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Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

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Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#21

Post by wpietri »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

> Really motivated people will [...]

I'm not a big fan of this argument, which I see here too often. Really, truly motivated people don't need the Internet either. For any obstacle to learning, you can always say that it's not a problem because somebody, somewhere makes through.

I took exactly one Coursera course, Odersky's Scala course. But it was a great experience. Going through the material on a schedule with a bunch of other people got me to work harder than I would have on my own. I learned way more than I would have without the structure. Does that mean I wasn't "really motivated"? Sure, I guess. But the point of having educational institutions, rather than just giving everybody library cards and turning them loose, is to make it easy for a large number of people to learn.

So if it's suddenly harder for people to learn, even if they aren't judged truly worthy, I'm willing to call that a bad thing.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#22

Post by reachtarunhere »

avodonosov wrote: post #12

Script to save course materials: https://github.com/coursera-dl/coursera-dl I haven't tried it yet. Just was asking around how to save course materials (videos, slides, notes, etc) of an old platform course I want to return to sometimes. Got this advice: > app which can help you download all the > materials at one go. > https://github.com/coursera-dl/coursera-dl > Doesn't work all the time, but for old > courses shou…

This will only get the videos and the slides. No assignments, quizzes or helpful Forum Discussions.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#23

Post by reachtarunhere »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

Yes, they do make education accessible. Consider courses on AI for Robotics, Probabilistic Graphical Models. Learning these topics directly with the books and without the forum support is at least 3-4x tougher in my opinion. And for people who believe that everything is available on the internet - you are wrong! There is material from grad courses in AI that is very difficult to approach directly from the papers or the books. An example is the Reinforcement Learning Course on Udacity.

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#24

Post by [deleted] »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

[deleted]

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#26

Post by orionblastar »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

Khan Academy started out with Youtube videos and grew into a web site with quizes and tests. I don’t know if you can call it a MOOC but it teaches subjects well enough.

I guess they rely on donations, and advertising on Youtube?

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#27

Post by furyofantares »

wpietri wrote: post #21
_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

> Really motivated people will [...] I'm not a big fan of this argument, which I see here too often. Really, truly motivated people don't need the Internet either. For any obstacle to learning, you can always say that it's not a problem because somebody, somewhere makes through. I took exactly one Coursera course, Odersky's Scala course. But it was a great experience. Going through the material on a schedule with a b…

Additionally, I think it's a misleading thought pattern to divide the world into motivated/unmotivated individuals since motivation can vary within a person.

I've successfully learned quite a few difficult things without Coursera etc that I was highly motivated to learn. And I've learned more things via Coursera that I was less motivated to learn (or didn't even know I wanted to learn).

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#28

Post by pedalpete »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

Some people learn by being taught, some people learn by doing. MOOCs cater to the first.

I know this, because I am in the second (you may be too). I'll dig around looking for the information because I am using it right at that moment and NEED to understand it.

I did a Coursera Machine Learning course, my first University level class after being out of school since the early 90s. I learned how about matrices (had very little math experience before), I learned about transforms, I tried to figure out what all the cryptic symbols meant, but MOSTLY, I learned how to answer the test questions.

I don't feel I really have any more understanding of machine learning today than I did before the course. Different strokes...

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#29

Post by _xhok »

_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

After reading the replies, I now think my first assumption was wrong, and that Coursera does in fact offer substantially more than raw stacks of torrented pdfs.

But that's just my second point. MOOCs are a substantial service built on top of the free internet. Surely that costs money? And surely the fact that MOOCs are increasingly charging for stuff (and taking measures to make sure users pay) is not a sign that "social fairness" is deteriorating, but simply the usual costs of building anything at all?

Re: Coursera shuts access to old platform courses

#30

Post by alasano »

bruceb wrote: post #16
_xhok wrote: post #10

I'll probably get shot down for being that typical negative HN comment, but do MOOCs like Coursera actually do much in the way of making education more accessible or society fairer? All the content offered on Coursera already exists on the internet. Really motivated people will aggressively look for study materials, and they generally don't have a problem finding it. It seems to me that it's actually the internet tha…

Founder of https://www.CourseBuffet.com here. I would say it is a mixed bag. There are without a doubt people getting real value out of MOOCs who otherwise would not be able to take these courses. This being said I talk to a lot of people about MOOCs and I am still surprised how many people don't know about them. Actually one of the first questions I am often asked is why do they offer free courses! Edit: to add to m…

I've googled seemingly tons of different combinations of keywords to find out if a product like yours existed before starting to build it myself. Which search keywords most often lead users to coursebuffet? (and how did I miss them!)

I have to say it's super quick and I like the interface (just signed up), what does the stack look like if you don't mind?

Edit: Now that I think about it, I have tons of questions, I'll stick to "Will you monetize it / Will it remain free"

2nd Edit: I realize now that my google kungfu is weak.

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