The Fun Academy

Six students explaining the world of online education.

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Build a school in the cloud

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A blog update

As the end of our blog draws near, we thought it would be helpful to summarize some of the key takeaways we hoped to accomplish over the past few months.

The first, and perhaps, most important aspect of our blog was explaining what exactly MOOCs and online education are all about. Online education allows people, regardless of their location, to take classes of any level or discipline, with nothing more than an Internet connection.

This new form of education, which can be used to gain formal degrees and diplomas, or just casually learn, is growing rapidly every day. Institutions like Harvard and Princeton have begun offering classes for credit online, making elite education accessible than ever before.

We then hoped to develop some of the innovative uses and methods of e-learning. One of the most groundbreaking uses of online learning has been developed by the Khan Academy. They have created online software that work in conjunction with traditional classrooms and have allowed teachers to track their students’ progress digitally. This allows educators to pinpoint where students are having difficulty and gives them the ability to focus on the individual needs of their students more effectively.

Other websites like Busuu, created by students of IE Business School, have allowed people to learn languages online through social communities. Utilizing technology has given people the ability to connect, not only to endless amount of information, but to people from across the globe. This allows people to interact and learn from each other on a level previously thought unimaginable.

The benefits of online education and MOOCs are also plenty. Innovative technologies have made education more accessible, substantially cheaper (if not complete free), and flexible than traditional practices.

Of course, there are also a number of limitations to online education innovations as they stand today. From the perceived legitimacy of MOOCs and online degrees to barriers related to computer literacy and access to internet. The inability to create, often necessary, hands-on experiences online, is another significant barrier to e-learning replacing traditional classrooms completely.

Finally, relating back to the overarching topic of our class and blog, we have to ask how this all relates to management. Managers have already begun using these innovative educational tools to train employees, while spending less money, requiring less time, and allowing more flexibility.

Online education has come a long way in recent years, and from what we have found, it is just the beginning!

Thanks for your reading our blog, we hoped you enjoyed it!

-TFA

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Limitations of Online Education

While our previous posts have described some of the innovative uses and countless benefits of online learning, it would be difficult to argue that e-learning does not have its fair share of issues. Below are three of the main challenges online education still has to overcome:

  1. Perhaps that most significant limitation of e-learning pertains to problems of accessibility. While research finds that nearly 2.5 billion people have internet access globally, that leaves over 4 billion without connections. Of course, without access to Internet, online education is out of question. Similarly, lack of access to technological resources, like computers, also limit potential users from utilizing the technology.

  This is a particularly important when we think about who this effects most. While a majority of the developed world now has access to the internet and computers, many in developing regions still do not. Those in developing countries are often the ones who lack access to traditional sources of education as well, often due to financial or geographical constraints (ie. living in rural areas). So, perhaps, online education is still unusable to those who need it most. While internet connections and technology are becoming more widespread across the globe, this remains a significant barrier of the system that we must work to overcome.

  2. Of course, for those who have access to the technology they must also be able to use it. Students and educators who wish to partake in the innovative practices of online require a minimum level of computer literacy in order to use the innovative tools effectively and successfully. While this may not be an issue for younger generations in most of the world who have grown up with computers, it can be a significant barrier for those from older generations or those who are not well acquainted with technology (again, perhaps those in developing regions where the technology has been introduced more recently).

  3. While some argue that online education will eventually take over the traditional classroom completely, the main rebuttal to this argument is that technology simply cannot replace all classroom experiences. For example, medical students who need to practices surgical procedures cannot do so sitting in their living room (and even if they could, would people really trust it?), or perhaps chemists who must mix chemicals in their laboratory. As it stands today, there is no way for e-learning or MOOC’s to provide the physical, hands-on experiences that some subjects require. Until technological innovations develop (and we’re sure someone is working on it this very moment) ways to overcome this, physical barriers will continue to limit the use of e-learning.

  Other limitations of e-learning commonly sited range from lack of socialization (particularly for younger children at crucial stages of development) to the unwillingness of people to change from the traditional education. While all of the limitations we have discussed are important, most advocates believe that with further innovation, these can be easily overcome. So while there may be significant barriers today, online education is developing quickly and will undoubtedly be the way of tomorrow. 

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MOOCs: Pro&Cons

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The Pursuit of Ignorance

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How I re-built my undergrad curriculum with Coursera

Coursera is a massively online open courses institution started in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, both from Stanford University. As of April 2013, Coursera has 70 top tier partner universitites, 3.2 million users and more than 100 university courses available for free on their website. The company is heavily VC-backed, with over 65 million dollars in funding coming from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) but also from the California Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania. Coursera provides the widest range of subjects from biology to economics, all provided by internationally recognized institutions including Yale, Princeton and Stanford (Harvard and MIT are obviously on their own platform, Edx). 

Coursera is now able to reach its students with 100+ full on top-tier university courses, through more than 70 worldwide partners giving the opportunity to obtain official recognition and credit for that course, for a price as small as 50$ per course.

With the current Coursera offering, I re-built the core curriculum of my undergraduate degree at Bocconi University. In the table below, you could see how the 7 those core-courses could be learnt online from the best professors at the best universities in the world, even giving you the choice to pick which one you like the most. The flexibility of this alternative education institutions allows the student to shape his degree on his passions and professional goals. Through one of the above systems, or even better a combination of those, I could easily get all my core knowledge in finance and economics, and adding up basics of computer science or graphic design.

- TFA

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“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

Frank Zappa

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It's always a good idea to repost this speech every now and then.

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E-education and the Third World

“A free world-class education for anyone anywhere” - Salman Khan

Approximately 260 million children in the developing world will drop of school before they complete their primary education.

This week investigate the application of educational technologies in the third world.

“There is no other investment that has the kind of social multiplier effect that early education has. It is an incredible thing to nurture and watch grow and spread.” - Shakira

Ed-tech solutions without a doubt break down barriers to information sharing around the globe. However this does not mean we can simply remove ourselves, as the human component, from the problem. 

What we see in third world countries is a need for “Nurture”, the ground-work to drive Ed-tech content to potential students.

This is the age-old marketing problem.

Just because you have a product/service doesn’t mean people are going to use it.

Access ≠  Usage

While 20% of homes in developing countries now have home access to internet -and 3G is also widely available, the real advancements in Ed-Tech are coming from organizations with an on ground presence.

The Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership (DCGEP) specifically focuses on the delivery of education through technological resources and video content. But, what sets this program apart in there on site teacher training and physical involvement with students.

Video: https://vimeo.com/74722821

Website: www.discoverylearningalliance.org

When partnered with hardware providers like the World Computer Exchange (WEC), Ed-Tech solutions like DCGEP can drastically alter a child’s trajectory, and that of their families.

Studies in third world countries have shown that with every additional year spent in school comes a 10% marginal increase in wages. There is also significant evidence to show that the benefits of Ed-tech solutions extend far beyond just students.

The Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF) extends it’s on ground presence beyond the classroom to provide community wide education. As a result YTF has seen substantial increases in labor productivity in their rural farming communities as a result of their Ed-Tech Initiatives. Additionally their studies show that educated parents are 50% more likely to immunize their children against deadly diseases.

As we can see, Ed-Tech is a fantastic advancement in the right direction, but it appears it is just part of a solution.

Putting a seed next to a glass of water won’t make it grow. But with daily nurture and exposure to the light that seed will become a plant that can feed an entire community!

- TFA

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Steps towards the next Babel

As we have seen through our last posts, there are so many things we can learn through internet nowadays. Not only is it possible to get official university certificates and degrees that can help us to shape our future. But we are now able to learn about almost any topic we may be keen on learning - from sports’ rules to cooking recipes and even, languages as well.

That is what we want to tackle this week, the possibility of learning languages online.

From my own experience, the web has been crucial in my learning of languages. I started using the internet to learn English many years ago. After that it helped me learn French, and now it has been a huge help through my last online learning challenge, learning Arabic, which I embarked on one year ago.

There is an increasing number of websites that offer the possibility of learning the languages we are interested in, even if we are starting from no prior knowledge. One of the main advantages of learning online is flexibility, and the possibility of adapting the learning process to our own speed and our own goals. We are the ones deciding how much time we are willing to spend and how far we want to get.

So far so good, but for an average user, the first steps into online language learning maybe overwhelming due to the huge number of options, whether smartphone applications or online communities intended for this purpose. The variety of programs go from completely free-of-charge, such as Duolingo, to more expensive options like the well known Rosetta Stone online option.

However, there are also offers that mix both concepts and enable users to access a great deal of its materials for free, and in case the student feels like going further, he can get more extended features through a premium account by paying a modest fee. It is the case of Busuu, an innovative entrepreneurial project started by IE Business School Alumni created recently, which aims to go beyond the normal online learning method, but rather, students are taught through an online  social community, allowing them to interact with each other, not only by chatting, but also by correcting exercises made by native speakers of the language you’re learning.

Regardless of the online method we may end up using, the most important thing about learning a new language, or anything else in life, is taking the first step, and the use of the internet makes this just a little bit easier. As the saying goes, where there is a will, there is a way.

Stay tuned!

-TFA

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Seems legit! Or not? Is online education ready to hand out full-time online degrees?

As we have discussed, online learning is undoubtedly changing the landscape of education; virtually unlimited information is accessible, cost barriers are being broken down, and location is often no longer an issue. University credits, even professional degrees, are now being granted without ever entering a traditional classroom. As online university degrees continue to gain popularity however, many are beginning to raise concerns about the validity of online degrees.

Was it just money for a piece of paper? Or did the degree actually offer knowledge and value? How does an online MBA compare to a “normal” MBA?

These questions are very difficult to answer. One of the best indicators however, to determine the legitimacy of an online degree, is the accreditation of the respective university.

The University of Phoenix, a well-known online university, offering both on- and off-campus education is one of the first suggestions that comes up when searching Google for “online university accreditation”.

Let’s take an example of business courses. The University of Phoenix offers a variety of business courses online. For this, they are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP®), an institution that also accredits the International School of Management (Paris), the University of Maastricht, the University of Indiana, and many more. As such, the University of Phoenix should be able to offer similar value for an online degree as the University of Maastricht does for a “conventional” one. 

However, a quick Google search shows that students, employers, and the general public seem to be very critical about online degrees at the University of Phoenix. The Internet is full of complaints from former students saying that their degrees feel worthless and have not led to employment.  This may largely be due to the reputation that the school is said to be accepting everyone who applies and essentially is giving out degrees in exchange for money.  This, unfortunately, is a common assumption of many when it comes to online universities.

So how is it possible that Harvard, Yale or IE Business School offer online courses, while the public criticizes online courses at other schools?

There are a few factors to take into account. First, most of these schools do not offer full degrees online; so far, they only offer a few courses to supplement their ‘normal’ degrees.

Still, even if they were to offer entire degrees online, these institutions were known to be the very best in their fields, prior to starting online courses, changing public perception drastically. 

It is clear that online education has already begun to revolutionize the education system as we know it. However, it is also evident that we need to establish new accreditation rules to create common standards among all online institutions.

Once we can accomplish this, it won’t be too long before the reputation and legitimacy of online degrees is on par with those being earned within the traditional classroom.

  -TFA

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Sir Richard Branson on Education and Entrepreneurship

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"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune."

Jim Rohn

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Two birds—one paycheck

  No one is as happy for the growing trend of online education as managers from different companies. Now the option of getting staff trained, while still being productive, is the promise of a better future that the industry has been hoping for.

While some argue that nothing can compensate for the commitment of going to class, having forced attendance, and face-to-face education, the world’s most elite universities are begging to differ. Schools like Harvard, IE Business School and Yale have taken education to a new level, one that is significantly cheaper. 

The world’s most elite universities are starting to offer online education courses, for a small fee, if not completely free. This has had a huge impact on companies that previously had to pick their most productive and promising employees to be sent on educational courses while the rest of the staff got left behind. Now companies do not need to pick as all staff can undergo the same training course right from their offices.

This is significant, as it not only provides a sense of unity between staff but also on the company’s finances. On one hand you haven’t paid thousands for courses, accommodation, and living expenses, yet you’ve still gained a vast amount of knowledge, as well as happier and more motivated staff.  Though the most important point is yet to come; production does not need to be halted for the sake of training. Staff can work/study at times that are more convenient for them, and because online education is so flexible, they can study one topic longer than the other, study multiple times or come back and forth between topics, all while still working.

The solution to many of the harsh numbers on company income statements can be solved with online-education. Invest time in searching for the right course and you’ve already taken the company three steps ahead of all of those still using traditional education means. 

- TFA

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Free education for all: Khan Academy explained.

One of the most famous, if not the most famous, educational websites in the world is undoubtedly that of the Khan Academy. The non-profit website created in 2006 by former hedge-fund manager, Salman Khan, has succeeded in seamlessly utilizing modern technology with, quite literally, old-school concepts.

It all began in 2004 when Khan began posting videos of math tutorials for his cousins using a simple Yahoo Doodle pad on Youtube. Immediately, Khan began receiving positive feedback not only his cousins, but from people all around the world who praised the ease at which Khan’s teaching style helped them grasp concepts.

It was then that Khan began creating more videos, expanding beyond the realm of mathematics and to serve all ages groups and educational levels. Today, less than 10 years later, the Khan Academy has grown far beyond what Khan could have ever imagined. With over 3000 lectures, all of which continue to be delivered by Khan himself and range from chemistry to art history to finance, the easy-to-use website has delivered over 300 million lessons. Lectures can even be translated in to 25 languages; an astonishing feat for a school that started in Khan’s living room. While Khan Academy is funded completely on donations, the website now has almost 90 employees and continues to grow quickly.

Virtually anyone, with a few clicks of a button, can look up any subject, on almost any level and delve into this innovative form of education. The website can easily be used by just about anyone, whether they want to learn a new topic, are reviewing an old one, or just curious about Khan’s methods, the easy-to-use interface welcomes all.

Khan’s newest venture with the Academy has, in many ways, brought the world of online learning full-circle and back into conventional classrooms. Today, school districts have begun using the Academy’s website and lectures as a teaching tools in the classroom. Foregoing the conventional method of the teacher giving lessons at school, students are now instructed to watch Khan’s lecture at home, while homework will be done at school with the support of the teacher. In addition to allowing the teacher to spend more time attending to children individually, using Khan Academy’s technology, students’ progress can easily be tracked (and compared) online.

With the support of people like Bill Gates, and funding from companies like Google, it is no surprise that more school boards are beginning to turn to Khan Academy to revolutionize the traditional classroom. With that said, aside from being used in conjugation with schools, the website promotes that it’s main purpose is to provide “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere”, and exactly that it has done.  

See the video below for more information on Khan, how the Academy began, and where it’s headed!

-TFA

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Salman Khan speech at TED: 'Let's use video to reinvent education'.

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Online education: Is the next Harvard going to be on our laptops?

Online education is officially a thing—a very big thing. While the advent of online education, or e-learning, dates back to the early days of the internet in the 1990’s, it wasn’t until the launch of some of the industry’s big players—Coursera, Edx, and Khan Academy—that the entire way we have thought about education for centuries has been revolutionized.

The idea of online education, if at all comprehendible, would have seemed like something out of a sci-fi novel as little as a few decades ago. Today, the industry is changing quicker than ever and goes far beyond the conventional classroom. Access to information, educators, and materials  has changed the way we learn. With as little as an internet connection, something over 2 billion around the world have today, we can have more information than we could have ever imagined in a few short seconds.

Currently, over 10 million people, a number that is rapidly growing every day, use the internet to partake in high and college courses. Some are even earning colleges credits at some of the world’s most elite institutions—Princeton, Yale, and Harvard—for as little as one hundredth of the price. Such establishments, which were once highly exclusive and inaccessible to most, have now opened their doors, or perhaps online ‘windows’ to almost everyone with an internet connection.

This, perhaps, is the most amazing thing about online education. Long-standing barriers to education, which have plagued society since almost as far back as it has existed, are quickly being stripped away.

With that said, the rise in online education does not necessarily mean the death of ‘real’ campuses are inevitable, rather, these new systems can also be used a supplementary tool within traditional education practices as well.

The true scale of this phenomenon can be realized by looking at some of the key players in the industry. For example, Coursera, one of the leading companies offering massive open online courses (MOOCs), has just secured another $43 million US dollars in funding, bringing their funding total to a staggering $65 million in just over a year.

Investments like this are evidence that online education is more than just a fad and isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

While ventures like Coursera are doing it to make big money, non-profits like the Khan Academy are doing it to change the world. How exactly they will change the world and the way future generation learns remains to be seen, but it is sure to be a fascinating ride.

Stay tuned to learn more.

-TFA