

The Rise of the 'Edupunk'  - cwan
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/05/cref

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nl
As someone who spent 5 years working for an agency that was supposed to
connect educators with technology, I feel quite qualified to say:

 _HA HA HA HA!_

I read quotes like:

 _In a bow to the “Edupunks,” Sullivan explained that Virginia is
incorporating student habits into its pedagogy. For example, the university is
experimenting with “flash seminars.” Just as “flash mobs” summon young people
to engage in some simultaneous bizarre act in a specified place at a specified
time, the “flash seminars” alert students to an edgy topic -- no examples of
how edgy -- that will be discussed in a professor's living room. To raise the
hype level, only the first 25 students who show up are allowed to participate
in this non-credit-bearing activity._

and I think of the endless papers I've seen on how _social
networking/ipads/location based services/mobile computing/cloud
computing/whatever was hot in the tech sphere six months ago_ is going to
revolutionize education. I'm continually reminded of cargo cults
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult>: _A cargo cult is a religious
practice that has appeared in many traditional tribal societies in the wake of
interaction with technologically advanced cultures._ )

Education systems have huge budgets, but they are always run by such second
rate people that the money is never used as a lever to get what they need.
Education systems are quite happy to spend millions of dollars on
consultancies and studies, but because the focus is on risk avoidance they
never actually achieve anything.

(And yes, there are a few exceptions. Having destroyed myself trying to
achieve anything in that sector I applaud all the more for those who have
managed it.)

For anyone considering doing a company in this space, read all the warnings
you hear about doing enterprise software, and then take away the fact the most
enterprises are at least rational (if slow). Then also remove the fact that
enterprises pay people well, so they are usually a few decent people who you
can deal with. Then add in politics, the election cycle, unions, teachers,
lectures, "duty of care" considerations. If you are still considering that
sector, then good luck!!

~~~
luckystrike
I am just getting in to this sector. It would really be great if you could
write about your experiences in this domain. Those would help people like me
avoid making some obvious mistakes, and also help us learn a thing or two for
our ventures.

~~~
Alex3917
Your obvious mistake was going into this sector, unless you are targeting
either pre-k or graduate students. Otherwise get out now, unless you're just
doing lead gen or something.

~~~
aik
But why? Please explain.

~~~
Alex3917
So let's say you have some software that legitimately creates $30-100 dollars
of value per student. In order to sell that software to the school, it's going
to take 8 months and $20,000 dollars. That means you're going to have to sell
it for at least $125,000 dollars to make it worthwhile. That you're A) reading
HN B) asking this question suggests that you probably won't be able to make
this sale. And even if you can, you'll essentially just be conning the schools
out of money because your software is worth vastly less than what you're
selling it for, so you're essentially just depriving kids of things that would
actually help them learn.

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michaelchisari
It's an interesting analysis of the current situation, but the proposed
methods for changing the system are depressingly trendy:

 _Just as “flash mobs” summon young people to engage in some simultaneous
bizarre act in a specified place at a specified time, the “flash seminars”
alert students to an edgy topic -- no examples of how edgy -- that will be
discussed in a professor's living room._

If they want a good model of popular education and intellectualism, they do
exist. Take the amateur astronomy community, for instance, or Wikipedia
culture.

~~~
eru
Yes, though Wikipedia's internal wrangling and deletionist slant can be ugly.

------
_delirium
If I were thinking of something to call "edupunk", I don't think this weird
flash-mob-based, social-media-tinged approach to education would be it. What
about the methods of education punk culture has actually promoted for decades?
Stuff like: disseminate information to let people do things themselves (the
DIY ethos), free courses, free or low-cost zines, volunteer-taught skills
workshops, etc.

~~~
mparr4
It is somewhat comical hearing these $40k+ a year schools talking about what
they perceive as a coming paradigm shift within academia. If people are taking
free courses online, or teaching themselves or others with the only cost being
the time they put in, how could universities possibly make money off a
situation like that?

To me it seems that this shift isn't happening within academia, but is a shift
_away from_ academica. Who needs them anyway?

~~~
aik
In my opinion the very definition of academia today is proof of its lack of
necessity. And that is the exact reason why they need to change - and change,
not be destroyed - there is much need for such institutions still. Even the
most ardent self-learners can benefit from mentorship relationships, so that's
where universities need to focus.

~~~
mparr4
Why do we need academia for mentorships?

Certainly academia is not useless (though I guess I was implying that in my
previous post with the "Who needs them anyway?") but I do think that academic
institutions will likely become less and less relevant. I'm currently in a PhD
program studying Environmental Engineering and its so structured and
balkanized and specialized that its really pretty ridiculous (and I'm at one
of the more progressive, liberal Engineering programs in the country). It
occurred to me that it would be incredibly interesting if, instead of having
to research at Universities and thus, working within their outdated framework,
what if people began researching at places like Google? What if companies like
Google funded imaginative, interdisciplinary research? Stuff that gets bogged
down in the highly procedural academia?

I might try and think of a way to better articulate this idea and see what the
HN community thinks of it...

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brudgers
My spouse teaches part-time in the UoP (University of Phoenix) system. Their
interface is sparse, the classrooms are largely asynchronous, and the faculty
largely anonymous. It works because UoP knows what it's selling - College
Degrees.

Public universities can't admit to themselves that selling degrees is what
they do for political reasons - doing so is anathema to alumni and academics.
So they are compelled to "deliver rich media," hold classes at scheduled
times, and cater to the traditional leanings of brick and mortar professors.
It's a model that doesn't scale.

The opportunity in higher education is cheaper degrees with higher customer
service...I personally believe it is quite achievable. Particularly if one
replaces accreditation with reputation.

~~~
mparr4
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "reputation"? I think it's potentially a
really interesting point and I'd just like to have a better idea of what you
mean by it.

~~~
brudgers
Some further remarks:

Accreditation is a minimum standard, and is applied to the institution as a
whole. As I'm carelessly throwing it around, "reputation" would refer to the
effectiveness of an institution's graduates due to their education.

I guess I'm getting at a vocational measure, e.g. how well is a graduate
prepared as a professional. The issue with online education is that
accreditation is typically purchased through the acquisition of an existing
brick and mortar school. See:
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/>

However, if you are hiring a fresh graduate as a programmer, accreditation
doesn't differentiate the candidates because they all have accredited degrees.
What matters more is the ability of the school to turn out people with a
higher caliber of skills, knowledges and abilities...the number of books in
the library and Phd's on the professor's office walls aren't the important
metric.

Accreditation matters for graduate schools and for licensing boards (law,
medicine, etc.). Building the rest of higher education around it, doesn't make
a lot of sense.

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tyrmored
Does anyone else find it just a little bit chilling that the idea of a group
of people educating themselves independently is seen by modern society as
weird?

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mitchellhislop
As a student at a university, I totally agree. i hear more and more students
complaining about the education, and more people (such as myself) starting to
look elseware. A group of us have formed a "class" around some of the open
courseware so that we are still in the class-like atmosphere. we want to
learn. the university just refuses to teach us what we want and how we want to
learn it.

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lhnz
...you motivate people by helping them to learn what they're interested in
learning and not through gimmicks like a flash mob. If you think you have the
ability to 'trick' people into learning then you are mistaken. This is
thoroughly embarrassing.

The establishment needs to realize that learning can be enjoyable for people
that take pride in it or see it as a way to an end. Edupunks, Autodidacts and
the like come from people having real passions and learning how to harness
this to learn.

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edkennedy
The term 'Edupunk' being as vague as it is, this article could also be focused
on auto didactics. Punk meaning individualism and free thought.

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rick_2047
I don't understand where is the problem in accessing students who learn from
open courses (I am not saying there is no problem, but I just don't understand
it). Most of the grading is done based on quizes, mid terms, terms, term
papers etc. All these can be given by these students and you get the
assessment.

~~~
apike
Testing in post-secondary is usually very idiosyncratic. At best they teach to
a textbook and test that textbook evenly. More likely, a professor teaches
their angle on a subset of the topic, and then grades based on that.

Because of that, if you understood the 3rd year Algorithms courseware from
MIT, you would likely fail the midterm for 3rd year Algorithms at your local
university.

Fixing this is very difficult, since it would mean you need standardized tests
to measure post-secondary topics. Implementing that (and keeping it up to
date) would be extremely difficult and contentious.

~~~
aik
I believe it's perfectly OK that you can succeed in Algorithms at one school
and not do perfectly at another with the same knowledge.

The area where I believe the problem is in specifically teaching to a test,
rather than general deep understanding (of algorithms in this example). Tests
in a lot of cases don't test for deep understanding, but rather memorization
and understanding of very specific algorithms. The focus is completely off.
It's the "meta-algorithmic structure" that matters for the future of students
(when they themselves have to go learn/create algorithms to solve future
problems), not just recall the small subset of algorithms they learned in
school.

~~~
rick_2047
_I believe it's perfectly OK that you can succeed in Algorithms at one school
and not do perfectly at another with the same knowledge._

How is this OK? Its the fact, but its most certainly not the right thing.

------
Towle_
tl;dr:

They don't _get it_.

