I fiercely applaud Thrun's update on the uncomfortable evidence he gathered, and wish him the best in his pivot.
(It still seems to me that MOOC's might be done right with enough effort, like spending $100K per hour of nationwide-reproduced instruction the same we do as with TV, but I have not been keeping up with the literature here and perhaps I don't know how pessimistic I should be.)
A 40 minute TV show (scripted, non-reality) easily costs $1-3M to make.
I tried to produce some online learning videos recently. Doing it myself took 10 hours of post-production work to create 1 minute of final content. After making 10 minutes of content (which took over a month), I had to stop for my own sanity. [Actually, this post reminded me to finally upload them. They're currently uploading to http://www.youtube.com/user/learndofun if you're curious.]
For some educational material (especially intro content), you want well produced, easy to follow material. The higher up you go, you can just throw a camera in a room and people will be happy with things like http://videolectures.net.
An online course costs somewhere between $45k and $400k to produce[1]. UPenn spends about $50k on each Coursera course it puts up (Coursera courses are much more akin to simply videotaping lectures). While Udacity spends about $200k on each course (which are usually of a higher production quality and more interactive), and expects to double that for its Online Masters in CS with Georgia Tech to $400k[2]. EdX supposedly charges universities $250k for design and consulting services for putting together an online course.
Not to be rude, but not only is this over produced, the level of production makes it pretty incoherent.
I get that you're trying to illustrate your point with planes matching up to your hand movements, and blocks of information entering the frame when you refer to them. It's just a confusing mess.
They're designed to be frustrating at first so you'll figure out what you're missing.
You know you know the material when you can understand everything at the speed it's presented. (Chopping everything in 2-5 minute blocks helps with that too. Worst case, memorize everything and move on.)
[also, the posted content was part of a second level linear algebra course, so a lot of it is presented as a series of bullet points with just enough detail to jog existing memories of terms/definitions/how things interact.]
Also, that's just some kind guy who has a PhD in particle physics at Princeton who volunteered to let me record him saying things with no coaching or guide at all. There was zero coordination between the hour he talked while I recorded him versus the month I spent adding incoherent flying equations everywhere.
You know how Michael Bay movies are horrible because he wants to throw in every CGI effect he can? It was like that. I wanted to experiment, pedagogically, with different kinetic visuals. I feel my knowledge spatially/visually, and video is a perfect medium for toying with spreading "how I think."
You should have seen the first version I had with tons of explosions and racially stereotyped eigenvectors.
For what its worth I think it's an effective method for teaching. Now of course the execution of these particular set of videos is questionable, but I think the idea behind it is a sound one. I'm also a very visual learner and seeing things play out is very helpful. The first two videos were on the right track with having dynamic equations that represented the concept being talked about. The third/forth videos didn't seem to have as meaningful of graphics/equations so the benefit wasn't as great.
Also, seeing you in the video was just a distraction. Especially the cuts to maintain verbal flow were jarring because of the obvious visual cut. Just a whiteboard of equations like kahn academy would be better. If the idea here is to overlay graphics over any lecture that would also work, but then you'd have to either switch between live lecture and whiteboard or just have a whiteboard on the side.
That's not analogous at all. A TV show has to pay for multiple professional actors, sets, special effects, a large filming crew, etc. Post-production/editing costs would be a relatively small portion.
Top-notch educational materials require a single instructor and a single camera, and no matter how much production you do it should still come out substantially less expensive than a scripted TV show.
>Top-notch educational materials require a single instructor and a single camera, and no matter how much production you do it should still come out substantially less expensive than a scripted TV show.
Educational content can benefit by the use of props and effects as much as any TV sitcom; and the props are much more expensive.
Aren't khan academy videos pretty cheap to produce, but quite good( except for some pedagogical errors khan is doing because he isn't a teacher, but that's easily solvable) ?
Given the popularity of Khan Academy, I don't think it is fair to say that Khan "isn't a "teacher" anymore. Also, yeah, they look pretty cheap to produce.
Khan's lectures are a bit extemporaneous in an attempt to be more conversational. Because of this, he often makes errors or explains topics sloppily.
It's not so egregious that it ruins the content, and it seems to fit his approach of fun, approachable lectures that will lead the student to explore the topic further with classmates, instructors, other internet resources.
Also, I wasn't to fond of using black background and bright colored squigly writing for learning calculus. I have ADHD and learning math and calculus has been such a huge challenge. But I found work done by patrickjmt[1] to be amazing. It's clear neat and concise, and was able to get through Single and Multivariable thanks to him. My girlfriend and my sister really loved the way he explained calculus as well.
(It still seems to me that MOOC's might be done right with enough effort, like spending $100K per hour of nationwide-reproduced instruction the same we do as with TV, but I have not been keeping up with the literature here and perhaps I don't know how pessimistic I should be.)