I've been having a lot of discussions with friends about open courseware lately. I love what Udacity, MIT, Stanford, Khan Academy and others are doing, but I can't wait until students can earn degree credit from OCW.
For millions of people, a four year degree isn't an option because they can't go to the school's physical location, pay the tuition, and either work part-time or not at all while studying full-time. People in that situation aren't going to put in the time and effort for OCW classes that don't count towards a degree, and they end up missing out on a ticket to a better life. Some people will, of course, and obviously already do, but for the vast majority, it's not the same incentive as the opportunity to actually get a degree.
Of course there's a lot of value in the education itself, but once open courseware becomes accepted as a legitimate way to earn a degree, we're going to see a radical change in humanity's future. As soon as people around the US and the world can afford the time and money to earn Ivy League-quality degrees from wherever they live, they'll flock to them, and we'll see the benefits of an educated society around the globe.
It would be awesome if some sort of body was able to release a syllabus with the information you are required to learn and some course materials. Then, after a certain time period, they would give a standardized test that determined if you passed the course or not. It would motivate people to go out on their own and learn things their way. The only disadvantage is that they wont have the social interaction component associated with college.
Udacity has specifically said they have no intention of ever becoming accredited, and I know a lot of other alternative education programs take the same stance. Which to me makes a lot of sense. Becoming accredited would basically ruin these programs, because instead of being about learning and personal growth they become about something else entirely. So you'd no longer have intelligent people hanging out there, it'd just become another Phoenix University wannabe.
Do you think granting credit towards the standard degree is the direction these types of services are aiming? What do you think about a new measure of education (i.e. not the degree)?
For tech companies (especially startups), it seems like formal education is not the primary measure of a potential hire. Developers use github to showcase their talents. Designers use Dribble. Everyone can use personal projects/blogs.
Obviously, this doesn't work for a lot areas such as hard sciences (physics, biology, chemistry), business, medicine, etc. However, there does seem to be a decent portion of careers/passions that do not require formal education; both to perform and to be judged by.
I would love to here what you (and others on HN) think.
P.S. Couldn't agree more --> "we'll see the benefits of an [more] educated society around the globe."
The physics syllabus looks quite good. Let's hope they go into the details. Physics is quite simple once you know what derivatives and integrals are. Then you get to understand where the equations come from. F=ma, so given F_net, you can find a of an object. And a is def as dv/dt. So if you integrate a, you get v(t) = at + v_o, where v_o = v(t=0). And v is def as dx/dt, so we integrate v(t) to get:
x(t) = 0.5*a*t*t + v_o*t + x_o.
They should use Feynman's lectures on physics as the course textbook. That stuff is gold.
@moistgorilla yeah some code along with each lecture would be really cool. You explain theory in four pages, then you say "check out these functions" and you show for each equation in the theory sections is implemented in code. For example. x(t) = int( int('a',t,initval=v_o),t,initval=x_0). can simpy do the int part?
Get into them now before these companies start charging for these, which they probably will at some point in the future. Personally I'd be more than happy to pay something, but I know that there are a lot of people around the world who would be excluded if any fee was charged, even a small nominal fee.
Wow, these classes actually look interesting. I'm glad they aren't just sticking to computers. It would be neat if they could somehow tie up all of the subjects together. Such as a course on computing applied to physics.
[+] [-] jaysonelliot|14 years ago|reply
For millions of people, a four year degree isn't an option because they can't go to the school's physical location, pay the tuition, and either work part-time or not at all while studying full-time. People in that situation aren't going to put in the time and effort for OCW classes that don't count towards a degree, and they end up missing out on a ticket to a better life. Some people will, of course, and obviously already do, but for the vast majority, it's not the same incentive as the opportunity to actually get a degree.
Of course there's a lot of value in the education itself, but once open courseware becomes accepted as a legitimate way to earn a degree, we're going to see a radical change in humanity's future. As soon as people around the US and the world can afford the time and money to earn Ivy League-quality degrees from wherever they live, they'll flock to them, and we'll see the benefits of an educated society around the globe.
[+] [-] moistgorilla|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinyien|14 years ago|reply
For tech companies (especially startups), it seems like formal education is not the primary measure of a potential hire. Developers use github to showcase their talents. Designers use Dribble. Everyone can use personal projects/blogs.
Obviously, this doesn't work for a lot areas such as hard sciences (physics, biology, chemistry), business, medicine, etc. However, there does seem to be a decent portion of careers/passions that do not require formal education; both to perform and to be judged by.
I would love to here what you (and others on HN) think.
P.S. Couldn't agree more --> "we'll see the benefits of an [more] educated society around the globe."
[+] [-] ivansavz|14 years ago|reply
@moistgorilla yeah some code along with each lecture would be really cool. You explain theory in four pages, then you say "check out these functions" and you show for each equation in the theory sections is implemented in code. For example. x(t) = int( int('a',t,initval=v_o),t,initval=x_0). can simpy do the int part?
[+] [-] ph0rque|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damian2000|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moistgorilla|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paradoja|14 years ago|reply