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I'm passionate about online learning. I like James Burke's knowledge web idea [http://www.k-web.org/ http://www.k-web.org/], but I'm not terribly optimistic abo

by dood 18y ago

I'm passionate about online learning. I like James Burke's knowledge web idea [http://www.k-web.org/ http://www.k-web.org/], but I'm not terribly optimistic about their approach/implementation. The idea is to make a network of knowledge which enables self-directed learning. Could incorporate tests/games, dependencies (to learn x, you need to learn y, or even complete a subgame), external references for further reading, and possibly a lot more. A great feature would be systems to allow collaboration or lightweight teaching among learners (chat/forums/etc). With a bit of thought it may be possible to make a framework into which volunteers add a lot of the content, though editors/quality control would likely be necessary. If I built it, I'd be inclined to ignore existing public educational systems and start from scratch, but if it hooked into them it may help growth.

brentr 18y ago
I think the open source textbook projects in the works might be something that could propel an idea like this forward. Personally, I find the lack of high quality videos about physics, mathematics, and computer science quite irritating. When I do manage to have some free time, I like to watch videos, such as those from Nova. Unfortunately, one can't find many free versions on the internet.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Producing such videos is so much work. Here's a concept: Make an online system that makes it easier to assemble a team of geographically and temporally separate volunteers to upload video clips, edit them into a sensible sequence, do voiceovers, and publish the result. Like a Wikipedia for techie videos, though perhaps with a slightly higher barrier to entry to prevent griefing. (Nobody wants to watch the James Burke video that suddenly becomes NSFW in minute three... I mean, show that to a kid accidentally and you could literally go to prison.) UPDATE: Hey, wait a minute, have I just invented Youtube's "This video is a response to video X" discussion system?! Only with more geeks and fewer cats on pianos?
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- dood 18y ago
  Just in case you hadn't seen it: http://videolectures.net/ http://videolectures.net/ Part of the problem is that such videos are hard to find, and not usefully aggregated anywhere (a problem I am indirectly trying to solve ;).
ambition 18y ago
A large and frequently overlooked part of what good teachers do: motivating. In my opinion, it's the true hard problem in online learning.
- mdemare 18y ago
  That's why combining e-learning with games is such a good idea.
- dood 18y ago
  This is a big part of why I like the idea of an interconnected web of knowledge - as opposed to the silos most students are forced into today. As long as the learner is interested in one small area of knowledge, they can easily follow links to related areas they didn't know they cared about. Because the system shows how knowledge interrelates, motivation in one area can spread naturally around the system. This way, learners work with their interests, instead of being forced to think about things they don't know why they should care about. Maths is a great example. A lot of kids dislike maths because it seems boring and irrelevent to them. But since maths underpins so much of knowledge, many learners would find themselves needing to understand a mathematical concept to advance in their primary interests - and because they can then see the benefit of learning maths they become self-motivated, and perhaps even gain an appreciation for maths in its own right. So much of education today goes against the individual's grain - relying on a factory-mentality, where each child/product must move along a variety of production lines in a pre-ordained manner. With a system like the one I imagine, the learning process works with the learner's natural motivations, rather than against it.
- ewjordan 18y ago
  Related to that, I think one of the major problems is to motivate kids to do their damn homework, as one of the biggest hindrances to motivation is lack of comprehension. That sets in very quickly if kids only think about the material during class. Once a student drops behind, they are all but lost to you unless you're doing one on one tutoring where you can backtrack without wasting a whole lot of people's time. I spent a while as a tutor, and I was always amazed that parents were more than happy to spend $100/hr for private tutoring, which most of the time just amounted to overpaying an over-educated person to babysit your kid while they do simple homework that they could very easily have worked through themselves, but just didn't. Yeah, I was also available to answer questions, and clarify things, and I was very good at it, but fundamentally, the most helpful thing was just that the kid was forced to be there mentally. Crazy idea alert: why not save some money and pay your kid $10 or $20/hr to do their homework rather than paying me $100/hr to watch them do it? I'm sure dollar-for-dollar this would be far more effective. If need be, pay me the $100 a fifth as often - while I love the money, I honestly feel like most of the time I spend tutoring is wasted since the kids see it as a substitute for their own personal work, not as a supplement to it. I've often wondered if setting up an automated, pre-funded allowance system based on online homework time (or productivity, or some combination) might help this situation. I know that the idea of paying (bribing) kids to do what they "should" be doing anyways seems wrong philosophically, but I really think it might be more cost effective in the end. And if the old line that "school is your job" holds true, then perhaps kids _should_ receive a little money up front for work, especially if they won't do it otherwise. Yeah, rewards come later and all, but how many rational adults would really be willing to work at 100% effort for twelve years with only an assurance that they will be compensated for their labours with some unspecified and uncertain amount later? (no offense intended to anyone that took tech jobs for stock options during the dot-com bubble, of course :) )
lux 18y ago
That's sort of what we're aiming to do at http://www.dojolearning.com/ http://www.dojolearning.com/ - longer term anyway. We're starting off by hitting the business market first, which is more open to change and not as tied to the existing learning systems, but we do plan to branch out in lots of ways to make a better online learning experience for everyone. Anyway, if you're passionate about online learning, I'd love to chat about it with you if you're interested...
- dood 18y ago
  Sure, email in profile. But I should stress that I use the word passionate to mean enthusiastic, not to indicate I have any special skills or expertise!
- khurrams 18y ago
  Hi I am interested - Please feel free to contact me at khurram@geniteam.com
tigerthink 18y ago
>With a bit of thought it may be possible to make a framework into which volunteers add a lot of the content, though editors/quality control would likely be necessary. I like the idea of students up or downvoting stuff based on how clear it is. Even a diagram or a one-sentence description could have up and down votes associated with it.
- chrisdone 18y ago
  I think that is a very good idea. We would have to take two factors into account, I think, those are; (1) clarity (2) accuracy. An “entry” can be very easy to understand but completely inaccurate, or completely accurate and horribly difficult to understand, and so forth. So one could vote on clarity and/or accuracy, depending on whether you are competent or incompetent. I envisage going onto this site and thinking “I want to learn something new about the Fibonacci sequence”, or: “how does Quicksort work?” and so: “show me results tagged ‘quicksort’”. One could shrug this idea off as a “Wikipedia clone-- with voting”, but Wikipedia is just an encyclopaedia; it does not aim to teach you things. But, we can take some ideas from Wikipedia... If entries -- which would essentially be factoids, as I am hypothesising -- contain a few paragraphs and cover one very narrow topic, that would necessitate cross-linking of entries. Just as you read Wikipedia and follow hundreds of links because you just “have to!” know more about this topic, this could be applied to entries. Perhaps even “related entries” or “series” (an ordered set of related entries) could be created. This is a very exciting idea to me. Does anyone know of anything like it? I may implement it if I see nothing like it. Let me condense the criteria: 1) A web site for learning things, however popular or esoteric 2) Learning is done by reading entries, submitted anonymously or otherwise. 3) Entries are short, to the point, and very narrow. (“What is polymorphism?”, “How do I implement RAII in C++?”) 4) Entries are voted upon by two factors indicating overall quality; (1) clarity (2) accuray. 5) Cross-linking, like a wiki. Damn you, Hacker News!
  - tigerthink 18y ago
    Heh, sorry that I'm late to reply. Anyway, I got very excited about a very similar set of ideas. I'm not much for programming (yet) though. But go for it! Here is an idea for dealing with prerequisite knowledge: Let's say I want to learn about quicksort. For quicksort, let's say I need to know about arrays and recursion. For recursion, I need to know about functions. If I search for quicksort, the program should analyze my user profile to see which prerequisites I need. Then it should generate a page with all the prerequisites and quicksort. Now let's say I'm reading about recursion. At the end of the page it should ask me a few questions about recursion, for which I will type in the answers. Getting the questions correct should be a very good indication that I understand the section. If I get them wrong, the program should try to give me a hint. If this has not been implemented for a particular section, I should just get a generic extended explanation. Either way, I should have another question to answer. Thinking about this is making me become mildly excited about my idea again. Maybe I will beef up my programming skillz and attempt an implementation. Anyway, I emailed the author of <a href="http://eloquentjavascript.net/ http://eloquentjavascript.net/">Eloquent Javascript</a>, and here's what he had to say about computer-assisted learning: >There is a lot of great stuff that can be done with 'hyper-text', but it is tricky. My initial plans for Eloquent JavaScript were way more extravagant, but going away from the old style of text turns out to be rather hard -- that form has been evolving for three thousand years, and is much enriched by the fact that we are all used to it and know its conventions. When a text is no longer continuous, you can not refer back, which somehow makes it a lot less personal -- I liked that fact that, in writing chapter 4, I could keep talking about stuff mentioned in chapter 2. A radically 'active' text is bound to be either a disconnedted cloud of snippets, or some carefully crafted non-linear experience that would take years to get right.
kalid 18y ago
I'm interested in online education too -- if interested, check out my blog at betterexplained.com. One problem I see with education in general is that there's plenty of content (like Wikipedia), but not enough focus on the delta that takes you from "huh" to "aha!". Feel free to message me with ideas if you'd like to chat.
khurrams 18y ago
Hi These are really interesting ideas. Would you be interested in following up the idea in more details with me. Please contact me at khurram@geniteam.com

by dood 18y ago

brentr 18y ago

I think the open source textbook projects in the works might be something that could propel an idea like this forward. Personally, I find the lack of high quality videos about physics, mathematics, and computer science quite irritating. When I do manage to have some free time, I like to watch videos, such as those from Nova. Unfortunately, one can't find many free versions on the internet.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Producing such videos is so much work. Here's a concept: Make an online system that makes it easier to assemble a team of geographically and temporally separate volunteers to upload video clips, edit them into a sensible sequence, do voiceovers, and publish the result. Like a Wikipedia for techie videos, though perhaps with a slightly higher barrier to entry to prevent griefing. (Nobody wants to watch the James Burke video that suddenly becomes NSFW in minute three... I mean, show that to a kid accidentally and you could literally go to prison.) UPDATE: Hey, wait a minute, have I just invented Youtube's "This video is a response to video X" discussion system?! Only with more geeks and fewer cats on pianos?
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
dood 18y ago
Just in case you hadn't seen it: http://videolectures.net/ http://videolectures.net/ Part of the problem is that such videos are hard to find, and not usefully aggregated anywhere (a problem I am indirectly trying to solve ;).

ambition 18y ago

A large and frequently overlooked part of what good teachers do: motivating. In my opinion, it's the true hard problem in online learning.

mdemare 18y ago
That's why combining e-learning with games is such a good idea.
dood 18y ago
This is a big part of why I like the idea of an interconnected web of knowledge - as opposed to the silos most students are forced into today. As long as the learner is interested in one small area of knowledge, they can easily follow links to related areas they didn't know they cared about. Because the system shows how knowledge interrelates, motivation in one area can spread naturally around the system. This way, learners work with their interests, instead of being forced to think about things they don't know why they should care about. Maths is a great example. A lot of kids dislike maths because it seems boring and irrelevent to them. But since maths underpins so much of knowledge, many learners would find themselves needing to understand a mathematical concept to advance in their primary interests - and because they can then see the benefit of learning maths they become self-motivated, and perhaps even gain an appreciation for maths in its own right. So much of education today goes against the individual's grain - relying on a factory-mentality, where each child/product must move along a variety of production lines in a pre-ordained manner. With a system like the one I imagine, the learning process works with the learner's natural motivations, rather than against it.
ewjordan 18y ago
Related to that, I think one of the major problems is to motivate kids to do their damn homework, as one of the biggest hindrances to motivation is lack of comprehension. That sets in very quickly if kids only think about the material during class. Once a student drops behind, they are all but lost to you unless you're doing one on one tutoring where you can backtrack without wasting a whole lot of people's time. I spent a while as a tutor, and I was always amazed that parents were more than happy to spend $100/hr for private tutoring, which most of the time just amounted to overpaying an over-educated person to babysit your kid while they do simple homework that they could very easily have worked through themselves, but just didn't. Yeah, I was also available to answer questions, and clarify things, and I was very good at it, but fundamentally, the most helpful thing was just that the kid was forced to be there mentally. Crazy idea alert: why not save some money and pay your kid $10 or $20/hr to do their homework rather than paying me $100/hr to watch them do it? I'm sure dollar-for-dollar this would be far more effective. If need be, pay me the $100 a fifth as often - while I love the money, I honestly feel like most of the time I spend tutoring is wasted since the kids see it as a substitute for their own personal work, not as a supplement to it. I've often wondered if setting up an automated, pre-funded allowance system based on online homework time (or productivity, or some combination) might help this situation. I know that the idea of paying (bribing) kids to do what they "should" be doing anyways seems wrong philosophically, but I really think it might be more cost effective in the end. And if the old line that "school is your job" holds true, then perhaps kids _should_ receive a little money up front for work, especially if they won't do it otherwise. Yeah, rewards come later and all, but how many rational adults would really be willing to work at 100% effort for twelve years with only an assurance that they will be compensated for their labours with some unspecified and uncertain amount later? (no offense intended to anyone that took tech jobs for stock options during the dot-com bubble, of course :) )

lux 18y ago

That's sort of what we're aiming to do at http://www.dojolearning.com/ http://www.dojolearning.com/ - longer term anyway. We're starting off by hitting the business market first, which is more open to change and not as tied to the existing learning systems, but we do plan to branch out in lots of ways to make a better online learning experience for everyone. Anyway, if you're passionate about online learning, I'd love to chat about it with you if you're interested...

dood 18y ago
Sure, email in profile. But I should stress that I use the word passionate to mean enthusiastic, not to indicate I have any special skills or expertise!
khurrams 18y ago
Hi I am interested - Please feel free to contact me at khurram@geniteam.com

tigerthink 18y ago

>With a bit of thought it may be possible to make a framework into which volunteers add a lot of the content, though editors/quality control would likely be necessary. I like the idea of students up or downvoting stuff based on how clear it is. Even a diagram or a one-sentence description could have up and down votes associated with it.

chrisdone 18y ago
I think that is a very good idea. We would have to take two factors into account, I think, those are; (1) clarity (2) accuracy. An “entry” can be very easy to understand but completely inaccurate, or completely accurate and horribly difficult to understand, and so forth. So one could vote on clarity and/or accuracy, depending on whether you are competent or incompetent. I envisage going onto this site and thinking “I want to learn something new about the Fibonacci sequence”, or: “how does Quicksort work?” and so: “show me results tagged ‘quicksort’”. One could shrug this idea off as a “Wikipedia clone-- with voting”, but Wikipedia is just an encyclopaedia; it does not aim to teach you things. But, we can take some ideas from Wikipedia... If entries -- which would essentially be factoids, as I am hypothesising -- contain a few paragraphs and cover one very narrow topic, that would necessitate cross-linking of entries. Just as you read Wikipedia and follow hundreds of links because you just “have to!” know more about this topic, this could be applied to entries. Perhaps even “related entries” or “series” (an ordered set of related entries) could be created. This is a very exciting idea to me. Does anyone know of anything like it? I may implement it if I see nothing like it. Let me condense the criteria: 1) A web site for learning things, however popular or esoteric 2) Learning is done by reading entries, submitted anonymously or otherwise. 3) Entries are short, to the point, and very narrow. (“What is polymorphism?”, “How do I implement RAII in C++?”) 4) Entries are voted upon by two factors indicating overall quality; (1) clarity (2) accuray. 5) Cross-linking, like a wiki. Damn you, Hacker News!
- tigerthink 18y ago
  Heh, sorry that I'm late to reply. Anyway, I got very excited about a very similar set of ideas. I'm not much for programming (yet) though. But go for it! Here is an idea for dealing with prerequisite knowledge: Let's say I want to learn about quicksort. For quicksort, let's say I need to know about arrays and recursion. For recursion, I need to know about functions. If I search for quicksort, the program should analyze my user profile to see which prerequisites I need. Then it should generate a page with all the prerequisites and quicksort. Now let's say I'm reading about recursion. At the end of the page it should ask me a few questions about recursion, for which I will type in the answers. Getting the questions correct should be a very good indication that I understand the section. If I get them wrong, the program should try to give me a hint. If this has not been implemented for a particular section, I should just get a generic extended explanation. Either way, I should have another question to answer. Thinking about this is making me become mildly excited about my idea again. Maybe I will beef up my programming skillz and attempt an implementation. Anyway, I emailed the author of <a href="http://eloquentjavascript.net/ http://eloquentjavascript.net/">Eloquent Javascript</a>, and here's what he had to say about computer-assisted learning: >There is a lot of great stuff that can be done with 'hyper-text', but it is tricky. My initial plans for Eloquent JavaScript were way more extravagant, but going away from the old style of text turns out to be rather hard -- that form has been evolving for three thousand years, and is much enriched by the fact that we are all used to it and know its conventions. When a text is no longer continuous, you can not refer back, which somehow makes it a lot less personal -- I liked that fact that, in writing chapter 4, I could keep talking about stuff mentioned in chapter 2. A radically 'active' text is bound to be either a disconnedted cloud of snippets, or some carefully crafted non-linear experience that would take years to get right.

kalid 18y ago

I'm interested in online education too -- if interested, check out my blog at betterexplained.com. One problem I see with education in general is that there's plenty of content (like Wikipedia), but not enough focus on the delta that takes you from "huh" to "aha!". Feel free to message me with ideas if you'd like to chat.

khurrams 18y ago

Hi These are really interesting ideas. Would you be interested in following up the idea in more details with me. Please contact me at khurram@geniteam.com