Dat Free Education [Career]
Living in Jeddah, where everything is just so difficult to do, always meant that, outside of work, you have two choices for activity: 1) Go to underground parties or gatherings or workshops, or 2) Stay at home and watch TV shows or have a relationship with the internet. Of course, if you don't know the right people, you really only have Choice #2. You and the internet probably already have many children.
Me, I enjoyed both options in equal amounts.
ACCIDENTALLY INSPIRED
In 2011, I just got bored of it all, so much that I discovered I bored myself. I suddenly fancied going back to school. I missed the exhilaration of projects, assignments, professors, goals and beer-induced pseudo-intellectual discussions. University life was so enchanting like that, the ultimate period of youth and stupidity cocooned in academia.
But more than that, what I really missed was sharpened talent and skill, both of which I severely lacked. It's so easy to be stagnated in Jeddah because of all the restrictions and the fear of restriction, and I was paralyzed under it. I couldn't afford (and strongly didn't desire) an under-challenging Bachelor's or Master's Degree in any one of the universities and colleges we had, and besides, they didn't offer what I needed (wanted?) at the time - state-of-the-art, blow-your-brains-out writing courses.
Now, studying writing is tricky. It revolves mostly around the shattering of fears, on pushing the envelope, on trying new things, on standing everything on its head - everything that was the opposite of Jeddah's culture. No way in hell anyone would disturb the peace of the delicate cultural fabric with this... this public invitation to sin.
And then I met free online education.
OBSTACKLES
There is a wealth of free courses floating online, discredited by the spam messages we receive on a regular basis. Look hard enough, though - click enough links - and you will find the right one.
I went to crazy town with websites like Open Culture (a resource for free educational media), MIT OpenCourseWare (education giant Massachusetts Institute of Technology's initiative to share their course materials online for free), Coursera (a partner of Stanford University that offers courses from other top universities for free) and the sleek Udacity (free computer science courses offered by industry experts, including its head honcho Sebastian Thrun, the Google VP responsible for the driverless car).
These massive online open courses, or MOOCs, involve hundreds of thousands of students studying a free structured course that usually has downloadable course material and a relatively flexible timetable for assignments.
It was infinitely more than I had imagined. I took courses left and right - I learned the basics of web development (nothing wild, just your old HTML/5 and CSS) to help me understand blogging more, I took some refresher Journalism courses (some I'd already taken in university) and I even dabbled in Psychology.
I enjoyed being spoilt for choice on what courses to take, with set structures and lesson plans, plus the fact that probably the only expense I threw at it was my monthly 200-riyal broadband internet bill.
MOOCs are not without issues, of course, as seen in this infographic. Nothing is ever handed to us on a silver platter; it's just human nature to constantly be unfortunate.
BUT DOES IT WORK?
Still, in a feature I recently read on Fast Company (my new favorite publication, I'm so obsessed), Sebastian Thrun talks about how MOOCs are changing the way we are moving forward in education - an obvious factor of which is open and free access to anyone and everyone in the world who has an internet connection.
Add to this the freedom to choose what course you want to study, paving the way for an education model that focuses more on developing professional skills, rather than the traditional way of hoarding chunks of knowledge that will most likely be of no use to you. (Remember complaining about having to study algebra when it would so obviously not help with our future? Guys, we were right, at least in my case. Algebra has no place in my life right now.)
So what is stopping you from acquiring knowledge? Money? Culture? Geography? Lack of time? Jeddah? Nothing. Nothing is stopping you now. You have internet connection, you speak English and you can make time, the same way you make time to stalk people on Facebook and Twitter. The question really is how badly you want education.
That's something that Thrun is contemplating now - whether the fact that MOOCs are free is actually the reason why it's not quite living up to its full potential. Because the truth is, a free online course is really only beneficial to the person who FINISHES it, sees the course through to its end.
Thrun started Udacity with a noble vision - to provide Ivy League calibre education to those who can't afford it, whose circumstances may not allow them to get it. But this "failure", this very small amount of people among hundreds of thousands getting to the finish line, is so disappointing that we might well see these Udacity courses charging students starting 2014.
But would a paying student really finish a course?
Perhaps the problem is that MOOCs' target audience are those people who need quality education the most (and who at the very least can afford internet access), and yet, the people benefitting from them are the ones who have already had some form of quality education, at least in the sense that they are skilled enough to manage their time, hunt for resources, persevere and squeeze all they possibly can from these courses.
The skilled are only getting more skillful, and the unskilled are left at the curb. Again.
ARE YOU NOT INTO TRAINS?
I say WHY NOT. I say why the hell not. Doesn't the world belong to those who not only sharpen their skills, but also find ways to own that sharpener? Don't their existence and success serve as inspiration enough to others?
Has the playing field not been leveled enough? Which side of the fence are you on?
---
Very recently, I joined iversity's Future of Storytelling course, a fantastic romp through the basics of the different genres of writing, with such assignments as watching videos, joining forums and collaborating on projects with people from literally around the world. All of this happened in my living room, and usually after a 12-hour work day (I work in publishing, it gets hectic).
Aside from enjoying the course, I use whatever I learned at work. I see absolutely nothing wrong with being a professional and continuing to study. In fact, I can only see good things about it. It's additional training, another step towards excellence, something that companies and organizations should encourage.
We're (very, very slowly) getting over the whole college-degree-required mentality, with skills and experience trumping a piece of paper in many creative industries. MOOCs are one of the many answers to the development of these qualifications. Are we not seeing this?
Me, I enjoyed both options in equal amounts.
ACCIDENTALLY INSPIRED
In 2011, I just got bored of it all, so much that I discovered I bored myself. I suddenly fancied going back to school. I missed the exhilaration of projects, assignments, professors, goals and beer-induced pseudo-intellectual discussions. University life was so enchanting like that, the ultimate period of youth and stupidity cocooned in academia.
But more than that, what I really missed was sharpened talent and skill, both of which I severely lacked. It's so easy to be stagnated in Jeddah because of all the restrictions and the fear of restriction, and I was paralyzed under it. I couldn't afford (and strongly didn't desire) an under-challenging Bachelor's or Master's Degree in any one of the universities and colleges we had, and besides, they didn't offer what I needed (wanted?) at the time - state-of-the-art, blow-your-brains-out writing courses.
Now, studying writing is tricky. It revolves mostly around the shattering of fears, on pushing the envelope, on trying new things, on standing everything on its head - everything that was the opposite of Jeddah's culture. No way in hell anyone would disturb the peace of the delicate cultural fabric with this... this public invitation to sin.
And then I met free online education.
OBSTACKLES
There is a wealth of free courses floating online, discredited by the spam messages we receive on a regular basis. Look hard enough, though - click enough links - and you will find the right one.
I went to crazy town with websites like Open Culture (a resource for free educational media), MIT OpenCourseWare (education giant Massachusetts Institute of Technology's initiative to share their course materials online for free), Coursera (a partner of Stanford University that offers courses from other top universities for free) and the sleek Udacity (free computer science courses offered by industry experts, including its head honcho Sebastian Thrun, the Google VP responsible for the driverless car).
These massive online open courses, or MOOCs, involve hundreds of thousands of students studying a free structured course that usually has downloadable course material and a relatively flexible timetable for assignments.
It was infinitely more than I had imagined. I took courses left and right - I learned the basics of web development (nothing wild, just your old HTML/5 and CSS) to help me understand blogging more, I took some refresher Journalism courses (some I'd already taken in university) and I even dabbled in Psychology.
I enjoyed being spoilt for choice on what courses to take, with set structures and lesson plans, plus the fact that probably the only expense I threw at it was my monthly 200-riyal broadband internet bill.
MOOCs are not without issues, of course, as seen in this infographic. Nothing is ever handed to us on a silver platter; it's just human nature to constantly be unfortunate.
 |
| Source: David Hopkins |
BUT DOES IT WORK?
Still, in a feature I recently read on Fast Company (my new favorite publication, I'm so obsessed), Sebastian Thrun talks about how MOOCs are changing the way we are moving forward in education - an obvious factor of which is open and free access to anyone and everyone in the world who has an internet connection.
Add to this the freedom to choose what course you want to study, paving the way for an education model that focuses more on developing professional skills, rather than the traditional way of hoarding chunks of knowledge that will most likely be of no use to you. (Remember complaining about having to study algebra when it would so obviously not help with our future? Guys, we were right, at least in my case. Algebra has no place in my life right now.)
So what is stopping you from acquiring knowledge? Money? Culture? Geography? Lack of time? Jeddah? Nothing. Nothing is stopping you now. You have internet connection, you speak English and you can make time, the same way you make time to stalk people on Facebook and Twitter. The question really is how badly you want education.
That's something that Thrun is contemplating now - whether the fact that MOOCs are free is actually the reason why it's not quite living up to its full potential. Because the truth is, a free online course is really only beneficial to the person who FINISHES it, sees the course through to its end.
Thrun started Udacity with a noble vision - to provide Ivy League calibre education to those who can't afford it, whose circumstances may not allow them to get it. But this "failure", this very small amount of people among hundreds of thousands getting to the finish line, is so disappointing that we might well see these Udacity courses charging students starting 2014.
But would a paying student really finish a course?
 |
| Add water to enlarge image |
Perhaps the problem is that MOOCs' target audience are those people who need quality education the most (and who at the very least can afford internet access), and yet, the people benefitting from them are the ones who have already had some form of quality education, at least in the sense that they are skilled enough to manage their time, hunt for resources, persevere and squeeze all they possibly can from these courses.
The skilled are only getting more skillful, and the unskilled are left at the curb. Again.
ARE YOU NOT INTO TRAINS?
I say WHY NOT. I say why the hell not. Doesn't the world belong to those who not only sharpen their skills, but also find ways to own that sharpener? Don't their existence and success serve as inspiration enough to others?
Has the playing field not been leveled enough? Which side of the fence are you on?
---
Very recently, I joined iversity's Future of Storytelling course, a fantastic romp through the basics of the different genres of writing, with such assignments as watching videos, joining forums and collaborating on projects with people from literally around the world. All of this happened in my living room, and usually after a 12-hour work day (I work in publishing, it gets hectic).
Aside from enjoying the course, I use whatever I learned at work. I see absolutely nothing wrong with being a professional and continuing to study. In fact, I can only see good things about it. It's additional training, another step towards excellence, something that companies and organizations should encourage.
We're (very, very slowly) getting over the whole college-degree-required mentality, with skills and experience trumping a piece of paper in many creative industries. MOOCs are one of the many answers to the development of these qualifications. Are we not seeing this?
I am guilty of starting too many courses and then not lasting for more than 3-4 weeks.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that gets everyone excited is the fact that it is on the internet, which we all love so much. But then find out that it's the traditional way of teaching, except on a screen. A talking face on the screen with a hand writing on a virtual "blackboard" is not enough to capture my attention.
Blackboards were boring in the real classroom, and online, they are even worse. Simple screen captures and screencasts are not enough to get us going. I also find the videos to be too long and sparse. All hail the "1.5x" button.
Our attention spans are getting shorter by the day. We are getting used to reading stories in 140 characters and watching 15 second videos.
The main problem is many educators are taking the old classroom format and trying to force it into a new paradigm without adapting to it.
Of course, all the benefits that you mentioned still apply, but in the current format, I don't see it lasting long enough.
PS. I learned a whole computer language thru Coursera, but sadly that's the only course that I have completed from start to finish.
@HishMaj
ReplyDeleteI didn't think of that, you're right. I found that when I was doing courses through the iTunes University channel. The only thing that sustained my interest was the fact that I was interested in the topic, which I suppose creates that whole "disposable education" culture. As you said, with our shorter attention spans, and the availability of these courses, it makes it easier for us to go through these courses really quickly, just like we would music, movies, tv shows and e-books.
I enjoyed learning computer courses because they weren't really traditionally taught. I think iversity is also doing a good job shaking things up.