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What portion of any of the hot online education projects could have been done without the web? For instance, how much of each of them could have been replicated

What portion of any of the hot online education projects could have been done without the web? For instance, how much of each of them could have been replicated by mailing people DVD/VHS lecture videos and quiz software? If most of it could be done without the web, why wasn't it? Cost? Excessive waiting and friction caused by going through the mail? I agree with almost everything I've read of what Khan has said, and Thrun is certainly impressive. But when other people go nuts about the possibilities of online education, they seem to imply that the primary hindrance to educational success worldwide has been a lack of access to video lectures. For most students, I do not think that is the case.

carlsednaoui 14y ago
I think that "consuming education" via video + interactive quizzes (and course-specific chat room & in person meetups) is much more attractive, and engaging, than sitting on your couch watching a DVD. It is pretty incredible to know that learning a topic of interest is literally a few clicks away... Also, on another note, it could be that since my cost as a student is almost zero (let's take the value of my time out of the equation) then I am more willing to "try" a class and, since the Udacity classes tend to be engaging, I actually stick around. Edit: IMO Udacity is a great way to start learning something new, such as basic CS stuff.
randomdata 14y ago
The timing is probably more important than the actual technology used. People's attitudes towards education have changed dramatically in the past few years, in my opinion. It wasn't long ago that Google bragged that they would only hire the best students from top universities. Now they have hired people just because they have successfully completed a Udacity course, have college dropouts amongst their ranks, you name it. That is a pretty dramatic shift in such a short time, and they're not the only company to follow in those footsteps. It is not that mail-order education was impossible years ago, but nobody would have taken it seriously. There was a strong leaning that a college degree from a traditional school was the only way to make it. Without that, you were going to flipping burgers at McDonalds. I think people are now ready for new ways of learning and it just happens that the web is now a great way to distribute that education.
robbiemitchell 14y ago
> For most students, I do not think that is the case. Unfortunately, most students in this world have shamefully little access to quality education. Access is definitely a problem. Even well-funded education systems have limited access to the best possible resources. The best resources are scattered everywhere, from Stanford professors to worksheets on some teacher's desk in Idaho. Getting them online is a big step.
kkowalczyk 14y ago
The biggest disruption is zero cost, better lecture format and systematic approach. 1. Zero cost. Yes, there are plenty of web-accessible, paid educational material. Many people make good business from it (e.g. lynda.com). Zero cost is a differentiator. Also, the paid material is usually vocational (e.g. teaching you how to use photoshop), not physics 101, the kind of material you study in college. I assume that's because college already exists, gives out diplomas so for-profit enterprises don't try to compete with colleges. 2. Better lecture format. There are free, high-quality lectures (MIT's OCW etc.) but while the content might be high-quality, the experience is awful. At first I was excited about OCW but just couldn't bear to sit through 1 hr lecture with paltry written notes. Udacity uses the format pioneered by Khan Academy of short videos, has supplemental like exercises and has a clear path from start to finish. 3. Systematic approach. Again, compared to previous initiatives like MIT's OCW, Udacity's goal is to provide complete courses. Clearly they are at the beginning of delivering that but I think that we can all agree that their Minimal Viable Product has been very successful, which validates product-market fit, and it's also clear from interviews that Udacity has much bigger goals and they are executing pretty aggressively on them. Remember, Facebook didn't have 600 million users on the first day.
- bhrgunatha 14y ago
  I think you've missed another very important part out. There's a very large, and extremely active community based around each course. Some are necessarily more active than others. Most of them have the actual teachers participating and I've witnessed the forum evolves into a peer-driven help system. Peter Norvig's activity on his course's forum was astounding and I've never seen a more helpful and active online community before. I haven't seen that with other online courses. OCW had nothing in terms of community engagement. Coursera does have a forum for each course, but they are very dry and the engagement factor feels missing. I haven't had a chance to take an offering from MITx yet. I have seen a few interviews where Udacity staff or teachers have said they deliberately wanted to engage the students and to encourage them to become active and support each other and I've seen that it's quite a big boost to the rest of the offering.

carlsednaoui 14y ago

I think that "consuming education" via video + interactive quizzes (and course-specific chat room & in person meetups) is much more attractive, and engaging, than sitting on your couch watching a DVD. It is pretty incredible to know that learning a topic of interest is literally a few clicks away... Also, on another note, it could be that since my cost as a student is almost zero (let's take the value of my time out of the equation) then I am more willing to "try" a class and, since the Udacity classes tend to be engaging, I actually stick around. Edit: IMO Udacity is a great way to start learning something new, such as basic CS stuff.

randomdata 14y ago

The timing is probably more important than the actual technology used. People's attitudes towards education have changed dramatically in the past few years, in my opinion. It wasn't long ago that Google bragged that they would only hire the best students from top universities. Now they have hired people just because they have successfully completed a Udacity course, have college dropouts amongst their ranks, you name it. That is a pretty dramatic shift in such a short time, and they're not the only company to follow in those footsteps. It is not that mail-order education was impossible years ago, but nobody would have taken it seriously. There was a strong leaning that a college degree from a traditional school was the only way to make it. Without that, you were going to flipping burgers at McDonalds. I think people are now ready for new ways of learning and it just happens that the web is now a great way to distribute that education.

robbiemitchell 14y ago

> For most students, I do not think that is the case. Unfortunately, most students in this world have shamefully little access to quality education. Access is definitely a problem. Even well-funded education systems have limited access to the best possible resources. The best resources are scattered everywhere, from Stanford professors to worksheets on some teacher's desk in Idaho. Getting them online is a big step.

kkowalczyk 14y ago

The biggest disruption is zero cost, better lecture format and systematic approach. 1. Zero cost. Yes, there are plenty of web-accessible, paid educational material. Many people make good business from it (e.g. lynda.com). Zero cost is a differentiator. Also, the paid material is usually vocational (e.g. teaching you how to use photoshop), not physics 101, the kind of material you study in college. I assume that's because college already exists, gives out diplomas so for-profit enterprises don't try to compete with colleges. 2. Better lecture format. There are free, high-quality lectures (MIT's OCW etc.) but while the content might be high-quality, the experience is awful. At first I was excited about OCW but just couldn't bear to sit through 1 hr lecture with paltry written notes. Udacity uses the format pioneered by Khan Academy of short videos, has supplemental like exercises and has a clear path from start to finish. 3. Systematic approach. Again, compared to previous initiatives like MIT's OCW, Udacity's goal is to provide complete courses. Clearly they are at the beginning of delivering that but I think that we can all agree that their Minimal Viable Product has been very successful, which validates product-market fit, and it's also clear from interviews that Udacity has much bigger goals and they are executing pretty aggressively on them. Remember, Facebook didn't have 600 million users on the first day.

bhrgunatha 14y ago
I think you've missed another very important part out. There's a very large, and extremely active community based around each course. Some are necessarily more active than others. Most of them have the actual teachers participating and I've witnessed the forum evolves into a peer-driven help system. Peter Norvig's activity on his course's forum was astounding and I've never seen a more helpful and active online community before. I haven't seen that with other online courses. OCW had nothing in terms of community engagement. Coursera does have a forum for each course, but they are very dry and the engagement factor feels missing. I haven't had a chance to take an offering from MITx yet. I have seen a few interviews where Udacity staff or teachers have said they deliberately wanted to engage the students and to encourage them to become active and support each other and I've seen that it's quite a big boost to the rest of the offering.