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Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

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Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#51

Post by xiaoma »

I put about 20 hours a week of my time over the past 6 months or so into MOOCs, primarily on Coursera. I've also used Khan Academy, edX, and some non-MOOC materials like Code School in the past. I've definitely learned some great things, but it hasn't actually been the most efficient use of time. Rather than write a mini blog post here, I'll link to the actual blog post I recently wrote on it:

http://logicmason.com/2013/self-directed-programming-and-com...

To summarize the problems, the pre-requisites aren't always clear and are sometimes incomplete, the courses don't generally offer enough work that students can get help on, and set-up for the computing classes is often a huge pain. Finally, for me personally, the set pace is a serious detriment. I do much better if I can get the materials all at once and do 25% or more of a course in a weekend.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#52

Post by xiaoma »

hojoff79 wrote: post #26

I disagree that these are simply "books" and cannot supplement courses. There are many college students who simply attend lectures, turn in homework, ask a few questions and take their tests. MOOCs provide everything you need to have that experience virtually. I agree this model does not describe everyone, but I believe this is more an issue of motivation than resources. Going back to the comparison with textbooks, t…

>"Going back to the comparison with textbooks, there are a good number of people who could teach themselves subjects purely out of textbooks if they were motivated. But even after mastering several subject in this way, your employment prospects and marketability are not significantly increased."

I intend to put that assumption to the test. I suspect that once GRE subject tests start falling, both my prospects and marketability will jump dramatically.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#53

Post by nicholas73 »

timr wrote: post #13

It cracks me up that all of the early comments on this thread are so insistent that course completion shouldn't be a goal. Anyone who has taught a college course can tell you that self-reported satisfaction rates are useless as an educational metric. Everyone "wants" to learn, but almost nobody puts in the effort. MOOCs have provided this hype-driven protective bubble where the people who "want" education get to pret…

I disagree strongly with this statement, having "taken" a couple of courses on Udacity. I didn't complete any of the courses, and from Thrun's point of view I'd be another example where they can improve. But this is an erroneous metric, both because students gain without completing the course assignments and because an in-person classroom only motivates you to do assignments by nature of having you pay $$$ for the credential. Unless Udacity credentials dangle you a job offer, there is much less incentive to do the work.

Does that mean the class is a failure? Not at all. I found the format and interactive quizzes to be superior to the college classes I took. In addition, you got to skip around to take what you needed, and work on what you like. It doesn't fit credentialism, but as a resource it was unmatched.

I didn't do any of the assignments for CS101 or CS253, which taught python and building web applications, but from there I was able to build a webapp far more complicated than their assignments required (basically I chose my own assignment).

http://sudokuisland.com

I'd never have been able to find the time and patience to sit through a university class just to build a side project, not to mention cash investment. I can honestly say that without Udacity this wouldn't have happened. For the woman quoted knocking the lack of human contact: sorry this wasn't a social club for you.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#54

Post by my_username_is_ »

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #25

I don't see why MOOCs are pitched as revolutionary in teaching. They're still fundamentally lecture-based, and lectures are a terrible way to teach. I'm most familiar with research in physics education, where an average intro physics class fills only 24% of students' gaps in understanding. On the other hand, some professors are experimenting with more interactive methods -- not less interactive MOOCs -- and getting t…

Udacity, Thurin's MOOC platform, is interactive and was designed to not simply follow the lecture style of current classrooms

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#55

Post by panarky »

timr wrote: post #13

It cracks me up that all of the early comments on this thread are so insistent that course completion shouldn't be a goal. Anyone who has taught a college course can tell you that self-reported satisfaction rates are useless as an educational metric. Everyone "wants" to learn, but almost nobody puts in the effort. MOOCs have provided this hype-driven protective bubble where the people who "want" education get to pret…

Does it really matter if 10,000 enroll with an 80% completion rate, or if 160,000 enroll with a 5% completion rate?

The numerator is the important metric here, not the denominator.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#56

Post by my_username_is_ »

mlyang wrote: post #3

The thinking about MOOCs and their success metrics is flawed. We wouldn't measure the success of Wikipedia by the percentage of people who've read an entire Wiki article top to bottom for a particular topic they've searched for, why would we expect the same for MOOC courses? The reality is that it's just a great social good that these courses are available online and accessible to the select few who should choose to…

It would be very interesting to see what types of things people go on to do with the knowledge that they've gained from MOOC's. The value created based on knowledge that otherwise wouldn't be accessible would be a very interesting metric to try and measure

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#57

Post by mcguire »

MoosePlissken wrote: post #44
timr wrote: post #13

It cracks me up that all of the early comments on this thread are so insistent that course completion shouldn't be a goal. Anyone who has taught a college course can tell you that self-reported satisfaction rates are useless as an educational metric. Everyone "wants" to learn, but almost nobody puts in the effort. MOOCs have provided this hype-driven protective bubble where the people who "want" education get to pret…

How do you measure educational value? If someone finishes 90% of the class but never takes the final exam, have they learned nothing? If someone finishes the class, aces the exam, and then promptly goes on living their life as an IT professional without any tangible change, was the course anything more than "infotainment"? I'm not sure how you measure "real" learning, but course completion doesn't seem to be a good w…

If you stop reading a book after 20% or 50% or 90%, have you wasted your time? Possibly not, but you haven't read the book, either.

A well-designed course isn't a random bag of stuff. It has a starting point and an ending point, and skipping out before the end can certainly be regarded as a failure, at least by the instructor.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#58

Post by tlb »

panarky wrote: post #55
timr wrote: post #13

It cracks me up that all of the early comments on this thread are so insistent that course completion shouldn't be a goal. Anyone who has taught a college course can tell you that self-reported satisfaction rates are useless as an educational metric. Everyone "wants" to learn, but almost nobody puts in the effort. MOOCs have provided this hype-driven protective bubble where the people who "want" education get to pret…

Does it really matter if 10,000 enroll with an 80% completion rate, or if 160,000 enroll with a 5% completion rate? The numerator is the important metric here, not the denominator.

It matters when you think about scaling up to replace colleges. Put 5 million college students / year through that funnel and you won't have an educated citizenry.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#59

Post by djs1sjd »

As others have noted, these MOOCs work great for people who already have a solid foundation in the skills of learning, whether they are highly-driven and parentally-supported high school students, college degree holders, or people who are equivalently self-taught.

If you don't fall into one of the above categories, it is _very_ difficult to overcome the practical, and motivational challenges that stand in the way of success in these classes.

Examples: a poor inner-city kid with serious challenges at home and at school, an out of work high-school/college drop-out who is years out of any sort of academic setting.

At least in the US, the disadvantaged side of educational inequality spectrum is defined by these types of of people. Without a great deal of in-person support (whether by government via schools, their communities, or their families), it is unlikely that such people will be able to increase their education, MOOCs or otherwise.

EDIT: added some clarifying wording.

Re: Udacity's Sebastian Thrun, Godfather Of Free Online Education, Changes Course

#60

Post by varelse »

I enjoyed the Udacity AI course, but I was repeatedly frustrated by the many errors that were never corrected and especially Peter Norvig's nails on blackboard scribbling sounds with his felt tip. Am I the only one who could hear this?

Overall, I think there was a real lack of attention to detail after an excellent job on getting the big picture right.

That said, MOOCs have revolutionized my ability to keep up with technology trends and I spend 1-2 hours daily on Coursera and Udacity. I do not care whatsoever about certificates or completing courses. I just care about raw knowledge acquisition and reviewing previously learned material (i.e. refreshing my calculus, statistics, algorithms, and linear algebra skills).

I personally think the future of this business will involve celebrity teachers like Andrew Ng and Sebastian Thrun putting together more polished versions of their courses and then allowing a cottage industry to grow around tutoring people through them at their own pace rather than shoehorning a freestyle approach to learning into effective semesters and quarters.

If this is infotainment, it sure beats the likes of Fox News and MSNBC.

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