[amirnathoo]

It's a matter of focus. We'd love there to be more self-study content available for kids also. But MOOCs have a famously low completion rate and it's hard to stay motivated without interaction. So we're focused on connecting learners and teachers and having them interact over video chat.

[droithomme]

> low completion rate

Most people who sign up don't actually want a certificate and aren't trying to complete. They are interested in the subject, watching some videos, move on. When you have class sizes with 1000-30,000 students, it's OK if 90% don't complete the certificate since many more did than in a brick and mortar school, yet it cost much less per student to deliver the class.

In online classes where you need to pay to get the certificate, it's been found that paid students have the same completion rate as brick and mortar university students.

https://www.afr.com/news/policy/education/fee-payments-lift-...

> Students in massive open online courses (MOOC) who pay a modest amount for a "verified certificate" are just as likely finish their course as regular university students, according to a new large-scale study of online education.

[geomark]

This. Low completion rate of those who enrolled for free is, in a way, actually a positive indicator because it shows a lot more people getting a chance to "taste" a subject. Many decide it isn't for them or they learned what they wanted and are not interested in the certificate at the end. Something not possible with in-class courses.

[somethoughts]

Cool - Thanks for the reply! Will definitely be checking outschool in more detail.

I think the benefit of the pre-recorded sessions like from Coursera and Khan Academy, is that one concern is unsupervised teacher-learner interaction could be problematic if its unclear how the teacher has been screened.

For instance is the teacher in live mode going to do anything inappropriate or try to initiate in person contact with the learner, etc.