This is the state of the art in free on-line education.
I have not heard a more comprehensive and compelling overview of the future of education. What happens when 100,000 students enrol in a course? For free? And can receive certificates from a top university?
SteveThis video at TED : daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html
...What's suddenly possible was demonstrated by three big Stanford classes, each of which had an enrollment of 100,000 people or more........ So we formed Coursera, whose goal is to take the best courses from the best instructors at the best universities and provide it to everyone around the world for free. We currently have 43 courses on the platform....because there were so many students, it means that even if a student posed a question at 3 o'clock in the morning,somewhere around the world, there would be somebody who was awake and working on the same problem. And so, in many of our courses, the median response time for a question on the question and answer forum was 22 minutes. Which is not a level of service I have ever offered to my Stanford students.... So in a lecture-based class, half the students are above that level and half are below. In the individual tutoring instruction, 98 percent of the students are going to be above that threshold. Imagine if we could teach so that 98 percent of our students would be above average. Hence, the 2 sigma problem....So to summarize, if we could offer a top quality education to everyone around the world for free, what would that do? Three things. First it would establish education as a fundamental human right, where anyone around the world with the ability and the motivation could get the skills that they need to make a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.Second, it would enable lifelong learning. It's a shame that for so many people, learning stops when we finish high school or when we finish college. By having this amazing content be available, we would be able to learn something new every time we wanted, whether it's just to expand our minds or it's to change our lives.And finally, this would enable a wave of innovation, because amazing talent can be found anywhere. Maybe the next Albert Einstein or the next Steve Jobs is living somewhere in a remote village in Africa. And if we could offer that person an education, they would be able to come up with the next big idea and make the world a better place for all of us.Daphne's BIO: http://www.ted.com/speakers/daphne_koller.html
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Hurry, dream big and find your places, the future of education is here.
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