Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#41

Post by ivansavz » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #35

For me the biggest game-changer for online video lectures has been this Chrome plugin that allows for fine-grained control of video speed: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... If you have control over the courseware platform used for your course, make sure it uses a compatible video player based on html5 video and not some custom implementation (very rare). In case video speed controls is n…

Completely unrelated to the video speedup hacks, but also in the vein of getting a lot of information across faster, one thing you can do for your courses would be to create Concept Maps.

The CmapTools software is very good for this: https://cmap.ihmc.us/cmaptools/

Overall I find concept maps on of the best tools to show an overview of the course (macro maps) or topic (zoomed in maps). As a teacher with extra context about data science you can easily put together something like this for your course that will show learners what there is to learn and allow them to keep track of their progress (e.g. wow when we started all these words were unknown to me, but now I know about 70% of the words on this map already).

I have heard teachers use CmapTools in more active way (asking learners produce concept maps individually or collaboratively), but don't have experience with that myself.

A paper about concept maps: https://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/pdf/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pd...

And an example of the concept maps I use in my books: https://minireference.com/static/tutorials/conceptmap.pdf

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#42

Post by jerome-jh » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

ldenoue wrote: post #28

jerome-jh wrote: post #27

Having taken a number of MOOCs, I would say, for the videos: - the speaker must be standing - the tone should be light, not necessarily funny, but definitely not always the same - there should be illustrations - anecdotes, personal notes, interviews: maybe not at every video but at least one per chapter. - videos should last less than 15min. The talk must not aim to be exhaustive. Students will master the material th…

Why does it feel important to you that the speaker be standing?

In my experience, a standing speaker is usually less boring.

B. Oakley mentioned in my post is filmed full-body and then varies the framing, half-body, head, with digital zoom. That is explained in his making-of.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#43

Post by QuinnWilton » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #35

For me the biggest game-changer for online video lectures has been this Chrome plugin that allows for fine-grained control of video speed: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... If you have control over the courseware platform used for your course, make sure it uses a compatible video player based on html5 video and not some custom implementation (very rare). In case video speed controls is n…

I also enjoy sped up videos, especially for lectures, but if you preprocess videos to speed them up, make sure to also include the original videos. Students that don't speak your language natively, for example, may be handicapped by fast videos.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#44

Post by tokipin » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

The biggest issue I've seen in online courses is production values. In fact I think crap production values and the lack of a quality bar is why platforms like Coursera have done poorly compared to their potential.

The most obvious issue is usually microphone quality. It's baffling that people spend so much effort developing a course and multiply that effort by a shit microphone. If you aren't willing to spend/get money for a good microphone, your philosophy on what is important for online teaching may have some blind spots IMO.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#45

Post by dubya » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #35

For me the biggest game-changer for online video lectures has been this Chrome plugin that allows for fine-grained control of video speed: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... If you have control over the courseware platform used for your course, make sure it uses a compatible video player based on html5 video and not some custom implementation (very rare). In case video speed controls is n…

I've found that plug-in to work even where sites try to prevent speed control and skipping, for example our various campus mandatory online training courses.

This is also very satisfying:

document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 100;

but the videos are often served from a different host and I forgot to record the setting that makes it work in that case.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#46

Post by diehunde » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #36

MOOC's are super boring for people who don't like watching videos. I really hope somone builds a mooc on top of something like leetcode.com . Start with easy problems see how far you get, get a hint, if you can't then watch a video of concept you are missing and so on.

I used to love watching video but since I started reading more books I just can't watch for more than 5 minutes. Recently I discover educative.io which is like reading articles. It's great if you don't like watching videos and want to learn software engineering stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#47

Post by boneitis » Sun, Mar 15, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #41

ivansavz wrote: post #35

For me the biggest game-changer for online video lectures has been this Chrome plugin that allows for fine-grained control of video speed: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-contro... If you have control over the courseware platform used for your course, make sure it uses a compatible video player based on html5 video and not some custom implementation (very rare). In case video speed controls is n…

Completely unrelated to the video speedup hacks, but also in the vein of getting a lot of information across faster, one thing you can do for your courses would be to create Concept Maps. The CmapTools software is very good for this: https://cmap.ihmc.us/cmaptools/ Overall I find concept maps on of the best tools to show an overview of the course (macro maps) or topic (zoomed in maps). As a teacher with extra context…

More in this vein, it genuinely floors me that UML-like diagrams (used very loosely and without strictness) aren't more of a thing.

There are so many walls of text out there going over a system's flow that could be expressed in just a couple paragraphs and a companion sequence diagram.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#48

Post by xyg » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 12:56 AM UTC

I would say these aspects are important:

An instructor's understanding of the topic he or she is teaching. It is hard to describe but the vision and the depth are just different. In some occasions, I find that it is my preparation prevents me from fully understanding what the instructors are seeing.

An instructor's passion for the topic, which brings moments for learners to feel "this is fascinating /amazing /cool /interesting. I have never thought about that". It seems that passion cannot be faked or manipulated, which means one cannot be prepared to demonstrate passion when teaching a course.

Teaching and presentation skills, can be trained.

Visualization and other technicals, can always be improved.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#49

Post by jplayer01 » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 10:38 AM UTC

aryzach wrote: post #37

jplayer01 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What MOOC did you take where you had to write an interpreter?

https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages-part-b This is Part B, but there's also parts A and C. While I recommend the whole course, you don't need to take it all if you just want the interpreter project. The networking course was discontinued, but these are the videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEAYkSg4uSQ2dr0XO_Nwa... The videos aren't terrible, but the homework was worthless.

Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: What makes an online course amazing?

#50

Post by mgozaydin » Mon, Mar 16, 2020, 11:43 AM UTC

Cost of a 3-credit course f2f ar Stanford is $ 5.000. But the real cost of an online course ( same course ) , is less than $ 10 . I tell them sell it at $ 100 . But there is a dilemna . How come the same thing is $ 5000 and $ 100 . Even the one for $ 100 is better . Solve the equation . I say make a consortium of online degree programs . Provide degrees from consortium . Any idea .