Online learning, like any other type of knowledge acquisition, has its own characteristics. Many of those who tried this educational format for the first time were disappointed, not having received the expected returns. How to get the most out of online training, says Vladislav Biryukov, an employee of the investment company "AyKomInvest", engaged in educational projects.

Terms and Definitions

There is a term MOOC (“Muk” or “Flour” is often spoken in Russian, but I don’t like “Flour”, because it resembles the torment of sinners, it's not so scary, so I’d rather use “mook” It sounds not very nice). In addition to MOOC, they also talk about distance / e-education, online learning, etc. By and large, all this is about the same thing, just distance learning has appeared a long time ago, still by correspondence. The correspondence format looks like this: you receive a textbook or a manual by mail, you study, you write a control, you send it back, and so on. Then the same training began to practice through the Internet. And finally, a few years ago, the MEP appeared. By and large, there is no fundamental difference between these entities, but in recent years great hopes have been placed on the MEP. They quickly became fashionable - it is even considered that this thing will fundamentally change the education industry. About how it was with the iPhone at the time. Smartphones, of course, were before his appearance, but when the iPhone came out, he very quickly turned the market around. The product Apple, it seems, used all the same technologies, but they were completed, brought to mind, in the aggregate it all looked better. And after its appearance, smartphones became different. Many years ago they believed that MOOC would also shake up the education market. Now these hopes have calmed down a little, and now there are a lot of votes in favor of the fact that nobody needs all this, that nothing will really change in education. I think the truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.

What is the abbreviation of MEP? "Mass" : here the mass is not the same as the MMORPG, it is not millions of people, but, as a rule, thousands. There are even hundreds of thousands, but rarely. We are talking about the number of people who sign up for the courses - and get to the end less. "Open" : is it free or is it open source, can it be distributed further under a simple license? No definite answer. As a rule, free or inexpensive. Again, the freemium model is used there, that is, some part is distributed for free, some for money. Online : here is easier, but there are questions. Is this all in real time or with some kind of delay? As a rule, with a delay. And what is the "Course" ? How long is this thing, is it time limited or can it be smeared within six months? How is the teacher involved? For each of these letters, there are many different variations, and there is no common understanding of MOOC. But there is Coursera - this is the largest and most famous resource. And for most people, the association is exactly this: MEP is what Coursera does. But Coursera is also changing with time, so the definitions float a little. In a nutshell, what does MOOC consist of? As a rule, from the video lectures, although there may be other options - audio and text. The text is usually no longer considered MOOC, it is something obsolete. There is also a verification system in the form of tests. There is also the term Blended learning , blended learning. This is a kind of compromise when we listen to a lecture online, and then we come to the audience for a seminar with a real teacher.
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Why should the education industry change?

First, it was formed quite a long time ago and has not changed too much since then. Look at the recording industry, the media, the media, journalism: they have transformed greatly in the past 50 years. They used to type on typewriters, now the correspondent shoots on the iPhone, immediately slanders something either on the same iPhone, or writes on a laptop or tablet, everything immediately goes to the network. A completely different rhythm, other instruments, and people became different. There used to be much more money in the media. This technological revolution, which changed many industries, of course, touched education as well - computers and the Internet appeared. But the tools that we use in training do not fundamentally change the essence: one person speaks, the others listen, then he listens to them in the exam. And so it goes on for several years until people finally leave the walls of the institution with some kind of paper crust and say: “Everything, I am a specialist. You can finish it and forget it like a bad dream. ”

Obviously, other models are possible. MOOC is just an alternative, another model. Worse or better - I do not know, but it is different. Why should education change? This is a very large market, it is spinning 4.5 trillion dollars. This is gigantic money, and many companies compete for them. Tuition is growing. It’s hard to say whether tuition is paid or not. For most students, it’s still paid, considering all factors. In the States, it is fully paid, and it's pretty decent money. Education in good universities costs an average of 40 thousand dollars a year. Many students take loans in order to study. The total debt of American students is about 1 trillion dollars. A serious amount that will continue to grow. In my opinion, this is the wrong situation.

Changing needs of the labor market . Yesterday, some skills and knowledge were needed, tomorrow completely different. New specializations are emerging, and they are increasingly saying that it is impossible to study for someone once and be one, you need to learn all your life - lifelong learning.

There are problems with diplomas. Many employers say: “Well, what do you have this crust? What can you do?". And here begins the unpleasant questions.

Changing the culture of information consumption . If earlier we all read “War and Peace”, and this was natural, now it seems like an outrageous number of letters that a normal person cannot assimilate. Life is changing, and people are following it.

All these factors suggest that the current education system has many drawbacks. Question: how to do better? For example, by transforming the university learning model with the help of the mook. Now we are learning for a long time, then, often, we forget everything, we are learning again at work. It can be done differently: they have studied for half a year on a course, started working, doing something. They understood that they were learning the wrong thing. Okay, forgot this, learned the following. With such an organization, we lose less time in the event of a wrong choice, speeding up the change of the model as much as possible.

The amount of knowledge determined by the program . There is a specialty curriculum, it is seriously reviewed once a decade, and deviations are rare and insignificant. Along with basic subjects, in any curriculum there are “stressful” disciplines. If you are supposed to listen to the philosophy - please listen. For example, I did not like philosophy in my high school. She was interesting to me, but the way she was taught was a waste of time. In the case of the Mooca, you can form a program for yourself which you need. Another question is whether you have enough competence to make a really good program, but more on that later.

The possibility of changing the university . Each institution has its own teaching culture, its star teachers, and taking all the best from different universities in the classical training is unreal. You can do this with the mooki, make a “vinaigrette” to your liking.

Diploma . We now have one diploma, and it is used as evidence that you are adequate to the system. In fact, he says that you are able to study for five years, not to study, you can learn the simplest things, and generally a normal person. But by and large this is not enough, and not always the specialization, which is recorded in it, really means something. If we have a lot of these diplomas, and each of them will be more specific - maybe it will be better.

Two advantages of online learning: classic and MOOC

Classic online training lasts a long time, 4 or 5 years, we get a standard diploma, the program is formed by the university, the courses are lengthy. At MOOC, everything is different: short courses, an individual learning path. In classical online learning, we pay pretty decent money - just like in regular, not distance education. For example, at the Moscow Institute of Technology (formerly MISiS), a decent IT specialty costs 190,000 rubles a year. The same thing, in theory, can be studied for free. Question: how one will match the other? It is very important. Between these two extreme poles there are many intermediate forms of education.



This is a picture of how many companies share this pie. There are many familiar names - Microsoft, EMC, HP and so on - and many completely unfamiliar ones. This is all an educational technology market, EdTech. This is not only mooki, a lot of them are online courses.

The history of the Moocs begins in the first half of the 2000s. One of the first to put this business on stream is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, starting to post online its courses. They have the OpenCourseWare program - it appeared in 2002, it still exists and is revered by many as a very solid example. Everyone knows about the Khan Academy, probably (mostly it is aimed at schoolchildren, they have the largest audience). Its plus is that it reveals well the concept of online learning. True, this is not quite mook, but ideologically close thing. In 2008, the term MOOC itself appeared; it was proposed by two Canadian researchers who conducted their own experiments. At that time it was a purely academic topic, few knew about it. And at the turn of 2011-2012 there was a HYIP, when numerous projects in the MOOC format immediately began to appear. Everything went, it is believed, from Stanford University, where they conceived a course on artificial intelligence, and about 160 thousand people enrolled in it. And after that, the mooca began to develop rapidly. Coursera, EdX, Udacity - this is the so-called big three, they just appeared at that time. A little later, the second wave of those who looked at this big three went and realized that there probably was a future. In particular, there are several projects in Europe: German Iversity, British FutureLearn, we have the Universarium. They all appeared at the turn of 2013-2014.



This is an attempt to visualize the distribution of the largest resources, adjusted for the Russian language. Because it is unlikely that Lectorium is visible on the world market, but for us it is important. And by the size of the font, you can understand the weight of market participants. The biggest ones are Khan Academy, EdX, Coursera, everything else is smaller.

What you should pay attention when choosing for themselves online courses. The first and most important is the quality of teachers . As a rule, more good ones still get online, simply because it is a laborious process, and few people have time and money for all sorts of garbage. Nevertheless, there are a lot of mediocre courses, especially paid ones, they are just trying to do business. The quality of the course (technical performance) is trite the quality of video and sound. This is also very important, because if the lecture of a genius teacher is filmed in a lousy quality and low resolution, and the sound is also interrupted, there will be little good. The degree of participation of the teacher is a very important criterion. Because mookami can call such a thing when you just watch a video, and then respond to testiki: "Choose from three options 10 answers." But this is a profanation, just a collection of lectures. And there is such a situation when the teacher dunes and spends the night on the forums, explains to everyone, checks the tasks. This is a completely different approach. Good teachers have a lot of other activities, and often they cannot devote all their time to such things. Level of difficulty : after all, most MOOCs are introductory courses, quite superficial. First of all, because MOOCs are used by universities as their own advertising. And here, naturally, it is more reasonable to lay out the introductory course, to hook a person, and then he will come and bring money to the university. Maybe the situation will change with time. Training price : as a rule, the freemium model is used, where the basic functionality is given free of charge, and then you, depending on your needs, get the necessary items for some money. Typically, the amount is still small, if we talk about classic MOOC, and you pay for something optional - for example, for a diploma. It is issued in digital form and for the time being most of the employers say nothing.

By the time of classes there are two models:

• on schedule: the course starts at a certain point and lasts for some time, say, three months;
• You can start learning at any time, the course is not tied by time (self-paced model).

Each model has its drawbacks. The big drawback of the first option is that it has to wait half a year. You have found an interesting course, and it starts in May 2015. Until that time, you will have much time to work out, maybe the course will become obsolete by that time. On the other hand, a lot of people are enrolled in scheduled courses. If at least several thousand people are actively studying, then there will be a decent forum, an exchange of views, it is interesting. And in the course, which is always available, there can be one or two cripples: one from Zanzibar, the second - you. It will not be cool.

Basically MOOC is conducted in English . Somewhere there are subtitles, occasionally even in Russian. For example, Coursera is now being translated into Russian with subtitles with the help of ABBYY. Implementation technologies are also important. For example, some sites use Flash, so there may be a problem with mobile devices. Far from all large services have mobile applications, although they are more or less catching up.

How does a typical MOOC on the example of Coursera

There is a certain description of the course, where it is told what knowledge you will need for successful learning. Who teaches, how many weeks we study, the approximate number of hours per week. If you start to learn, it is better to select the window in your schedule immediately, otherwise at some point you will find that you are behind everyone, and it’s easier to score than to continue to learn. What does the course consist of? Video lectures, sorted by sections, lasting 10-20 minutes. It is believed that this is a clip time during which the average teenager can keep attention. In addition, additional materials are offered: texts, recommended books, other resources. Task verification: either automated tests or students' mutual evaluation of each other's work. You got the job of one person, he gets someone else back. Seeing the mistakes of others, you learn by yourself, there is a true truth in this, but, on the other hand, if your job has come to some hack, then nothing good will come of it. Double-edged stick. As a rule, there is a forum where the author of the course encourages students to communicate on some topic. This is an interesting thing.

And quite an acute question about the availability of content at the end of the course, if it is a course on a schedule. Often, after the end of the lesson materials become unavailable. There are many reasons for this. The first is copyright. These problems are not completely resolved, because many course providers make money on the same material, and if it is always available, it can somehow hinder their business. On the other hand, if the materials are always online, people will constantly pull the teacher. He also has his own business, he is not ready to constantly deal with it, especially for free.

"Big Three"

Coursera - the most famous, the largest in the number of users, the most, probably, multilingual. Here are materials from most American universities, and most students, they say, are from Asia.



This is a recent screenshot - only 800 large-format courses, in Russian about 20.

What is worth knowing about Coursera? Education is free, certificates are paid. These are the same diplomats - pieces of paper that can be obtained at the end. Recently, they introduced such a thing as a specialty - a sequence of related courses. Let's say you study journalism. We passed one part “how to write”, the second part - “how to photograph”, the third part - “how to shoot a video”. Thus, finished the specialty. They also require money for this, but they are small, it is the same money that you pay for certificates for the courses that make up the specialty. Everything is quite humane. Question: how does this specialty in reality correspond to what you get in a “classical” education, not a distance education? The question is very complicated, because one thing is if you studied at Princeton, the other is somewhere in the expanses of our homeland in not the largest high school. You understand that the quality of education, alas, is different.

There are about 9 million registered users. The catalog is quite balanced: there are both practical and academic courses. Coursera works on a schedule, that is, you need to wait for the start of training. Although they appeared as an experiment constantly available courses. Quality and format are rather heterogeneous. Coursera gives a lot of freedom to course developers, and these are either universities or individual teachers. And someone did well, someone did not. Earlier, when Coursera itself took part in this, the quality was more uniform. They have experiments with regional offices - these are some physical organizations where you can come and learn, test your knowledge - the very concept of blended learning (blended learning). We have such a representative office located in Digital October ("Red October"). But how it helps in learning - I can not say.

There are normal mobile apps for the two main platforms. Coursera is generally considered the main apologist for disruptive learning. This is a good platform to try yourself.



Here’s what a diploma looks like if you pay $ 50. You can draw this one yourself.

edX is the second major resource from the big three. What is the difference between it and Coursera? Initially Coursera - this is the west coast of the United States, Stanford School. The main life in the States is focused on two coasts: there is a western school, and there is an eastern one. EdX - Eastern School - Cambridge, Massachusetts. In principle, these universities from the east are leading in the list of the main universities in the world, but the western school is also very strong, and they constantly compete with each other. Coursera was initially more focused on internationalization, immediately entered into many agreements with universities in other countries, EdX developed more as a purely American project, but now they have gone in breadth.

Recently, the Ministry of Education of Russia concluded an agreement with EdX. About what - no one understands, but there is a chance that something good will come out of it. EdX also has free training and paid certificates. Less courses - about 300, but they are represented by very good universities and are comparable in level with Coursera. There are fewer users. There is more emphasis on academic disciplines, technology (at the expense of MIT) and medicine. According to the schedule, everything is arranged similarly to Coursera. And if the latter was created as a commercial project, then EdX is an academic non-profit, and here, at first, they were pretty tough on quality. It is possible that now it will change, because EdX is also changing. They are trying to introduce paid tuition from next year. This is an option, the main part will still be free, but there will be some options for in-depth study, such as professions in Coursera.

EdX is not trying to make a revolution in education, but rather an attempt to improve its quality with the help of online tools.



EdX allows you to learn in the most top American universities. This is the Shanghai rating, one of the generally accepted. Nd - no data. The British Cambridge and Oxford are not represented not only in the main providers of online courses Coursera and EdX, but, as far as I know, they are not at all presented online in the classic free format. They believe that learning should remain as it is now, a stronghold of traditionalism.

The third player is Udacity . It is slightly different from Coursera and EdX. Firstly, it was originally a commercial service, and secondly, it was originally sharpened on an IT specialty. There are very few university courses, but there are university teachers. A lot of commercial companies like Google, Facebook, etc. These companies are involved in creating courses and carefully look at graduates. There are some chances that if you study well, they will pay attention to you. Udacity, though a commercial project, but there is an opportunity to learn and for free. In general, it turns out a little more expensive than in the previous two projects, but they take money for working with a teacher, when he checks you, advises, etc., and for the certificate. There are much fewer courses (about 40 large ones) and fewer users. This is IT, mathematics, applied things. Only in English, decent quality, there are applications for iOS and Android. They are guided by those who do not pull a classic college or university (in the States it is, in principle, one and the same entity, only the university conducts research, and in the college it does not) and who need a specialty. What is important, there are employment prospects in partner companies.

Some other projects

MIT OpenCourseWare is a library archive rather than the classic MOOC service. There are more than 2 thousand courses, but not all of them are the same programs as on Coursera or EdX. Often this is just some kind of training manual, a set of textual information about what they are doing on this course, a list of references, etc. MIT has been constantly working on updating this library since 2002. The latest courses are quite comparable to Coursera, they can be posted on EdX, since MIT is its partner. If you are interested in engineering (in which MIT is traditionally strong), there you can dig and probably catch something curious. They still have lectures in Apple's iTunes U service, something has been posted on Youtube. But I would not advise starting with this project, because MIT has not yet brought its library to its normal form. This is still for experts.

We have already talked about Khan Academy . They have an interesting format. Instead of a talking head, as in most online courses, which is interspersed with slides, here is a board on which the teacher draws and explains. For schoolchildren it is much better. I would not say that the Khan Academy is intended only for schoolchildren, there are many curious things there, especially affiliate programs with NASA, with decent museums. You can learn quite interesting things for yourself, even if at one time I was good at school. Now they are trying to launch new courses in collaboration with universities, this is already moving them to a higher level.

Udemy . If until now we talked about services that look like a supermarket, everything is laid out on the shelves, everything is centralized, then Udemy looks more like a market. There are a lot of stalls in which teachers can sell their own courses, and someone comes to buy. The sales scheme is standard - revenues are divided 50 to 50. Education is mostly paid, but there are also free courses and very inexpensive ones - some money that is not a pity to spend. Here is a slightly different format of courses - they are short, on average for several hours. Udemy covers a very wide range of topics, including dog training, but there are also academic things. International and accessible at any time, which is very nice, that is, you can always learn. The quality is different. Udemy is useful for obtaining some practical skills, that is, it is silly to study academic disciplines there, but here you can find something that others do not have, including on IT.

Lynda . This is a rather curious project, many IT people have heard about it. It exists already since 1995. This family business, organized by a husband and wife, and they were never able to attract outside investors. The project still feels good, because during this time they managed to negotiate with different companies and use Lynda for corporate training. And this is other money. Here, mainly, IT, business, design, photography - short courses for several hours. Quite a few users - 4 million, courses are available at any time, in English. This is a subscription service, that is, they provide content not for free, you need to pay some money every month, and for this you will receive some amount of information. You can take one new course per week. In principle, a good option for practical training, like Udemy.

Sailor Academy . They agreed with many American universities that their courses are counted in the university program, that is, you can take a course here and then put a tick in your diary. All this already goes to the official diploma. That is, in principle, a real American higher education. Not all courses and not all colleges are accredited, but there are quite a few.

Iversity is the German answer Coursera. Europe got worried after a while, because talk of a brain drain does not arise from scratch. You learned well on Coursera once, finished the course, learned two, finished the course, then an invitation came to you: “Let us come to us to learn already live, will we pay you a stipend?”. Of course, you have to go. Why not? . - . , , -. , 30, , . Iversity , , . , , . , . , . , — .

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