

Ask HN: What feature do you want to see in online education? - educate

Hi HN! I'm a long time user, but due to privacy/anonymity, needed to create this throwaway account. I'm currently working in online education and have some time to work on a fresh new project (think ~100 hours over two or three months).<p>I wanted to know what kind of features HN users would like to see in the education space. I'm interested in all kinds of ideas and may pick one off to try and build it. For instance, one I've heard of before is an iPad companion app to online classes where you can create/record lessons with audio and a whiteboard (a la showme.com). Something that's already been done, but captures the essence of what I'm looking for is a good circuit simulator, or online code tutors like code academy.<p>Any/all ideas welcome. Thanks!
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joshma
I've seen a lot of mathematical visualizations floating around, with nice JS
widgets to tweak function values and formulas and whatnot. It'd be incredible
to have a platform to build your own visualizations, built on top of a message
board.

I'd imagine an interaction like "why does f(x-a) shift f(x) to the right and
not left?", where teachers and students could explain the answer with a graph
that showed certain values as you slide a knob to adjust 'a'. Using some
cleverly defined/usable toolkit. It sounds really tough to pull off, but I'm
optimistic!

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Arun2009
I'd like to see online "textbooks" that can be bookmarked, commented upon,
annotated etc. The textbooks will have animated graphics and interactive
exercises inlined along with the text (i.e., the ideal that applets tried to
achieve in education will be realized). You will be able to collapse and
expand the textbooks to summary/comprehensive level depending on your
inclination to read large amounts of text. The possibilities are endless: the
texts can have pop quizzes to test your understanding, you can have
collaboration built into the text where you ask your fellow students/teachers
questions on sections of the text (see the Django book
<http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/> for an example). Etc.

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padwiki
I also work in online education. We're either competitors or complementary,
depending on exactly who you work with.

The list of things I could throw out as features we want to see in online
systems, or standalone products that could make a big difference, is long
indeed. That list, however, is highly dependent on which class of system you
are talking about. Without giving yourself away, could you tell us if you are
part of the rebel alliance (khan, udacity, udemy, mitx, etc...) or the dark
side (blackboard, d2l, moodle, etc...)?

I won't give away our most interesting upcoming features, but I'm happy to
share some things I think all systems should have and few if any do.

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educate
Definitely the rebel alliance :).

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padwiki
Ok, I'll assume you are Ben or Tom for the purpose of this discussion.

If I were in the position to really move the Khan system forward, I would
focus on a few key areas. First, the teacher tools at Khan are fantastic for
showing the flow of students through the material and tying in to standards
based grading. But, and this is a big but, the tools for independent students
are almost non-existent.

Our system is also self paced and one of the largest problems we had to solve
was how to keep a self-paced system from being "I'll get to it one of these
days". The Khan system, when it is outside of classroom pacing, definitely
suffers from that problem. Our approach is to have the student set section or
exercise deadlines for themselves, then evaluate them based on how accurately
they meet those goals. It allows for flexibility in pacing but still taps into
the motivation of a looming deadline. You can do this at the micro level (I
will complete this exercise in 7 minutes), badge level, or group larger
sections together for larger targets. Risk of just setting far future
deadlines is mitigated by including data from other students to introduce
competition. In addition to helping to motivate the student from a pacing
perspective, it helps teach accurate estimation and integrity.

Second, and the only reason I am sharing this is because when we launch in a
few days everyone will see it, is the concept of contextual notes. In our
system, taking a note is not just creating a list. We tie that note to exactly
what the instructor is saying and what was on the "board" when they were
saying it, making the note system a way of building a reference library for
each student. While you don't have to take the exact same approach we did, (as
long as youtube is the delivery mechanism you wouldn't be able to anyway) you
do have valuable data that you are not using to its full advantage - time
coded transcripts.

Finally, if this is indeed Ben or Tom, please either fix the knowledge map or
ditch it entirely. It's not helping your image to have half working features
floating around.

Anyway, back to work.

-B

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ramblerman
* A stack overflow for specific questions

* The choice between video OR text for lectures

* a place for people to share their notes, mindmaps

And finally, one of the things I miss most in something like Khan academy: A
Syllabus. A tree showing where branches of knowledge begin and where they end.

I know Khan academy try this via the knowledge tree (or whatever it is called)
but I find that to be a big mess. They do many great things, but that thing
isn't one of them.

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zyeljanee
I like the idea of choosing between video or text for the lectures. Also think
about online graduation via video coverage through web cameras....

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luksus
Definitely, nowadays people are watching more videos than reading books. Also
connecting the visual book to social media to exchange ideas and/or
information.

~~~
zyeljanee
A good idea there, okay lets what about those who are less fortunate to have
internet connections. What do you suggest.

