

EdTech Startups to Watch - rajshekhar
http://lurnq.com/lesson/edtech-startups-to-watch/

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codingblues
I still doubt that online courses could be ever a replacement for that good
old one on one classroom session... the discussions and interactions between
good students and professors... I find there's no faster way to learn than
when an expert explains something to you in person, you can ask questions
there and then... clarify them and move on. In an online lecture if I get
stuck... I'll have to pause, clarify my question searching on google(sometimes
not easy), then get back to the rest of the lecture.

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jacoblyles
My thought is that a Ferrari is better than a Toyota. But a Toyota is about
90% as good as a Ferrari and it serves 1000x more people. And in some ways
(safety, gas mileage) a Toyota does outperform a Ferrari.

~~~
codingblues
loved your analogy... but you see I use Toyota all the time... just that if I
have a choice between a Toyota and a Ferrari, I'll go with Ferrari if I have
the resources. Anyways I love Coursera, I am taking a lot of classes there.
Remember a lot of quality of a course depends on how well the teacher conveys
it whether its a lecture hall or an online course.

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simongiles
From my experience with edX, online courses are the Ferrari in your analogy.

1\. It is easier to concentrate on a video of a lecture. My friends aren't
sitting next to me, the recorded audio projects the information clearly, and
noisy neighbours are no longer an issue. The recorded video means everyone can
"sit close" to the lecturer, and the ability to pause, rewind and rewatch
lectures means I'm more likely swallow it in it's entirety.

2\. The ability to participate from any location and at any time means I'm
never late and never hungover.

3\. Getting your questions answered via email means it can be read multiple
times verbatim. Plus the professor is likely to give you a more in-depth
response when he can answer in his own time.

4\. My couch, lounge chair, and bath are more comfortable than the lecture
hall chairs I've sat on in the past.

I feel it's more appropriate to liken online courses to the electric car. They
are a more efficient use of resources, and we'll need them if humans are going
to overcome the (frighteningly) vast array of current and future problems.

To all those involved, great job!

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jacoblyles
A lot of people don't realize this, but Coursera is a young startup that just
had its first birthday. If you have ideas for how we can make things better, I
would love to hear them.

And if you are a hacker, come join us and implement your ideas for millions of
students!

~~~
rz2k
I doubt my idea is one that has not been discussed in depth, but I am really
disappointed that students must use their name or be anonymous, and cannot
create a persona.

For instance, I have a unique name, and I'm also generally private enough not
to have ever subscribed to Facebook. I don't really care about anything I've
have posted being traced back to me, but I do care about the reverse. I don't
want some low-level HR person doing due diligence to take a shortcut and make
a decision based on a regionally unpopular position on some political issue.

As such, there are real reasons to use personas, and I believe real reasons to
generally minimize exposure of one's identity online. If you later have roles
as a public figure, it can be a distraction to have uncontrolled material out
there signed with your unique name.

When I'm helping another participant in a course struggle through a problem,
or asking my own question that to me will later seem dumb, it's easier to use
something more unique than 'anonymous' when having a conversation. Otherwise,
I could just not ask dumb questions, but if they really aren't dumb at all,
then the answer should be easy to find on Google.

I _could_ use a pseudonym, an email address not linked to me in any other way,
and if really paranoid, I could use the Tor network—but I'm not concerned
about taking classes in secret, I simply want to participate as much as
possible and as effectively as possible while opting out from contributing to
the 'portfolio' of discourse attributed to my real-world identity. It would be
naïve to pretend that the student dialogs are not interesting data for anyone
to harvest regardless of user term, and that they will not eventually be as
indexed and searchable as Markmail or Google's archive of Usenet.

Perhaps I'll never even refer to a certificate from a Coursera course I
enjoyed, much less feel the need to display it, and I could use a handle
rather than my name, but I can't help but suspect that most of the people
using 'anonymous' in the forums are doing so for the same reason as me, or
even just declining to contribute.

I really believe that it would be a great improvement if, like EdX, the name
used in forums was different than the name attached to any certificates. And
really, being a global program, and considering the attitudes with regard to
academic honesty outside of the US, the certificates may not be very
meaningful until there are proctored exams anyway. Furthermore I can't imagine
how policing abuses by nicknames is any more difficult than people using
'anonymous', they're both linked to an account that is participating (or
suspiciously _not_ participating through quizzes and watching videos).

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jacoblyles
Thanks for the feedback. Naming policies are a very difficult issue that I
know have been debated at the company. I'm just an engineer, but I will
forward on your comments.

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shicky
Are there any similar sites to Coursera in terms of offering actual University
courses in Nutrition etc rather than just comp sci / engineering?

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dioms
This website looks very cool! The concept seems to be pretty similar to
<http://onvard.com>

