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Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

blog.brainstation.io

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Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#171

Post by ItsMe000001 »

MisterOctober wrote: post #153
rhizome wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that if you watch anything at Khan Academy, they jiggle the page and nag you every 30sec to log in to save your progress (even when you dismiss the notification).

Taking this opportunity to gripe about KA : I took their intro to chemistry, and the production quality of the videos was so erratic that I thought it might be a joke -- e.g., first video disjointed, second coherent but sounded like it was recorded over a '50s telephone, etc etc. Hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this one needs a housecall from the vet

Would you have a link? I found those videos that I did watch pretty good, definitely not lacking in quality. That was mostly math, just a few chemistry videos (some 20?).

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#172

Post by ItsMe000001 »

vezycash wrote: post #64
philipov wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite. When searching for lectures on youtube, I filter to remove anything shorter than 20 minutes and then ignore anything that's still under an hour.

On platforms like udemy, the good courses range from 1.5 hours to as much as 97 hours. For this length, the shorter the better for individual videos. For YouTube playlists, the same. However, for one-off youtube tutorial videos, I do long videos as well.

Not for me. I've taken and completed well over 50 courses by now (took health-related time off work for a few years but when I felt better wanted to do something), and the most frustrating courses where Udacity courses (and a few of the edX courses) where it felt like I had to click Next Next Next Next continuously, could not take my hand off the keyboard and lean back in my chair because there was the next silly easy question to answer and "Next" to click for the next short soundbite video. I definitely prefer well-made(!) longer videos.

The worst is when they start each and every 3.5 minute video with a ten second introduction, for those who already forgot what course they are in and what they just heard last only three minutes ago.

When I see things like this, or the doctor that I saw yesterday (who didn't know me) immediately switching to a "baby talk" style (for all conversations with her patients, I later observed) I wonder what kind of people (students, patients) they have to deal with in their jobs that they switch to by default assuming the worst.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#173

Post by macspoofing »

LeanderK wrote: post #94
macspoofing wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I never understood online-learning ([1]) for non-trivial topics. How about this: You can't afford to pause your entire life to do a 4 year degree.

we have part-time masters here in germany. A friend of mine is doing a part-time bachelor and it works out. But it's usually not as challenging as going to a university for a full-time study.

Online learning falls under the same umbrella as doing a degree part-time, but provide even more flexibility.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#174

Post by bluGill »

j45 wrote: post #86
bluGill wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your point is valid, the counter is there are some difficult things that would never be done. Some problems are hard or take a long time. "War and Peace" is not a book you can study as a single short task. Breaking it down doesn't work because every class assumes you have read it recently and done the previous class - we would end up with thousands of people who complete just one or two classes and very few who…

Agreed, but you can break down all large tasks into small ones. We don't read war and peace in one sitting either, we read part of a chapter. Likewise working through materials can be done in smaller pieces while part of a larger whole. The monolith structure of a course that can't be broken down is the challenge.

Right, but if you read chapter one of war and peace you can't take a year off and then read chapter two. Not only would you never finish, but you would forget to much that the whole wouldn't make sense. If you are going to read the book you can take it chapter by chapter, but you should finish in a couple weeks at worst.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#175

Post by MisterOctober »

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #171
MisterOctober wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking this opportunity to gripe about KA : I took their intro to chemistry, and the production quality of the videos was so erratic that I thought it might be a joke -- e.g., first video disjointed, second coherent but sounded like it was recorded over a '50s telephone, etc etc. Hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but this one needs a housecall from the vet

Would you have a link? I found those videos that I did watch pretty good, definitely not lacking in quality. That was mostly math, just a few chemistry videos (some 20?).

Yep! The first few videos here --

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/atomic-structu...

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#176

Post by scarface74 »

gaius wrote: post #165
scarface74 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the purpose of the actual certificate? As someone who has done dozens of interviews - I’m not a manager, but for about two years I was responsible for hiring and I’ve sat as part of a panel- most people don’t take most certificates seriously. Some, including myself, take it as a slightly negative signal. I’ve seen too many paper tigers. But then again, except for entry level positions, few hiring managers care…

Some, including myself, take it as a slightly negative signal. I’ve seen too many paper tigers. I take almost any MOOC as a positive signal that this candidate invests their own time in ongoing professional development, but I have encountered some who apparently learned nothing, maybe got someone else to take the tests or used a braindump site.

So if a MOOC doesn’t necessarily show any competence in the skillset that they were studying and you still have to do the same technical screening, then having a MOOC certificate is neither positive or negative.

Also, if you do a proper technical screen, you should be able to find out whether they are keeping up with technology. In that case, why does it matter if they get it through a MOOC, Pluralsight, YouTube, etc.?

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#177

Post by gaius »

scarface74 wrote: post #176
gaius wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some, including myself, take it as a slightly negative signal. I’ve seen too many paper tigers. I take almost any MOOC as a positive signal that this candidate invests their own time in ongoing professional development, but I have encountered some who apparently learned nothing, maybe got someone else to take the tests or used a braindump site.

So if a MOOC doesn’t necessarily show any competence in the skillset that they were studying and you still have to do the same technical screening, then having a MOOC certificate is neither positive or negative. Also, if you do a proper technical screen, you should be able to find out whether they are keeping up with technology. In that case, why does it matter if they get it through a MOOC, Pluralsight, YouTube, etc…

Well, it’s a pre-interview signal, like anything on a CV. Previous employers, alma mater, extracurriculars, yadda yadda. If I’m compiling a shortlist to interview, completion of a relevant MOOC from a quality provider such as EdX, the Andrew Ng course, etc, will increase the probability of them being on it. It’s not just the technical skill either, it’s the good attitude of starting and finishing something above and beyond normal duties.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#178

Post by gmiller123456 »

the_watcher wrote: post #21
frv103 wrote: post #3

I'm not sure that course completion percentage is necessarily the best metric to be drawing conclusions from. I will often sign up for MOOCs and courses for a single talk, chapter, or topic that I'm interested in with no intention of actually completing the course. I wonder I'm an outlier in this regard or if this approach is much more common than the author of this article realizes.

I've worked in this industry a bit, and MOOCs rarely use "course completion" as their primary success metric. One reason is precisely what you mentioned - that many people simply take the course for as long as they need to get their desired value out of it, then leave. Another was that the team I worked with found that, by far, the single biggest factor in terms of course completion was that a third party (usually th…

So what ways do they measure success? I can attest that I have never started a course just for a few lectures, and I've always planned on taking the whole course. I've quit the majority of courses just because they weren't any good (usually poorly designed homework). I have quite some because they moved on to topics that I didn't find interesting, but I never looked at them from the beginning and said "That's where I'm going to stop". The ones I have completed were ones I thoroughly enjoyed, and felt like I learned a lot.

So just from a "course completion" point of view, I'd think it'd be hard to tell the difference between courses I liked, but moved on to topics I didn't like, vs. the ones I just thought weren't any good. But the fact that I stuck with some courses all the way through should at least be good for something.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#179

Post by scarface74 »

eksemplar wrote: post #162
scarface74 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the purpose of the actual certificate? As someone who has done dozens of interviews - I’m not a manager, but for about two years I was responsible for hiring and I’ve sat as part of a panel- most people don’t take most certificates seriously. Some, including myself, take it as a slightly negative signal. I’ve seen too many paper tigers. But then again, except for entry level positions, few hiring managers care…

We take certifications very serious in enterprise, but it depends on what type of certification and who issues it. I mean, I get that a swarm of developers are brushing up on sites like coursea, Udemy, threehouse or whatever, but I’ve seen a few of those courses, and a lot of the instructors really shouldn’t be teaching anyone. I’m not sure a coursea certificate would be an advantage, because the quality of coursea i…

I’m not in operations so I don’t have context. But operations seems to value certs more than development. Why is that? No one really cares if a developer has a certain cert but the infrastructure guys do.

I’m assuming by “Microsoft Cert” you are referring to operations certs and not developer certs.

Re: Why we need more than “learn at your own pace” online learning

#180

Post by Etherea »

dwrodri wrote: post #127
Eridrus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is an accurate assessment of education in the ML space. There are tonnes of people who have self-taught themselves the material. The issue I see is that employers do not trust non-university credentials, and so there is a strong hiring bias towards PhD graduates, regardless of whether it is warranted.

I think a big part of this comes from the lack of emphasis on group projects and technical communication in MOOCs. How many MOOCs have you seen where you're actually encouraged to work in groups, and then eventually present your work? Even though the concept of an MOOC has been around for quite some time now, it's only recently that their curricula at the course level is actually consistently on par with what would b…

I had a whole post in startupschool.com about this. I was unable to find anybody agreeing with me. Glad you made me feel less alone in this world. And TBH from all the excitement of being in SuS, I think one might launch a startup with this idea
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