

Ask HN: What frustrates you most about online learning? - mikegreenberg

Hello all,<p>I've been exploring an idea lately and wanted to get your opinion on this. I think it's clear that online learning will transform education as we know it. There are many benefits to the coming education model (notably, cost of learning approaching nil) however it is not without it's shortcomings.<p>So without any prompting or conditioning, I'm curious to know what frustrates you most about learning online today. Are there aspects of traditional learning that have been left behind?
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tomordonez
Maybe I am old style but I am not driven by badges and the whole gamification.
If I am given deadlines and pressure I push myself to learn. I don't think
current online solutions give this. I also need someone to keep pushing me.
Not a computer but a real person. I opened an account for Treehouse with a
student discount about 5 months ago. Guess how many times I logged in. It is
too laid back. Maybe it needs a small support group that you can join so
everybody keeps tabs on each other and make sure you are doing your homework.

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mikegreenberg
So how does that "accountability" feature look to you. Is that like a
community that's completing the course at the same time? Or maybe a simulated
coach that shoots encouragement at you?

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tomordonez
someone that nags me every so often. It might be a small group completing the
course at the same time. You could join a group and it keeps track of
individual progress. The group should have a leader with superior skills that
mentors the group and nags everybody to do the homework on time, reply to
questions, etc. The group could have an IRC channel or a Campfire open all the
time and schedule official meeting times. Get a weekly notification of my
current progress and everybody's progress so I can help somebody else if they
are behind. The class should be based on mentoring, team work and deadlines.

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mikegreenberg
I'm not sure a guilt-based approach is going to work best for the majority.
I'm no psych major, but I'm certain positive reinforcement has better
influence overall then otherwise.

The other thing you point out which seems unrelated to the motivation end of
things seems to be communication with fixed times to meet. While I think the
encouragement of other people going through the same steps you have to perform
builds motivation to continue, are there other reasons why this is important
to you?

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bvlaar
I've followed tutorials online, used Treehouse, and other services to learn
online. They are useful, but for me, there is one aspect missing: help. I'm
currently in university and If I have a question in class or during a study
session, there is ALWAYS someone to help. I get frustrated and discouraged
when I'm following a class and don't understand anything, I search the web for
help and can't find much to do with the exact topic I need help with. This in
turn, makes me stop enjoying that class and can eventually lead to giving up.
It would be great for these online education providers to use an IM client,
IRC room or something to facilitate student discussion for classmates to
discuss lectures, ideas, and help each other.

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plinkplonk
Most online learning courses aren't particularly challenging. There are
exceptions (Coursera's Probabilistic Graphical Models, MitX's circuits etc)
but most courses seem watered down for online consumption.

One big flaw I can see is that there is no way to do proofs or otherwise
handle theory in the problems sets and assignments. This limits exploration in
depth, particularly for math/science/CS.

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mikegreenberg
More often than not, I find being able to share visual information gets thrown
at a side-tool that the community adopts for this specific purpose. Something
like Google Docs (drawing doc) or some whiteboard app.

What, if any, efforts are made to find a solution like this (or related)?

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erinyx
For a start I found being part of a class with limitless number of students
very chaotic and at times a waste of time. Having to go through the various
projects, knowing it would be physically impossible to be reviewed as expected
in a traditional course..

