
MITx: Can Higher Learning Be Made Habit Forming? - FluidDjango
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/01/03/mitx-can-higher-learning-be-made-habit-forming/
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nu23
Once we have a well-indexed high quality video and course material archive
(not fully there yet), there is a lot of potential for learning centers where
students can go for immersion into a study environment. These centers can
offer services like meeting places for study groups to meet up, tutoring from
people who have already mastered the course, and advice on what to study.
Software can be used to coordinate the learning needs with expertise. The
software will probably be independent of the learning center, so that students
can move to different places and still continue their existing learning
tracks.

These centers could provide the environment that this article talks about -
essentially, many of the services that a university used to, but in cheaper
and more flexible ways. Many constraints in traditional systems would become
artificial in the new environment. Students could be of different ages, learn
at their own pace and fit things into their own schedule. New courses could be
designed based on local expertise and interest.

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geogra4
I'd love to see these learning centers have certificate programs so that you
can get the piece of paper that we still need these days.

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nu23
Yes, a place to take exams could be one of the important services the center
provides. There could be an independent exam standards organization, which
would check that the exams at center are fairly conducted.

Interestingly, since a distributed model is now possible, the _content_ of the
exams and grading procedures could be decided by the course designer. The
center and exam standards body would just administer it. And the course
designer could be anybody just as anybody can write a book. The only
constraints would be students should be willing to take the course, which in
turn could depend on the ability for the course to count as credit in a
virtual major(apart from other factors like student intrinsic interest and
usefulness of the course). There would probably be different organizations
with different criterion for including a course in a major. A single course
could be in many such major programs. So course design, physical
infrastructure, exam/grading standards and formal accumulation of course into
a virtual degree could all be handled independently, though I guess, in
practice, some of them will be handled by one organization. Some of this has
already happened.

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epenn
I hope once the platforms offered by Stanford and MIT have been around for a
while they publish data on how often people continue using the platforms after
completing at least one course.

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saturdaysaint
I'm convinced that the delivery systems just need to improve. I was lukewarm
on audiobooks and podcasts when I needed to manage syncing them in iTunes -
with Audible's excellent app and a solid podcast app (Instacast), I've been
consuming both voraciously.

iTunes U is awkward, buried in that monstrosity of a program that most of us
avoid using when possible. "iTunes" is even slow and convoluted on the iPhone
- you need to download the course (and, no, you're not notified when new
courses come out) and play the video in a separate app.

Something simple along the lines of the better podcasting apps (maybe with
some means of attaching/tracking homework?) would make this much more
addictive. They don't need gimmicks, they need to stop sucking.

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maeon3
This is why you should not read or work while lying down in bed. now that I
think about it. The most productive years of my life were done in dedicated
work areas where I encoded "focused agile work time" into a specific monitor
and keyboard and room. I was able to focus for 10 hours at a time there
without caffeine or stimulant.

