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Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

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Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#301

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #294
bsder wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I take it that you're volunteering to come run all my Audio/Visual stuff for free? I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare. Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.

A reasonable approach would be division of work. Hire a guy who can handle the camera and edit the videos. Have professors plan the lecture, do the talking, and verify that the end product is okay. The guy with the camera can edit videos on multiple subjects, because he doesn't really have to understand the topics. Of course, if the professors have to learn (each of them separately) how to handle the camera and edit…

The skillset of a proffesor is not video editing and university is not a video studio. It is idiotic for a thousand universities around the world to make a thousand videos that explain how compilers works (or whatever).

Furthermore, 21st century learning should be interactive, so actually all those lecturers should become videogame developers

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#302

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

bsder wrote: post #288
znpy wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adapt maybe?

So I take it that you're volunteering to come run all my Audio/Visual stuff for free? I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare. Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.

I thought you had TA's for that sort of stuff. People are addressing millions of subscribers on social media sites and you can't figure out how to stream your class? Join the real world, where the rest of us ARE FORCED to adapt or lose relevancy or worse, our jobs.

The A/V stuff should be figured out by your University IT/Telecom staff.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#303

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Grimm1 wrote: post #199
astura wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they literally don't know how to learn what they are interested in? I went into computer science as a major because I was interested in computers. College was literally the only way I was able to learn because I didn't know anything about getting started - I didn't know what a programming language was, for example, so I wouldn't know to learn to program. I grew up poor and my public education was very substandard.…

Google "Careers in computers", followed by how to learn then click on any of the resources and get to it. I'm very much not a fan of the kind of "learned helplessness" being displayed in this comment and getting started in something like this is trivial with the amount of resources available right now. It's really not that hard to get started learning and college doesn't really prepare you for these jobs anyway so if…

This is very umhelpfull attitude, and is demonstrably false. Vast majority of people could not get into programming with google alone - there is a reason they at least go to bootcamps. I could not grasp programming before university, and I have tried - it was in 2010.

Lets crank this up a notch: there are 14 year olds that built a fusion reactor with instructions from the internet (just fusors, no net power), or people that learned how to conduct medical procedures with no outside help. Some even conducted surgery on themselves sucessfully. I doubt the average visitor of HN could do that.

Maybe its because some folks are smarter than others, or maybe you are taking for granted some andavtages you've had over average Joe, or maybe its both. But if you take random Joe off the street and tell them - you will get £10k if you learn to write basic python in a month with no help, just google - most wont be able to do that.

Take yet another step - realise most of the world does not speak english, and for them to learn coding is even harder.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#304

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

azhenley wrote: post #247
humanistbot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except "embracing" is definitely not the right word. Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Universities are begrudgingly accepting the fact that they can't have in-person classes, so they have to turn to online alternatives. Tuition can't be changed because the few costs that are being saved (facilities still need maintenance) are offset by the massive losses in revenue from student housing…

> Very few professors I know are happy about this whole situation. Right. As a professor, I'm not embracing this at all. We all hate the situation and don't really know what the best thing to do is.

Adapt or die, like the rest of us.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#305

Post by astura »

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #302
bsder wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I take it that you're volunteering to come run all my Audio/Visual stuff for free? I spent 120+ hours dealing with all the Audio-Visual idiocy to deliver a 20 minute talk that took me probably 20 hours to prepare. Yeah, adapt. I have some four letter words for you.

I thought you had TA's for that sort of stuff. People are addressing millions of subscribers on social media sites and you can't figure out how to stream your class? Join the real world, where the rest of us ARE FORCED to adapt or lose relevancy or worse, our jobs. The A/V stuff should be figured out by your University IT/Telecom staff.

Not every school has TAs (mine didn't)

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#306

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #287
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online courses have been around for years and they all still suck. If anything this is a boon to colleges in the long run - it has proven, without a doubt, how much worse online learning truly is. It has been around for a decade now - and it still sucks.

> Online courses have been around for years and they all still suck. I think this is ultimately a subjective thing, I don't really think something like CompSci (a subject most here studied) needs to be on a campus based lecture basis, but I can see why someone who needs more 'hand-holding' and wants the campus life experience would say this. I was in an actual Science major, Biology, where your physical presence is n…

In general this same idea is repeated ad nauseum - "why are they not teaching things people will use in the real world." Do tell, does every software engineer do the same thing? Does every carpenter? Does every engineer? Your post encapsulates the "Silicon Valley Dream" perfectly - the dream - because you have to be asleep to believe it.

It is an infectious production-ism. A thing is only valuable if it makes money. An idea only valuable if it makes money, or produces, here, and now. And then you complain of professors who don't care - but this is the result of what you want. The professors are focusing on productivity and what makes money. This isn't endemic to the system. It comes from without.

The survivor-ship bias is just too hard to ignore. "Just get involved. Read forums, go to stack overflow, this is the true way to learn. I'm taking a business course and it's a joke to me therefore it is worthless. Just build it in your garage." Most people are not you. Most people are not people on HN. They want to have lives - not spend every waking moment learning about bitcoin. Many of them will never have any subject they love so deeply. Some will love economically worthless topics. Many just want to get a job to pay for the other parts of their lives.

> I think you're making a blanket statement which is more a reflection of you as an individual, as it really just depends on what subject you're studying.

It doesn't depend at all on subject. There is a motivated person out there that can learn anything online - they will buy the materials, and do it themselves. Most are not this person. My statement is based on my experience as well as the fact the market has not shifted despite years of online options.

The market has already determined - the online options work best for part time learners and CV chasers (like the supply chain course. Business school in general is built for industry - industry doesn't care what you learn in it, they just want it. That is what you should be complaining about. The universities that offer it are just filling a need.)

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#307

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

hoot wrote: post #280
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online courses have been around for years and they all still suck. If anything this is a boon to colleges in the long run - it has proven, without a doubt, how much worse online learning truly is. It has been around for a decade now - and it still sucks.

What? While in college, I learned way more of the required content over Youtube videos then I ever did in a lecture.

Do tell, which subject?

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#308

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

ternaus wrote: post #286
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online courses have been around for years and they all still suck. If anything this is a boon to colleges in the long run - it has proven, without a doubt, how much worse online learning truly is. It has been around for a decade now - and it still sucks.

It is true that for some many it is challenging to have a high quality online course. I believe some courses could be taken online. For example, here is an amazing course on Algorithms and Data Structures by Robert Sedgewick https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1 ? at Coursera. It works really well for the online format. So, not all online classes suck. My major was Physics and I was teaching all five years…

Of course the inherent meaning in the statement is that a large portion of these things do suck, for most people.

I find it telling that most people who start an online course never finish them - why? The experience isn't worth it.

Just like a video call hasn't replaced person-person interaction, nor can an online course truly replace an in-person class - so many more things happen in the classroom or at a university than at home. There is intelligence in human interaction. This is what silicon valley misses.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#309

Post by woofie11 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #308
ternaus wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that for some many it is challenging to have a high quality online course. I believe some courses could be taken online. For example, here is an amazing course on Algorithms and Data Structures by Robert Sedgewick https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1 ? at Coursera. It works really well for the online format. So, not all online classes suck. My major was Physics and I was teaching all five years…

Of course the inherent meaning in the statement is that a large portion of these things do suck, for most people. I find it telling that most people who start an online course never finish them - why? The experience isn't worth it. Just like a video call hasn't replaced person-person interaction, nor can an online course truly replace an in-person class - so many more things happen in the classroom or at a university…

The majority of online courses suck.

But a minority are far better than in-person.

Toss digital scaling in, and it's not a question of if, but when and how. There are real problems people haven't solved, but most of those have to do with how students discover and find good courses, accreditation, etc.

Re: Online classes are not worth cost of full tuition

#310

Post by Grimm1 »

nitrogen wrote: post #268
Grimm1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google "Careers in computers", followed by how to learn then click on any of the resources and get to it. I'm very much not a fan of the kind of "learned helplessness" being displayed in this comment and getting started in something like this is trivial with the amount of resources available right now. It's really not that hard to get started learning and college doesn't really prepare you for these jobs anyway so if…

I'm very much not a fan of the kind of "learned helplessness" Someone coming from a community where there are literally zero engineers or programmers will be very lucky if they even know what words to look for. We can't search for what we don't even know exists. On the flip side people don't know what they do know, in the sense that assumed common knowledge might not actually be common. I was lucky that I had a paren…

No one in my family is an engineer, no family friends nothing. I searched I want to make a game when I was 11, the rest is history. I stand by what I say, even more so after reading this reply.
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