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My big annoyance is with the MOOCs that still try and fit you into a schedule. Many times I have been in a course where I would have burned through the whole t

My big annoyance is with the MOOCs that still try and fit you into a schedule. Many times I have been in a course where I would have burned through the whole thing if I was allowed. But instead they feel the need to stagger the information on a weekly basis and I lose interest. Coursera is the one that comes to mind. I also don't care about getting a grade or certificate. Just give me all the lectures at once and some exercises so I can practice if I want. Gotta let go of the past.

jrs99 12y ago
Then your MOOC is the entire internet.
- solarmist 12y ago
  Not really, he still want the structured learning with video lectures that has a clear path, he just wants to be able to take it and run rather than being forced to crawl/walk though the material.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  An MOOC for a subject is truly just a big wikipedia article. Text, video, audio resources curated by someone. Hopefully MOOCs will eventually be similar to epub books; open format, meta data, a collection of digital objects.
  - odower 12y ago
    We're not focused on curriculum, but rather a collection of content around a subject at https://curiosity.com https://curiosity.com. Wiki, text, video, audio...people learn different ways in different order unless they're made to do otherwise. We're focused on the always curious person. MOOCs serve a different purpose so hard to see them going more unstructured.
  - dthal 12y ago
    "An MOOC for a subject is truly just a big wikipedia article." I don't agree with this. I've taken several online courses at EdX (EE, AI) Coursera(ML, PGM) and Udacity(Web App, Hadoop), and the things that are in the online classes that are not in a Wikipedia article - other students, homework with deadlines - are a large part of the value provided.
- joshontheweb 12y ago
  This is definitely true to a degree. It doesn't work well for all things though. For instance, I am particularly interested in Electrical Engineering (I want to build modular synthesizers) right now. I have no foundation in it and I found some MIT lectures on youtube. They were awesome but sadly the lecture series was incomplete. I know I could just read a book but they tend to be very dense. Having the lectures was super helpful. I see these MOOCs as a way to open these lectures to the world. They just need to not try and fit it into the old style. Truly voracious and driven students should be able to progress at their own pace while having high quality presentations. Scheduled curriculum feels like a huge barrier to me. I'm not inclined to pay for a scheduled curriculum where I would pay for a all-at-once lecture series.
skinnybatch 12y ago
I would posit that there are two categories of MOOC students: those that seek out classrooms to learn focused knowledge; and those that find the online education style appealing. The former category, I believe, is far more driven. These students are self-motivated, with a drive/need to learn and digest the information quickly and/or in their own timeframe (the "binge learners," similar to the binge watchers of entire seasons of television shows on Netflix). The second category of MOOC students is more nebulous to me. Without specific intent and purpose, but enthralled by the potential to take courses and/or get course credit online, their urge to engage is simply less. You, joshontheweb, clearly are of the first category, as am I, and I can sympathize with the irritation and frustration of waiting for material to appear. The greater issues, as I see them, regarding MOOC and a free university education online, are that of measurement, breadth, and accountability. Taking courses online is akin to having a class where all the exams and benchmarks are "take-homes." We have no way to measure what is actually being learned, consumed, digested, encoded vs what is simply being spit back from a book or other source. What's more, when something is free, somehow people often don't value it in quite the same way. Ask someone to pay $5 for a class, and even that may motivate a different participation and engagement level. Kind of like buying a series of workout sessions with a personal trainer - you're far more likely to show up to the gym. In regards to the breadth issue, universities make you take courses across a number of subjects and categories in order to make sure you have some basic foundational coursework under your belt. We may not have all enjoyed all of these categorically required classes, and if nothing else, a few left me with some fodder for dinner party conversation. The online university education system, in order to be truly beneficial, functional, and comparable for degree programs, will have to lay out some common minimum and breadth requirements, that may provide a replicable experience for students truly interested in pursuing an advanced degree. Of course, this really doesn't apply to those interested merely in enrichment and in-depth instruction on specific topics rather than a degree program. For these students, the availability of knowledge and practical implementation exercises is all that matters. Finally, I see an issue with accountability, as in the difficulty with provided online students with enough structure and deadline as to promote a sense of onus and accountability. As noted earlier, this also ties in directly with the issue of not paying for coursework. Some might argue that releasing information weekly provides students with a benchmark of when and where they should be learning material; however, arguably, releasing the material from the get-go, and establishing an end-date for the course, by which time students must complete all graded coursework, would also suffice. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but somewhere the measure of accountability within this space falls short. There is a nebulous void between the sources and recipients of knowledge and education online. Maybe it's the lack of true interaction, maybe it's the lack of classroom (the engagement of a finite group of students, seated next to each other, forced to endure the annoying drone of the heavy breather sitting next to you, the random but startling crackling of the lecturer's microphone, the timely malfunction of the overhead projector, the ripe and palpable angst during an exam…), or maybe it's just not education as I know, or knew, it, which doesn't mean a darn thing. Having been in educational settings, both one-on-one and classroom, I fear I am quick to think of the students for whom this type of educational forum would be useless. Those students who look for the shortcuts, and simply want the accolades and recognition for having done something, with little impetus to do the work. Instead, as I write this, I think about the students for whom MOOC will truly be revolutionary and life-altering. For those students, who could not afford nor gain access to higher education, but who would do anything for it, then I imagine and hope that it would be for them that we would not have to worry about precise measurement and accountability. Instead, they will hopefully relish the opportunity to learn, breadth and all, striving to turn the opportunity into reality, recharting the courses of their futures, and approaching MOOC with gratitude and integrity.
psbp 12y ago
Coursera actually offers several classes that can be done at your own pace. It's gradually expanding, and will eventually offer a wide range of courses. There's also plenty of courses that aren't closed after their completion date. EdX has done the same with their Introduction to Linux course: https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-introduction-1621#.VCWwpFXF840 https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx...
- joshontheweb 12y ago
  I didn't know that. Perhaps I will have to revisit it. Thanks.
- SiVal 12y ago
  That's good to know, because my complaint is the opposite of his, yet the solution is the same. I don't usually want to crash through it all in one weekend, though if that were the best timing, I might. My usual problem is that if I'm too busy to work on the class during the period they have designated as the only time Assignment 4 can be worked on, I have essentially dropped out of the class instead of just pausing it. It's like a TV mini-series shown for two hours every night for five days in the days before consumer video recorders. If something came up at work that made you miss two episodes, you may as well skip the rest, because the series is ruined. Contrast that to just putting up all five episodes on YouTube and leaving them there. What a relief! Skip a couple of days, and you're still watching the show, as far as you're concerned. I can't fuss too much about such great courses that are offered to me for free, but it would be nice if they could routinely post the entire course and just leave it up. Each assignment could have its own forum thread, all of them in parallel, and reading back over these threads would probably clear up anything you were wondering about. I know some courses are already of this sort. I hope more will move in this direction.
jjsalamon 12y ago
Agreed, most moocs follow a traditional method by recording lectures and posting them weekly. For a better way of learning check out udacity. Go at your own pace and is somewhat more interactive. Khan academy is also good for specific subjects.
- joshontheweb 12y ago
  Khan Academy is really cool. I do find it to be pretty surface level though. At least for what I am interested: Electrical Engineering and Music Theory.
  - psbp 12y ago
    Khan has said that he wants to explore more specific, advanced topics at some point. I think they realized their opportunity to stay relevant (and well funded) is to first focus on K-12.
odower 12y ago
I think it depends on your objective. Do you want to learn something on your own time, in the order you choose, with the media types you want? That is more of what we're going for with https://curiosity.com https://curiosity.com vs a directed approach. More choice and less structure and force. But then again, some people need and want that depending on their goal.
dthal 12y ago
If the class is hard, then the schedule serves an important purpose, which is to keep a group of students together at about the same point in the curriculum. That way, if some of them get stuck, there will be other people working on the same material at the same time who can help them get unstuck. I have learned (and tried and failed at learning) some difficult material through pure self-study in the past, and when you get stuck, you can stay stuck for a long time.

jrs99 12y ago

Then your MOOC is the entire internet.

solarmist 12y ago
Not really, he still want the structured learning with video lectures that has a clear path, he just wants to be able to take it and run rather than being forced to crawl/walk though the material.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
An MOOC for a subject is truly just a big wikipedia article. Text, video, audio resources curated by someone. Hopefully MOOCs will eventually be similar to epub books; open format, meta data, a collection of digital objects.
- odower 12y ago
  We're not focused on curriculum, but rather a collection of content around a subject at https://curiosity.com https://curiosity.com. Wiki, text, video, audio...people learn different ways in different order unless they're made to do otherwise. We're focused on the always curious person. MOOCs serve a different purpose so hard to see them going more unstructured.
- dthal 12y ago
  "An MOOC for a subject is truly just a big wikipedia article." I don't agree with this. I've taken several online courses at EdX (EE, AI) Coursera(ML, PGM) and Udacity(Web App, Hadoop), and the things that are in the online classes that are not in a Wikipedia article - other students, homework with deadlines - are a large part of the value provided.
joshontheweb 12y ago
This is definitely true to a degree. It doesn't work well for all things though. For instance, I am particularly interested in Electrical Engineering (I want to build modular synthesizers) right now. I have no foundation in it and I found some MIT lectures on youtube. They were awesome but sadly the lecture series was incomplete. I know I could just read a book but they tend to be very dense. Having the lectures was super helpful. I see these MOOCs as a way to open these lectures to the world. They just need to not try and fit it into the old style. Truly voracious and driven students should be able to progress at their own pace while having high quality presentations. Scheduled curriculum feels like a huge barrier to me. I'm not inclined to pay for a scheduled curriculum where I would pay for a all-at-once lecture series.

skinnybatch 12y ago

I would posit that there are two categories of MOOC students: those that seek out classrooms to learn focused knowledge; and those that find the online education style appealing. The former category, I believe, is far more driven. These students are self-motivated, with a drive/need to learn and digest the information quickly and/or in their own timeframe (the "binge learners," similar to the binge watchers of entire seasons of television shows on Netflix). The second category of MOOC students is more nebulous to me. Without specific intent and purpose, but enthralled by the potential to take courses and/or get course credit online, their urge to engage is simply less. You, joshontheweb, clearly are of the first category, as am I, and I can sympathize with the irritation and frustration of waiting for material to appear. The greater issues, as I see them, regarding MOOC and a free university education online, are that of measurement, breadth, and accountability. Taking courses online is akin to having a class where all the exams and benchmarks are "take-homes." We have no way to measure what is actually being learned, consumed, digested, encoded vs what is simply being spit back from a book or other source. What's more, when something is free, somehow people often don't value it in quite the same way. Ask someone to pay $5 for a class, and even that may motivate a different participation and engagement level. Kind of like buying a series of workout sessions with a personal trainer - you're far more likely to show up to the gym. In regards to the breadth issue, universities make you take courses across a number of subjects and categories in order to make sure you have some basic foundational coursework under your belt. We may not have all enjoyed all of these categorically required classes, and if nothing else, a few left me with some fodder for dinner party conversation. The online university education system, in order to be truly beneficial, functional, and comparable for degree programs, will have to lay out some common minimum and breadth requirements, that may provide a replicable experience for students truly interested in pursuing an advanced degree. Of course, this really doesn't apply to those interested merely in enrichment and in-depth instruction on specific topics rather than a degree program. For these students, the availability of knowledge and practical implementation exercises is all that matters. Finally, I see an issue with accountability, as in the difficulty with provided online students with enough structure and deadline as to promote a sense of onus and accountability. As noted earlier, this also ties in directly with the issue of not paying for coursework. Some might argue that releasing information weekly provides students with a benchmark of when and where they should be learning material; however, arguably, releasing the material from the get-go, and establishing an end-date for the course, by which time students must complete all graded coursework, would also suffice. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but somewhere the measure of accountability within this space falls short. There is a nebulous void between the sources and recipients of knowledge and education online. Maybe it's the lack of true interaction, maybe it's the lack of classroom (the engagement of a finite group of students, seated next to each other, forced to endure the annoying drone of the heavy breather sitting next to you, the random but startling crackling of the lecturer's microphone, the timely malfunction of the overhead projector, the ripe and palpable angst during an exam…), or maybe it's just not education as I know, or knew, it, which doesn't mean a darn thing. Having been in educational settings, both one-on-one and classroom, I fear I am quick to think of the students for whom this type of educational forum would be useless. Those students who look for the shortcuts, and simply want the accolades and recognition for having done something, with little impetus to do the work. Instead, as I write this, I think about the students for whom MOOC will truly be revolutionary and life-altering. For those students, who could not afford nor gain access to higher education, but who would do anything for it, then I imagine and hope that it would be for them that we would not have to worry about precise measurement and accountability. Instead, they will hopefully relish the opportunity to learn, breadth and all, striving to turn the opportunity into reality, recharting the courses of their futures, and approaching MOOC with gratitude and integrity.

psbp 12y ago

Coursera actually offers several classes that can be done at your own pace. It's gradually expanding, and will eventually offer a wide range of courses. There's also plenty of courses that aren't closed after their completion date. EdX has done the same with their Introduction to Linux course: https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx-lfs101x-introduction-1621#.VCWwpFXF840 https://www.edx.org/course/linuxfoundationx/linuxfoundationx...

joshontheweb 12y ago
I didn't know that. Perhaps I will have to revisit it. Thanks.
SiVal 12y ago
That's good to know, because my complaint is the opposite of his, yet the solution is the same. I don't usually want to crash through it all in one weekend, though if that were the best timing, I might. My usual problem is that if I'm too busy to work on the class during the period they have designated as the only time Assignment 4 can be worked on, I have essentially dropped out of the class instead of just pausing it. It's like a TV mini-series shown for two hours every night for five days in the days before consumer video recorders. If something came up at work that made you miss two episodes, you may as well skip the rest, because the series is ruined. Contrast that to just putting up all five episodes on YouTube and leaving them there. What a relief! Skip a couple of days, and you're still watching the show, as far as you're concerned. I can't fuss too much about such great courses that are offered to me for free, but it would be nice if they could routinely post the entire course and just leave it up. Each assignment could have its own forum thread, all of them in parallel, and reading back over these threads would probably clear up anything you were wondering about. I know some courses are already of this sort. I hope more will move in this direction.

jjsalamon 12y ago

Agreed, most moocs follow a traditional method by recording lectures and posting them weekly. For a better way of learning check out udacity. Go at your own pace and is somewhat more interactive. Khan academy is also good for specific subjects.

joshontheweb 12y ago
Khan Academy is really cool. I do find it to be pretty surface level though. At least for what I am interested: Electrical Engineering and Music Theory.
- psbp 12y ago
  Khan has said that he wants to explore more specific, advanced topics at some point. I think they realized their opportunity to stay relevant (and well funded) is to first focus on K-12.

odower 12y ago

I think it depends on your objective. Do you want to learn something on your own time, in the order you choose, with the media types you want? That is more of what we're going for with https://curiosity.com https://curiosity.com vs a directed approach. More choice and less structure and force. But then again, some people need and want that depending on their goal.

dthal 12y ago

If the class is hard, then the schedule serves an important purpose, which is to keep a group of students together at about the same point in the curriculum. That way, if some of them get stuck, there will be other people working on the same material at the same time who can help them get unstuck. I have learned (and tried and failed at learning) some difficult material through pure self-study in the past, and when you get stuck, you can stay stuck for a long time.