WEBVTT - A Couple of MOOCs 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.480 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:16.640 podcast that looks at the future and says got to 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:20.640 get back back back to school again. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.119 I'm Lauren Bulk, and I'm Joe McCormack. Did either of 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.240 you recognize where that comes from? I believe that's from Greece. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.839 Greece to Greece too. That's an opening number from Greece too, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.240 for bringing the pain. You're You're welcome. I'm a cool writer. 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.200 CEO L R I D E R. We can move 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.159 on to the topic. That's fair. That's fair. So we're 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.360 going to talk today about again more about the future 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:51.720 of education and UH and the rising trend of distance 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.520 learning and things that are related to that. This idea 0:00:55.560 --> 0:01:00.880 of being able to attend classes virtually, either as someone 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.679 who is actually enrolled in a course but they are 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.560 attending through some sort of computer connection, or someone who 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:11.480 just wants to further their education and they are looking 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.200 at courses that are available online either for free or 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.440 you know, you're paying money but it's not like it's 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.800 college credit. UM, and what are these various options that 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.320 are out there, and are they actually effective at teaching 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:30.000 people coursework? This is important stuff because you know, we've 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.360 seen that there's a rising interest in this. People want 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:38.520 the ability to access the best in education, and uh it, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.840 I mean it can be pretty tricky. All of us 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.720 went to college in an era where distance learning was 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.880 pretty early on, and right, right, I I had a 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:53.200 couple like lecture courses that you could attend via video. Nice. 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:55.800 Did you have anything like that, Joe, No, I didn't 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:59.000 have anything like that. I all the classes I took 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.680 you had to show up bit class for. But I 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.000 definitely took a lot of classes where there was an 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.840 online component. So say you'd have class meetings, but then 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:09.880 you'd go home and part of the work you'd do 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.640 outside of class would be online on a discussion board 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.440 or to take a quiz maybe or something like that. Right, 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.359 I went to college before either of you and did 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.040 not have any of that. All of my course work 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:27.919 was done before they invented the wheelbarrow. Was shortly after 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:30.079 the wheelbarrow, which was good because he had to carry 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.400 all those taxtbooks or rope. At any rate, it was 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:38.679 it was before online coursework had become part of the 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.120 University of Georgia. That's where I went. Well as of 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.280 as one study by the Sloan Consortium, which I want 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.040 to say at the top here does promote online education. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.639 I've got a couple of things to quote from them, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.919 and so just at the top, they think it's pretty rad. 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.240 So their numbers might be a little bit skewed, but 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.919 not necessarily unbiased. But according to them, they say that 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.760 UM students taking a least one online course as of 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.640 numbered above six point seven million in the u S alone. 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.480 Got you So, I mean this is a number we 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.880 expect to see grow over time. Uh. It's something that 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.400 I'm sure some colleges think is promising to be able 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.160 to offer more of these kind of classes. Some might 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.119 be thinking of it as something of a threat, uh 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.320 to see that people might pursue education online as opposed 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.320 to attending a brick and mortar school. UM. But really, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.080 whether or not it's good for the university system, let's 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.120 talk about the options that a student has. So there 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.240 are lots of different ones out there. One of the 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.720 most basic ones is just the fact that a lot 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.160 of schools will offer up coursework online for free. Uh. 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.640 There's no college credits. Right yeah, uh m, I T 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.120 does this and uh and so you can go and 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.040 you can It's almost like auditing a class in college 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.360 where you're not getting any credit for it, but you 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.200 get the experience and you get the chance to access 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:09.360 some of the information that students who are going after 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.040 an actual degree in that school would have. And I've 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.080 used this myself in order to do some research and 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.599 get a basic understanding of concepts that I was really 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.960 rusty on, specifically chemistry. I used my T courses to 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:28.160 kind of um relearn some principles and chemistry and learned 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.720 some things that were new to me. Obviously not new 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.080 to chemistry, but I had never encountered it because my chemistry, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.000 uh education only went so far. I was a wheler. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.960 It was an English literature major. Once we determined that 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.960 you could not turn lead into gold, we moved on. Now. 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.800 Was was this one of the one of their massive 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.200 open online courses? This was not this, This preceded the 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.440 massive open online courses. It was essentially just the basic 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.880 coursework and some some videos, But a massive open on 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.280 line course tends to get a little bit more involved 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:08.599 so that you can actually not just watch and and 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:14.200 and uh and and read the course material, but participate 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.800 in a deeper level, even going so far as to 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.760 be part of an online forum where you can discuss 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:22.560 the work with fellow students. Uh, you can get a 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.039 lot of them. You actually get your work graded, right, Yeah, 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.839 you can either by fellow students or by a computer program. Right. So, 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.279 so in this case you could actually be you know, 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.679 tested on your knowledge that you're supposed to be gaining 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:36.880 through the course. In my case, it was just truly 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.120 asynchronous learning. And asynchronous of course means that you access 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.240 it whenever you have the time and interest in doing so. 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.719 And that's not new homework is a synchronous Yeah, although uh, 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.400 with the course I was taking through m I T, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.520 it was so asynchronous as to be you can take 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.880 months between classes, right, And that that was the bent 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.039 of fit for me, was that I could access it 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.720 when it was convenient for me. Uh. With your traditional homework, 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.440 you do eventually have a deadline, So this it's a 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.039 little bit different. It's it's very much um up to 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.760 the student to stay on task and make sure that 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.120 you are still pursuing this as far as you need 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.120 to to get the information you want. And uh, I 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:27.560 think it's fantastic. When I saw this coming becoming a thing, 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.000 I was really excited. But it's just the tip of 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:33.120 the iceberg, right. Sure. Sure, I would argue that that 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.160 most online education puts a little bit more of the 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.719 impetus on the student too. I mean, I mean, of course, 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.240 any any course, any kind of education, the student is 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.200 responsible for showing up and actually learning and and doing 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.479 something with that knowledge in a way that makes it 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.400 stick with them. Um. You know, in different different educational 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.000 styles of of of course, the teacher has huge impact 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:56.880 on that in the way that the information is presented, 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.720 but especially when you get online, it's it's so much 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.160 more dependent that you really have to be more motivated 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.280 to make it stick. One figure that I saw about these, 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.960 about these massive open online courses, is that there moos yes, 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.720 which which is strange because the word mook means a 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:17.240 foolish and significant or contemptible person I get all the time. 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.400 I don't see what the problem is, go on, vocal 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.840 bumb goodness, migracious um. But that the average pass rate um. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.800 I think this was according to the Chronicle of Online Education, 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.680 perhaps was only seven point five percent of students who 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.680 began a given course. Yeah, UM, just just mostly meaning that, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.120 um that most people dropped out after a certain period 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.760 of time or didn't take the final exam. Of course, 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.320 there could be a self selection issue going on there 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.920 in that people who are going to be taking online 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:54.560 courses are probably more likely people who have like scheduling 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.000 conflicts and stuff like that that would make it difficult 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.760 to finish a course anyway, Absolutely, does that make sense, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.600 Like if you're if you're taking this, it's probably more 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.240 likely that you're somebody who's also working a full time 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.200 job and it's trying, and that's the kind of thing 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.200 that would make it harder to finish your course. Now, obviously, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.520 the benefits here are are pretty easy to grasp. The 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.880 idea that you could learn without having to relocate to 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.840 a college if you were able to take all your 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.720 coursework this way. Clearly, if you had to show up 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.080 in person for some classes, that wouldn't necessarily be the case, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.360 but it would also free up your schedule so that 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.080 you could be a much more flexible on a day 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.160 to day basis. You wouldn't have to set aside specific 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.600 time unless there was that interactive element to the course 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.360 where you were expected to participate in some sort of 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.520 online chat about the subject matter. Um, so it gives 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.400 a lot more flexibility on both the side of the 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.120 student and on the teacher, which is kind of interesting. 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.560 But then you get into questions like does this is 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.720 this something that can can give a student the same 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.520 sort of experience, the same sort of uh ability to 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.640 grasp the coursework as they would if they were to 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.920 attend a face to face kind of interaction. Well, part 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.880 of it depends on what the educators are putting into 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.240 the coursework to begin with. Um that that survey there 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.600 was this big service the Chronicle of Online Education did 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:26.520 with basically every mook educator that's terrible, every every massive 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.720 open online course educator that they could find who existed 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.920 on the planet. And they said that typically these professors 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.640 spent over a hundred hours on the coursework before it 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:39.840 even started, um, gathering their material together and preparing everything, 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.080 and then would spend an additional eight to ten hours 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:47.200 per week on upkeep. So that's still great. Imagine, you know, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.319 to me, almost unimaginable amount of work to put into 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.360 something that you're not so experimental right now. Well, and 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.720 and it's so young in its in its life. Assuming 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.520 that this proves to be an effect of and efficient 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:05.480 means of of teaching people, Uh, I would imagine that 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.800 we would get better at that so that the amount 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.720 of time spent decreases a little. I don't think it's 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:14.760 ever going to decrease so much as to be said 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.120 to like this is effortless. That's never gonna happen. But 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.920 still it's still education, and that's still an incredibly impressive job, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.640 right right, I mean, you know, and and it's again 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:29.320 still fairly experimental at this stage. I will say that 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.640 I've read some interesting studies. There's one called learning style 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.840 and Effectiveness of Online Face to Face Instruction and online 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.400 and face to face instruction, I should say, um, and 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.680 this was a study that was published in the American 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.800 Journal of Distance Education, So take that into consideration. But 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.680 part of the findings were and I quote, the results 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.960 revealed no significant differences in test scores, assignments, participation grades, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.720 and final grades, although the online group's averages were slightly higher. 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.640 And so that's kind of interesting, and that the people 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.280 who are taking the course that essincely they looked at 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.240 the courses that were available online as well. As in 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.440 face to face, tried to limit the variables as much 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.720 as possible, which is really hard. We've talked about this 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.160 before in social sciences. It's really hard to to isolate 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.880 the things that you specifically want to look at, right, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.559 you know, it's hard to say that, well, maybe the 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.480 students who took the online course were just already very 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:28.840 familiar with the subject matter, or they just had a 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.160 natural affinity for it. It's hard. You can't really eliminate that. 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:37.040 But it was interesting that they scored slightly higher on average, 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.840 which at least might suggest that online is around the 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:45.840 same level of effective comparable effectiveness. You can't necessarily say 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.760 it's better, but it doesn't look like it's worse. Uh Still, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.240 I mean again, when you're looking at something like this, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.000 that it's you can't you can't say for sure right 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.520 down the middle, because people's as people's. I wonder if 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:04.280 there are certain subjects or levels of education coursework that 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.480 are more suited to online education than others. Um And 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.640 one reason this occurs to me is that there are 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:15.040 a few things that obviously cannot be entirely online. You know, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.280 One really obvious example would be like physical education. Like 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.800 if you were, you know, training doing sports something like that. 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.760 Another one though that occurs to me, would be lab 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:28.199 work in the physical sciences. You don't have lab conditions 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.640 at home. You need to you know, be able to gopment, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:33.599 go out and try to bring home some of the 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.080 chemicals that you wouldn't want anything that would excellently generate 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.120 like chlorine gas in your own home obviously and kill 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.760 everybody who's in there. Um And you really you shouldn't 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.800 be doing microbiology at home. I mean, it's all these 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:51.439 are things where you need stuff that you need the facilities, 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:56.040 facilities beyond what would be available to you. Yeah, some 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.680 some courses you can easily imagine being done out of 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.520 the home, like things like its electronics, where one of 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.280 the things that everyone has to get is a basic breadboard, 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.280 which is easily available in in at least in the 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:12.080 United storts more or less non hazardous. But then you know, 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.640 like you were saying, something more complex, something that's in 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.599 the organic chemistry, then you know you've heard of the 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.520 reason why people have been going to universities to begin with, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.080 I mean, to to have access to that wonderful equipment 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.240 that they get well, right, I mean think about that 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.880 university is really for a long time, we're just they 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.280 were centers of learning because that's where the knowledge was held, right, 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:34.840 It wasn't just where the experts were. That's where all 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.240 the books were too, and if you wanted to get 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.640 access to that learning, you had to go there. But 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.480 now we've got this distributed network that's out that allows 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.520 at least some of the information to be available on 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.560 a much more global scale. And it's and now we're 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.760 we're you know, it's a couple of decades after that's 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.120 taken effect, we're starting to see some pretty significant disruption 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.760 in that in that industry. Yeah, that that taps into 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.280 a broader interesting issue that we touched on a little 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.080 bit in the video. But that taps into a broader issue, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.680 which is that I think information is just simply less 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:12.520 rare than it used to be. Um. The issue now 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.320 is that there there's so much we can learn and 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.920 we really can get at it. Like if you are 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.160 a person who has a laptop with access to the Internet, 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.920 there's information that you can get that would not have 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.960 been available had you lived, you know, in the same 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.240 place a few dred years ago, like sure, or even 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.400 a few decades ago. Honestly, um and so, but there's 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.680 obviously still just as much need for education. And that's 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:42.160 interesting to me. It says that in education is more 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.960 than just the bank where you go withdraw information, because 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:50.360 now that bank is your computer. Yet school is no 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.280 less useful. Well, and I would argue, it seems to 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.120 me is not less. I would argue school's role is 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.680 really the most important thing is teaching people how to think. 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.520 Teaching people how how to think and how to learn, 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:09.640 because uh, like, just just take a casual interaction between 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.280 people these days, where Lauren and I have a conversation 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.400 and she mentions a movie that we've both seen, and 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.080 then she says, oh, it's got that that person in it, 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.200 that's so and so, And then you just quickly type 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.720 in something online that pulls up the information you have it, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.920 and then you continue your conversation. Now casually, that's as 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.400 if I had remembered the name of the actor. But 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.120 in fact I haven't. I just used the computer. I've 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.040 offloaded that to the computer, and while I have access 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.640 to the information, I don't really I can't say that 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.000 I know it. I might have actually committed it to 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.160 memory after I've looked it up because that's refreshed it. 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.480 But you know, on a on a small scale, that's 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.400 kind of what we're talking about that you could apply 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.200 across the board. You could give someone access to all 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.600 the world's information. It does not mean that person is 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.360 going to understand it and make it meaningful in any way. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.800 So obviously education is more than just of them access 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:02.840 to the data. You have to teach people how to 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.640 think right. And I think that that's why a lot 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.720 of the the huge important Ivy League kind of universities 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.240 have started jumping on this massive online thing, you know 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:16.240 at M M, I, T and Harvard and all all, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.960 like thirty three of the biggest names in post secondary 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.920 education have signed up for for for these for these 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.080 massive online things, and uh, and they've got and they've 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.120 been they've been earning a lot of venture capital towards 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.240 them and pouring a lot of their own funds into 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.680 it and spending a lot of time and effort developing 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.280 it because you know, because they had started putting out 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.440 this terrific information, like like Jonathan was saying his chemistry class, 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.600 but it's not it's just information at that point, it's 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.600 not someone guiding you on a learning course, right, I can. 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.200 I can watch the videos, but I can't go and 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.960 ask the teacher a question. If I don't understand something 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.280 that came up in the lecture. You might be able 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.040 to dig up his email and drop him a note, 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:57.760 but where or not here to reply. I mean, that 0:16:57.800 --> 0:16:59.680 guy's got his own stuff to deal with. He's got 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.360 all these actual students who are really in that lecture 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.359 hall and not just watching online. Uh. Yeah. One of 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.720 the schools that's doing this is the rival to my 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.480 my school, Georgia Tech, right down the road. So guys, 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.520 if you ever want, and I say this guy's as 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.280 to Lauren and Joe, we just do a little field 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.400 trip down to Georgia Tech talk to some people about 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.760 Mook sometime. That might be kind of fun. We should. Yeah, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.439 so it's a date because we didn't think about it 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.520 until just now. But no, there there are instructors there 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.560 that are working on putting together these online courses so 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.800 that they are able to to meet the needs of students. 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.640 And uh, this is really exciting stuff for me because 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.639 it means that I, you know, I don't know about 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.719 either of you. Both of you may have been exemplary 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.800 students who really appreciated the whole student experience when you 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.920 were going to school were shaking your heads. I wish 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.840 I could go back and do it again to like 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.920 I feel like I wasted my time there. I just 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.840 just grinding through it rather than actually taking advantage of it, 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:09.960 like what was wrong with my brain? Were immature? All 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.560 three of us, of course, now work for a company 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:18.800 where curiosity is the principle that we all are are 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.920 looking at that that's that's that's what we that's that's 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.959 the guiding light of discovery. Right, It's all about curiosity, 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.200 and our jobs are to learn things and then talk 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:34.120 about them. So we all obviously professionally have this need 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.399 to do it, but I think we all also share 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.960 that just as a personality trade at this point that 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:40.840 it's one of those things where you you just you 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.119 want to learn more because the more you learn, the 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.280 more you realize how amazing the universe is. And it's 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.719 it's something that I know I possessed a small amount 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:51.919 of that when I was a student, but not nearly 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.080 enough to appreciate it while it was happening. And I 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.240 really wish it had been otherwise, because who knows what 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.200 more I could have picked up during my college years, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.200 besides the fact that I could skip four days out 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.400 of five and statists are symbolic logic and still pass 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:07.679 with an A. It's the only thing I really learned. 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.840 Nice humble bragg there. Yeah, it's the only class I 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.240 took that was at all related to math that completely 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:18.359 made sense to me. Everything else I had to work 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.000 hard at to understand. So of course I'm gonna humble 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.359 brag about it that I learned some important life skills 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.280 about how to talk my way out of assignments. I 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.439 learned exactly how much water I could add to raman 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.480 so that it would be tasty. I learned how shamefully 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.480 lazy and stupid I was. Yeah, so valuable lessons, however, 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:42.879 we probably could have learned more. So that's you know, 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.480 that's why these sort of things really interest me, is 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.840 that it gives people like us the opportunity to continue 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.439 learning once we've really developed that appreciation for what learning is. 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:54.720 And and also hopefully in the future, they're going to 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.520 be refining these and working on them and uh incorporating 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.760 them into the the official educational system and start, you know, 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.760 being able to give people credit towards credit for like 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:09.800 an actual degree. Yeah, yeah, they're the As far as 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.960 offering up credit for things like these massive open online courses, 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.080 that's just in its infancy. The courses have been around 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.040 for a couple of years, but but they were always 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.960 kind of divorced from the concept of college credit. It 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.320 was more like, if you want to continue your education, 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.480 here are some opportunities to do that. And some of 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.920 them are even though they are open online courses, meaning 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.399 that they are open to anyone, they do cost money 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.160 to attend. Some of them are free, some of them aren't. 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:44.920 So um. Something else to keep in mind. I'm curious 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:50.000 if these things will still be viable if we discover 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.520 and I'm not saying we will, but if we discovered 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.760 that there is a really important part of education that 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.840 comes from physical presence, like being in a room with people. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.440 Do that. I think it does matter. I think that 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.359 a student can get a good grasp on a subject 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.919 without that element. I do think that that's possible that 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.040 if you have a well designed online course, a student 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.879 can have uh what would be considered a passing grade, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.280 you know, even even an exemplary grade. But you might 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.960 not have the full appreciation of it that you would 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.959 if you were in a class of like minded individuals 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.840 and could have conversations about this stuff. Uh, anecdotally, I 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.959 can give you an example of this. In high school, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.280 I went to classes. I was in, uh lots of 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.320 different courses with the same people year after year, and 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.320 in general it was it felt like it was, you know, 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.680 a place where you sat down and you would learn 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.120 a few things, but you know you're really not giving 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:51.800 it your full attention. You weren't. I never felt fully 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:55.720 engaged with in most of my classes. Um, which speaks 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:57.560 a lot about my own character. I don't mean to 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.600 say that this is anyone else's fault. So I was 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.560 giving the opportunity to go to a special summer course 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.560 called Governor's Honors Program. It was like six hundred students 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:08.760 that are picked to go to this thing, and you 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.200 had to really be interested in whatever the subject matter 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.200 was that you were nominated in, because it meant you 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.160 were giving up your summer for six weeks to go 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.840 and be in classes with other students. But that meant 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.159