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That's because online education tries to simulate traditional education. Back awhile ago free online lecture videos (e.g. Berkeley) were simply uploaded to a p
by UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
That's because online education tries to simulate traditional education.
Back awhile ago free online lecture videos (e.g. Berkeley) were simply uploaded to a page and anyone could go watch them without signing up for a class or otherwise jumping through hoops.
This resulted in me watching a few random lectures about subjects I know little or nothing about. Like econ classes, engineering, science, or similar.
This was good because it was short bursts of information without any hassle, commitment, and similar.
These days everyone has locked their content behind sign up/registration pages, and you're expected to commit to a tradition semester of a class in order to get a worthless certificate of completion.
They also dictate the speed at which you learn. No more learning at your own pace, no, you have to do one a week for as many weeks as it goes on for like it was a traditional class.
And why? Why indeed. Why is online education simulating University education when it actually has no relationship to it? You aren't getting a University qualification by completing a "class," there is no reason why a "class" has to be X number of weeks or you should have to complete the rereq's in order to take it.
Places like Khan Academy have got this right. I can go to Khan Academy right now, click on a video series, watch a few bites of information and then stop when I'm ready/bored. Coursera's class system is just pointless, stressful, and annoying.
If Coursera was transferable then it would absolutely make sense to do. But that doesn't look likely and while that isn't the case they're just making access to learning material more difficult with no obvious benefit to anyone.
- shawabawa3 14y ago> I can go to Khan Academy right now, click on a video series, watch a few bites of information and then stop when I'm ready/bored. You can. But you wont. The sad fact is that deadline motivate people. Without having deadlines and structure coursera would have gone nowhere.
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoThis claim is baseless. Please reserve it for after various MOOCs have tried different models and the data supports it. It's possible and even likely that the schedule contributes to motivation for many, but my experience has been the opposite and I'm probably not unique.
- summerdown2 14y agoYou are not unique. I much prefer studying at my own pace, too. I found class timescales so demotivating I dropped all the Coursera courses in favour of the Udacity ones as soon as it became obvious other things in my life would keep getting in the way.
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoI agree with many of your points but the main reason I use Coursera is because it's an actual course, with structure and quizzes and assignments. I personally find Khan Academy to be useless, and I've tried to use it (Edit: useless for me, but I do think what he has created is fantastic). I think I would find it useful as a supplement to an existing course, and that's what it was originally designed as. Very few people learn anything of moderate complexity without doing exercises throughout.
- adaml_623 14y agoWith regards to your use of the word 'worthless' relating to the Coursera certificate of completion. Many university courses aren't significantly different to Coursera so I think that if the courses keep up their standards and enough people have knowledge of them then it is possible that that certificate will not remain worthless. We were discussing Coursera at work last week and I think that if a job candidate appeared with Coursera completion certificates on their CV then it wouldn't be looked at unfavourably.