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: Graduation Advice

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Graduation season is just about here, and lots of students are going to put on some black robes and accept a very expensive piece of paper and a hand shake. And along with those newly-minted degrees, plenty of older and more experienced folks will try to offer some advice. Here are just a few interesting words of wisdom for young grads.

• Paul Graham has an excellent blog post that goes beyond the usual "do what you love" advice and explains why it's so hard to actually follow through on finding enjoyable work. Graham boils it down to two paths: (1) organically finding what you love to do, or (2) working one job to support yourself while you develop other vocational interests. [url]
• Conan O'Brien gave a commencement speech to Dartmouth College students in 2011. Towards the end of his talk, Conan refers back to a speech he gave to Harvard graduates in 2000 on failure. [url]
• Commencement speeches aren't always written by successful people with years of experience. Here are ten pearls of wisdom that you won't hear on graduation day, and as with all advice, take it with a grain of salt. [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: advice, conan obrien, diplomas, education, graduation, paul graham, speeches, wisdom