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Ask HN: Would you consider an online education?

9 points by aik ↗ HN
There has been so much talk lately about online education. I'm wondering what the hacker crowd thinks here.

If you could redo your education in today's world, would you spend a ridiculous amount of time and money on a formal college education, or do you think you could mostly self-teach yourself using mostly the web? Would you allow (or prefer) your children to educate themselves online before/after high school?

Second question: Is anyone here working on an online education technology? Website?

14 comments

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tokenadult
Would you allow (or prefer) your children to educate themselves online before/after high school?

My oldest son is about to be a senior (twelfth grader) in an online high school. We were just online for the school's orientation to this school year. He was a member of the founding class there, so we have a LOT of ideas about the trade-offs in online education.

One way he gains satisfaction for his social drive is by taking most of his eleventh grade and twelfth grade classes as a dual enrollment student at our friendly state flagship university. The university offers courses that would be quite impracticable to offer online.

He is looking forward to a RESIDENTIAL college experience, where he has much face-to-face interaction with classmates throughout all hours of each week. Neither he nor I would consider an online college environment--that would be missing out on too much. Please note as a response to the premise of your question above that some students attend some colleges at HUGE discounts from list price, and at some highly endowed colleges list price for any student is still less than the actual expenditure per student on instruction.

Is anyone here working on an online education technology? Website?

I am. It's very early stage, so I can't describe it with exactitude (because we are still making up our delivery model), but the idea is to scale up my current face-to-face math teaching and build a community among learners who can't travel to my town for the community I'm already building up with my in-person classes.

Life is all about trade-offs. Some trade-offs fit one learner, and some another.

aik
"The university offers courses that would be quite impracticable to offer online."

Which classes exactly would you classify as impractical?

Is this about right?

Practical: Math, Physics, Sciences (minus lab), History, Humanities, Government, Politics (possibly?)...

Impractical: Art, speech, debate, PE...

tokenadult
The "minus lab" is a severe problem for science classes.
fburnaby
I think it matters a great deal on the specifics. I'm not aware of anything out there so far that I would accept as a replacement.
aik
Well could you IMAGINE something so great that you could see as a possible replacement (at least for part of the school experience)?
fburnaby
I have a good imagination. That's too easy, and of course I can imagine an online degree that I would be willing to do.
simonsarris
I think that the hacker crowd believes that a large part of the spirit of the internet is itself an online education.

And HN is a part of that.

That being said, I wouldn't discount college education. I felt it was an excellent choice for myself, both academically and professionally, but I am one anecdote of many. It's a very situational thing and I would hate to try to make the decision for anyone but myself.

I would prefer that my children learn as much as possible online about what kind of career they want before going to college. Of course, I would let them ultimately decide. Even if they wanted to go to the most expensive college, I would mortgage the house just so they could go, if that was what they felt was right for them.

Let me also point out something: College isn't just about academics, strictly speaking. One meets a lot of friends and professional contacts that one may keep for life. One learns a great deal about society. And of course, the proximity to hundreds of innovative peers can really spur creativity.

aik
"College isn't just about academics, strictly speaking. "

Good point. Regardless of in what form you attend college, interaction with others with similar interests/studies is a necessity no doubt.

The main thing that bothers me about college is the lack of focus and care of a majority of the students at most colleges. Most students just try to pass and don't go far beyond that. They clearly have no inspiration, but are there mainly for the purpose of finding a job (which they often aren't excited about either)

yannis
I was the owner for a number of years of a private College. One thing that became obvious to me was that the student population could be divided into two general classes. Students that 'needed to be taught' and students that were self-learners. I personally fall into the latter part and although I attended University up to Ph.D, I hardly attended lectures. Whatever, I learned, I learned on my own from books. You can self-teach yourself if you want but at the moment the web might not provide you with the correct structured education.

I am also currently working on a prototype for an online education site. Current problems that we have not resolved include things like how much interactivity with teachers we should provide and recognition of qualifications. Open courses by traditional means and mix media are almost offered by all Universities. However, the one element which is so difficult to replicate on the web is the College vibe and the real interaction with people.

Any ideas how to inject such vibe into a website would be very much appreciated :)

aik
"One thing that became obvious to me was that the student population could be divided into two general classes. Students that 'needed to be taught' and students that were self-learners."

Is this a fair classification? I have a theory: A lot of or all 'needed to be taught' students simply are that way because of lack of interest or trust in themselves. Once they find inspiration, they would become a self-learner. A "natural self-learner" is as such because they have found their learning method and it WORKS. Schools tend to these people, while others who don't learn from the similar method become discouraged when they try the same thing and aren't as successful. At this point they become 'needed to be taught' students. What do you think?

"Current problems that we have not resolved include things like how much interactivity with teachers we should provide and recognition of qualifications."

Could you describe what you mean by "interactivity with teachers"? Will your site follow the student-teacher classroom model? Are you trying to figure out how to create the interaction between teachers and students?

"recognition of qualifications." For teachers?

yannis
Yes one of the problems sometimes is lack of interest and self-confidence. This second group of students even tend to study for exams with a 'buddy' or perhaps they are more social animals than the rest of us and their 'mimicry' genes are stronger!

We've been thinking to follow the student/teacher model partly and also allow teachers to enrol their normal student class for an online course. I am also hoping to add some method so that students can earn 'karma' for completing a course as well as helping and or answering questions from other students.

The intention of the 'qualification part' is that once you have amassed 10000 karma points the student will get a diploma that is equivalent to a BSc. The recognition part comes from the job market accepting this as a proper qualification.

roundsquare
A weird idea, but it might work if you get big enough... something like the HN gatherings people have? I realize it would be tough when you get started, but eventually it could become something where the classes are online for convenience but you setup fairly regular meetings.

It might be wholly impractical but just a random thought.

yannis
Thanks weird=potential!
plinkplonk
"Would you consider an online education?

No. I am an autodidact and learn mostly by working through books and papers and so on. So in that sense I "educate" myself "online", partly. That said, if I ever decide to go back to college for that PhD I've been planning to do for a while now, I'd do so to work with the people who define the fields I am interested in. Even for my undergrad, I wouldn't do it online if I could. The people you meet and befriend are a good part of an under grad education.