
Show HN: uMOOC, an online tutoring platform for Harvard's CS50 and MIT's 6.00.1 - ralmidani
http://www.umooc.org
======
ralmidani
I'm Ragheed Al-midani, one of uMOOC's two co-founders. I met my co-founder,
Dwayne Kennemore, when we were both in CS50 at Harvard Extension School. uMOOC
was his idea (he will probably share his inspiration here shortly), and I
offered to help. The first prototype of uMOOC was built as our final project
for CS50, but the scope of the project has grown tremendously since then.

If you're wondering what our stack looks like, we're using (among other
things) Python 3, Django, Django-Rest-Framework, Ember-CLI, Emblem, Sass (the
original, indented version), Bootstrap, CoffeeScript, and EasyRTC.

If you have any questions or concerns, technical or otherwise, please don't
hesitate to ask!

~~~
liamcardenas
This is very cool! Have you considered implementing group sections.

That way, students can pay less and tutors can earn more. If 10 students pay
$10/hr, that's $100/hr for the tutor, and the students would still benefit
immensely.

~~~
dkennemo
Hello, I'm Dwayne Kennemore, the other founder of uMOOC.

A group section would be terrific for another reason - in academic contexts,
while students DO learn from their professors, they learn from ONE ANOTHER as
much or more. There are a few reasons for this, but one of them is, I think,
that they're more at ease with one another and don't have to worry about
looking bad - this openness helps ideas flow more freely.

Group functionality would make that dynamic possible, further replicating the
network that occurs in real life, in cyberspace.

You are already anticipating v2.0.

~~~
perseusprime11
Won't it then just become an online class? How will you differentiate?

~~~
dkennemo
Think of it like a breakout session of an online class rather than an online
class itself. Why is that useful, you may ask... Having a group and sense of
connection helps keep people motivated.

------
visarga
This is an interesting idea: online course + tutor. The tutor is what was
missing from the original formulation. Just solving at online problems and
quizzes doesn't work except for very few.

A person needs another person to see his/her efforts, to appreciate, in order
to maintain motivation. That's the main role of the teachers in the brave new
world of MOOCs - to witness. The actual teaching and testing is automated. So
the teacher would be more like a coach. He would offer guidance, boost your
confidence, and push you over the limits.

~~~
dkennemo
Yes, that is exactly the idea. We know it is not perfect of course. We invite
any input for suggested changes or additions. This project is not for our
egos, but rather, to help an online community.

------
cggd3
Can you talk a little about your experience at the Harvard Extension School?
What it is, what the experience was like, what courses you took, the cost, and
the job prospects post graduation.

~~~
ralmidani
Harvard Extension School (HES) is an open-enrollment school at Harvard that
lets you take individual courses, as well as pursue certificates and
undergraduate and graduate degrees.

My experience with HES has been very positive. I've taken 2 courses there so
far: CS50 and Calculus 1. I took both as a remote student. This is nice if
you're busy with other things like family and work, because you can watch the
materials when you're free, alert, and most ready to learn.

I intend to pursue the Masters in Software Engineering, but I'm taking things
one step at a time.

Undergrad courses in most subjects are currently $1,550, while graduate
courses are $2,700. I believe only Computer Science and Digital Media courses
are priced at the graduate level even if you take them for undergraduate
credit.

You actually get a Harvard transcript, and if you earn a degree, you get to
participate in the annual commencement in May. To get a degree, you have to
complete at least one course by going in-person to Cambridge (more for some
degrees).

I don't have any first-hand information on job prospects, but I would imagine
the more you can make it to Cambridge, the more classmates and professors you
can network with.

For more information, please check out the HES website:

[https://www.extension.harvard.edu/](https://www.extension.harvard.edu/)

~~~
davidwihl
> I believe only Computer Science and Digital Media courses are priced at the
> graduate level even if you take them for undergraduate credit.

It depends on the course. I've been very happy with HES and expect to graduate
with my ALB May 2018. Besides the list of courses on the HES web site, I've
taken advantage of many additional opportunities: a Teaching Fellow for the
Intro Data Science class where I helped HES, regular college and grad
students, and Head TF for Advanced Data Science class this Spring (CS109b).

With a certain GPA and number of credits, you can get Special Student status
opening up virtually the entire Grad level course space for HES credit. This
past Spring I took CS280, a grad level AI class, where I was one of two non
traditional students in a class of 20 consisting of mostly CompSci Phd
candidates.

HES opens up many opportunities. Like anything, it is what you make of it that
counts.

------
HaoZeke
I dunno if this is any good honestly.

All this monetization of learning is the wrong approach.

In a world where software is moving towards FOSS it's depressing to see people
still trying to sell education instead of trying to teach it.

Education is a journey, teaching is a joy, and if it's not, no amount of money
can make you want to teach anyone anything.

I think that's why institutes with great researchers have great teachers and
students, it's an environment feeding itself in a positive feedback loop.

It's depressing to see this here.

~~~
ralmidani
I think we need to distinguish between charging people money for access to
knowledge and charging them for personalized guidance in seeking that
knowledge.

I personally believe all textbooks and courses should be free. But if a tutor
is going to dedicate an hour of her time to sit down with me and help me
learn, it is not unreasonable for her to demand compensation.

Universities, of course, are only able to release MOOCs for free because they
make money from tuition, alumni donations, endowments, etc.

------
titanix2
A MOOC is a massive online course, so why calling your service uMOOC if it
provides 1:1 tutoring? It is not a class, it focus on a single learner and it
is not free (which is expected as well from MOOC, otherwise it is traditional
remote education) so it seems very far from the spirit of MOOC.

~~~
dkennemo
The idea behind the name is that rather than just tutoring generally (which is
provided by sites like wyzant), these tutors are specially selected for their
competence with certain MOOCs - they've taken these courses before, typically
as a student in a university. The "u" represents the learner - while MOOCs are
a depersonalized learning medium, this service puts "u" back into it. We don't
offer MOOCs, but a service used parallel to taking a MOOC to enhance the
student's likelihood of success.

------
barry-cotter
You need to change the signup process as at present it's needlessly
complicated. Until you add more courses remove the search, institutions and
subject and just let people click on the currently available choices. Try and
build a community on those two courses, then expand to other computer science
courses, then branch out. You only have two options, offer them and only them.

~~~
ralmidani
Great observation and suggestions. Thank you!

We initially wanted to list courses involving many subjects and institutions
(basically the entire edX catalog). Later, we decided to offer two initial
courses, so we could focus our tutor recruitment efforts.

We will definitely put your suggested change on our short-term agenda.

------
tabeth
Plenty of students are more than willing and able to help other people, _free
of charge_. I personally think it would be a better use of time cultivating
that and structuring it to be of maximum benefit to the tutor and the
reader/person receiving knowledge.

E.g.

For a given topic, "Topic A", there may be subtopics, "Subtopic A", "Subtopic
B" and "Subtopic C." One possibility may be allowing different students to
explain, in their own words, the varying subtopics. People can vote on which
one was the most helpful/clear as well as help correct people who may have
misunderstood.

As a result of this, "Topic A" may have a personalized, "user perfected"
version consisting of the crowd's own vetted explanations.

Paying tutors only helps the elite, who wouldn't need this to begin with.
People falsely believe that help should come at a cost. Plenty of people post
comments and give advice on this very site for free. As soon as you introduce
money you're going to change the incentives to maximize money, not benefit to
the person receiving the help. This is not bad, but it runs counter to the
ideals most people think of when they think of "education" (or maybe not, who
knows).

------
detaro
The name reads like micro-MOOC to me, which a) is kind of funny (micro-
massive-open...) and b) reminds me of this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromoog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromoog)

How is it supposed to be read? you-mooc?

~~~
ralmidani
Yes, you-mooc sounds right; we're putting "u" back in the MOOC, by connecting
you with tutors who can help you on an individualized basis.

MOOCs are great; I personally have completed 5 of them, and plan to complete
many more. But not all learners enjoy or are able to learn in solitude--many
want someone to point them in the right direction and give them feedback, like
you would get when taking an actual college/university course. That's the gap
we're trying to fill.

------
jogundas
What differentiates you from other similar platforms that offer tutoring (e.g.
Pluralsight or codementor.io to name two random ones)?

~~~
ralmidani
tl;dr uMOOC tutors are qualified to immediately and directly help you in a
specific MOOC.

In the case of CS courses (which is what we are focusing on for our initial
launch), it's not enough for someone who wants to be a tutor to know C or
Python. They must have taken the course on-campus, or a very similar one, or
completed the MOOC itself. In the case where a tutor is not familiar with the
material in a specific course, we gently push him/her to enroll in the MOOC's
current run.

To take things a step further, one of our tutors completed the CS50 MOOC back
in 2013 or 2014, when the second half of the course was taught with PHP. He
said he was going to enroll in the MOOC again and do the later assignments,
which now involve Python and Flask.

------
arikr
Nice.

From the title I thought this was something like 'self service hosted mooc
platform', which I was also really excited about.

~~~
jaltekruse
You might want to check out these two projects:

[https://github.com/learningequality/ka-
lite](https://github.com/learningequality/ka-lite)

[https://github.com/learningequality/kolibri](https://github.com/learningequality/kolibri)

I'm not associated with either, I just heard about them recently and was
similarly excited by the potential.

