Filling the inspiration gap

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Alex Roschke

How can online learning help to fill the inspiration gap left by our declining education system?

Motivating students to pursue topics that interest them. Shocking fact of the day: students learn much better when they’re interested and engaged. Online education allows individualized learning and experimentation in a way that traditional learning cannot. That means students have the ability to learn what they want to learn. Sure, sometimes you have to learn things that you don’t like – and that’s where the online model offers more advantages…

Providing access to passionate, inspiring teachers. Given that a good online learning system is theoretically able to cast a worldwide net in terms of attracting talent, students benefit from the ability to interact with the best professionals in their desired field. Passionate teachers inspire passion in students.

Creating a structure where grades and examinations are secondary to real learning. At Rukuku, we believe that grades and exams shouldn’t be a purpose in and of themselves. When one takes his own initiative rather than being nudged (read: forced) to take a class for a grade, actual learning becomes the priority.

Another bonus of online learning: none of those inspiration-killing standardized tests!

Pulling the education system out of the past

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Alex Roschke

How will online learning help to update our antiquated attitudes towards education?

Following directions vs. taking initiative. The very act of taking a class online is a major step forward in demonstrating an initiative to learn. A student who willingly takes a class that interests him/her is much more likely to succeed than one who feels he/she is doing so at someone else’s behest. The teacher-student relationship changes from a hierarchical one to a mutually beneficial partnership. Such an environment is far more conducive to taking responsibility for one’s own education.

Tolerance of discussion and questioning. With a varied market of services, educators, and classes, those who want to learn will be able to shop around and choose how they want to learn. Informed consumers who don’t wish to be handed a boilerplate no-questions-asked version of a subject – and we think most people who take the initiative to take a class are such consumers – will be able to select the type of instruction they want.

Allowing students, parents, and stakeholders to have a say in what should be taught. Because the student (and other involved stakeholders such as the parents) becomes the consumer, education providers have a serious incentive to offer the classes that are most relevant to the student’s needs. This simple market mechanism – the desire to benefit the consumer – is a serious deficit in public education.

Online technology is changing the conversation about how we ought to learn. We think this is great – every system requires occasional questioning and updating. Our education system needs it more than anything else.

The history (and future) of online education

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Alex Roschke

Infographics are a wonderful way to organize information in a useful and visually pleasing way.

Here’s one about the history of online education. Though slightly dated, the data allows us to pretty confidently extrapolate where this trend is going in the future.

Check back this later this weekend for more discussion of the hurdles faced by education, both traditional and online.

How are we going to motivate today’s learners?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Alex Roschke

All ideas are on the table, and of them is gamification.

Learning in a packed college lecture hall does not seem to be most people’s idea of fun. I distinctly remember one day when I came into my Econ 101 lecture right after having been to traffic court: I couldn’t help but notice that the general excitement level was lower in front of the professor than it had been front of the judge.

What is gamification?

Gamification is essentially the application of game mechanics and game rewards to real-life situations. It’s based on the concept that humans have an innate desire to engage in reward-based activities. It’s used by retailers to engage customers, employers to involve workers, social networks to excite users, and so on, and it’s been shown to improve productivity and involvement across the board.

How can gamification be used by educators?

Education is particularly well-suited to this concept: gamifying learning can help to engage otherwise bored learners and push them to succeed by infusing some fun into the learning process. People instinctively look for payoffs, but the payoffs of education are typically long-term. Applying some features of a game to the educational process means that the reward structure will also include short-term gratification – something we all enjoy.

This is especially exciting in the realm of online education because of the vast interactive possibilities provided by a digital interface.

What do you think about the potential of gamification in online learning?

Things to consider

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Alex Roschke

If you’ve been following our latest series here at the Rukuku blog (or even if you just happen to be a living, breathing person), you probably know that the cost of education is too high.

But think about this:

What if educators and students didn’t have to worry about meeting at a location and wasting time getting there?

What if teachers and learners didn’t have to worry about acquiring the necessary teaching and learning materials?

What if the amount of students that an educator can meaningfully interact with wasn’t limited by the physical constraints of a classroom?

What if we currently have the potential to dramatically lower the cost of learning while greatly improving its quality?

If these questions sound hypothetical to you, they shouldn’t.

To learn more, please sign up for a chance at our exclusive, invitation-only launch. It’s coming on April Fools’ Day, but it’s no joke.

Online learning woes

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Alex Roschke

As of 2008, over four million US students in postsecondary education – that’s 20.4% – were taking online distance learning classes. Are today’s distance-learning platforms adequately addressing the needs of online learners?

In this post I’d like to focus on the 800-pound gorilla of the market: that is, of course, Blackboard.

Very recently, I took an online course on Blackboard. I found the interface to be wonderfully interactive and conducive to learning. As soon as I logged on, I was smitten by its user-friendliness, humbled by the profound student-professor rapport it establishes, and downright awestruck at its productive learning process.

Wait a second. No I wasn’t.

The actual experience was more like this.

The interface on Blackboard looks a bit like it was designed by someone constantly referencing their “Intro to C++” textbook. Actually, that explains a lot: the interactivity level of the site closely resembles a textbook as well. The way a course is organized on Blackboard lacks any direction or purpose. With tabs on top, tabs on the right, boxes here and there, and a pervasively gloomy brown-ness throughout (you’ll find more cheer in a Franz Kafka novel), the user experience is far from easy. Not to be outdone, the actual performance of the program is fantastically… mediocre.

Maybe this is harsh. After all, there’s nothing wrong with Blackboard. The problem is that there’s nothing right with it either. It doesn’t engage, it doesn’t excite, and it doesn’t inspire. It’s as interesting and sophisticated as, well, a blackboard.

Shouldn’t a learning platform make me want to learn something?

The Rukuku Blog

Interactive tools for distance training

Tag Archives: online learning