typing and made grading so much easier, saving the writing careers of many with poor handwriting. Logo: tens of millions of people have a lever to learn functional abstraction from “repeat 360 [fd 1 rt 1]” Project Athena. Frankly, I still want that ability to log in anywhere and have my setup ready to go. Project Andrew, too! 1:1 programs. For all the reasons we want a workstation per engineer, a workstation per student makes a qualitative difference in how it can be used. Wikipedia. It’s safe for my children to use unsupervised and amazingly comprehensive. What else?

unreal37 7y ago
I'd say Lynda.com was hugely successful. Or is that not considered Ed-Tech?
- ghaff 7y ago
  I suspect vocational training is considered old hat and boring. I get Lynda through my company and it can be pretty good. But it's not really that different from the sort of online training courses I've had access to in one form or another for ages.
  - newguy1234 7y ago
    Lynda became successful because companies gave it to their employees to boost up their skills...which I think might be an untapped potential market for ed tech. How about making very high quality courses that aren't sold to students. They're sold to companies which in turn make their employees take the courses and so on.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      A lot of these companies are realizing that is the market. A lot of companies put a lot of money into their internal ed programs and, in the scheme of things, adding some more general purpose ed to flesh out their offerings is cheap. Getting an employee or hobbyist to pay even $100 of their own money for a course. Or making them jump through reimbursement hoops? Not so much. Actually reminds me I should map out some Lynda courses to take in the new year.
- brians 7y ago
  I should take another look! I learn more by reading, and the ubiquitous PDF of course notes findable by DDGo is really something. Ubiquitous preprinted are amazing. But YouTube’s videos have helped me fix home appliances, fuse PVC, and pick up all sorts of practical skills. Lynda could be in the same avenue for work skills.
mlyle 7y ago
Khan is pretty awesome. I'm using it "flipped" with my kids-- they watch a video and do a problem set, and then we talk about it. Mastery challenges figure out whether things are actually retained. They're motivated to earn energy points and avatars. (They should have more rewards, though, because they're running out of things to look forward to). My middle kid just did two years of math in 4-5 weeks. Now we're free to talk about fun math stuff.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  I agree that Khan Academy is pretty decent but these days the project appears to have lost its direction. Most videos are low quality and could be improved. This non-profit has received millions in donations but has little to show for it. Most of the money appears to have been spent on programmers/web devs to simply organize Khan's already created videos. Some decent work went into the little math problem software as well.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    I feel like the nonprofit is doing OK. Content is steadily being created. I feel like the quality is relatively high. They purchased Duck Duck Moose and the resultant Khan Academy Jr is pretty good. They introduced a mastery learning system which is very good IMO. The classroom management stuff is OK. A whole lot of resource is going into localizing the content for different languages. They're also running a model school and ran a big pilot study about how to integrate the content at the district level. Research about how to best use the content and its efficacy is a logical next step in deciding where to go..
    - newguy1234 7y ago
      I guess. My opinion is that they have a lot of potential for the platform but aren't pushing in that direction. They appear to be positioning themselves as simply a "supplemental" resource for learning.
      - mlyle 7y ago

by brians 7y ago

unreal37 7y ago

I'd say Lynda.com was hugely successful. Or is that not considered Ed-Tech?

ghaff 7y ago
I suspect vocational training is considered old hat and boring. I get Lynda through my company and it can be pretty good. But it's not really that different from the sort of online training courses I've had access to in one form or another for ages.
- newguy1234 7y ago
  Lynda became successful because companies gave it to their employees to boost up their skills...which I think might be an untapped potential market for ed tech. How about making very high quality courses that aren't sold to students. They're sold to companies which in turn make their employees take the courses and so on.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    A lot of these companies are realizing that is the market. A lot of companies put a lot of money into their internal ed programs and, in the scheme of things, adding some more general purpose ed to flesh out their offerings is cheap. Getting an employee or hobbyist to pay even $100 of their own money for a course. Or making them jump through reimbursement hoops? Not so much. Actually reminds me I should map out some Lynda courses to take in the new year.
brians 7y ago
I should take another look! I learn more by reading, and the ubiquitous PDF of course notes findable by DDGo is really something. Ubiquitous preprinted are amazing. But YouTube’s videos have helped me fix home appliances, fuse PVC, and pick up all sorts of practical skills. Lynda could be in the same avenue for work skills.

mlyle 7y ago

Khan is pretty awesome. I'm using it "flipped" with my kids-- they watch a video and do a problem set, and then we talk about it. Mastery challenges figure out whether things are actually retained. They're motivated to earn energy points and avatars. (They should have more rewards, though, because they're running out of things to look forward to). My middle kid just did two years of math in 4-5 weeks. Now we're free to talk about fun math stuff.

newguy1234 7y ago
I agree that Khan Academy is pretty decent but these days the project appears to have lost its direction. Most videos are low quality and could be improved. This non-profit has received millions in donations but has little to show for it. Most of the money appears to have been spent on programmers/web devs to simply organize Khan's already created videos. Some decent work went into the little math problem software as well.
- mlyle 7y ago
  I feel like the nonprofit is doing OK. Content is steadily being created. I feel like the quality is relatively high. They purchased Duck Duck Moose and the resultant Khan Academy Jr is pretty good. They introduced a mastery learning system which is very good IMO. The classroom management stuff is OK. A whole lot of resource is going into localizing the content for different languages. They're also running a model school and ran a big pilot study about how to integrate the content at the district level. Research about how to best use the content and its efficacy is a logical next step in deciding where to go..
  - newguy1234 7y ago
    I guess. My opinion is that they have a lot of potential for the platform but aren't pushing in that direction. They appear to be positioning themselves as simply a "supplemental" resource for learning.
    - mlyle 7y ago