Can Anyone Catch Khan Academy?

Obligatory by eternaldoctorwho · 2012-07-20 07:07 · Score: 5, Funny

Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead.

Universities: KHAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

Re:Obligatory by Teresita · 2012-07-20 07:19 · Score: 2

Overinflated tuition surely is an epic khan.
Re:Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:16 · Score: 0

"The people" requesting government involvement in "equalizing" education thereby causing inflated tuition which saddles the people, and their children, with debilitating debt is the most epic khan.
Re:Obligatory by Chris+Mattern · 2012-07-20 08:50 · Score: 1

At least with Khan there wasn't an issue with google nexus 7's defective screens.
Well, of course the screens weren't defective. They couldn't raise them because the Enterprise hacked their systems, remember?
Re:Obligatory by Deep+Esophagus · 2012-07-20 09:05 · Score: 4, Funny

Missed opportunity: Should have titled this article "Catch Me If You Khan".
Re:Obligatory by MickLinux · 2012-07-20 13:52 · Score: 1

Well, it depends on who gets to it first, I guess. It's catch as catch khan.

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Degree by AshFan · 2012-07-20 07:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

How much weight does a Youtube degree carry in todays market?

Re:Degree by Aqualung812 · 2012-07-20 07:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sick of that presumption. The point of education SHOULD be to become educated. Then, you use that education to do X work better than others without that education.
Instead, we treat it like a membership card into business. I fail to understand why so many MBAs hate unions when they refuse to hire someone without an MBA, thus creating their own union.

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Re:Degree by Hatta · 2012-07-20 07:41 · Score: 0, Troll

I fail to understand why so many MBAs hate unions when they refuse to hire someone without an MBA, thus creating their own union.
MBAs hate unions because unions have power that's not controlled by business. The de facto MBA union is controlled by business interests, so it's OK.
Don't think for a second that their opposition to unions is in any way principled. The goal of every MBA is to maximally exploit everyone and everything. Unions are an obstacle to that. That is all.

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Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 07:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?
Yes, it's a membership card, but it's a necessary one. In an ideal world, employers would be able to recognize skill, regardless of whether there's a piece of paper in the applicant's hand. We're not in an ideal world, however. Even if there were a perfect and not-too-burdensome way for employers to test the skills of applicants, most competent employers are willing to accept an otherwise-excellent applicant who is a bit rusty on some topics, since they understand that the applicant's prior experience and skills will allow them to pick it up again quickly. You can't test for that easily, and on the surface it doesn't look much different from not knowing the material at all. A degree is a decent indication that the person's claim to have learned the material is true. A YouTube video history is not.
That said, if there were someone with prior work experience (i.e. the other form of membership card) who hadn't gone through a university, I don't see why that would be problematic at all. But hiring someone on the basis of their claim that they learned the material from a series of videos? I don't doubt that people have done it, but it seems to me like a rather large risk, or else an expensive process to go through to test the veracity of their claims. Especially so in programming and the like, where a student who goes uncorrected in their bad habits is likely to have developed poor practices that will be difficult to correct.
Re:Degree by Jeng · 2012-07-20 07:45 · Score: 2

Being for education is different from people complaining about grammar.
Really how much would I be adding to the conversation if I replied complaining about your double use of the question mark?
Complaining about grammar in a forum, unless truly heinous, only distracts from the matters at hand.

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Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:48 · Score: 0

Why did you add a second question mark you retarded fuckhead?
Re:Degree by Aqualung812 · 2012-07-20 08:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.
If you spent the last 4 years of your life sitting in a classroom, getting drunk on Thursday-Saturday night, but didn't take the time to actually build something with the education you gained, chances are you're going to waste your workday by forming meetings, chatting with coworkers, and watching them do all of the work.
On the other end, with 20 years of IT work, I've had other companies refuse to even accept my resume when I tell them I don't have a 4-year degree. It is helpful, though, because I'd likely quit if surrounded by people like that.
I dropped out not because of bad grades, but because I was falling behind in the work I wanted to do (networking) during the school year, and then catching up while working a summer job related to my field. It only took two summers of that until I realized that it was pretty fucking stupid to PAY to fall behind for 8 months of the year and only GET PAID 3 months while actually learning.
I don't hold it against you if the best way for you to learn was through extra school. However, if all you have to show for your education is a piece of paper, get lost.
On a related note, this is why I really think a formal guild should exist for IT workers. NOT collective bargaining, but a system where an apprentice learns under a master in that field. The master vouches for the abilities of the apprentice, and after a few times of different masters vouching for them, they become a journeyman.
As someone hiring, it wouldn't take long to know that Master X's word was solid, and Master Y often approved jack-offs, so the system can be self-correcting.

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Re:Degree by lance_of_the_apes · 2012-07-20 08:02 · Score: 1

That's why the system needs to include certifications based on the students' interactions. It can't be a matter of just watching videos. Khan has online quizzes and tracking, but I think there is a long way to go before anyone will be handing out degrees.
Re:Degree by tattood · 2012-07-20 08:02 · Score: 1

Should they trust your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?
No. That is what a job interview is for. You need to know what the job requirements are, and how to test if the applicant has the knowledge to do that job. If they do, then they should get hired whether they have a college degree, watched a lot of YouTube, or they learned it all from experience. In the tech field, a degree usually doesn't mean much. I have worked with people that had their degree in economics, history, and even aviation. I have worked with more people that have no college degree, or an irrelevant degree than I have that actually went to school for their trade. It is their knowledge and experience that made them qualified for the job

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Re:Degree by war4peace · 2012-07-20 08:05 · Score: 2

Since we're sliding towards off-topic: proper, correct, clear communication holds value everywhere. Spelling errors (yes, even typos, it's not like somebody's holding a gun to your head to write as fast as possible) only distract from the matters at hand.

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Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:07 · Score: 0

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.
In a traditional University, you can show people what you have done especially if you took the opportunity to work in a professors lab or on a professors project. Can't do that with Khan.
Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:13 · Score: 0

The goal of every union is to maximally exploit everyone and everything. That is all.
FTFY
Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 08:18 · Score: 1

I completely agree, but how many of those people were fresh hires who had no prior experience in the field when you worked with them? That's what I was talking about. As I said, if you have someone with prior experience, I don't think anyone should care whether their skills were picked up from YouTube or in a classroom. But for fresh hires with no prior experience, I don't see how it would be in a company's best interests to allow anyone to apply, regardless of formal education.
Re:Degree by Jeng · 2012-07-20 08:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, spelling and grammar errors may distract from the matters at hand, but do they distract more than those who complain about them? Also grammar and spelling correctors tend to be very rude about it.
It's not like people are asking "Did you mean this or that? I can't tell from your post.". It is people saying "Hey, you dumbshit, you made a minor mistake in your post. I still understood what you meant, but you are dumb for making that mistake."

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Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:20 · Score: 0

I'm sick of that presumption. The point of education SHOULD be to become educated. Then, you use that education to do X work better than others without that education.
Instead, we treat it like a membership card into business. I fail to understand why so many MBAs hate unions when they refuse to hire someone without an MBA, thus creating their own union.
That is a good theory. But, the education and the piece of paper are designed to solve different problems. When you have 10000 resumes for one position, how are you supposed to choose between them? An education with a piece of paper is worth more money than an education without a piece of paper because the piece of paper gives an employer a better method of solving this problem.
A drivers license is similar. The purpose of teaching people how to drive is to actually let them learn the skills. But, without some kind of piece of paper (or laminated card or whatever) it is difficult to know whether or not someone meets the minimum standards.
MBAs hate unions only because they mean more money goes to people without MBAs instead of the people with MBAs. Hiring people without MBAs for their position only lessons the perceived value of MBAs. Hence, their position is internally consistent.
Re:Degree by 0100010001010011 · 2012-07-20 08:27 · Score: 1

If it lets someone in the middle of nowhere get their GRE so that they CAN go to college, what's the harm?
Or watching stuff to brush up on some stuff like Thermodynamics. I know I'd love to go back and sit through a lecture or two of my controls classes.
The problem with MIT's Opencourseware is that it's just a full lecture online, sometimes with accompanying notes/homework. The hole that no one has filled is 400, 500, 600 level courses (Senior, Grad level) done like Kahn. It'd be something that I might even pay for.
Sit down, sum up some delicate control theory in 10-20 minutes with very nice easy to read graphics (I don't need to see a guy walking around in front of a white board) and tada. That's what you're missing.
Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 08:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

Kudos to you for taking the time to properly interview candidates.
I don't disagree with anything you said. I merely believe that most employers would be unwilling to spend so much time interviewing candidates who likely have a lower chance of being prepared for the challenges posed by the job. For every excellent applicant that taught themselves via an alternative method, you'll have dozens of slackers who claim to have done so but have not. And while I agree entirely regarding your assessment of college, at least it establishes something. You'll still have a disproportionate number of slackers, but the number should be lower, given that college at least imposes some requirements, whereas self-study does not.
As I said in my original comment, I do believe that if someone has prior work experience then it shouldn't matter where they got their skills. At that point, as you said, you can judge them on the basis of their prior work, but if they lack prior work experience, then I see no problems with an employer using the degree as a filter on their candidate pool. It's not perfect, but it does help to remove the part of the pool that is less likely to have the necessary skills.
Re:Degree by Dishevel · 2012-07-20 08:45 · Score: 1

Kahn Academy is about educating yourself. Learning something because you want to.
It does not need to hand out pieces of paper. Actual education is important. Papers to get a job are an entirely different thing.
I use Kahn to learn interesting things that I do not have a need to know.
Leave it the fuck alone. It is perfect.

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Re:Degree by blackfrancis75 · 2012-07-20 08:49 · Score: 1

Massively online open courses aren't just YouTube videos. They are far more interactive. As people like myself who took part in the Standford courses can testify; it's no joke to understand and complete the tests and exercises that accompany the video content. Sure, it may be easier to cheat online than in a real classroom, but implying that all you have to show after these courses for your comprehension is a 'video history' is naive and/or ignorant.
Re:Degree by nospam007 · 2012-07-20 08:54 · Score: 1

"But hiring someone on the basis of their claim that they learned the material from a series of videos?"
It beats the mumbling old geezer down on the floor, at _least_ I can raise the volume.
These get millions and millions of viewers, they're either very good or they contain a very cute cat.
Re:Degree by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2012-07-20 08:54 · Score: 2

In general, human beings are horrible about judgment and filtering - ask McCain about Mrs. Palin. We look for any tips to be able to filter for our choices. Why do you think brands matter so much? "Ahh, but I don't care about brands." Yes, you may not, but most people do.
We live in a world much more complex than our monkey brains can carry us. "There's a tiger, what should I do? RUN" is a much easier choice than "there are 100 resumes, which ones should I pick".
Lets think of MBA (or any accreditation) as a brand. What does it mean, as a filter? It means you managed to get into a school, managed to finance it, and managed to complete some level of coursework over a period long enough to attain a degree. It may not mean you're smart, but it does mean you accomplished at least some milestones, jumped some hurdles. HR people generally don't have enough skill to truly filter on technical details (or they'd probably not be in HR) so they look for the "brands". I may be able to learn something off of youtube, but I didn't jump any of the acceptance, finance, or grading hurdles.
I remember one interview I performed. I'm a UNIX guy, but as "crosstraining" I interviewed a Windows guy. He mentioned some ActiveDirectory migration. I know what AD is, but I have no idea if what he did was hard. Was it a 2 minute "click and AD does the rest" thing, or did it involve planning, rolling upgrades, coordinating logouts and logins to the new controller. No idea. So I had no easy way to filter. Luckily I know enough that I was able to figure he was a script monkey. But what if I didn't know AD at all? All i have is this "brand", a certificate from a good school or class.
Yeah, it sucks. In the real world, we'd all be able to test everyone and a brand wouldn't matter. But that's a world without humans, because we all use brands and guesswork to fill in insufficient data.
Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 09:07 · Score: 1

For someone accusing me of ignorance, you seem to have failed quite a bit at reading comprehension.
This entire thread is specifically about YouTube videos, since that's the topic the OP brought up. Nowhere did I suggest that they were the only form of online learning. I merely constrained my commentary to them, since that was the context provided by earlier posts in this thread. You're the one that's taken my narrowly-aimed words and generalized them into an opinion that I do not hold.
I have no issues with interactive online courses offered by universities. They suffer from few or none of the issues I was talking about. Why you assumed that I was implying otherwise is beyond me, when the context of the conversation was plain for anyone to see, and my words were obviously inapplicable to the types of courses you've described.
Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 09:23 · Score: 1

I don't doubt that they may be better for learning. But there is a question of goals.
If your goal is to learn, you should use whatever method works best for you, regardless of anything else. Knowledge and understanding is its own reward. Enjoy it.
If your goal is to be employed in a field, you need to have demonstrably learned something, and the methods of learning that are demonstrable do not always align with the best methods for learning.
That videos like these work for many people is great. I cannot overstate that fact, nor do I want to diminish it. But the learning you get from it is not easily demonstrated without a willingness from a potential employer to spend a decent amount of time on a large number of candidates, isn't certified or accredited by any governing bodies, and has not necessarily been tested either. As a result, these videos are not a full replacement for programs that do offer those. That said, they are a great supplement.
Re:Degree by Charcharodon · 2012-07-20 09:25 · Score: 1

That's exactly the point. If just any old person could go out and start doing something they learned without paying their dues we would have anarchy as far as the establishment was concerned, that and very low prices.
Re:Degree by dgatwood · 2012-07-20 09:26 · Score: 1

"there are 100 resumes, which ones should I pick"
Run!

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Re:Degree by Charcharodon · 2012-07-20 09:34 · Score: 1

No one takes 10K resumes for 1 position. At that point they either hire the cheapest guy who shows up first and then offer him even less, since there are 9999 waiting in the wings to take the job. You are right though they will stratify the applicants by immediately throwing out anyone without the minimums, but these days that just means you'll have have 9993 applicants instead of 10000
Now if it's a job like, who wants to be the first deep space starship captian and crew which would literly generate millions of applicants I think that would be more along the lines of a hiring team who invite people to come work for them. Those with just mere resumes need not aply. They are going to hire the rockstars of the respective fields and that is going to be by reputation only.
Re:Degree by gbjbaanb · 2012-07-20 09:38 · Score: 1

Hey, so you'll be all for someone with a degree certificate like this one
And before you say "what a fake", I'd rather employ someone with that than a 3 year social media degree from some real universities!
Your comment about programming is totally wrong though, I learned C coding way back, so I guess that means all the modern 'best' practices I should now be using is obsolete and my coding habits are full of poor practices? I doubt it - and before you think my OO skills are fully updated, I'm just having to learn about javascript coding that requires more of a functional approach. But none of that's a problem, because I got a degree 20 years ago that taught me all about C coding best practices that I can apply to my OO or Functional code!
In short, a degree helps you to know that a graduate is able to be trained to a certain high standard (well, once was). It does not tell you anything about their skill levels.
Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 09:52 · Score: 1

I'm an advocate for applying common sense. Clearly degrees from some places are better or worse than others. The piece of paper is not the be-all-end-all. It's a piece of paper. It does mean something, but you, as an employer, need to understand what it means. It doesn't mean, "Best candidate ever", just to be clear.
And, to be honest, I can't comprehend what you're saying in your coding rant, other than that you think I'm incorrect. All I meant to say was that someone, left to learn programming on their own, will oftentimes pick up a load of bad habits that take quite awhile to iron out. Those can be easily corrected via formal learning, since they'll be corrected along the way by instructors. I don't understand how obsolescence, programming paradigms, different languages, or any of that fits into anything I said at all.
Re:Degree by gbjbaanb · 2012-07-20 10:02 · Score: 1

I must have cut the coding rant down badly... I was saying that today's best practice will be tomorrow's poor (or obsolete) practice, obviously stuff I learned 20 years ago at university will be considered poor practice today, but because you consider degree education as worth something in itself, my poor practices must therefore be good things.
The point is that coding practices can be learned quite well from youtube or other online places, so there's no need to think a self-taught programmer is any less capable than someone taught formally. In fact, most programmers I know have taught themselves anyway during work or their personal time.
Re:Degree by shoor · 2012-07-20 10:11 · Score: 1

"I'm sick of that presumption. The point of education SHOULD be to become educated."
I'd say that is only an opinion. The word 'university' comes from a Medieval Latin word that was synonymous with 'guild', and, from very early on, a doctorate was a certificate that allowed one to teach. In other words, you got it as an accreditation needed for a job.
I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the idea of knowledge for knowledge's sake, and the concept wasn't unknown even in the Middle Ages. I seem to recall that in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, there was a scholarly pilgrim who was described as being glad to learn and glad to teach. But, there's always been the commercial side to education as well. It's expensive, and it requires an allocation of resources and the time of the teachers who might otherwise be doing some other productive thing with their education (In the Middle Ages they would be serving their King, or the local Lord, or the Church). It's hard to imagine something like that being maintained without a tangible payback.

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Re:Degree by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 10:20 · Score: 1

I follow now. Thanks for the clarification, and I mostly agree with your points.
To clarify a bit, I was intending to talk specifically about fresh hires, not people that had been in the workforce. If someone has been in the workforce, then what should matter is their work, not their degree. I don't value a degree for no good reason. I'm merely suggesting that in the absence of a better method for differentiating between fresh hires who have never worked before, a degree can have value in helping to differentiate.
That's why I got a bit lost when you started talking about 20 years ago, since I was relegating my comments specifically to people who were just entering the workforce. And I do agree that coding can be picked up in a number of places. I'm not suggesting otherwise. What I am saying is that if you have someone who is trying to teach themselves the fundamentals without having their code reviewed by someone more knowledgeable, they're likely to pick up bad practices. Again, I'm talking about someone without work experience or formal training who is just starting out, not an experienced programmer who is picking up some new skills on the side. I apologize for failing to make that clearer earlier.
Re:Degree by war4peace · 2012-07-20 10:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'd replace "dumb" with "careless". Being careless has repercussions in pretty much all areas, and I really don't think that carelessness is something you turn on and off. Writing on Slashdot, for example, doesn't entitle people to be careless, not any more than when writing their own CV or an important speech.
I would honestly prefer to correct someone's written entry rather than point it out, but if I can't do the former, I sometimes do the latter, especially when that entry is riddled with mistakes. I could live with finding a hair in my food, but when there's a whole tuft sprinkled around, I would protest.

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Re:Degree by thegarbz · 2012-07-20 11:09 · Score: 2

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.
If you spent the last 4 years of your life sitting in a classroom, getting drunk on Thursday-Saturday night, but didn't take the time to actually build something with the education you gained, chances are you're going to waste your workday by forming meetings, chatting with coworkers, and watching them do all of the work.
I hope you've never been in the position of hiring a fresh graduate then. If you put the required effort into a typical Uni degree it should take 40-50 hours of work every week. If a graduate comes to me with a whole host of various experience etc I'd be strongly looking at their grades too as chances are they're at the point of flunking.
Many people here seem to be of the belief that it's a one or the other thing. It's not. Formal training teaches a lot of fundamental knowledge. On the job experience teaches a lot of technical expertise.
Re:Degree by sootman · 2012-07-20 11:21 · Score: 2

> Accreditation and degrees carry weight because of what they mean. What
> does it mean if you say that you watched a few hundred YouTube videos
> and have the video history to back it up? Yes, you may have learned a lot
> from them, but how would anyone be able to tell that? Should they trust
> your word over the piece of paper another applicant has that says a
> recognized and trusted organization certifies that he learned that material?
LOL. I can show you a million examples of both a) people with degrees who don't know a damn thing and b) people who don't have degrees who are masters at what they do.
If you plotted the smartness of people with degrees and without degrees you'd get two bell curves and the "with" one might be a little more on the "smarter" side, but having a degree is by no means a guarantee of intelligence, and not having a degree is not a guarantee of the opposite.
From talking to many people that do hiring for many places, a degree MIGHT tip the scales in favor of someone who is better at what they do, but in real life it's never that close. If you really do have a choice between two people who are nearly identical (and that almost never happens) the nod will RARELY go to one just for having a degree when the other doesn't. The person hiring will pick the one he likes more, or gets a better feeling about, or who he just thinks will work harder, etc.

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Re:Degree by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-20 11:35 · Score: 1

clear communication holds value everywhere
Agreed. Good thing a small error doesn't actually make the original text unreadable!

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Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 12:09 · Score: 0

Your stance is stunningly biased and ignorant. I'm currently working toward an MBA right now. My opinions on unions are mixed. They've been hugely successful, historically, for the life of the working person. However, lately they seem to be bloated bureaucracies whose purpose is to perpetuate their existence, such as the NYS teacher's union whose "president" makes about 300 grand a year. That's just insane.
Also, my only other union beef is that it's virtually impossible to remove dead weight workers, the useless folk who revel in the fact that they can be useless and retain employment. Other than the bloat and the dead weight, I think unions are awesome.
I've read many of your posts. You are usually not so obtuse, and quite often I learn from you. Please do some objective thinking on this topic for your own good.
Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 13:37 · Score: 0

It should be but it isn't. This is no presumption; it is the current state of our society.
I absolutely adore the Khan academy. It is putting these disgraceful institutions in their place just like the Sugatra Mitra, or the other older competing models that were shut down by the state because they were more effective. The best education method(the name to which I cannot find, it was in the 1800s and in the UK I believe) had children educating each other and getting higher than average results compared to contemporary systems(which is to say far better than current results). The cost per year was equivalent to 40 of todays US dollars. The Khan academy may not beat that since it cannot directly compete with the education monopoly our government holds(even private schools comply with endless standards and regulations), but I bet they can come damn close.
Re:Degree by datavirtue · 2012-07-20 15:28 · Score: 1

With the rapid pace of development in education best practices in e-learning KA is becoming seriously outdated. The math videos, for instance, should be sliced up and have interactive questions with feedback.

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Re:Degree by bryan1945 · 2012-07-20 15:50 · Score: 1

What presumption do you speak of? That having a high school diploma, or a Bachelor's degree, or a Master's degree, or a Ph.D have different levels of meaning? The reason they have a meaning is because there is some accreditation group that says, "Yeah, this isn't crap." Now there are places like Phoenix University and I guess YouTube that will "educate" you. If you're cool with accepting those as legit, come enroll in Bryan's Gnarly University next semester. Lots of people teach themselves more all by themselves than any school will, but how are you going to evaluate what someone says?
Though I do agree about the MBA snobbishness, and I even have one.

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Re:Degree by dontclapthrowmoney · 2012-07-20 15:56 · Score: 1

It still represents a threat, if I can learn things freely online, when I go to formalise that education it takes less time and effort, so they can't charge me as much for it.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/07/06/180201/university-sues-student-for-graduating-early
It is also a threat where it represents an alternative to formal education, for any area of occupation where skills, knowledge and experience can win you a position over formal qualifications. Maybe for an IT role, someone with no formal piece of paper might be able to get past the HR screening far more easily. Once you're past that point, if you know what you're doing and have a good attitude, you'll interview well, and do the job well. And then the sky's the limit.
I hope no-one is suggesting that Khan or similar will replace formal education, it will just put a dent in it. I'd also be more concerned if I were a smaller institution or offered vocational education that is above high school level but not at the degree level - a certificate level qualification isn't that useful in that HR screening scenario, someone could get skills/knowledge for free via online courses, do some work experience and ramp up to a similar level. No-one's going to pass up going to MIT because they can get the same level of education from youtube, though they might decide not to do a 26 week certificate course at their local college - instead opting to gain some knowledge online and use that knowledge to do a 3 month internship.
Re:Degree by TapeCutter · 2012-07-20 17:07 · Score: 1

I'd replace "dumb" with "careless".
Agree, I'm careless about spelling and grammar when posting on something like slashdot, not caring doesn't imply I feel entitled, it means I don't care.
Being careless has repercussions in pretty much all areas
Not really, it just means I don't care much about spelling and grammar when posting on something like slashdot. If someone can't figure from the context that I meant "you're" when I typed "your", I'm really not that interested in conversing with them anyway.

and I really don't think that carelessness is something you turn on and off
My level of care varies but that just means I don't bother proof reading it properly, for example if I proof read my CV like I do my slashdot posts I would be unemployed, but I'm not because I care about my CV much more than my slasdot rants. I'm also a crothcy old fart that never learnt to touch type (which hasn't stopped me making a good living as a software dev for the last 20+yrs). There is a line somewhere between obsesive compulsive and total apathy all the different situation I find myself in, "choosing"* the same extreme for everything I did would be classed as a mental illness.

* - "choosing", scare quote beacuse I don't think people consciously decide what they care about.

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Re:Degree by hairyfish · 2012-07-20 18:44 · Score: 1

I've been in the position of hiring, and degrees and accreditation are meaningless to me. Show me what you have done, for-profit or not.
Same here. I've been the most senior technical person in the company for the last three places I've worked. No degree, and don't care if you have one or not. When I hire I ensure the recruitment process weeds out the wheat from the chaff. In my 20 years of experience, the degree counted for zero. The best employees either had degrees or didn't. It made no difference.
Re:Degree by hairyfish · 2012-07-20 18:49 · Score: 1

Kudos to you for taking the time to properly interview candidates.
I don't disagree with anything you said. I merely believe that most employers would be unwilling to spend so much time interviewing candidates who likely have a lower chance of being prepared for the challenges posed by the job.
Really? It takes about 5 minutes to ask a candidate some relevant questions in context, and I'm not sure what challenges you face that require university study? Unless you're talking pure engineering, most skills required are about thinking on your feet and dealing with people, neither of which are learnt at Uni.
Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 20:58 · Score: 0

EXACTLY the problem with all this bullshit hype.
Yeah, it's fantastic that you can learn a number of things on your own with the internet, if you want to. However, it's not going to help you get a job. All the self-education in the world isn't going to help you, if you don't have that $50k-$150k piece of paper. It's bullshit, but it's how it is.
SOME people are lucky exceptions, like myself. A high school drop out making big in the tech industry. However, those are VERY rare exceptions.
Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 01:13 · Score: 0

but how are you going to evaluate what someone says?
By researching it. Seriously, if you're not putting any effort into it, you're not learning anyway.
Math and programming, for instance, are very easy to double-check.
Re:Degree by gbjbaanb · 2012-07-21 01:22 · Score: 1

no worries mate. You'd be surprised at how many companies have degree-only policies even for people who have 20 years in the industry, I know excellent programmers who have been turned down for a job only because they didn't get a degree. Its not so prevalent anymore, but still happens here and there!
Re:Degree by Aqualung812 · 2012-07-21 14:59 · Score: 1

40-50 hours a week is what you're going to work in your career, too. Later, you're likely to have a spouse and kids. You have the extra time while in school to *DO* something with that education you're getting.
If you can't produce something that you did outside of school (created software that did X, built network to do Y), then you're not the kind of person that is going to do great work once on the job.

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Re:Degree by thegarbz · 2012-07-21 17:04 · Score: 1

Depends on your company. Frankly a single minded person who's job is their hobby and also their life wouldn't last long with us. There's more to the world than programming a computer so I'm far more inclined to hire a graduate with excellent grades who has a social life and some other hobbies that keep them interested outside work.
Not sure how universities are in your country but over here they are quite practical. You won't get a computer programmer who hasn't been required to code some large project as part of his coursework.
Re:Degree by Aqualung812 · 2012-07-22 06:17 · Score: 1

a single minded person who's job is their hobby and also their life
Hobby, yes. Life, no.
If you're going to work in a job, ANY job, it should be something you are passionate about. Musicians that don't like music usually suck. Same goes with construction workers that don't like to build things.
Technology shouldn't be your life, but it should be your passion if you're going to spend 8+ hours a day working with it. If you went to school for it and paid all of that money for it, but you're not even tried it, you're taking a HUGE gamble with your life. There is a good chance you could end up hating what you chose to do for a living. You're free to make that gamble, but I'm not going to be the one to bet on you by hiring you.
If you have coursework that did something practical for the job I'm hiring for, great! That's exactly what I'm talking about.
However, if you just did a bunch of theory-type work that has no practical purpose, then you wasted your time and money.

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Re:Degree by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-22 11:23 · Score: 0

In the real world, we get hundreds of applications for any position we post. HR can't talk to all of them, so they throw away 75% or more strictly on the basis of what's written on the CVs. Degrees may or may not mean capable to you, but they're a simple test for the process folks to follow. After winnowing the list to a handful, they conduct interviews, then pass off the most likely candidates to the hiring managers.
Does that mean we turn away qualified people? No doubt. But we do get good, capable people who fit our needs, and don't waste a lot of time in the process.

Catch? by mmcxii · 2012-07-20 07:10 · Score: 2

Since when has education become a competition?

Re:Catch? by Chonnawonga · 2012-07-20 07:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Since when has education become a competition?
Since it became a business.
Re:Catch? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:18 · Score: 0

The dawn of time.
Re:Catch? by Bigby · 2012-07-20 07:19 · Score: 1

Back when education got better.
Re:Catch? by cpu6502 · 2012-07-20 07:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

>>>became a business.
Which has been true since before recorded history. Education has always involved paying a tutor or lecturer to teach the younger generation, and thus the tutors were actually businessmen selling a service.

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Re:Catch? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:31 · Score: 0

It's always has been. Everything in life is a graded event...
Re:Catch? by Chonnawonga · 2012-07-20 07:39 · Score: 2

No argument here. And by extension, it's been a competition since before recorded history.
Re:Catch? by ethanms · 2012-07-20 07:46 · Score: 1

Mod Parent Up
Re:Catch? by chippey · 2012-07-20 08:19 · Score: 2

Getting teachers and educators paid != try to squeeze every bit of profit out of students. My interpretation of Chonnawonga's comment is that there has been a transition of focus from education's primary goal of educating and imparting knowledge and learning (paying the teachers enough for a liveable wage), to 'education' as a business where the primary goal is to profit and make money for the bureaucratic overhead.
Re:Catch? by cpu6502 · 2012-07-20 08:29 · Score: 1

>>>to 'education' as a business where the primary goal is to profit and make money for the bureaucratic overhead.
You just described "college" for the last 200 years. They all have the same goal of extracting as much money as possible from the student, in order to fund their internal plans (such as inventing some new gadget or process that they can make money from).

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Re:Catch? by littlebigbot · 2012-07-20 08:45 · Score: 1

We were competing in everything before we were ever human.
Re:Catch? by chippey · 2012-07-20 08:52 · Score: 1

In the U.S. certainly for a while that's been true (especially true of private universities and colleges, although even a few decades ago in state schools were pretty decent). However, until very recently in various places around the world higher education has been fairly inexpensive, or even free. The relative recent rash of for-profit schools have further ingrained this.
Re:Catch? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 09:52 · Score: 0

in the US.
Re:Catch? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 20:07 · Score: 0

How much does you wife charge you for sex? After all, she is just providing a service.

Udemy, by cpu6502 · 2012-07-20 07:11 · Score: 1, Informative

My Kindle just lit-up with an ad from this company. 2 online courses for Excel at $35 (instead of 200). I was tempted to click "buy" however I know nothing about this company. I don't just hand money to random corps.

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Re:Udemy, by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:43 · Score: 0

My Kindle just lit-up with an ad from this company. 2 online courses for Excel at $35 (instead of 200). I was tempted to click "buy" however I know nothing about this company. I don't just hand money to random corps.
Does the Kindle lack a browser capable of getting information about Udemy?

No mention of nerdfighters John and Hank Green? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:13 · Score: 0

Vidcon, they started Vidcon!!! DFTBA!

missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

There have been good textbooks for centuries. Watching a video is not going to improve things much. Online quizzes don't make people brilliant.

The first reason the top universities are at the top is their research output.

And the reason undergraduates excel at those top universities is that they spend almost every day for several years in contact with the people and resources which make that research possible. They go to tutorials. They chat through problems. They do extended lab work. They write extended pieces of work which are marked carefully by experts who can provide interactive feedback.

The Open University, the pioneering distance education factility in the UK which has several hundred thousand part-time and FTE students, has since 1969 provided more than all these supposedly "new" online education providers: custom textbooks tailored for learning with worked problems; a tutor who will mark your work and who you can contact whenever you want when you have a problem; several face-to-face tutorials throughout the year; possibly one or more residential schools; etc. Exams are all done in exam centres under exam conditions. Even then, it cannot hope to match the best red brick universities.

Khan knows how to market itself. It gives an opportunity to those dilettantes who don't know where else to find the information, online or offline. But it won't produce a new generation of leaders / top thinkers.

Re:missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:34 · Score: 0

Amen! Mod up, please!
Re:missing the point entirely by White+Flame · 2012-07-20 07:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

There have been good textbooks for centuries. Watching a video is not going to improve things much.
Oh yes it does. A conversational description of the material, as opposed to over-edited reference-worthy technical descriptions, can go a very long way in helping understanding. Seeing the interaction of somebody actually working through a problem and pointing things out (including their thought process), instead of a terse list of opaque steps, is huge. Along with the slides and downloads, all the reference material is still represented, but watching another human demonstrate the information is much often a faster and deeper way to communicate the same concepts. Not everybody can learn as well from just reading textbooks, even the good ones. Even if they can, going through a video lecture before reading the text seems to be a great way to make the reading far more meaningful, as familiarity has been bootstrapped.
There is merit to the other facets you describe, but lowering the cost and other barriers to entry to actual training (not just reference materials) is an amazing step forward.
Re:missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:10 · Score: 1

Most of the people who watch Khan academy are either casual learners wanting to get a good introduction to some topic (as opposed to looking to obtain expert knowledge) or they are already students looking for material to supplement what their high school teacher or professor is teaching them.
Unless I've been misinformed, Khan doesn't give out degrees, so they're not really in direct competition with unis. The only way they're competing is that they're providing lectures that are much more insightful and informative as compared to the varying quality of education students receive in school.
I disagree that having direct access to researchers really makes a difference in undergrad. If you're in a grad program, then I would agree with you, but for undergrads, you're going to be learning material that's already considered established knowledge. You just need a competent expert in the field to be the lecturer. My experience has been that the professors consider their lecturing duties to be a chore and a distraction from their research activities with attitudes varying from open hostility towards students, apathy, to having some level of interest in lecturing but not really having their heart in it. Only very few really seem to take it seriously and go the extra mile.
The reason undergrads excel at the top-tier universities is because the best people apply to them and those schools spend months deciding which students they want to take in. They only take in students who have some kind of track record of seriousness and success. The students are not "molded" by the university experience from nothing into something; they were already the cream of the crop before they applied.
While I'm not sure Khan will replace the regular University experience (though they could certianly branch off into providing degrees at a later time, perhaps), I think you are very foolish to be so dismissive of the changing landscape of education and society in general. Things could change to the point where online degrees become a fashionable low-cost alternative to expensive university education, especially with the lower classes who don't have the good opportunities to prove themselves in college.
Re:missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:37 · Score: 0

Khan's place in the universe is not to supplant all other forms of learning. You're not expected to learn only from Khan. The point of a Khan video is to inspire you in a visual and conversational way, to help you gain intuition about a subject, and to be interested in it. A successful Khan-user is a self-motivated person. They watch a Vi Hart piece on the math of plants, and then they spend a few hours tooling around wikipedia links reading further about related subjects. And/or they talk to their friends about the subject. And/or, if the problem space really interests them, they start looking into hardcore research papers published on the topic. Perhaps along the way they'll figure out something new and publish a paper of their own. It's academics with the academy. It's democracy and freedom applied to learning, for once. People are becoming self-directed. They don't want to learn what some dude told them they *need* to learn to get degree X so they can get job Y. They want to learn what's interesting to them. If you pursue what actually interests you, you have boundless self-motivation and you don't need a structured environment. Just good resources.
Re:missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:47 · Score: 0

There have been good textbooks for centuries. Watching a video is not going to improve things much. Online quizzes don't make people brilliant.
The first reason the top universities are at the top is their research output.
And the reason undergraduates excel at those top universities is that they spend almost every day for several years in contact with the people and resources which make that research possible. They go to tutorials. They chat through problems. They do extended lab work. They write extended pieces of work which are marked carefully by experts who can provide interactive feedback.
The Open University, the pioneering distance education factility in the UK which has several hundred thousand part-time and FTE students, has since 1969 provided more than all these supposedly "new" online education providers: custom textbooks tailored for learning with worked problems; a tutor who will mark your work and who you can contact whenever you want when you have a problem; several face-to-face tutorials throughout the year; possibly one or more residential schools; etc. Exams are all done in exam centres under exam conditions. Even then, it cannot hope to match the best red brick universities.
Khan knows how to market itself. It gives an opportunity to those dilettantes who don't know where else to find the information, online or offline. But it won't produce a new generation of leaders / top thinkers.
What makes you think the new generation of leaders and top thinkers won't use both? I am guessing that at least 90% of the new generation of top thinkers will both go to a university and watch videos from one or more free online class at some point. Do you think the new generation of leaders will not be smart enough to find youtube? Or do you think that they will just never watch a lecture on there? Both seem really unlikely.
Re:missing the point entirely by PeanutButterBreath · 2012-07-20 08:53 · Score: 1

Not everybody can learn as well from just reading textbooks, even the good ones.
Regardless, the skill and/or patience to learn from reading books is invaluable. If you want to learn things, learning how to use textbooks is a great place to start.
IMO, text is a much more efficient means of storing and communicating information than video, in general. Printing it on paper also makes information more accessible in terms of price and technological requirements.
Re:missing the point entirely by del_diablo · 2012-07-20 09:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Text versus video? Irrelevant. The core problem with education is that either the teachers are not up to the standard, or the books are poorly written. And what is Khans academy doing? They are doing videos, but that is irrelevant in itself, what they are actually doing is to do a proper job at TEACHING their material, in contrast to many sources.
If you have a problem with Khan being video, then why don't you have a problem with subpar teaching in general?
Re:missing the point entirely by PeanutButterBreath · 2012-07-20 10:13 · Score: 1

If you have a problem with Khan being video, then why don't you have a problem with subpar teaching in general?
Who, besides you, indicated that I don't have a problem with subpar teaching?
All else being equal, I believe that text is superior to video for providing educational material.
Re:missing the point entirely by dcollins · 2012-07-20 10:26 · Score: 2

"...watching another human demonstrate the information is much often a faster and deeper way to communicate the same concepts."
Well, I just flat-out disagree. I've tried to go through at least two online video courses, and for me video is insanely slow and frustrating. I can't efficiently see where to skip ahead when someone is blathering on about obvious things (to me), and I can't search for key words or definitions. This is purely personal opinion, but I am truly boggled at the idea that anyone finds video better than a book.

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Re:missing the point entirely by DriedClexler · 2012-07-20 11:29 · Score: 2

And the reason undergraduates excel at those top universities is that they spend almost every day for several years in contact with the people and resources which make that research possible. They go to tutorials. They chat through problems. They do extended lab work. They write extended pieces of work which are marked carefully by experts who can provide interactive feedback.
Ahhh...hahahahaha! Oh, my, god, what a fucking JOKE! There might be maybe 2 universities where this idyllic scenario actually plays out (and even then probably not at the undergrad level). Wayyyy over here in the real world, that never fucking actually happens, and if it's your justification for traditional education, then it's an enormous rationalization of keeping things the way they are.

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Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Re:missing the point entirely by ceoyoyo · 2012-07-20 12:05 · Score: 1

You know what's WAY better than watching a video? Having an actual live person do the same thing, interactively.
Videos are horrible for people who do learn well from books, and they're not so great for hands on learners either.
Re:missing the point entirely by White+Flame · 2012-07-20 18:41 · Score: 1

The coursera videos are really nice in that they have a playback speed option. You can zip through at 2x speed, and slow down when the content becomes more dense or you need to really dig slower into what's being presented.
Also, when videos are shorter (5 minutes or less) and focused on one particular thing, that really helps the ability to jump to desired parts simply via the table of contents. Many videos also have transcribed searchable subtitles. I agree that recordings of regular 45min lectures are really useless for finding particulars.
Re:missing the point entirely by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 01:39 · Score: 0

You know what's WAY better than watching a video?
No, because that depends entirely on the individual.
It may shock you, but one teaching technique may work well on one individual but not on another. One person may learn quickly from video, and one may not. One person may learn quickly from being taught directly, and another may not.
Re:missing the point entirely by bhiestand · 2012-07-21 21:32 · Score: 1

Ahhh...hahahahaha! Oh, my, god, what a fucking JOKE! There might be maybe 2 universities where this idyllic scenario actually plays out (and even then probably not at the undergrad level). Wayyyy over here in the real world, that never fucking actually happens, and if it's your justification for traditional education, then it's an enormous rationalization of keeping things the way they are.
FTR, it happened at my top tier university. I'm not saying the department head knew every single student, but the best professors knew the best students. Most of my professors knew me by name, and one even provided feedback, from memory, on a paper I had written a week after he had graded it. Another offered to coauthor a paper with me after I approached him with an idea.
Of course, classes are large and TAs do much of the grading, but in my experience, the best researchers were also the most accessible. At least, they were accessible to bright students who had a genuine interest.

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Don't forget Teaching Company by cpu6502 · 2012-07-20 07:18 · Score: 5, Informative

I've been buying their product since the 90s when they were called "The Great Teachers" company. I took advantage of their once or twice-a-year sales to clear the warehouse. A customer can buy an entire course (~50 hours) for about the same cost as a month of cable. I learned more about history, language, philosophy from those audiocassettes than 5 years of actual college.

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Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by DerekLyons · 2012-07-20 09:06 · Score: 1

I learned more about history, language, philosophy from those audiocassettes than 5 years of actual college.
I seriously doubt that. You may have amassed more facts - but facts aren't learning. When you take a serious degree, you also learn how to think and handle information via writing papers and interaction/discussion between yourself and other students and the professor.
Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 10:06 · Score: 0

Right. And after you've learned how to think and handle information like that, when you later learn on your own using books or videos or whatever.
I _know_ I learned more (not the GP) philosophy from the learning company courses than I did in my degree (minored in philosophy). Its not that the materials were better...I had years more experience, had read a lot more in the meantime, and was much more prepared to learn and integrate what I was learning.
Ideally, high school would get students to the point where they already know how to think and to be self-directed in learning. This is, obviously, not the case. Arguably its not the case for many of the people in my undergrad classes and still some in my graduate classes.
Its a shame that the myth was started that everyone should go to college and everyone would need college to be employable.
Assuming things aren't going to change and that 4-year degrees will continue to signify only that one was able to attend for the required time without dropping out, outside educational opportunities like Khan or any of the university online offers are fantastic for people who actually want to learn.
Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-20 11:58 · Score: 1

you also learn how to think and handle information via writing papers and interaction/discussion between yourself and other students and the professor.
If you didn't know how before, then I think it's likely that you were doomed before you ever began.

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Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by DerekLyons · 2012-07-20 17:45 · Score: 1

Is such utter cluelessness painful?
Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-20 18:08 · Score: 1

I don't know. Are you in pain? I have no idea, but I don't think cluelessness would be painful, anyway.

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Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by DerekLyons · 2012-07-20 19:16 · Score: 1

No, you don't think. Period.
Re:Don't forget Teaching Company by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-20 19:28 · Score: 1

Interesting. Can inanimate objects make comments, by any chance?

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Khaaan!!!! by MojoRilla · 2012-07-20 07:20 · Score: 1

This is the only Khan I like on YouTube...

Khaaaaan!!!!

non-profit vs profit by djbckr · 2012-07-20 07:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

It really all comes down to this. Kahn Academy is non-profit, and is more interested in the public good. Everybody else that wants to get on this bandwagon simply can't compete with this, because they want money, and lots of it. Nobody else will be able to stop them.

Re:non-profit vs profit by J.+T.+MacLeod · 2012-07-20 09:00 · Score: 1

This is not a universal.
If there is money to be made in doing good, someone just might do good better to make that money.
A non-profit staffed by motivated visionaries and given sufficient funding will usually do far better, but the non-profit is only one aspect of that.
Re:non-profit vs profit by bcrowell · 2012-07-20 11:04 · Score: 1

It really all comes down to this. Kahn Academy is non-profit, and is more interested in the public good. Everybody else that wants to get on this bandwagon simply can't compete with this, because they want money, and lots of it.
Huh? Either you don't know what you're talking about or you're describing the situation in some country I've never heard of. This is certainly not the situation in the US.
Just to pick a few random examples in the US, the University of California is nonprofit; the ivy leagues are all nonprofit; the University of Chicago is nonprofit.
At least in the US, for-profit colleges are a relatively recent innovation, and typically they are scams. They bring in underprepared students, suck up their government benefits (e.g., GI Bill money), and then spew them out on the job market, where they don't get jobs.

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Khan doesn't have much for advanced material by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

There's a lot of stuff being offered by traditional universities which is way above Khan's level. Khan is great for an introduction, and even a bit more, but that is all. For example, take a look at Stanford's Convex Optimization course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McLq1hEq3UY
Khan doesn't offer anything close to that. There's plenty of room for competitors to grow.

Re:Khan doesn't have much for advanced material by swframe · 2012-07-20 09:35 · Score: 1

I couldn't agree more. Look at the ai-class.com lectures on probability and compare it with Khan classes and you see a very large gap. The khan class gives you a foundation but it is really just the bottom 30% of what you need to know. Then compare the ai-class.com lectures on NLP with the NLP class at see.stanford.com and you see another large gap. So we need each education site. Each one tends to focus on a different range of the education path and on a different level student. Sometimes, it just helps to hear the same fact taught in a different style.

One thing is certain by medcalf · 2012-07-20 07:23 · Score: 1

The model of education used in the IS for the last 100 years or so is no longer sufficient. Online courses will be part of whatever the new system will be, but only a part.

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Re:One thing is certain by gbjbaanb · 2012-07-20 09:49 · Score: 1

to be fair some places have been doing "online" trainign for a long time - the Open University in the UK has been around since the 60s, using late-night TV broadcast to deliver content (obviously this was the days before constant re-runs of crappy cop dramas)
If you want to know what it was like, check out this parody of it by the great Fry and Laurie, or this one that's a little more accurate.

Khan Academy criticisms by ebusinessmedia1 · 2012-07-20 07:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

Khan Academy is a great resource, but it's far from a perfect substitute if one want to accomplish deep learning. The fact is that there is a LOT of free and very helpful tutorial learning material on the Internet. Khan has caught a lot of interest because of the sheer scale that Sal Khan accomplished on his own. I think it's a great tool, but is becoming quite overrated in terms of what we know from those who teach face-to-face, and learning science.

Here are some valid criticisms of Khan Academy. http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/2012/07/03/the-trouble-with-khan-academy/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-the-effectiveness-of-science-videos/

In sum, Khan Academy is NOT a revolution in learning; it's a tool that many will use to help revolutionize education.

Re:Khan Academy criticisms by microbread · 2012-07-20 07:29 · Score: 1

Khan is rubbish once you need greater than high school level knowledge. Granted there are great introductions to fields like finance, but fields that, at first glance, appear to have lots of videos often aren't that useful. So yes, it's a nice resource and good for learning new things, but don't expect to learn very much on there. As a physics graduate, I'm much more inclined to view things on iTunes U or the various university homepages because the quality is good and the material is at a much higher level.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by Penurious+Penguin · 2012-07-20 08:08 · Score: 1

"Khan is rubbish once you need greater than high school level knowledge."
Considering the current state of America, rubbish seems a fine aspiration; at least we'd be sitting on something.
Having gone through more than a few Khan lectures for python, I recently signed up for a Udemy course which I purchased with a coupon for $8 - a great deal. In comparison, they are not infinitely far apart, though Udemy does come out ahead so far and includes literature, etc. I have no complaints about either, but could probably offer a few suggestions to both sources, and I am actually beneath your rubbish criteria, at least with python. I guess I'll see.

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Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:18 · Score: 0

"Khan is rubbish once you need greater than high school level knowledge"
First grade is rubbish once you get to second grade. Eight grade is rubbish once you get to ninth grade and so on. Your line of reasoning is asanine.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by aurizon · 2012-07-20 08:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

Khan grows daily, and it quite capable of teaching high levels, even above the doctorate level.
Khan is a scattering of disparate modules, and quality varies.
It needs to be structured so that it can be learned standard courses in each discipline, on a term by term and year by year basis - albeit in far less time.
It also needs lab courses - youtube does fill the lab need, but not as well as a true lab, where fluids are poured and voltages measured and lab reports written and graded.
I can see a time where there is computer grading, with a secure ID, tied to IP address to give certificates of some kind. Machine certificates done by remote are still susceptible to hired ringers writing exams for people (which plagues real colleges too), the real world will demand real invigilated exams for each course before a complete course can be graded as passed and an aggregate of course completed as a year passed and three/four years = a degree. Once this is done, the entire degree will be able to compete in the hiring process.
I can see a process of maturation in the idea, but the idea of invigilated exams added to Khan will take a way to pay for this, since it goes beyond volunteer work (IMHO).
Five years from now, we will be amazed at how far they have come. I wonder if the brick and mortar colleges will try to kill the idea???
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by microbread · 2012-07-20 09:43 · Score: 1

I have no quibble with the material on there, I just find it a bit lacking in depth. The python examples you cite are a good example - they're good, but basic. It's the sort of stuff you'd be learning in a high school programming class. The problem is if you want to learn about something in more detail, you're stuck, you've got to go to a university site to get that information. Calculus is getting better, the multiple integration stuff isn't bad. I guess I'm just a bit picky when people tout Kahn as the be all and end all of education. The parent of my post got it spot on with the criticism videos - the idea of Khan is fantastic, but the execution is far from optimal and isn't necessarily the best way to learn. For Python, I found the official documentation to be stellar as is Learn Python the Hard Way (free online or a few bucks for a pdf).
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by loneDreamer · 2012-07-20 11:25 · Score: 2

Khan Academy is doing much more than publishing videos. They are creating a bunch of software to establish topic networks, tests, student tracking, etc. They are even testing an inverted scheme of education where students watch videos on their of (as homework) and go to class to exercise and being able to question the teachers and discuss the topics. This heavily impacts the ability of the teachers to provide more individual help while at the same time avoids lectures that go at the rate of the slower students. It's in his infancy no doubt, but it's a whole new learning approach/platform and that IMHO could result in an actual learning revolution.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by cheekyjohnson · 2012-07-20 12:03 · Score: 1

If someone only memorized facts, then I think they've missed the point of the website.

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Re:Khan Academy criticisms by ceoyoyo · 2012-07-20 12:09 · Score: 1

"even above the doctorate level"
What does that mean? Are you talking about some mickey mouse course-based doctorates, or real doctorates? A real PhD involves becoming an expert on a subject and then advancing the state of knowledge of that subject. You can't "teach" things at a doctoral level, never mind above it, because nobody knows them yet!
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by aurizon · 2012-07-20 12:53 · Score: 1

I can see you have never attended PhD level courses. It is true that PhDs are awarded for advances in knowledge. Yes, PhD candidates take courses, there are gaps that must be filled in anyone's knowledge.
Once you reach the PhD level you are competent to self teach, but it is more efficient to round out your knowledge by"standing on the backs of giants", as it were, to see further.
In addition, groups of PhD candidates teach themselves in tutorial groups, asking questions and trying answers, with research in between tutorials. Often there is a senior prof who leads the tutorial, but they also carry on without a leader.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by ceoyoyo · 2012-07-20 13:36 · Score: 1

Those aren't "PhD" level courses. They're graduate level courses. I was required to take three of them, which worked out to about the same load as half of one semester for an average undergrad.
A PhD isn't about the courses. If yours is, it's really a second undergraduate degree.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by aurizon · 2012-07-20 21:24 · Score: 1

So this is all about terminology - not learning
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 22:37 · Score: 0

I can see a time where there is computer grading, with a secure ID, tied to IP address to give certificates of some kind.
Uh... what about those with dynamic ips? Honestly, this nonsense would just make the services more difficult to use. Can we please be a little less paranoid about cheaters?
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 02:53 · Score: 0

Another way to put it is saying that Khan Academy has brought education to the masses. Probably the most interested and amazed by it are the ones who would've never read a book by themselves. But they would watch a Youtube video, since they've been doing it for quite a while.
Re:Khan Academy criticisms by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 08:22 · Score: 0

You should note that Ph.D.-level instruction can vary from field to field and university to university. At my university in computer science, for example, the courses taken by Ph.D. candidates and master's students are identical.

Different Audience by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

Khan Academy targets a wider audience than the others that are mentioned. Most of the others are aimed at university level education. For example, Coursera is mostly undergraduate courses like Algorithms and Cryptology. Udacity has some machine learning car. A lot of these are also tech based and/or programming based.

Meanwhile, Khan Academy offers everything from elementary Algebra and Geometry to Calculus and Differential Equations. So they reach the whole k-12 audience which the others will not reach. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different product. I hope they don't water down Coursera because it's good at what it does: free undergraduate level courses. I don't want it to spend time doing 8th grade Geometry, Khan does that already!

Re:Different Audience by lance_of_the_apes · 2012-07-20 07:59 · Score: 1

Agreed. The other companies need to cover the basics if they want to compete. I think the next step is to be more interactive. Fewer videos and more hands on.

Khan's lessons length of TV segment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:47 · Score: 0

On commercial television the length of programming between commercials is 5 to 13 minutes. I feel that may be more platable that the monolithic standard 50-minute lecture. But then too many modern professors may insert a click-quiz every 5-13 minutes to reinforce the material they had just delivered. Khan segments may work better for your hyperactive, multi-tasking kid.

Why not combine Kickstarter with Khan Academy? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 07:50 · Score: 0

Just recruit top dog professors willing to make the material with skilled programmers to make an interactive web app education platform. When a branch of education gets funding, allocate the resources appropriately and run the whole site free, integrate it with Wikipedia. Make some Facebook app to show an academic profile with badges and the like.

Distance learning - good and bad by Bruce66423 · 2012-07-20 07:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Having done a normal university course, a couple of decades ago, and now having experienced normal distance learning, where there is no interaction with other students, some with limited interaction, and some with a lot, I am totally convinced of the value of student contact with other students as a necessary element for really effective learning. Similarly the opportunity to challenge a lecturer over an issue is totally lacking in the Khan model; whilst that works to some extent for purely technical subjects, even there robust seminars are a useful adjunct to pure lectures. And it's this area where Khan will fall down; it's good as a means of transmitting knowledge from the lecturer to the notebook of the student - but education should be more than that. And it's that second element that costs the money to provide.

Re:Distance learning - good and bad by electrosoccertux · 2012-07-21 09:25 · Score: 1

meh the higher ranked schools have so many students in a classroom it's not like you can challenge the teacher.
Ideally Khan will turn into a pay-for solution if you want. You can watch the vids for free, but you can get access to a "TA" for a fee. Using special interface or software that Khan designs, watch video and place bookmarks + comments at parts you have questions on or want to challenge, then get customized responses by the TA.
I wonder if that would influence the videos in the wrong direction...make them intentionally confusing or wrong so that you want to challenge them...hm...

school should not be about makeing money by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 07:56 · Score: 1

school should not be about makeing money covering costs and yes paying people good pay (not CEO pay) is ok.

But some places take that makeing money way to far with jacking up credits needed to pass, Fees, Forced meal plans and foreced room and board fees.

videos and passive learning by manaway · 2012-07-20 08:01 · Score: 2

Khan's lectures are simple, accurate, and highly valuable. However, how much does one learn from passively watching great lectures which ignore a student's missteps and false presumptions? This Veritasum video on Khan's videos demonstrates the effectiveness, or rather ineffectiveness, of at least some kinds of video learning. (And yes, the irony of using a video to teach the ineffectivenss of educational videos will not be lost on anyone.)

Re:videos and passive learning by electrosoccertux · 2012-07-21 09:27 · Score: 1

I've found watching great for grasping concepts, but you definitely need the homework for doing the actual work. Understanding recursion when you look at code, and remembering how to write it yourself, are completely different. Remember back in college you look over the study sheet and it says "recursion" and you're "oh I understand that", but then you take the test and it tells you to write a recursive function operating on some linked list or something and you have to waste 28 minutes hacking your way through it because it's the first time you've actually sat down to try it.

more trades like systems is needed and less clas by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:02 · Score: 1

more trades like systems is needed and less class room time with more hands on parts.

So part of issues is the ties to past where there is too much put into a 4 year degree skipping over the more focused trades / tech school learning there it should be not tied to a degree plan I think that some of the lack of respect does come from them trying to be 2 or 4 year degree places when they should really be trades based and offer classes on a 'Badges' like system.

Also a other down side of putting too much into a 4 year degree is that people going trades / tech schools can get locked out of some IT internships that are tied to the past system.

A Badges system is better than having continuing education be just masters, phd, Ect and are not only big time sinks they are also geared towards to being a teacher.

We have places like tribeca flashpoint but it is only a 2 year school but I have seen Film & Broadcast, Recording Arts, Animation & Visual Effects jobs that want a 4 year degree.

Also a other down side of putting too much into a 4 year degree is that people going trades / tech schools can get locked out of some IT internships that are tied to the past system.

We don’t need factory’s full of Forman / designers and we also need the Forman to be able to jump in and do the job from time to time as well. CS is kind of like that you are training people to be designers but they mostly don’t get the skills needed do the work on the stuff they are designing and we also need people with the skills to do the work and not so much to be a designer. Not that best analogy. A quick car analogy can be you are trading car mechanic to be an car designer / car engineer and in the clases you don’t even touch the insides a real car or even the tools used in a car shop.

Education more art than science by Ransak · 2012-07-20 08:03 · Score: 2

"Fair enough, but in its essence, teaching is a performance art." - Amy Farrah Fowler

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Trade schools / Tech schools should be there as we by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:05 · Score: 1

Trade schools / Tech schools should be there as well and they are more then just a some vidoes on line but they don't really fall into a degrees plan that well and there lot's of NON degree IT classes out there as well.

Oh c'mon by luis_a_espinal · 2012-07-20 08:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Can Anyone Catch Khan Academy?

Anyone? No. Someone? Probability would say "yes".

Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead.

What a load of crap. I love Khan's materials, but not because they are fun, but because they are valuable. Plus, I had plenty of college professors that made their lectures fun. And I had classes that were some of the most imporant in my education, and I know the subject and delivery weren't fun. Fun is not an intrinsic property of good education.

Edutainment != education. Such is the state of our sorry ZOMG-Kardashian society.

Also there is pretention in the quoted text that colleges are having a hard time producing instructive online material. Seriously, have they never seen a Stanford/MIT online lecture? There are many universities out there providing grad-level education online with success.

Another thing that people misconstrue (and not a criticism of Khan's videos, but of the fanboys who do) is that Khan's videos are nice to watch because... gasp, they are, in general, relatively shorter than a full-blown lecture. A 90-minute long video lecture will bore you down no matter how "fun" the instructor is. Specially if the material is dense. Or try a 3 hour video lecture. You'll be crawling off the walls even if it is performed by your favorite professor (I know because I've had to take those lectures @ WPI.)

1. If Google were to decide to put its might behind Udacity (which is really fine material btw), wouldn't anyone think that it would pass over Khan Academy? Ergo, the title of this story is an oxymoron like no other.

2. Universities will adapt, prices will go down. They won't get replaced by them, in particular when it comes to research. What I see here is that these private enterprises will accelerate adoption of online media by brick-n-mortar schools (which has been occuring since before Khan came into the picture.)

This is not to take anything away from Khan's marvelous work. But for Christ' sake, don't treat it like the second coming holding the holy grail while riding a silver bullet.

plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:09 · Score: 1

plumbers and electricians don't have degrees they have Apprenticeships and trade schools (and you don't need to sit 4 years in a class room) now other fields like IT need something like this.

Re:plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:39 · Score: 1

plumbers and electricians don't have degrees they have Apprenticeships and trade schools (and you don't need to sit 4 years in a class room) now other fields like IT need something like this.
But, studies show that people with a narrowly focused education don't adapt well to changes in technology. So, your apprenticeship in Windows NT 4 and Visual Basic 6.0 might not prepare you today as well as a degree would have.
Re:plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:16 · Score: 1

But what does all the filler and fluff that comes with a full degree help you adapt well to changes in technology?
Maybe it should be a 2-3 year core only degree.
Re:plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by iamwahoo2 · 2012-07-20 09:22 · Score: 1

I am surrounded by people with Ph.D.s that can't adapt well to changes in technology.
Re:plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 16:30 · Score: 0

That's ok. Just fire them and hire someone new.
Re:plumbers and electricians don't have degrees by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 00:45 · Score: 0

plumbers and electricians don't have degrees they have Apprenticeships and trade schools (and you don't need to sit 4 years in a class room) now other fields like IT need something like this.
Do you even realize what the typical plumbers union apprenticeship program entails? Its 3-4 nights a week of school, after your mandatory 8 hours a day work. This is for 5 years. Not 4 years of mostly useless filler crap. If you had a MBA union, your school would remove the useless to the trade crap and teach you what you actually need to know to do you job. So after you get your MBA, do you know exactly how to run a mechanical contracting company, how about one of the wall street companies? No, you get a generalized education, which you have to personally specialize in once you find a company who will accept you.
Once I am a union journeyman, my qualifications are good all across america, and canada if i choose to travel for work. I feel you are just misinformed about the benefits of using union labor. You get a known, certified and licensed, skillset for a reasonable price.

and the traditional University projects. by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:12 · Score: 1

and the traditional University projects. likely are stuff that you will not see in the real work place and even then CS IS NOT IT!

Re:and the traditional University projects. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 09:09 · Score: 1

That's because CS is a field of study. IT is trade like plumbing, or carpentry.

4-year degree CS is not IT by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:14 · Score: 2

I have seen lot's of IT jobs (desktop / admin / network) that want a cs degree then CS is more on the high level theory side of things and is more for doing programming work.

Forgot to mention by tiffany352 · 2012-07-20 08:15 · Score: 1

CrashCourse, the wonderful Youtube channel offering a history and biology course hosted by John and Hank Green!

and then you need to stop passing over people with by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:18 · Score: 1

and then you need to stop passing over people without a degree and give them a interview.

Any ways saying windows 2008 class , windows 7 class, ECT is a lot better then IT degree at X school.

When are full Bachelors degrees coming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:36 · Score: 0

I have yet to see any major university offering a CS Bachelors degree online.

It is nice to see Universities putting up free classes, but when are they going to start putting up material to obtain a full Bachelors degree (free or pay)?

It's not Khan they are trying to catch.... by erp_consultant · 2012-07-20 08:38 · Score: 2

It is the notion that someone will come along and take what Khan has done and make it a real substitute for traditional in class learning. Khan has taken a very altruistic approach to learning. He believes that it should be free to anyone that wants it. American universities, especially private universities, are most definitely in it to make money. Yes, they want to educate people but make no mistake - they want to bring in as much cash as they can. Look no further than college sports for evidence of that. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but it's at odds with Khan's stated approach to education. What the universities really fear is someone coming along that has a profit mindset and improving what Khan has done to the extent that it becomes a compelling alternative to traditional in class education. And if that alternative all of a sudden gets widespread acceptance in the business community as a valid degree on par with the in class degree the universities will be in a world of hurt. That's why they are all jumping into the online realm. They need to have some kind of offering out there just in case. Just as an aside, I have been working in the IT field for a long time and the best programmer I ever worked with had an English degree. The next best had a math degree. The next best didn't have any degree at all - completely self taught. I'm not saying that a CompSci degree is worthless but I have worked with an awful lot of people without one that were every bit as good as people with one. As more people with online degrees get into management I think you'll see the acceptance online degrees continue to grow.

Re:It's not Khan they are trying to catch.... by brillow · 2012-07-20 10:13 · Score: 1

Yeah, they are really gonna get rich with these free online courses. Courses taken by people they wouldn't accept as students even if they could afford it.
The reason the universities are doing it is because it raises their profile. Suddenly everyone who takes a course from MIT might think "hey we should give MIT more money, I'm gonna think about that when I vote."
This is not about money per se, its about marketing. A university's sports team is it's marketing division. Oregon is the best example. They have a sports apparel program paid for by the Nike guy. They then design apparel that their football players model on national TV. It's Nike apparel. Nike then hires this talent, the college gets name recognition in the field of apparel design, and Nike has tons of free advertising. It's a perfectly closed loop and everyone wins.
Re:It's not Khan they are trying to catch.... by erp_consultant · 2012-07-20 11:25 · Score: 1

"hey we should give MIT more money, I'm gonna think about that when I vote." - So MIT gets more money. My point exactly. "This is not about money per se, its about marketing" - And why do you think they market anything? To make money. People see Nike stuff on tv...people buy Nike stuff...Nike makes money. "It's a perfectly closed loop and everyone wins." - Well, a lot of people win. All except for the student athlete that doesn't get drafted into the NFL. Sure, they get an education...sort of. They spend more time practicing football and studying playbooks and watching film than learning much in the classroom. Those guys leave university with a piece of paper, not a lot of marketable skills in the job market, and a bum knee.

Finish Him! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:39 · Score: 0

Isn't this the last guy in Mortal Kombat?

well the old formal education system is not good f by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:40 · Score: 1

well the old formal education system is not good for IT and it's time for them to look at new ideas and non formal class settings.

so just buy a degree then? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 08:48 · Score: 0

life skills degree what the difference you are just useing it to get to a real person and why should some with a underwater basket weaving degree get a pass over some with no degree and lot's of real work skills

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 08:51 · Score: 1

IT requires a technical degree generally, not a four-year education. I don't see how it applies in this context.

college for all and the one size fit's all ideas = by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 08:57 · Score: 2

college for all and the one size fit's all ideas = what we are seeing today in Universities.

Yes do need some post high school learning but we are going about it in not the right way.

Not all people are cut out for college and not all courses plans / classes are at the college level and other stuff is just fluff and filler.

Get rid of the fluff and filler by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:00 · Score: 1

Why does art history or hobby craft stuff at the universities level? Why do some schools still have required PE classes and swim tests?

Re:Get rid of the fluff and filler by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 09:44 · Score: 1

I'm sorry the education system has failed you. It sounds, however, like you didn't really want an education. it sounds like you wanted a job.
There should be more tech schools and apprenticeships.
That there aren't doesn't mean we should turn universities into just another certification (not that we haven't gone far in that direction already) issuer.
I agree that there is a lot of "filler". I actually found grad school much easier than undergrad as all the classes were about things I was interested in and would help me in my career (ha! worked in the field for 2 years and the last 15 doing something completely different) so I was more studious. I was also a few years older, so that may have something to do with it. At the time, I know I grumbled about some of the classes I had to take in undergrad. In the end, though, I got what I paid for...an education.
Getting a job was on me.

there should be a GED for universities then by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:08 · Score: 1

there should be a GED for universities then.

But a drivers has a road test part to it and a test based on real driving.

But the minimum standards for say IT should be about doing the job and CS does not prove that but other IT classes do.

that is what continuing education by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:12 · Score: 1

that is what continuing education is for so you take that windows 7 / windows 2008 class. And that can be done quicker and cheap then getting an degree.

Any ways what is better focused continuing education or 2 more years taking a full load of degree classes.

Re:that is what continuing education by dgatwood · 2012-07-20 09:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

that is what continuing education is for...
Which in practice never actually happens. Sure, if you've just gotten laid off, continuing ed classes might be a way to become employable again, but for the most part, while you're working, you're working. You aren't going back to school constantly, and apart from the things you have to learn to keep your job, you're probably not taking classes on the side to make yourself a better candidate for a position at another company. This means that you're less mobile, and therefore are likely to get paid less for working longer hours, because they know they don't have to pay you more money to retain you as an employee.

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Re:that is what continuing education by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 11:07 · Score: 0

The two more years is worth it. I have yet to hear anybody that went to a good school complaining about it for any reason other than cost. It's usually people who went to a bad school or who were too lazy to take those classes seriously.
I've changed fields several times since I graduated and I would never have been able to do so had I not had those extra classes. There's a reason why flexibility tends to wane as people progress towards Masters and Doctorates, they get increasingly narrowly focused and don't have time to examine the same knowledge from other perspectives.
Continuing education really only works if you're educated to begin with. If you want training, don't expect to also be educated unless you're doing a ton of work on that yourself.
Re:that is what continuing education by uncqual · 2012-07-25 01:47 · Score: 1

If one has learned to learn and is interested in what they are doing, they probably shouldn't want to waste time in a class on Windows 7 / Windows 2008 if they were already working with Win7/Win2008 predecessors. Yes, they might buy a book or access some other resource and skim them to figure out where to deep dive before encountering an issue in the area but that should be about all that's needed. Presumably by the time someone needs to "get trained" in something like Win7/Win2008, they have long since been playing with betas and have learned much of what a class would have wasted their time with.

Of course, if someone is in a stupid "how many certifications do you have?" environment, they may want to take a class aimed at passing the cert tests. But, maybe that time would be better spent finding an environment that was more obsessed with actual job performance than with the ability to pass certification tests?

In a fantasy world, one would like to believe that "getting an degree" also involves "learning how to learn". Admittedly, in many cases this probably isn't true.

However in my life, I've noticed that those who had formal four year degrees or better were, on the average, better at picking up new stuff w/o formal additional training. I suspect this correlation is more the result of people who like to learn and are able to tending to get more advanced degrees than the inverse (that getting degrees actually substantially improves the ability to learn and pick up new stuff). But, as a hiring manager, I need some filter and it is so rare to find someone who's been working less than 20 years who is a star and doesn't have a formal degree that I don't mind missing a diamond in the rough every five years because I glance at the "Education" section on a unsolicited resume and downgrade it quickly.

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Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:14 · Score: 1

But lot's of IT jobs want a four-year education and passover people with real skills or people who took classes that don't fall into a 4 year four-year education system.

The four-year education comes with a LOT of filler that is not needed.

are 2-3 year core only degrees a good way to go? by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:18 · Score: 1

are 2-3 year core only degrees a good way to go?

The old ideas of being well rounded is moving to the nice to have part and why should you pay $20,000+ a year to lean art history and music when you don't want to get into them but are forced to take classes to just to fill credits?

Universities do it for the wrong reasons by sam_handelman · 2012-07-20 09:22 · Score: 1

There are a lot of reasons to be physically present at a "brick and mortar" university with an instsructor in the room with you.

To the extent that universities want to break from this model, it isn't about education at all. It isn't even about making an education cheaper; it's about extracting money from suckers.

So, good for Khan Academy for doing what they're doing and giving it away for free. All the bottom feeders (including Bill Gates) who want to charge money for this stuff have nothing useful to offer and are just trying to game the system in one or another way for a buck.

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The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 09:29 · Score: 1

There's no accounting for bad hiring practices. We can imagine a hundred scenarios where employers do stupid things. I'm merely talking about employer's acting reasonably. A four-year degree is generally overkill for IT. Employers who fail to realize that are the ones at fault, not the candidates or the program they went through.

The real point to the online expience. by Charcharodon · 2012-07-20 09:46 · Score: 1

I think Khan summed it up best during one of his talks on what education was supposed to be and where he was going with his academy.

He talked about some of his great teachers in the past and some of the historical greats like Isaac Newton, what if they had made videos? A one time effort and it would affect generations far into the future by giving them access to these poeple.

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Joe_Dragon · 2012-07-20 09:47 · Score: 1

It's not just IT I have seen broadcast and media jobs wanting them as well and you have Digital Media Academys that tech the needed skills and have lot's more hands on work then the older colleges.

Yes I have seen a a master control (TV) job wanting a four-year degree in communications. Now what does communications in college is about studies integrates aspects of both social sciences and the humanities.

Social sciences and the humanities don't help you run the tech side of master control but the classes at Digital Media Academy likely put in a real master control room and it not like there is 0 Social sciences and the humanities at a tech school

Also it comes to Animation and Graphic Design jobs that also want four-year degrees what does the history of art help you in using industry-standard hardware and software and producing a wide range of polished designs, from advertisements to package designs to websites and user interfaces.

designs to websites and user interfaces is very much on the tech side of things.

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Anubis+IV · 2012-07-20 09:55 · Score: 1

It sounds like this is an entirely unrelated issue pertaining to unrealistic ideas of what skills are required of candidates. Even in jobs that legitimately ask candidates to have a four-year degree in Computer Science, you still run into unrealistic requirements, such as having 10 years experience in a language that has only been around for 7, or asking that the candidate be an expert in dozens of languages, only a few of which they will ever actually use.

That's a separate issue, and while I do agree it's a problem, I don't see the pertinence, nor am I interested in discussing it further. Sorry.

Missing the point by wisnoskij · 2012-07-20 10:04 · Score: 1

Free online course material is not supposed to be a competitive market.
And I doubt that the people at MIT are really coming up with strategies to crush their "competition".

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.

Re:are 2-3 year core only degrees a good way to go by brillow · 2012-07-20 10:17 · Score: 1

The problem is that most of today's fields of work are hard enough that the easy stuff has been done. We don't need biologists who know biology. We need biologists who know philosophy. We need ecologists who know physics. We need geneticists who know algorithms.

If you wanna skip art history fine, but the guy next to you who did take it just might have learned something that gives him an edge.

Steve Jobs took a lot of his inspiration from caligraphy crissakes.

Being well-rounded is more important than it EVER HAS BEEN. The interesting things are at the intersections between disciplines. If you want a "core-curriculum" education, go to a vocational school. Universities are NOT HERE to train you for a job. They are here to train you to think.

Intuition by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 10:39 · Score: 0

Intuitively, I gave up oin Khan when he toadied up to Mister Softie.

You've got to be kidding me!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 10:53 · Score: 0

If you think using a free resource demonstrates value then w3schools.com is what everyone has catch. According to Alexa.com their traffic is 40 times greater than Khan Academy. In fact, w3schools.com has more traffic than khanacademy.com, codeacademy.com, udacity.com, coursera.com, and udemy.com combined.

Let's get real people. This is just dumb.

Khan needs better computer science by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 10:55 · Score: 0

Khan needs better computer science courses. Their current selection is a joke.

Re:Khan needs better computer science by ceoyoyo · 2012-07-20 12:25 · Score: 1

Khan's selection of just about everything is at around a high school level. It's a great general introduction for people new to a subject who can stand the online video medium, but it's not going to replace any university courses anytime soon.

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 11:18 · Score: 0

What's your problem? The problem isn't the schools the problem is that you're anti-intellectual. There are no filler classes in a four year degree unless you choose to take them. Every school I've ever been to permitted me to fill those requirements in multiple ways, the smart folks went to their advisers and chose things that would be in some way useful in the future. More likely, what happens is that people are too obstinate to recognize what an opportunity those courses are. _Any_ course can be a filler course if you're not taking them seriously. Those interdisciplinary courses that you're bitching about are the ones that ultimately determine whether or not you're educated.

Being trained is fine, but don't pretend like a technical certification is as good as a degree as it's not.

Only Post-Scarcity Princeton can? :-) by Paul+Fernhout · 2012-07-20 12:16 · Score: 2

http://www.post-scarcity-princeton.com/
From the essay I wrote four years ago: "... We are witnessing a historic end to scarcity of many things (maybe not all, but enough to be a new global Renaissance). But is Princeton University helping prepare either students or the rest of society for these changes? Or is it instead an institution under stress, crashing into these trends instead of moving with them? Or is it perhaps conflicted in how it sees itself and its future, and so trying to do both these conflicting approaches at once? ... Capitalism is often it seems all about cost cutting. Why do people have such a hard time thinking about what happens as costs approach zero, even for improvements in quality? Or why do economists have a hard time understanding that many conventional economic equations may produce infinities as costs trend towards zero? ... Here is one approach to "reboot" Princeton for a post-scarcity world. This is just an example. No doubt the creative minds on campus can come up with better proposals once they turn their attention to the matter. Should these be followed, it's a lot more likely I might encourage my own child to apply in a dozen years or so. ..."

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A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.

3200? by zmooc · 2012-07-20 12:18 · Score: 1

3200? That's nothing! http://www.youtube.com/user/nptelhrd has 9935 technical lectures from all seven Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

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0x or or snor perron?!

Re:well the old formal education system is not goo by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 13:13 · Score: 0

Right and that's a completely different issue. The practice ought to be illegal as it has a tendency to discriminate against applicants that don't know that they don't really need those requirements to apply. If they're asking for a BS, an AS is probably fine, if they want an MS a BS is probably fine and if they want 10 years 2.5 is probably fine. With 5 years you probably don't need more than a year of experience.

Why employers are permitted to publish fraudulent ads is beyond me. But it keeps the most useless people employed in HR, which is I guess something.

Truth about open drivers... (insider info) by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 13:58 · Score: 0

I'm posting anonymous because I'm not sure if I'm breaking NDA. I don't care about karma.
I had the opportunity to develop drivers and work for platforms where the hardware is exposed, Nvidia, ATI, Wii and PowerVR.
The truth is, such cards are pretty much a mess and the hardware interfaces are quite complex, because the hardware is designed around the drivers, and the drivers are designed around the APIs. At many points, it's amazing how drivers make up missing functionality in the hardware. The opposite is also truth, the hardware is designed to operate much faster if the drivers send the data in a certain, specific way, (than even with the full hardware register set published it's impossible to know)
This is why opensource drivers usually suck compared to the commercial ones and i don't see much hope of it changing. I many times read the noveau source code and compare it to actual driver code (or fully docummented hardware) and it's pretty fun how so much of it is guesswork and how little changes could boost the performance enormously
. If nvidia, for example, was more open they could easily give a hand to the noveau team without compromising trade secrets, but that would definitely expose their band-aided hardware hacks and quirks, so I guess that's why they remain silent

Re:are 2-3 year core only degrees a good way to go by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-20 16:40 · Score: 0

We don't need biologists who know biology.

That is precisely what we need. They don't need to know philosophy, they need to be good at their jobs!

There is no money in free by WOOFYGOOFY · 2012-07-20 17:36 · Score: 1

There is no money in free except to sell it to advertisers who are effectively gamblers.

There' is money in low-cost if you keep your overhead low enough however. The established educational players have fought this for years b.c their overhead is non-negotiable and built into their business model. I know, I tried pre -year 2000 to get a university to offer its courses online and paid the price for my foolishness. They'll resist this to the death not because it's undoable or a bad idea, but because it's the end of everything they have.

The way all this is going to shake down is as follows: new players will create the courses and other new players will assemble an accreditation system that involves people's identities and establishing the veracity of their academic achievement. The universities seeing the writing on the wall will be late and very reluctant players to the game, offering up shit like a "Harvard Online Degree" say, representing some sort of lesser degree than the "real thing" .. that sort of crap. Anything else forces them to cannibalize their base offering, which they can't do.

In the end , really good people will come out of the independent virtual university system and that will be when it all comes tumbling down for the universities. University ratings are effectively a battle for bright minds, since universities don't actually know how to create smart people, but rather succeed by culling smart people from the general population, then claiming them as their own, as their alumni.

When that's gone, when that starts to crack, they're fucked.

Tuition is a bubble, as is student loan debt. It's a price divorced from any kind of underlying reality of the buyer's ability to pay or even benefit bestowed . New entrants in education will mercilessly leverage the holy fuck out of this basic economic fact while the established universities sit on the sidelines diddling their clits and blaming all their woes on tenure. .

Low cost , virtually free education combined with independent proof of student identity and achievement combined with the inability of universities to move in the same direction and remain solvent will, in the end, force universities to turn to the Feds for their continued existence. Their argument will be "our labs, our basic research is something our nation can't be without" , and they'll be right.

At that point a new deal will be struck- free universal education in exchange for higher taxes and continued existence of universities. That will lead to more culture war since conservatives see universities as the Great Satan of Liberalism and are sure as shit not going to pay taxes to keep them going.

Finally, just at this time, this issue will crash head on with global warming as the reality of what the universities foretold becomes indisputable

At this time, the country will have a choice to make- we can do what every other nation does and publicly fund the universities and their essential work or we can lose that function entirely. Either we consciously and publicly acknowledge that

1) supporting science and teaching reality based thinking is a basic necessity like food clothing and shelter and lifelong education a basic right and in fact duty of citizens and

2) continued technological and social progress are the primary and proper functions of society

or we cease to be able to pretend that we're world leaders, opting to devolve into a religio-based backwater , a fundamentalist Conservistan whose bright people have left or are leaving and whose best days are long behind it.

Science will inevitably be proved to have spoken the prophetic truth about what people will realize is the greatest threat to human civilization ever, global warming and the regressive, reality denying conservative movement will wither away faster than a river birch in a drought.

America will finally be of a mind to once and for all reject the dark s

I hope they won't try by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 00:04 · Score: 0

Am I the only one who finds Khan's teaching style boring and superficial? He doesn't incite you to think mathematically. The pace is extremely slow. In videos it shouldn't be necessary to slow everything down, because you can always rewind, or pause to digest, or read up on something and come back. Maybe he's popular because he's good at making people think they understand, but what do they really learn?

Who said anything about competing? by just+another+AC · 2012-07-21 01:40 · Score: 1

The online uni brigade are trying to differentiate themselves with some kind of "qualification" at the end (a mostly worthless certificate at this stage).

Kahn academy is trying to educate purely for learning purposes (no recognition for knowledge gained).

Evidence that they can co-exist:
I recently enrolled in a Udacity course for fun. The pre-req learning list was a bunch of kahn videos
as opposed to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXNqEURmKtA&feature=related ... sorry couldn't resist that last bit

A Degree is Often an Intelligence Test by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 03:08 · Score: 0

From what I have seen the exact degree one has often does not matter in many jobs, but you have to have something. Now, there are surly fields like medicine or engineering where one had better have the correct degree, but oftentimes the degree is just an indication that an individual is smart and can work hard, or they wouldn't have made it through college. This is not to say at all that people without degrees are not smart or dedicated, but they have to prove it some other way.

This is the problem with Khan Academy and all other non-degree granting self-education. They may teach topics well, but employers will have to find another way to test for your skills and work ethic, and when there are 100 applicants for 1 job the easiest thing to do is to filter for only people with college degrees.

All this said, Khan Academy really shines as a supplement to regular coursework. I am currently in college and have many friends who credit Khan Academy more than their profs. for helping them pass some classes.

All education is a good thing by Khan · 2012-07-21 05:41 · Score: 1

Man...I step away from /. for a few months and return to a firefight. Listen up peeps...any and all form of education is important. Always keep in mind that people learn in different ways and that no single method of teaching is correct. Having attended a higher education institution, I can honestly say that there were times when something like this would have helped me immensely unlike the tenure dullard that was teaching the course. All of these institutions understand that they need to modify how they reach people interested in learning and obviously, their hope is to get you to come to THEIR institution.

Here in the US, we have done a wonderful job of rewarding the WRONG individuals and have not stressed education enough. Just take a look at the majority of TV shows lately...or sports figures. The number of these individuals that actually have an education and can speak intelligently is in the single digits. Not exactly the role models I want my children to look up to. Also, WAAAY too much continues to be placed on personal gain and wealth. So what if I have to stab you in the back, twist the knife, get out the machete and hack you to bits. At least *I* get ahead!...again, NOT the message I want my children to go out into the world thinking.

Education in all of its forms and methods are a Good Thing (tm). If the Khan Academy is the bar that everyone else has to measure up to, then so be it. It's a better alternative to the idiot box and another spin-off of CSI:Whateverthehell or Jersey Shore.

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"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash

Dover math books - the tortise is winning the race by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 07:46 · Score: 0

Dover is the stodgy old tortise who has been providing university-level math books for many decades at really cheap prices. Anyone can get educated using them. Khan is new, and flashy, but it's not like this was impossible before someone hyped it on the Internet.

Online learning resources by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-21 09:40 · Score: 0

Now you can fall asleep watching online lectures online, instead of attending them in person. Personally, I tend to nod off after about four minutes .. :)

The Open University by dgharmon · 2012-07-21 09:48 · Score: 1

The Open University has been available on television since at least 1969 and online at OpenLearn since 2006.

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AccountKiller

E-Prime by surd1618 · 2012-07-21 14:38 · Score: 1

On the other hand, does matter. I would chastize someone for using 'your' not because they misspelled a spoken contraction but for using 'are', a form of to be. Makes you much more prone to talking nonsense.

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