From Thrun’s blog, explaining why the Udacity approach didn’t work well for SJSU: The traditional-semester pacing of the classes didn’t work well with the lifestyles and time-demands of the students in the program. In fact, 30% of our students worked 30+/hours per week in addition to coursework. Another 40% worked at least part-time. Work, families, Continue reading

My sense is that xMOOCs have a community problem. Sure, you can get an answer to a math problem at 2 a.m. from a student in the Czech Republic, and that’s pretty cool. But whereas cMOOC communities persist and do meaningful things in the world, in general xMOOC communities are less robust. They don’t persist. Continue reading

Presentation I gave at InstructureCon on Distributed Flip types of things. I blow through the presentation in about 16-17 minutes, but stick around for the Q & A if you have time, I think it was a great discussion. Continue reading

I agree with the bulk of the Salon article We Must Hate Our Children. This stat, however, is pretty egregious stat abuse. [Y]oung American adults are less likely than older Americans to have attended college. This has to be the first generation for whom that’s true. We’re putting the history of American progress in reverse. Continue reading