DailyDirt: No More Classes, No More Books...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The field of education is looking ripe for disruption as "distance learning" becomes more and more practical with internet connections and algorithmic grading systems. There are still plenty of bugs to be worked out for digital education, but it's coming. (And famous dropouts from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg seem to suggest some flaws in the traditional university system.) Here are just a few links on how schools are changing and developing new kinds of classes.

• Massively open online courses (aka MOOCs) have the word "open" in their name, but these classes don't necessarily have to be open. Online classes can be closed and proprietary, and maybe massively "closed" online courses are less of a threat to public education? [url]
• EdX, Coursera, Udacity and the Khan Academy are just a few examples of online schools. The ease of signing up for an online class also makes it easy to drop out of an online class, but that might not be a bad thing. [url]
• University rankings often emphasize how many applicants are turned away instead of how many graduates are competent in their chosen field (or employed). In the future, colleges might get rid of the traditional September-to-June school year, change how long it takes to graduate, or allow all classes to be taken online without using heavy printed textbooks at all, but the cost of college is likely to stay the same: expensive. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: certification, college, degree, distance learning, education, massively open online courses, mooc, university
Companies: coursera, edx, khan academy, udacity

DailyDirt: The Future Of Higher Education Is Online

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Online education is set to revolutionize higher education, making it more affordable, more accessible, more efficient, and more effective. Of course, online education works only if it's done right. It's not enough to simply lecture to students through a computer. Online courses also need to be dynamic and interactive to compensate for the lack of human contact through a physical classroom. Here are some other considerations about online education.

• Online courses have at least two major problems to overcome. First, the student attrition rate for some online courses can be as high as 90% compared to traditional face-to-face classes. Second, online courses aren't a good fit for struggling students who need more contact with instructors to do well. [url]
• Stanford University and Khan Academy are experimenting with different ways to make online education more effective. Stanford has been "flipping classrooms" by making class sizes smaller, setting up interactive versions of classes online (which include pop-up quizzes every 15 minutes), and adding social media elements that let students ask questions of each other. Khan Academy has added a feature that lets students tutor other students to earn badge rewards. [url]
• Udacity, an online education startup founded by Sebastian Thrun, offers many college courses for free. Thrun believes that the key to effective online teaching is to have students solve problems. His teaching philosophy involves giving students quizzes, one every 2-5 minutes, that become the centerpieces of each lesson. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: certification, classrooms, degrees, diplomas, education, online courses, sebastian thrun
Companies: khan academy, stanford, udacity

DailyDirt: Technology In Education

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The digital revolution of the education system has yet to really take off. Many students communicate with their teachers via email and have figured out how to use word processors (instead of typewriters), but the widespread use of technology in classrooms hasn't exactly caught on. Cool projects like the Khan Academy are starting to ramp up, but introducing cheap laptops or ebooks into public schools hasn't met with wild success. (Though, if you've heard of any inspiring programs, let us know in the comments.)

• Peru spent $225 million on an education initiative that involved One Laptop per Child and 850,000 basic laptops for schools throughout the country. Unfortunately, the results so far have not shown much improvement in math or reading scores. [url]
• India's $35 tablet, the Aakash, is being revised and will probably cost closer to $50. The next version will be called 'Aakash 2' (not the 'new Aakash') and offer a capacitative touch screen. [url]
• Wilco Electronics is bidding on a contract to make Aakash tablets and to create a pilot program for these devices in underserved Philadelphia schools. But if Peru is any indication of what will happen.... [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: education, email, india, peru, tablets
Companies: khan academy, one laptop per child, wilco electronics

On the Internet, Google+ Knows You're A TOS-Violating 10-Year-Old Dog

from the unintended-consequences dept

theodp writes

"In its tear-jerker 'Dear Sophie' Google Chrome ad, a father creates a Gmail account (dear.sophie.lee@gmail.com) for his just-born daughter to preserve memories of her childhood. So, how does that work out in real life? Not so good, at least in the case of 10-year-old Alex Sutherland, who the WSJ reports was reduced to tears after being notified that the Gmail account his father created on his behalf two years earlier would be deleted because the Google+ Profile Alex created triggered a Google Terms of Service age violation. 'You made my son cry, Google,' wrote blogger Martin Sutherland. 'I'm not inclined to forgive that.' Not to pile on, but Alex may also be persona non grata at Khan Academy, where learning under the age of 13 can also constitute a TOS violation."

To be fair, the "under 13" age issue is not something that should be blamed on Google, Khan Academy or any other site (and, really, if theodp wanted to be accurate, he could list most of the top sites on the internet, who all have this same restriction). It's (of course!) the result of poorly thought out legislation. Namely, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act -- another one of these "for the children" laws that politicians love to pass without thinking about the unintended consequences. Here, as in many cases, the intentions may be good: to prevent websites from collecting too much info from children who don't quite recognize what they're doing, but the actual results are that most sites simply put in their terms of service that the site is not for people under 13, even if everyone assumes that those under 13 still use those sites.

Of course, even bringing up how silly this is can lead to backlash. When Mark Zuckerberg recently suggested that perhaps the law needed some rethinking to make it more reasonable for those under 13 to use useful parts of the internet, it was dubbed "controversial", and he had to clarify his remarks to make clear that he wasn't trying to get under 13 kids on the site any time soon.

Either way, it does seem silly for Google to put out a commercial in which a father creates an email address for someone under 13... when it's taking away accounts from others who do the same thing...

Filed Under: coppa, terms of service, under 13
Companies: google, khan academy

Khan Academy Embraces BitTorrent

from the nice-to-see dept

We've written a few times before about the Khan Academy, the free online education resource, started by a former housemate of mine, that has turned into a powerhouse in the online education space. I had lunch with Sal a few weeks ago, and he's got some really fascinating things planned for Khan Academy that go way beyond what's there now. If you think it's disruptive to the educational space, you haven't seen anything yet. The latest move by the organization is to team up with BitTorrent to make it even easier and more efficient to spread the educational videos. They're doing this via the BitTorrent app studio platform, which is a development worth watching. The core of BitTorrent has always been the underlying infrastructure it provides, and the company is clearly moving towards enabling others to build a lot more on top of that infrastructure. As more and more people begin to realize the power of BitTorrent as infrastructure, we should start to see a lot more interesting apps come out of it. So this collaboration seems like good news for both sides, with two companies doing very interesting and disruptive things...

Filed Under: bittorrent, education, infrastructure
Companies: bittorrent, khan academy

Khan Academy Buys Cybersquatted Dot Com

from the common-law-trademarks... dept

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Khan Academy, the online operation run by an old housemate of mine, Sal Khan. At the time, he was getting more and more (well deserved) press attention for the project. Since then, that attention has only increased, with Bill Gates giving him a shout out and Google handing him $2 million. But one thing he didn't have, apparently, was the domain name khanacademy.com. He said he was about to get it, but someone beat him to it.

Dennis sent over an interesting story by a guy who helped Sal buy the dot com from the cybersquatter. It's an interesting story of how buying domains works (with a lot of questionable things happening in the background). In the end, they were able to purchase the domain for $2,988. They actually paid $5,000 initially, but the company running the auction later said it detected fraudulent bidding, and lowered the price.

That said, I wanted to point out an important mistake that the guy made -- which may have actually made this more costly. Here's what the guy wrote:

I checked to see if Sal had a trademark. If he had I would have suggested a WIPO action. It would have been a slam dunk. But Sal, busy teaching kids trigonometry for free, hadn't gotten one yet.

And here's the mistake: you don't need a registered trademark in such a situation. Would it help? Perhaps, but it's really not necessary. All you need is a common law trademark, and that would be quite easy for Sal to demonstrate. The UDRP process has regularly said that common law trademarks are sufficient. In fact, WIPO has explicitly stated that no registration is necessary, and has regularly ruled for those holding common law trademarks, so long as they can show evidence as to why they hold a common law trademark.

It's kind of unfortunate that Sal and the author of that article had to go through this other process, as it likely cost them more than a straight UDRP dispute and the money they spent went to whoever squatted the domain. Oh well, perhaps it's just an educational moment -- and one Sal can use in a future video teaching others about trademarks, common law trademarks and the domain dispute process...

Filed Under: common law trademark, domain auctions, domain dispute, domains, trademark
Companies: khan academy