Comparing and contrasting the various online classes that exist.
Basics:
MOOC is the biggest buzz word right now, coined in 2008 and suddenly popular this year. It stands for Massive Open Online Curriculum, a program that aims to teach huge amounts of people (often in the hundreds of thousands) for free. Each student simply follows a class online, taught with anything from video to text. Some assign homework, because doing things yourself is pretty important for learning, but most is automatically graded (due to the scale), which brings into question whether MOOCs could teach creative or writing courses as well.
Most online education sites (MOOCs in particular) don't include the very important 'study group' environment, where a small number of students work through material together. This is the main rift between the two kinds of MOOCs: broadcast, where the individual is an island and absorbs the information alone, and connectivist, where there is a focus on peer-to-peer learning in small (virtual) settings.
Udacity
Khan
Khan Academy is a virtual library of a wide variety of class lectures, customized for the internet with its voiced-over chalkboard videos. There is no class, no community of viewers, but an individual can find well-explained talks about almost any subject. This is a very different approach to learning--totally unstructured. It's fairly impossible to measure the success of this website, but it is reminiscent of the internet model of learning (also seen in youtube and TED talks, among many).
CodeAcademy is a completely CS-oriented site similar to the unstructured learning sites. It has a variety of tutorials, just text and occasional video, that teach a small variety of programming topics. No tests, surveillance, or encouragement to think critically or creatively. However, it's one of the few good places to learn to code online and it's fairly known and commonly used by young curious students.
Stanford Engineering Everywhere
Set up to simply transmit lecture and assignments of popular Stanford engineering courses through the internet, a concept that has been around since before the internet (outlined earlier in passing). Seems like a lot of universities have this sort of website, but I have rarely heard of them used outside the university. Since this is completely self-motivational (i.e., not outside pressure to help you through) and there is no feedback on homework, most people doubt that this kind of site is the future of online education. But hey, who knows.
Basics:
MOOC is the biggest buzz word right now, coined in 2008 and suddenly popular this year. It stands for Massive Open Online Curriculum, a program that aims to teach huge amounts of people (often in the hundreds of thousands) for free. Each student simply follows a class online, taught with anything from video to text. Some assign homework, because doing things yourself is pretty important for learning, but most is automatically graded (due to the scale), which brings into question whether MOOCs could teach creative or writing courses as well.
Most online education sites (MOOCs in particular) don't include the very important 'study group' environment, where a small number of students work through material together. This is the main rift between the two kinds of MOOCs: broadcast, where the individual is an island and absorbs the information alone, and connectivist, where there is a focus on peer-to-peer learning in small (virtual) settings.
Udacity
While some MOOCs existed before this one, this Stanford-founded site surprised the world with 160,000 virtual students for an AI course taught by Sebastian Thrun (the founder) in 2011. The main driving force behind this sudden popularity is probably Stanford's and the cofounder's (made the Google self-driving car) reputation. Whether these big names actually brings better teaching is debatable, but there is definitely some form of cool motivation when a google co-founder talks about search engines right before you learn to program a search engine (this is the first step in the beginning programming class).
The class doesn't require you to sign up to view material, which is mainly video explanations with periodic quizzes, but having an account allows you to save progress, grades, and participate in the class' forum.
Coursera
Riding on the popularity and media attention of Udacity, Stanford released a second platform in April 2012 with classes in computer science. This site has attempted to create one of the best structured learning environments online, and is commercial. It takes real classes, some of the best from the best universities, and creates the virtual equivalent. Unlike Udacity, there's a specific set of weeks during which the class goes on, students have to turn in assignments according to deadlines, and some universities give certificates or credit for completing the class.
Riding on the popularity and media attention of Udacity, Stanford released a second platform in April 2012 with classes in computer science. This site has attempted to create one of the best structured learning environments online, and is commercial. It takes real classes, some of the best from the best universities, and creates the virtual equivalent. Unlike Udacity, there's a specific set of weeks during which the class goes on, students have to turn in assignments according to deadlines, and some universities give certificates or credit for completing the class.
A way they envision to gain money is not from ads or user fees, but to allow companies to, for a price and with the permission of the student, know how the subject in question did in his or her classes. Additionally, Coursera provides tutors or counselling for a fee.
MIT addressed worries of the commercialization of education by starting this program in March 2012. The pilot class (a beginner electrical engineering class) launched in March and the first set of real classes was launched this month (October). One article talks about the feedback they received from the pilot course, which is interesting.
1) a huge amount of people joined, but a small fraction completed the class
2) the top four countries involved were the US, India, the UK, and Columbia
3) students really liked activities where they could draw on a virtual chalkboard, saying it helped them understand better.
They assigned weekly assignments, including video lectures, readings, and homework. The only peer-to-peer interaction was through forums. Harvard, Berkeley, and the Texas University system has also elected to join, creating a larger program called edX this year. It is sometimes mentioned that edX is less interested in creating a good class than experimenting with this new medium.
Khan
Khan Academy is a virtual library of a wide variety of class lectures, customized for the internet with its voiced-over chalkboard videos. There is no class, no community of viewers, but an individual can find well-explained talks about almost any subject. This is a very different approach to learning--totally unstructured. It's fairly impossible to measure the success of this website, but it is reminiscent of the internet model of learning (also seen in youtube and TED talks, among many).
CodeAcademy is a completely CS-oriented site similar to the unstructured learning sites. It has a variety of tutorials, just text and occasional video, that teach a small variety of programming topics. No tests, surveillance, or encouragement to think critically or creatively. However, it's one of the few good places to learn to code online and it's fairly known and commonly used by young curious students.
Stanford Engineering Everywhere
Set up to simply transmit lecture and assignments of popular Stanford engineering courses through the internet, a concept that has been around since before the internet (outlined earlier in passing). Seems like a lot of universities have this sort of website, but I have rarely heard of them used outside the university. Since this is completely self-motivational (i.e., not outside pressure to help you through) and there is no feedback on homework, most people doubt that this kind of site is the future of online education. But hey, who knows.
