Open Access and the Future of Education
In April 2001, MIT announced Open CourseWare:
This is followed by a few universities around the world,
including CMU
https://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/
and Yale
A list can be found at:
and
http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/1_Top_10_Universities_With_Free_Courses_Online.php
In September 2011, Stanford Engineering starts a second wave of online education experience:
http://see.stanford.edu/default.aspx
http://www.db-class.org/course/auth/welcome
In December 2011, MIT announced its next step:
With open access course material + video in 10min clips + problems that you can grade your self + online social network to answer questions and rank questions, the time is now is rethink who can access what for every course out there.
As a side benefit, we’ll also have to rethink what should live lectures (for students registered at a university) look like in the future.
What’re your thoughts?
John O'Neill, 
Jasika Bawa, 
raymondz and 6 others are discussing.
Daniel Feinberg 8:15 am on January 3, 2012 Permalink |
There are two fascinating trends in the world of technology these days – so many things can be available to such a wide audience for free, and then you have the people who formerly stood to gain from that content fighting to keep proprietary rights. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the world of higher education, since schools such as MIT and Stanford have taken the stance of valuing education over income.
I do still think, however, that speculation and concern often overwhelm these sorts of online efforts in the early days. People are now much more comfortable putting their credit card information into an online form than in the early days of e-commerce; I think we’ll see a similar slow adjustment to accepting the legitimacy of online learning.
What really interests me though is once this fear goes away, because society still values face-to-face interaction. I’ve certainly benefited from the interaction I’ve had with the teachers in this course, and I think the strongest evidence of the value of face-to-face is the fact that even cash-strapped businesses still send people on airplanes from New York to Silicon Valley for business meetings.
There’s something about “being there” that I wonder if society will ever overcome. And frankly, I’m not sure I want us to overcome the desire to meet face-to-face. Business trips are fun.
Figured I’d get the ball rolling on this.
-Dan
network20q 2:37 pm on January 3, 2012 Permalink |
Great. I really hope to hear from everyone in class on this topic. So looking forward to everyone’s reply on the blog.
Mung
Ming 7:58 am on January 5, 2012 Permalink |
… i forgot my password.. so..
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
“And the teachers would write, saying, “We’ve used your videos to flip the classroom. You’ve given the lectures, so now what we do … ” — and this could happen in every classroom in America tomorrow — ” … what I do is I assign the lectures for homework, and what used to be homework, I now have the students doing in the classroom.”
That could be a good substitute for the freed-up lecture time–a model that works something like this:
Watch lectures on student’s own time
During “lecture” period, walkthrough one or two what-would-have-been-homework-problems-previously while reinforcing the concepts at the same time
Slightly reduced traditional homework assignment load.. alternatively, time could be spent doing a combination of traditional homework assignment + special projects
Something like that could probably
Ming 8:02 am on January 5, 2012 Permalink |
*coud probably work
mchng 6:38 pm on January 9, 2012 Permalink |
(The two Mings above are me in case the TAs are wondering. I found my password!)
network20q 2:41 am on January 6, 2012 Permalink |
Great talk by Khan
minglu 4:45 pm on January 12, 2012 Permalink |
There are already many places where something like this is routine for the students who are currently attending the school. Several medical school come to mind; they post all their lectures online and class attendance is optional (of course they have to go to any lab classes and come into class to take exams). In terms of registered students at an university, a movement towards digital classrooms will definitely be a convenience for the students, who get to learn when they want to. I know that I’ve also used MIT’s opencourseware lectures to supplement the lectures in some of my intro engineering classes when they’ve been unclear.
I agree with Daniel that while now we might say that live lectures are better, students in the future could adjust pretty quickly to this version of virtual lectures and feel just as comfortable with them as we are with live lectures. I feel like interaction could still happen between students and professors through things like piazza.com and traditional office hours. However, I feel like if I were a professor, I’d feel a little odd lecturing to space, even if I knew that all my students watched the videos later.
I like the idea of having learning tools and educational content available freely to the general public. It’s nothing but beneficial for people who are motivated and interested to have the resources to learn more. At the end of the day, people will still be willing to pay to attend a university (especially ones that the general public has denoted as prestigious) for the actual degree with a name on it.
Jasika Bawa 2:05 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink |
On a related note, TheNextWeb has been tracking online education for a while now, talking about how the Internet is changing the way we learn (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/12/26/in-2011-how-the-internet-revolutionized-education/) and most recently, 4 reasons as to why brains are seen as increasingly suited to online learning (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/01/13/hot-for-e-teacher-4-reasons-your-brain-loves-to-learn-online/). They’re interesting reads.
network20q 5:12 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink |
In some style of flipped classroom, including my future one, classroom time is not optional. Everyone must attend. It’s like Business School and Law School case discussions, plus other types of interactions. It’s about flipping classroom, not deleting classroom.
Mung
raymondz 7:22 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink |
There’s been an interesting transition from making course materials online (OCW, SEE, etc.) to creating online education programs (Stanford and MITx) in the last year. The ten year gap between the launch of OCW and these new initiatives seems typical for college bureaucracies and reflects the better technology available to day, but it still says something about increased acceptance for online learning and independent education. It’s also a more appropriate economic climate for independent education, figures like Peter Thiel are speaking out in favor of it, and there’s greater demand for engineers (I don’t know if this kind of program works half as well for humanities and social sciences).
It seems like most people using OCW and other publications of class materials online are either already highly motivated, or supplementing their existing education while working or in college. MIT creating what is essentially a credentialing system changes the game because it makes self-directed learning an order of magnitude easier, and creates a program for people to go through. It seems like Stanford is on the same track, as their online classes are not at stanford.edu but instead run by a independent startup, while I remember talking about commercializing online learning.
So that’s one direction I see this revolution heading in, and the other might be our classroom – what happens at elite universities once our classes go online? As someone who learns mostly by reading, I’m quite happy to get to work on projects and have discussions during class, and that model might be what sets schools like Princeton ahead in decades to come – also, it wouldn’t be bad to have more ways to connect with people other than purely social activities.
John O'Neill 2:15 am on January 14, 2012 Permalink |
The availability of elite university-level materials online might have some interesting consequences, but there’s a still of lot of benefits of being in an environment like Princeton. Although the word “research” might cause a grimace to those currently working on Dean’s Date assignments, physically being here at Princeton gives us the chance to research under some seriously brilliant professors – and alongside some brilliant undergraduates. Maybe this availability, this transparency of the classroom, will cause a slight shift in perception of what makes a university elite – the emphasis may be placed less on what’s being taught in the classroom (which would in this case be free for all on the internet,) and moreso on things like proximity to certain professors, mentors and students. This goes alongside your comment on projects and discussions – things of which the outcome depends greatly on the individuals involved. Being at an elite university and in such close proximity these talented individuals is something that can’t easily be replaced.
John O'Neill 4:56 pm on January 14, 2012 Permalink |
Also, as a side note, I think the migration of materials online could eventually be an incredible help to those schools in underdeveloped neighborhoods, which often find it difficult to find great, passionate teachers. Of course, there’s a huge infrastructure issue here – the availability of computers and an internet connection – but perhaps something inventive could be done where classes work in conjunction with places in which that infrastructure is publicly available – like the library? It would be nice to get input from anyone that’s more knowledgeable in this area.
Jasika Bawa 9:10 pm on January 13, 2012 Permalink |
On a related note, TheNextWeb has been tracking online education for a while now, talking about how the Internet is changing the way we learn (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/12/26/in-2011-how-the-internet-revolutionized-education/) and most recently, 4 reasons as to why brains are seen as increasingly suited to online learning (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/01/13/hot-for-e-teacher-4-reasons-your-brain-loves-to-learn-online/). They’re interesting reads.
John O'Neill 7:00 am on January 24, 2012 Permalink |
Great infographic: http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom/