It is incredibly important to have an understanding spouse or partner. I'd argue that your spouse or partner can often be critical to your overall success. I think they have to feel part of the team. My wife shares in the rewards of success and believes in me and my teams, so she is very supportive. This is particularly important when we are struggling or going through a hard time. I can't imagine being in a relationship with a person who wasn't 110% on board with me in a startup.
"First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is." Not just a Donovan lyric, it is also part of Buddhist and Taoist literature going back more than 2500 years. (I assumed, after reading the Tao Te Ching, that the concept for the lyric had been lifted from there, but later found out it came from Qingyuan Weixin through D.T. Suzuki.)
Replied to this post a couple of weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3120510. Continue to slug it out with the Goliath that is Pearson. To their credit, they are engaging us in the conversation. Figured I'd submit our latest thoughts to get feedback. Thanks.
I knew something like this would eventually surface, but didn't realize it'd come from Pearson. We actually launched a very similar business model/site a year ago. I've been waiting to post anything on HN, b/c we are in the process of releasing a few changes (payments, channel updates) that I think would be helpful; but can save that for another time. We are really intrigued by this announcement b/c it is pretty much a direct competitor to what we are doing at NIXTY (www.nixty.com). I posted some thoughts on our blog and will highlight them here. I'd love to hear any thoughts/criticisms on this analysis.
There is ONE big difference between Pearson and NIXTY. Pearson’s main focus is on Pearson’s content. They are trying to make the LMS a commodity, so they can sell more of their content. NIXTY is focused on open education content.
Pearson’s OpenClass = Selling more of Pearson’s Closed Content/Courses
NIXTY = Supporting/Promoting Open Content/Courses
Pearson has the name ‘open’ in the title, but the real goal is to sell more closed content. Will it work? We don’t think so. Why?
1. Open Content is transforming education. It is free. Pearson will marginalize open content and focus on their own content. This will ultimately prove to be the undoing of OpenClass.
2. As the Inside Higher Ed article discussed, other publishing companies will not put their content in Pearson’s OpenClass ecosystem. We are hoping that they’ll look for a neutral alternative like NIXTY.
3. Pearson hasn’t exactly been awesome in the LMS space. eCollege is not what we’d call a market leader. I’m not sure, but it seems like eCollege folks might be in charge of the OpenClass product. Do they have the chutzpah to blow up eCollege to help OpenClass. Will the revenue streams from eCollege (tho likely decreasing) be sacrificed to help them grow OpenClass? Doubtful. They’ll likely try to keep both systems working and consequently end up doing a half-way job with OpenClass.
4. The comments around this from most folks in the articles and on Downes’ Google + post have been less than positive, suggesting that folks don’t necessarily have a lot of trust in Pearson.
Now, to at least try to be fair, let’s consider what Pearson has going for it.
1. They’ve got one BILLION dollars (said in my best Dr. Evil voice). Seriously, they’ve got A LOT of money.
2. They’ve got a lot of strategic relationships with other organizations and institutions. They seem to have done a nice job of rolling this out with their 9 design schools. Nicely done!
3. They’ve got great content!
4. They are good at marketing! You’d think Google co-designed this thing from the get-go; really, however, OpenClass is just another app just like learnboost or any other number of education apps in the Google ecosystem.
In sum, Pearson’s OpenClass is an innovative approach to help Pearson sell more of their closed content. We believe that they’ll be forced to marginalize open content and competing closed content. Consequently, they’ll end up doing students, educators, and colleges a disservice. NIXTY offers the same functionality, same price (free!), has been around for over a year, and doesn’t have any content to hawk. Consequently, we can provide a better service to students, educators, and schools.
You are not alone! Indeed, I think this is a key issue for all of us to address as globalization becomes more and more of a reality and degrees become less credible predictors of competency. Basically, we think we need a sort of reputation system that scales globally as a solution to this problem. Here are the key components we launched:
-CV/Resume display
-Recommendations from trusted others
-Work display (examples that illustrate your capabilities)
Okay, here are the basics. Sorry for the delayed response; I'm used to reddit with its handy orangered envelope....
For the past dozen years, I've taught in a very traditional way. I'd give a lecture on a programming concept, then assign several small programming assignments of increasing difficulty to practice the new concept. Once most of the class is fine with the new thing, move on. Rinse, repeat.
This year from day one I had all 130 assignments up on a class web page, each worth anywhere from 5 points to 400 points (most in the 30-100 range, though). I spent a couple of days teaching them a "hello world" Java program and how to compile with javac on the command-line. Then I said, "By the end of the first grading cycle (13 class days, each 90 minutes) you need 250 points to earn an "S rank" (100%) on your report card. It's 190 points for an A (90%), 120 points for a B, and 60 points for a C. Below 60 points is failing. Do any assignments you want in any order to earn the points, although doing them all in order is probably smartest. Go."
Students turn in the completed assignments into a digital dropbox, and I grade them daily, giving each assignment between 0 points and its max. If a kid makes less than about 95% of the possible points on any given assignment, I conference with him to explain what he's missing, and he'll redo it and turn it in for full credit.
I added in some LearnPythonTheHardWay-style assignments as the first couple of assignments of each new topic, so they can type in and mess with some already-working code that demonstrates the new thing.
I only give class-wide lectures when there are several students all stuck in the same place. Otherwise I just help the kids one-on-one or refer them to my slide decks or Google.
Points are cumulative, so for the current grading period, students need to have a TOTAL of 3300 points for an S-rank, 2600 points for an A, 1800 for a B and 1200 points to pass.
Some students have 4000+ points already and are on pace to complete two years' worth of curriculum in their first year (and sit for the Advanced Placement test a year early). Others will be fortunate to understand if statements, loops and functions by May.
Everybody's in a different place and it's fairly chaos in here all day, but every student is learning something and I love it.
http://www.amazon.com/Idoru-William-Gibson/dp/0425190455