Stanford Professor Gives Up Teaching Position, Hopes to Reach 500,000 Students at Online Start-Up - Wired Campus The Stanford University professor who taught an online artificial-intelligence course to more than 160,000 students has abandoned his teaching position to aim for an even bigger audience. Sebastian Thrun, a research professor of computer science at Stanford, revealed today that he had given up his teaching role at the institution to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes. He made the surprising announcement during a presentation at the Digital–Life–Design conference, in Munich, Germany. During his talk, Mr. Mr. He concluded by telling the crowd that he couldn’t continue teaching in a traditional setting. One of Udacity’s first offerings will be a seven-week course called “Building a Search Engine.” Teaching the course at Stanford, Mr. “I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill,” he said. Correction (1/26, 11:54 a.m.): This article originally reported incorrectly that Mr. Return to Top
4 Reasons Your Brain Loves to Learn Online Are we offloading our brains onto the web? Are programs better than teachers at knowing what we know? Do virtual badges motivate more than grades? What is it about cartoon foxes that helps us learn to code? As you can read in our piece “How the Internet Revolutionized Education”, we’ve been tracking on-line education closely for some time now– talking to experts and keeping tabs on an industry that’s exploding as predicted. Over here at the science desk, recent developments on the learning brain are meshing with what we already know of the web’s power to teach. We’ve analyzed here four different special powers of online teaching that make brains very happy. 1) Memory: This is your brain on-line. According to Columbia neuroscientist Betsy Sparrow and her team, “We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools”. Dr. So is offloading our brain making us dumber? Our dependence on the web for facts might even be making us smarter. He measured responses to curvey lines, like this one:
Home Français Follow us E-mail Alerts Blogs What's new JAPAN: Half a century of OECD membership 4 April 2014 Japan joined the OECD in 1964, the same year it hosted the summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. ECONOMY: Europe’s reforms beginning to pay off but continued effort needed 3 April 2014 Action taken by many European countries to return their public finances to health are beginning to pay off, says the OECD. EDUCATION: Singapore and Korea top OECD’s first PISA problem-solving test 1 April 2014 Students from Singapore and Korea have performed best in the OECD PISA first assessment of creative problem-solving. FINANCE: Sovereign borrowing set to fall in 2014 28 March 2014 Borrowing operations by OECD governments are set to decrease, as their borrowing needs continue to decline, according to a new OECD report. SOCIETY: Urgent action needed to tackle rising inequality and social divisions More news Focus OECD Forum, Paris, 5-6 May 2014 Read more Better Life Index About Countries Topics Statistics Publications
In 2011: How the Internet Revolutionized Education As connection speeds increase and the ubiquity of the Web pervades, free education has never been so accessible. An Internet connection gives lifelong learners the tools to become autodidacts, eschewing exorbitant tuition and joining the ranks of other self-taught great thinkers in history such as Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen and Ernest Hemingway. We can be learning all the time now, whenever we want, and wherever we want. Insider How the Internet is Revolutionizing Education This was our seminal piece on online education, which includes interviews with UC Berkeley professors and CEOs and Founders of today’s most disruptive education startups. Stay in or drop out? There’s a lot of debate right now about whether or not paying for a degree is worth it, a particular problem facing entrepreneurs. How Technology Has Changed Education Skillshare lets you learn anything from anyone In NYC, Coursehorse is changing the way you search for classes News Apps Coding
The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever | Wired Science Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig in the basement of Thrun's guesthouse, where they record class videos.Photo: Sam Comen Stanford doesn’t want me. I can say that because it’s a documented fact: I was once denied admission in writing. I took my last math class back in high school. Which probably explains why this quiz on how to get a computer to calculate an ideal itinerary is making my brain hurt. I’m staring at a crude map of Romania on my MacBook. Last fall, the university in the heart of Silicon Valley did something it had never done before: It opened up three classes, including CS221, to anyone with a web connection. People around the world have gone crazy for this opportunity. Aside from computer-programming AI-heads, my classmates range from junior-high school students and humanities majors to middle-aged middle school science teachers and seventysomething retirees. Solid understanding? That stuff’s all easier said than done.
TED Blog Virtual Schools Booming As States Mull Warnings DENVER -- More schoolchildren than ever are taking their classes online, using technology to avoid long commutes to school, add courses they wouldn't otherwise be able to take – and save their school districts money. But as states pour money into virtual classrooms, with an estimated 200,000 virtual K-12 students in 40 states from Washington to Wisconsin, educators are raising questions about online learning. States are taking halting steps to increase oversight, but regulation isn't moving nearly as fast as the virtual school boom. The online school debate pits traditional education backers, often teachers' unions, against lawmakers tempted by the promise of cheaper online schools and school-choice advocates who believe private companies will apply cutting-edge technology to education. Is online education as good as face-to-face teaching? Virtual education companies tout a 2009 research review conducted for the U.S. Still, virtual schooling at the K-12 level is booming. Online:
The Cassiopeia Project: Free Science Education Online by Maria Popova What a mysterious retired physicist has to do with the future of learning. In 2008, The Cassiopeia Project began quietly publishing high-definition videos exploring in an intelligent yet digestible manner nearly every corner of the science spectrum, and releasing them online for free. With more than 100 videos to date available on iTunesU and YouTube, the project offers an invaluable resource on everything from quantum mechanics to evolution to the theory of relativity — another wonderful piece in the ever-expanding puzzle of free educational content online that is changing how we think about learning. We believe that if you can visualize it, then understanding it is not far behind.” All the content is open-source and educators are encouraged to edit, remix and otherwise customize the footage. Sadly, the effort appears to be in stagnation since 2009, but we sincerely hope to see it resurface with more fantastic content. via MeFi Share on Tumblr
The LIBOR scandal: The rotten heart of finance THE most memorable incidents in earth-changing events are sometimes the most banal. In the rapidly spreading scandal of LIBOR (the London inter-bank offered rate) it is the very everydayness with which bank traders set about manipulating the most important figure in finance. They joked, or offered small favours. “Coffees will be coming your way,” promised one trader in exchange for a fiddled number. “Dude. What may still seem to many to be a parochial affair involving Barclays, a 300-year-old British bank, rigging an obscure number, is beginning to assume global significance. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Over the past week damning evidence has emerged, in documents detailing a settlement between Barclays and regulators in America and Britain, that employees at the bank and at several other unnamed banks tried to rig the number time and again over a period of at least five years. “Clean in principle” The tobacco moment
Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos | Action-Reaction This must-watch video is from our friend Derek Muller, physics educator and science video blogger. Derek writes: It is a common view that “if only someone could break this down and explain it clearly enough, more students would understand.” Khan Academy is a great example of this approach with its clear, concise videos on science. The apparent reason for the discrepancy is misconceptions. There is hope, however. References 2008 Muller, D. 2008 Muller, D. 2008 Muller, D. 2007 Muller, D. The implication of Derek’s research, both for online science videos and for in-the-classroom science lessons, are obvious. Like this: Like Loading...