
Introducing The Floating University - turing
http://floatinguniversity.com/
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jasonkostempski
These types of sites, TED, Khan Academy, etc. get me so excited for the
future. Unfortunately the phrase 'everyone, everywhere' comes with that little
asterisk: *with high-speed internet access. I think a movement to get internet
to 'everyone, everywhere' needs to happen along side this internet education
movement to be as potentially world-changing as I'd like to imagine it. Not
that the education movement alone isn't great, there is a huge gap between
being able to afford high-speed internet and affording/getting into a good
college.

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nitrogen
Still, the set of "everyone, everywhere with high-speed internet access" is
larger than the set of "everyone, everywhere with money and access to a top-
tier university."

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jpadvo
The fact that this will be offered for credit at accredited universities with
physical campuses is really intriguing. Often efforts like this have
difficulty getting the institutional buyin that will lead to real change.

As a side note, they could have chosen a name with a better acronym -- FU
already has meaning attached to it for a lot of people.

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dorian-graph
I imagine the people who wouldn't be able to get past the 'FU' thing probably
wouldn't bother going to university anyway. It's like with the Wii, we all had
a little giggle when we first heard it and then we got over it.. except for
those few people..

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saurik
It isn't the people going to the university that will be the problem: it will
be trying to explain what you are doing to your parents, employers, or
friends. I got my degree from "The College of Creative Studies", which has one
of the top physics programs in the nation; this is understood by grad programs
you talk to, but all those people external to the academic process just look
at you as if you are insane, and went to some kind of lala-happy program.

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BlackJack
I can't say for Harvard or Bard, but at Yale, this course is a seminar. You
can watch the videos whenever you want, but you also have physical class on
Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:20, where you'll discuss the readings and the
professors (Peter Salovey and Adam Glick) will try to make you think in an
interdisciplinary way.

Although the online aspect and all that is great, I think this is novel for
another reason. Charlie Munger, vice chair of Berkshire Hathaway, has often
talked about building a latticework of mental models i.e. take the big ideas
from various disciplines, and use those models to solve problems. This course
is basically a physical version of what he's espoused his whole life.

I'm definitely going to try to get into this course - sounds awesome!

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100k
> "Floating University subscriptions will also be available to the general
> public with full course packs and video lectures via the Internet."

Any idea what this is going to cost?

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re_chief
Thought it was kind of interesting that they didn't have any sort of cost in
the FAQ section. I would think that that would be a frequently asked question.

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tryitnow
Yep, the lack of transparency just made me think "next" - I'll be looking into
Stanford's free AI courses. Or the many other free courses out there. I
couldn't figure out what FU's value prop is that makes it worth $495.

Maybe "FU" is an appropriate name after all.

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jeffreymcmanus
I'm confused as to how this works. Is it just pre-recorded videos? The site
says "no homework, no tests". If you just watch the videos, how does it
reinforce what you've learned? Is there any interaction with the instructor?

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szany
There's an in-class presentation and a final paper, according to the syllabus:

[http://floatinguniversity.com/files/Great%20Big%20Ideas%20-%...](http://floatinguniversity.com/files/Great%20Big%20Ideas%20-%20Course%20Syllabus.pdf)

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Astrohacker
Cool. But is the future of education really having professors give lectures,
except now it's online?

Here are some brainstorm ideas for alternatives:

* Allow anyone, not just existing professors, create a course on any topic and of any length. May the best teachers win.

* Allow and encourage students to make their own lectures and courses.

* Enable and encourage two-way communication. Perhaps people can post responses to other people's lectures.

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keiferski
Those don't address the credential aspect of a degree program.

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troymc
Bingo. Accreditation-on-demand is the second half of the puzzle.

One interesting solution is that offered by Western Governors University
(created by 19 governors of western US states). It's non-profit, online, low-
cost, and... "nationally, regionally, NCATE, and CCNE accredited."

They have a low, flat-rate tutition per term, regardless of how many courses
or credits you take. Most interesting of all (I think), they mainly care about
what you know, not how much time you spend with WGU: if you already know
something, you can get "assessed" (e.g. tested) and move through the program
faster.

<http://www.wgu.edu/about_WGU/WGU_different>

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spiffistan
$495 for 12 videos about why you should think outside the box? I dunno man...

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dagw
And for your $495, you don't even get to download keep the videos. You get to
view them for 6 month. I guess if I want to review them again next year I'm
out an additional $495.

I was totally stoked when I read about the concept, but $40 a video for time
limited streaming just made the whole thing a lot less interesting.

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motters
There is a big opportunity here, because higher education seems to be facing a
crisis. Due to big increases in the costs of university education, combined
with the reasonable reticence of students to take on large amounts of debt
which may take decades to repay, for the first time it seems possible that the
next generation may be less well educated than their parents - unless
something changes.

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szany
_per ampliora ad altiora_ = from breadth to depth

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Sniffnoy
Can "per" mean "from"? It usually means "through".

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szany
You're right, it's "through" not "from". I can't edit it now.

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xtacy
Website seems down, here's a cached copy:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://floatinguniversity.com/)

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spartango
Interesting. Although I wonder why the topics are so heavily biased toward the
humanities... One would think that a view of the sciences would be equally
important.

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Hyena
Probably because Khan Academy is heavily biased towards mathematics and OCW
heavily biased towards science/engineering.

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dagw
But Khan is basically only high school level material, and doesn't really
compete or overlap with anything offering university level courses.

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Hyena
True, but there's nothing that keeps it from expanding higher and it has all
the resources for it already in place. I'd think Khan Academy is likely to
slowly become the major mathematics provider. Possibly also finance, depends
on whether they expand those sections.

