CONTENTS

The Big Question

The Connected Classroom BUSINESS REPORT MOOC Believer: Duke’s Kornbluth

MOOC Skeptic: Stanford’s Hennessy

Why India Loves MOOCs Online China’s Online Education Boom Learning Technology can now gather tremendous amounts of data about how we learn. What is that teaching us? GARY TAXALI GARY

PLUS Lessons from L.A. | Hacking Diversity | Tech for Teachers | Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun | Duolingo and Fluency | Privacy Problems | Events MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM ONLINE LEARNING

tial for that to be turned into profit is a big Similar experiments are under way in The Big Question reason investors have increased funding colleges as well. In the seven years since of educational technology startups world- the first “massive open online course,” wide, from $1.6 billion in 2013 to $2.4 bil- Connectivism and Connective Knowl- Lessons from lion in 2014; they invested over $1 billion edge, was taught by two Canadian edu- more in the first quarter of 2015, much of cators, Stephen Downes and George the Digital that in China. What all that data is teach- Siemens, MOOCs have become a source ing us about how we learn and whether of tremendous amounts of data about stu- Classroom technology is actually making instruction dents’ behavior. Examination of this data better are the big questions at the heart of has intensified since 2012, when the three Technologists and venture capitalists this Business Report. largest platforms for these classes were are betting that the data online learning At the AltSchools, where tuition can launched: the Harvard-MIT joint ven- generates will reshape education. exceed $20,000 a year, the goal is to cre- ture edX and two for-profit companies ate highly individualized instruction built founded by former Stanford professors, ● In four small schools scattered across on a system that can grow to reach a broad Udacity and Coursera. Between the fall San Francisco, a data experiment is under scale. Four more AltSchools are opening of 2012 and the summer of 2014, more way. That is where AltSchool is testing this fall, including one in Brooklyn, New than a million people participated in the how technology can help teachers maxi- York, and Ventilla hopes to eventually 68 open online courses on edX, logging 1.1 mize their students’ learning. sell access to the system to other schools, billion clicks on the edX servers. Founded two years ago by Max too. AltSchool has raised $133 million While only a small percentage of stu- Ventilla, a data expert and former head from the likes of Facebook founder Mark dents complete any given MOOC, their of personalization at Google, AltSchool Zuckerberg, venture capitalist John data is helping educators develop new runs schools filled with data-gathering Doerr, the Omidyar Network, and venture teaching models that promise to be more technology. firms Andreessen Horowitz and Found- efective—such as programs that combine Information is captured from the ers Fund. “What if we tried to create not online instruction with one-on-one coach- moment each student arrives at school just great schools we’d like to send our ing or support, regular quizzes, and other and checks in on an attendance app. For kids to, but an expanding ecosystem?” check-ins on progress. part of the day, students work indepen- says Ventilla, who started thinking about This approach has been shown in dently, using iPads and Chromebooks, education when he and his wife began some cases to be more successful than on “playlists” of activities that teachers applying to preschool for their daughter traditional classroom instruction. Ari- have selected to match their personal in 2012. “What role can technology play zona State University, for example, ofers goals. Data about each student’s prog- to superpower each child and each set of more than 90 different undergraduate ress is captured for teachers’ later review. parents and educators?” and graduate degrees online, part of a Classrooms are recorded, and teachers can flag important moments by pressing a button, as you might TiVo your favorite Online Learning Over Time An abbreviated history of learning over the Web. television show. The idea is that all the data from this 1992 2011 network of schools will be woven into a The Electronic University Network ofers a PhD Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig’s MOOC Introduc- smart centralized operating system that via America Online. tion to Artificial Intelligence opens a Stanford class- teachers will be able to use to design efec- room to the Web. Initial enrollment: over 150,000. tive and personalized instruction. There is 1996 even a recommendation engine built in. Western Governors University, initially funded 2012 While most schools don’t have the type by 11 states, begins ofering courses online. By The New York Times declares 2012 the “Year of of technology AltSchool is developing, 2015 its programs will graduate 10,000 students the MOOC” after the launch of edX, a nonprofit classrooms are increasingly filled with lap- a year. joint venture of Harvard and MIT, and the private tops and other digital teaching aids. This companies Udacity and Coursera. 2003 year U.S. elementary, middle, and high Eighty-one percent of colleges ofer at least one 2013 schools are expected to spend $4.7 billion course online. Georgia Institute of Technology ofers first MOOC- on information technology. What is new is based master’s degree, in computer science. that many of the technologies are captur- 2008 ing expansive amounts of data, enough of First massive open online course (MOOC) is 2015 it to search for meaningful patterns and taught, and Salman Khan launches Khan Acad- Arizona State University begins ofering full insight into how students learn. The poten- emy, the nonprofit free tutorial site. freshman college credit for certain MOOCs.

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long-term goal as a public university of expanding access to education. The uni- THE CONNECTED CLASSROOM versity teaches freshman math to 8,000 Online learning comes into the classroom. By Kristin Majcher students a year. Those needing to catch up to college level are placed in Developmen- tal Math, a class where 50 percent of stu- dents have traditionally earned a D or F. Four years ago ASU combined its online and classroom approaches to Devel- opmental Math, switching to video-based lectures and incorporating an online tool made by a company called Knewton. It analyzes students as they work through online math lessons to understand how they learn best and what they have and have not mastered. Reports on students’ progress, the time they are putting in, and their engagement and success then go to student coaches who reach out by e-mail, DIGITAL New apps and software platforms allow teachers to keep their student lists, text message, or in person. In the first two DOCUMENTS attendance records, calendars, and correspondence all in one place. Google semesters the school used this approach, Classroom is one that allows students to hand in homework online and see their the pass rate increased to 75 percent. grade when the teacher is done reviewing it. Schoology is another popular example. Udacity has similarly structured itself COMMUNICATION More than 20 percent of U.S. teachers use an app called Remind to text parents around individualized feedback. In its first and students about deadlines without exposing personal information, according to month ofering a “nanodegree” in Android the app maker. Pearson’s PowerTeacher and PowerSchool apps give parents real- programming, designed with Google, time feedback about their children’s grades or behavior. Udacity reported that students had sub- mitted over 2,000 projects, which were CLASS Teachers can make class websites using Haiku Learning or Google Sites without then evaluated by a paid network of cod- WEBSITES writing code. Many schools now make announcements on Facebook and Twitter. ing experts around the world. Cofounder Science teacher Jessica Anderson at Powell County High School in Deer Lodge, Sebastian Thrun says 91 percent of pay- Montana, uses the @SciencePCHS tag on Instagram, Twitter, and Vine to post class projects like a Rube Goldberg machine. ing students with this kind of coached model finish the course. Though it’s not a GAMING Students can earn points for good behavior on ClassDojo, or by answering questions perfect contrast, the free robotics MOOC on their smartphones in the Kahoot app, which claims 30 million users. Students Thrun taught as a Stanford professor had playing ClassCraft use special powers to advance their team through a virtual world. a completion rate of 2 percent. Correct answers unlock perks like the right to ask questions during tests. The data from online instruction ofers a new level of feedback for teachers, too. STUDENT More and more schools aim to have a laptop or tablet for every student. The Teachers on the Coursera platform have a DEVICES 435 students at Intrinsic, a charter school in Chicago, had Chromebooks last year. Powell County High School distributed laptops to students three years ago, dashboard on which they can see exactly switched to iPads this year, and will issue HP Stream laptops next year. when in a video students are most likely to stop watching, what percentage of stu- PROJECTS Students can map out writing assignments on iPads through Inspiration and dents are getting an assessment question upload notes into Google Drive with Notability. Writing.com’s Writing Prompts app right the first time, and other metrics. If gives students ideas for essays, and Scholastic’s Book Wizard helps students and only 20 of the 200 students taking a quiz teachers keep track of interesting books they would like to read. got a certain question right, teachers can reëxamine how they taught that point in CLASSROOM Intrinsic divides its English and math classrooms into diferent areas. Students the video or how the question was worded DESIGN learn directly from teachers in one section, have group discussions on blue chairs in an area called the “ocean,” work independently on the “coastline” (which snakes to see what’s going wrong. around the room’s perimeter), and work in groups at tables in the “shade.” “I taught in a university 18 years and I never got that kind of detailed feedback,” STREAMLINED Protecting and securing student data is a growing concern. Through Clever, says Daphne Koller, a Stanford engineer- SECURITY teachers decide which education tools can access encrypted student data and how ing professor who cofounded Coursera much they can see. Clever, Apple, Google, and AT&T are a few of the 150 technology

LAURIE ROLLITT LAURIE three years ago. —Nanette Byrnes companies pledging to protect student data from being sold or used for advertising.

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tools and classroom settings. How much ate level, we aren’t ofering stand-alone Q&A is that happening at Duke, and what are online courses for credit. That would be the results? a much more serious conversation that We have a lot of “flipped classroom” edu- would involve a lot of faculty discussion The Believer: cation going on. It’s not in every corner and approval. I really don’t know the of the university, but you will see plenty answer to that at this point. Duke’s Sally of situations where students do online exercises or watch material online ahead When people apply to study at Duke, is Kornbluth of class. Then faculty can use class time MOOC completion a relevant factor yet, for experiential learning or discussions, in terms of how the admissions ofce Duke’s provost says there’s no question rather than straight-on delivery of didac- sizes up candidates? that students are getting value from tic material. Students still get in-person It’s really interesting. We aren’t yet doing online learning. interactions with fellow students and the anything on an aggregate level. But we faculty. We create touch points that inter- have been seeing home-schooled kids who ● Of all the U.S. universities ofering free face with the technology, rather than hav- took a couple of our classes online to see online courses to the world, Duke Univer- ing the technology be stand-alone. if they could do Duke-level work. Also, sity in Durham, North Carolina, is among faculty who have been teaching MOOCs the most active. Its professors have filled Which specific techniques in online have reached out to their best students Coursera’s distance-learning platform education strike you as game changers? internationally and have encouraged them with 30 courses, in subjects ranging from I’m really interested in the trend toward to come to Duke as graduate students. So astronomy to dog emotions. Since 2013, bite-sized pieces of education. The first MOOCs are entering the larger universe the university has assigned one admin- MOOCs were replicas of the traditional, of recruiting modes for us. istrator exclusively to digital and online full-semester experience. Now, though, education initiatives. There’s even a col- we’re seeing professors ofer 15-minute How well can we gauge whether online lection of sunny haikus about online edu- modules, or three-week pop-up courses. students have mastered the material? cation on Duke’s website. People are experimenting with a lot of for- We have a pretty robust assessment pro- “A few years ago, the question was mats that break with traditional content cess. We have staff dedicated to seeing ‘Should we be teaching online or shouldn’t delivery. In fact, I caught my son taking whether students are really getting what we?’ says Duke provost Sally Kornbluth, online physics courses at Yale, watching we hope for out of the classes. I get the a geneticist by training. “That conversa- them at double speed. feeling it’s going pretty well. tion has passed. Now it’s a conversation about what kinds of innovative things we What’s the impact of MOOCs on the way Online education providers are still can do.” In a discussion with MIT Tech- your professors do their jobs? working out their business models. nology Review contributing editor George At Duke, it’s revitalized the notion of ped- What approaches seem wisest to you? Anders, Kornbluth explained why Duke is agogic innovation, in a way that’s spilled It’s tough. A lot of the original motivation bullish about online education—and what out of the online space and into the reg- for MOOCs was altruistic—connecting new opportunities lie ahead. ular classroom. You can take your base worldwide with people who might not course, add some content, and then re- have access to a Duke-level education. I Universities have been relying on books, tailor it for alumni education or execu- think a lot of faculty members are still lectures, and seminars since the 1400s. tive education. You can interact directly really motivated by that. Being paid or Does online learning provide a fourth with people all over the world to address for-profit takes that away. Charging for channel that can rival the others? a common issue. Or if you’re wonder- accreditation seems reasonable, but you It’s supplementary. It hasn’t replaced ing how you can possibly read 400,000 almost have to have waivers equivalent in-person lectures or books. But there’s essays, you can have 400,000 students to financial aid. no question that students are finding it read one another’s essays. There’s a lot of another avenue for getting the informa- unexplored power that can be harnessed. Have you tested out any MOOCs tion they want. Frequently, that’s comple- yourself, as a clandestine student? mentary to traditional settings. In other What are some issues associated with I always wanted to take a good biostatis- words, they’re looking for more back- online learning that you haven’t solved? tics class. I tried one, but then I realized ground. Online learning actually enriches One of the things we haven’t grappled that my college math skills had become so their in-person experience. with is how online teaching factors into rusty that I would have needed to back up things like promotions and tenure. Right and do a more introductory course first. Tell me more about blended learning— now it doesn’t have a formal role; it’s still Right now, I just don’t have the time. But where instructors use a mix of online just an add-on. And at the undergradu- when I retire, I’ll take some.

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I encouraged them to try, because I just a way of sharing content with people Q&A believed several things could only be who wouldn’t have access to it otherwise. learned by moving the technology out to the market quickly. First, what kind of How could online learning methods The Skeptic: investment would be necessary to create become more useful? a high-quality platform. Second, where We’re trying to build analytics so that we Stanford’s John the market would emerge. Indeed, lots can give feedback to faculty. In a tradi- of the market turns out to involve profes- tional, large science or engineering class, Hennessy sional training. That’s outside the tradi- you don’t know until the midterm or the tional space that universities serve. You final whether there’s some topic that’s a Stanford’s president questions whether can aim a company in that direction. It’s disaster in terms of the students not get- online learning can match traditional harder for a university to move in a direc- ting it. Online, you can get feedback much instruction in motivating students. tion that’s not coherent with its core goals sooner. You might even be able to get it and mission. before the lecture is over, so that you can ● Stanford president John Hennessy has fix it while the class is still going on. We’d a background that would make it tempt- What’s your perspective on blending like to fold that in, so that we can develop ing to regard him as the online-education online tools and face-to-face teaching? teaching that gets progressively better. insurgents’ best friend. He joined Stan- We’re hearing a lot these days about the ford in 1977 as a professor of electrical “flipped classroom,” in which students Can we gauge whether online students engineering. He has founded his own listen to lectures online and then use have truly mastered the material? computer company and continues a high- class time for problem solving. We’re still stumbling around, finding the level involvement in Silicon Valley, where We need a lot more experiments. We right mix of automated grading, peer he serves as a Google director. need people to try out things and mea- grading, and some role for graduate stu- Hennessy turns out to be surprisingly sure them. There’s one really good experi- dents or other trained evaluators. There cautious, though, about online educa- ment involving an online statistics class are just some things that can’t be graded tion in general and massive open online from Carnegie Mellon. It showed quite automatically. And in high-stakes situa- courses (MOOCs) in particular. Tradi- clearly that a flipped classroom can lead tions, peer grading makes everybody ner- tional teaching has some hard-to-imitate to comparable performance versus tra- vous. Motivation and personal contact strengths, he pointed out in an interview ditional instruction, in less time. If you are critical issues. I just don’t think that with MIT Technology Review contribut- could reduce the time that students need beaming a MOOC into somebody’s bed- ing editor George Anders. Among them: to learn the material—and be sure that room is going to create the kind of engag- classroom instructors’ ability to inspire students aren’t learning less—then we ing experience they’re going to need to students and to gauge how well they have would have something valuable. succeed in school. The technology will get mastered the material. better, but it will take some time. Distance learning has been around for a How do you think online learning long time. How have we moved beyond How do you like what’s in the compares with traditional methods? some very clunky beginnings? marketplace now? The advantage is the disadvantage. Active learning. The truth is, looking at a There are a wide variety of issues that have MOOCs let you reach a very large audi- talking video for an hour is absolutely no to be solved. For-profit or nonprofit; con- ence that’s highly distributed in terms of more motivating—perhaps even less moti- sortiums or institutions going in alone. its ability to master the material. That’s an vating—than sitting in a large lecture hall Who actually does the instruction? Who inherent property of a course that’s meant for an hour. You need a more interactive provides the certification? They’re still to be massive and open. And therein lies experience that requires you to pay atten- playing out in real time. the difculty. If the students are all over tion and answer a quiz before going on to the map, then a large fraction of them will the next section. That gives the students Did you ever try any MOOCs yourself, as feel everything is going too fast. Many some confidence. a student? will feel it’s too slow. That’s quite diferent I started this American poetry class from from a traditional classroom at Stanford. Professors at top-tier universities are Penn. The material was well presented. ambitious souls. Has MOOC creation For the self-motivated individual, this Two of the best-known MOOC become a badge of glory in some stuff works well. The MOOC creates a platforms, Coursera and Udacity, were disciplines? learning community that’s really the mod- started by Stanford computer science For us, it’s more about some contribution ern version of a book club. I don’t know professors in 2012. What advice did you to the public good. I mean, there’s some how much you could charge for it—but give them? brand building going on, but it’s mostly it’s an interesting learning environment.

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early 2014, he enrolled in three online than their champions predicted when Case Study data-science classes via Coursera, all they launched on a wide scale in 2012. taught by Johns Hopkins professors. By Rather than displacing traditional under- earning certificates from the courses, graduate programs, MOOCs in developed India Loves demonstrating expertise in areas such as economies seem to find their biggest the programming tool R, Goyal impressed audience among those eager to learn MOOCs Dunnhumby, one of Britain’s largest more about history, psychology, or some customer- analytics companies. He now other side interest. Those enrollees try In a country of rigid teaching styles and works there as a Delhi-based senior ana- lots of classes but often drop out after a scarce university slots, students and lyst, using data to figure out what British few sessions. professors are exploring what online shoppers want next. learning can be. Throughout India, online education is gaining favor as a career accelerator, ● How does a talented Indian teenager particularly in technical fields. Indian 12% Proportion of edX students like Gaurav Goyal make his mark on the enrollments account for about 8 percent based in India. world? Ordinarily, his destiny would have of worldwide activity in Coursera and 12 been set on the morning in 2008 when he percent in edX, the two leading provid- took his country’s toughest college place- ers of massive open online courses, or It’s a diferent story in India. There, ment exam: the IIT Joint Entrance Exam. MOOCs. Only the United States’ share online courses from the U.S. or Europe More than 300,000 students attempted is clearly higher; China’s is roughly com- are finding a big following among college the test that year; only 8,652 qualified parable. India’s own top-tier technical students and recent graduates, says Rick for a spot at one of the ultra-elite Indian universities have created free videotaped Levin, CEO of Coursera, which is based Institutes of Technology. lectures of more than 700 courses, with in Mountain View, California. They are Goyal mustered a score in the top the goal of putting students at regional a more serious bunch, hoping that the 1 percent, winning entry to IIT Delhi. colleges in digital contact with the coun- right technical courses can help them win But he fell just short of the cutof for the try’s most renowned professors. better jobs. In a boon to Coursera’s bot- school’s most competitive degree pro- In the United States and Europe, tom line, emerging-market learners are gram, the one he most wanted to pursue: MOOCs have proved less revolutionary also frequently willing to pay $29 to $250 computer science. Instead, for a certificate that attests Goyal was told to major to their successful perfor- in civil engineering. Other mance on a final exam. students could learn about “I believe that India databases. For him, hydrol- ultimately will be a much ogy awaited. bigger market for MOOCs Determined to change than the U.S.,” says edX his fate, Goyal, an extrovert chief executive Anant with a keen interest in busi- Agarwal, who also is an ness, found a way to outwit MIT professor of electrical the system. As he recently engineering and computer explained over a dinner science. Indian students of curried cottage-cheese crave advanced knowl- skewers at a fancy lakeside edge that can open doors restaurant in Delhi’s Hauz to a more prosperous life, Khas district, he wiggled Agarwal says: “If you’ve his way into a variety of been trampled all your life, management courses at now you find you can stand IIT Delhi and lined up his shoulder to shoulder with first job after graduation at the best.” Wipro, one of India’s lead- Sheer demographics ing information-technology bolster his case: India’s ofshoring companies. population of more than Then Goyal set out to 1.2 billion is nearly four sharpen his résumé. In times the U.S. total. India’s

brightest students enjoy FAN EVAH

6 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW the IIT campuses’ cachet as the training Given the opportunity four years ago lems, he tapped into online discussion ground of tech-sector leaders. A handful to a create a globally appealing online forums, populated by students from as far of other state-sponsored or private uni- course on circuits, Agarwal could have away as Argentina and Ukraine. versities achieve top-tier status, too. By kept the star role for himself. Instead, he What Agarwal started, dozens of and large, though, a degree from most of reworked camera angles so that he became other U.S. professors have now exported India’s 35,000 colleges simply doesn’t reg- an unseen background voice—while cir- to India, too. Jim Fowler, an assistant ister with international employers. cuit diagrams and problems enjoyed full professor of mathematics at Ohio State, For aspiring Indian engineers and sci- prominence. Online students needed to teaches Coursera’s most popular online entists, online credentials ofer a way to put each lecture’s concepts to work, right calculus class. Instead of lecturing non- stand out from the crowd. Coursera’s most away, by designing their own circuits and stop at a whiteboard, he pauses periodi- popular ofering in India is an intensely analyzing the ways that amplifiers, induc- cally to blow up a balloon or cast shadows practical University of Maryland course tors, and other devices would operate. with a stick-figure puppet—helping learn- on how to build mobile applications for Built-in software allowed students’ work ers visualize the integrals and derivatives Android devices. After that come two on a digital sketch pad to be automatically they are being asked to calculate. Python programming classes from the graded within seconds. Such showmanship delighted Surya University of Michigan and Rice Univer- It was a most un-Indian approach, Prakash in 2013, when the West Bengal sity. Next is a Stanford class on machine sidestepping the long lectures, rote learn- student took Fowler’s calculus MOOC. learning. All told, eight of Coursera’s top ing, and heavy emphasis on foundational Prakash had finished high school and was 10 courses in India are highly techni- principles that typify many Indian col- trying to score well enough on the Joint cal. (Even the two nontechnical classes lege courses. Indian campuses and tech Entrance Exam to win admission to an on Coursera’s leaderboard are designed companies began buzzing about this rare elite engineering college. Earlier attempts for strivers: Learning How to Learn and chance to experience hands-on teaching. to master calculus had gone badly, but Introduction to Public Speaking.) Circuits 6.002x, as his MOOC was called, Prakash seized on Fowler’s examples and Coursera executive Kabir Chadha is attracted 155,000 people worldwide in its drew on them to achieve a strong test trying to persuade leading Indian tech 2012 debut—nearly 50,000 from India. score—and a ticket to a first-tier college employers to embrace his company’s com- “I got super-excited at the prospect in Jaipur. pletion certificates as an important part of being a virtual MIT student,” Shreyas Mixing facts and fun in a MOOC of their job-candidate screening. Already, Jayaprakash recently recalled. He was fin- “helps you remember things better when companies including Google, Wipro, Info- ishing up his undergraduate studies at a it comes time to take the exam,” says sys, Infineon, and Microsoft have hired regional college in Bengaluru at the time, Mahesh Kumar Hiremath, a computer sci- Indian engineers with online-education worried that he couldn’t compete success- ence major in his senior year at BMS Col- credentials, though such achievements fully against other 6.002x students from lege of Engineering in Bengaluru, who has don’t yet factor into recruiting standards around the world. But Jayaprakash raced taken at least eight MOOCs, often to get a in a consistent way, if at all. Thousands to complete the course quizzes within second perspective on his actual courses of Indian engineers now list schools such hours after they were posted. He ended up in topics such as algorithms or Java. The as Stanford, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon with a 99 percent score on the final exam. extra effort has paid off; Hiremath has as part of their educational background Today he is a design engineer for the Ben- earned As in most of his classes and is on LinkedIn, based solely on completion galuru ofce of Avago Technologies, where joining SAP after graduation. of online courses ofered by professors at those U.S. universities. In India online courses are finding a big following among college Few people have wrestled more exten- students and recent graduates, hoping that the right technical sively with the challenge of teaching courses can help them win better jobs. electrical engineering to undergradu- ates than Anant Agarwal. A product of IIT Madras and Stanford, he has been he inspects chips that ultimately become BMS’s snug urban campus is a sanc- teaching at MIT since 1988, perfecting part of Dell, Cisco, or Facebook servers. tuary from the noisy motorbike trafc of an upbeat, high-energy classroom style Taking 6.002x “improved my prob- modern-day Bengaluru, and a contrast to that has earned him two teaching awards. lem solving,” says Ashwith Rego, who is the opulent 16th-century temple to the With his booming voice, untucked flan- pursuing a master’s degree in electrical Hindi demigod Nanda that sits just across nel shirts, and sweeping hand gestures, engineering from IIT Bombay. One quiz the main access road. The school attracts Agarwal projects a geeky charisma. One gave Rego a better understanding of oscil- people with a single-minded focus on aca- of his 2007 lectures has attracted some loscopes. Another had him analyze car demics, many the children of middle-class 550,000 page views on YouTube. suspension systems. On the hardest prob- accountants, engineers, and biologists.

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“There are a lot of computer sci- an active supporter of a national program nowhere near as well prepared as a typi- ence engineers in my family,” Chaitra that has made stored videos of elite insti- cal IIT undergraduate.” That forced him Chandrasekhar, who’s majoring in medi- tutions’ course lectures available free of to teach at a more rudimentary level than cal electronics and biomedical engineer- charge to anyone who wants to watch. he might have wanted, even though a few ing at BMS, wryly observed, during a Recently, Phatak and three other IIT students were so savvy that they almost roundtable chat over tea and biscuits at Bombay instructors teamed up with edX didn’t need the course at all. the school. Like many of her peers, she to offer their own online introductory Shrof also found that in his field, it has used online classes as a safe, easy course on computer programming. was hard to test the depth of students’ way of expanding her horizons, even if Making the technology hum is the easy understanding. The MOOC format some explorations (such as a short-lived part, Phatak says. It’s harder to rearrange required him to come up with assign- attempt to learn German) went nowhere. university priorities so that India’s best ments and exams that could be machine- Medha S. Bharadwaj, a medical electron- instructors can be granted enough dis- graded, which tilted everything toward ics major, took a Python programming cretionary time to build first-rate MOOCs more superficial questions than might be class to help her on the job market and a from scratch. Another barrier, Phatak posed in a traditional, hand-graded class- Western music class for fun. says, is schools’ reluctance to provide aca- room exam. Indian technical colleges seldom ofer demic credit for online learning. He has Overall, he concluded, MOOC stu- the wide-ranging electives that can be been working with the All India Council dents are more likely to end up with an “awareness” of a field, rather than deep knowledge. That’s not all bad, he “Every course can’t be in the [U.S.-style] interactive format. observed. It just means that, at least for Some have to be very serious lectures.” him, teaching a MOOC is “more like writ- ing a short book than teaching a course.” R. K. Shevgaonkar, former director of found on U.S. campuses. So BMS students for Technical Education to establish new IIT Delhi, has been testing various online such as Sharath Chandra tend to chuckle guidelines that would allow students to education methods for at least a decade. when they admit to signing up for online earn 15 percent of their credits online. He is confident that digital learning in oddities such as a sports management One proposal would let outlying colleges some form is “a good solution” for India MOOC taught by the University of Penn- use a blended model, in which online as it seeks to spread technical knowledge sylvania. It’s irrelevant to his computer instruction supplements class lectures fast enough to satisfy the demands of a science studies, Chandra conceded. Even and discussions. That approach will be big, rapidly growing nation. He is eager so, he added, “it was fascinating to find put into action in the 2015–16 academic to see India become an exporter of online out how Real Madrid can sign a player for years, with about 50 of India’s autono- academic instruction rather than a net $80 million, and make back $40 million mous institutes working with IIT Bombay importer from the United States. of that with extra T-shirt sales.” to ofer blended MOOCs in three subjects. India’s vast size and rapid develop- Eager to establish that India can cre- ment mean there is always a shortage ate its own advanced online classes rather of professors. With a record 3.2 million than importing content from the United 3.2 million Number of Indian students enrolled in students currently enrolled in university- States, the Ministry of Human Resources university-level engineering programs level engineering programs, there aren’t Development last year sketched out enough experts to teach everyone in per- plans for its own MOOC platform known son. Essential courses can’t be offered as Swayam. As of this June, however, Shevgaonkar himself has posted on at all in some rural colleges; elsewhere, only three Swayam courses had been YouTube a massive, 60-lecture series people with just a bachelor’s degree are announced. Coursera and edX each ofer about transmission lines and electromag- pressed into duty as instructors for first- more than 500 online classes. netic waves. This 2007 presentation lacks year courses. The best hope of fixing this While Indian students are embrac- interactive quizzes or video-editing fan- predicament, says pioneering Indian com- ing the visual thrills and incessant mini- fare, but Shevgaonkar makes no apologies puter science professor Deepak Phatak, is quizzes of U.S.-style MOOCs, their for the spartan delivery. His opening lec- a much bolder role for online education. professors aren’t as delighted. In 2012, ture has attracted a very robust 285,000 Phatak is India’s most persistent Gautam Shrof, an adjunct professor at views, and a respectable 8,800 students champion of tech-based ways to stretch IIT Delhi, decided to create a Coursera made it to the final (60th) lecture. the classroom. In 2002, he and a colleague MOOC on Web intelligence and big data. “Every course can’t be in the [U.S.- arranged for his IIT Bombay class in He came away with mixed impressions. style] interactive format,” Shevgaonkar information science to be live-streamed, Reaching a big audience was enticing, he argues. “Some have to be very serious lec- via video, to other Indian colleges. He is observed, but “the average learner was tures.” —George Anders

8 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

describe any kind of online educational United States, and fewer than 200,000 Case Study ofering.) The startup community around are accepted, he says. Zhongguancun includes Hujiang, which There are some concerns accompa- has 80 million registered users, includ- nying this trend. Although China has by China’s Startup ing three million who pay fees. Many far the world’s largest number of Internet are cramming for tests like the “gaokao,” users, with more than 640 million peo- Boom in Online China’s main college entrance exam. A ple online, Internet penetration is only startup called Jikexueyuan created a about 46 percent, compared with 87 per- Learning platform ofering tutorials on program- ming and Web design that has signed up Will a surge in distance learning for more than 800,000 users. And the newest traditional subjects, test prep, language, entrants are more diverse platforms such $1 billion Chinese investment in education and trade skills leave the poorest out? as the parental-advice site Babytree. (Just technologies in 2014 enter Mom’s due date and “you can get for ● China knows a thing or two about you and your baby a tailored parenting distance learning. For two decades, the guide,” the site says, in Chinese.) cent in the United States. And a num- country’s education ministry has used the Chinese investment in education tech- ber of studies suggest that the benefits television airwaves to broadcast agricul- nologies has climbed from $137 million of online education accrue mostly to the tural lessons to more than 100 million (in U.S. dollars) in 2013 to more than $1 already advantaged. Justin Reich, execu- rural students—making it the largest such billion in 2014, according to TAL Edu- tive director of the PK12 Initiative at MIT program in the world. And in the early cation Group, a publicly traded Chinese and a research scientist in MIT’s Ofce 2000s, the charitable Li Ka Shing Foun- education firm based in Beijing. of Digital Learning, who recently spent dation installed satellite dishes and com- And the startups in Zhongguancun time touring startups at the MOOC Times puters to broadcast lectures to 10,000 are joined by a wide range of university Building and talking to educators in China, says he also heard concerns about students becoming isolated and losing In China, a rapidly rising middle class—part of a population that now out on useful peer pressure, but that he totals 1.4 billion—is creating a demand for educational oferings far generally encountered great enthusiasm. outpacing what traditional teachers and schools can supply. “In China, all of these concerns are voiced against the backdrop of a much larger concern that there is a tremendous rural schools. Now this top-down model and private entrants. Xuetang, a MOOC unmet demand for education,” he says. of online learning is being joined by a supported by Tsinghua University, for Online courses can in some cases not surge in new commercial and university example, ofers some courses on edX, an only fill a brick-and-mortar void but actu- oferings. online platform sponsored by MIT and ally do a better job at teaching certain And it’s no longer just about reach- Harvard University. specific skills, says Rong Wang, a profes- ing rural provinces. In China a rapidly Homegrown Chinese platforms for sor at Peking University who researches rising middle class—part of a popula- university education are emerging, too. education finance. Traditional schools are tion that now totals 1.4 billion—is creat- One-Man University—founded by a very exam-oriented, “and many teachers ing a demand for education far outpacing former physics student at Peking Uni- don’t have adequate capacities in deliv- what traditional teachers and schools can versity—has started distributing instruc- ering practical skills instruction to stu- supply. In response, Chinese startups are tional 15-minute videos prepared by dents,” she says. And working adults aren’t identifying market niches and developing teachers to its more than 130,000 regis- being served by traditional schools, which entirely new products, while universities tered members through 56.com, a video- generally have only limited classes on eve- are emulating online platforms first devel- streaming website. nings and weekends, she says. oped in the United States. “There is a tremendous demand in Reich adds that there has been some The trend is strikingly on display in China to get a U.S.-quality education,” says discussion within the government of Beijing’s technology district, Zhongguan- Bryan Stolle, a general partner at Mohr defining a set of requirements for degrees cun, often called China’s Silicon Valley, Davidow, a venture capital firm in Menlo and then letting students meet some of where a building housing 15 education- Park, California, that is funding Hotchalk, them through MOOCs. If the government technology startups has become known a company in Campbell, California, that’s were to allow MOOC credits to apply as the MOOC Times Building. (The acro- attempting to give U.S. universities a digi- toward a degree, he points out, such a nym formally means “massive open online tal presence in China. Each year 750,000 scheme could rapidly be implemented course,” but in China “MOOC” is used to Chinese students apply for college in the nationwide. —David Talbot

9 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM ONLINE LEARNING

LAUSD’s blunder, which set a new in schools, says Sara Schapiro, a director Case Study standard for how not to go digital, teaches at Digital Promise, an independent non- an important lesson, say experts in edu- profit authorized by Congress in 2008 cation and technology: school districts that’s focused on improving education Lessons Learned should be spending at least as much time through technology. figuring out how their classrooms will use That’s created a somewhat awkward After a disastrous technology rollout technology as they do shopping for it. situation for school districts. They’re in Los Angeles, schools reassess their L.A. wasn’t the first school district to priorities. begin this digital transition. Public and private school systems in Baltimore, San ● $1.3 billion In schools across the United States, Francisco, Boston, and many other cities Value of the Los Angeles Unified School chalk and textbooks are disappearing. In have been augmenting their classrooms District iPad contract their place are tablets and laptops. This with technology for years. In 2002, the technological transformation is only just state of Maine began a program that beginning, but it stands to reshape the would eventually outfit every one of its already full of what Himelstein calls ways teachers teach and students learn. middle school and high school students digital- native students who’ve proved In 2015, school systems will spend an with their own laptops. they can benefit from technology, but the estimated $522 million on tablets and While school systems are eager to school districts have little data to show readers, and $4.7 billion on IT over- jump in, the research on how technol- taxpayers that investing millions or even all. “Districts are trying to be very, very ogy can improve student learning is still billions of public dollars in technology will thoughtful about how they do this,” says relatively thin. Still, some early studies do explicitly raise test scores or usher under- performing kids toward college. The case is particularly difficult In 2015, school systems will spend an estimated $522 million on to make in public school systems with tablets and readers, and $4.7 billion on IT overall. For them, the diverse socioeconomic conditions and Los Angeles iPad program is a cautionary tale. large student populations. “Laptops make a good school better, but they don’t make a bad school good,” says Mark Warschauer. Scott Himelstein, executive director of find evidence that it can lead to measur- He’s a professor at the UC Irvine School of the University of San Diego’s Institute for able improvements, particularly through Education who’s studied the implementa- Entrepreneurship in Education. “Obvi- the personalized learning made possible tion of technology in school systems, and ously they don’t want to be in a situation by technologies and software that allow he says it can’t be the ultimate solution for like LAUSD.” students to learn at their own pace. schools with greater systemic issues like He’s referring to the Los Angeles Uni- A November 2014 report from the Bill high teacher turnover. “That doesn’t mean fied School District, the second-largest and Melinda Gates Foundation on per- you shouldn’t put computers into low- in the country, which in the fall of 2013 sonalized learning practices found that performing schools,” he says, “but be real- launched an ambitious plan to put iPads the 23 schools studied showed gains in istic about the expectations and give the into the hands of each of its 643,000 math and reading test scores significantly other kinds of broader support needed.” K–12 students. But almost as quickly as greater than those seen in a control group Broader support, many experts agree, the first devices were distributed, the of schools without personalized learning. begins with training teachers to use tech- plan imploded—a victim of incomplete And a 2010 study of nearly 1,000 schools nology in the classroom. The newest gad- software packages, easily circumvented by the education research group Project get with the slickest software won’t do security systems, and revelations that the RED found that classes with deeply inte- much to help struggling students if their supposedly open bidding process for the grated technology showed an increase in teachers don’t understand how to inte- $1.3 billion contract was basically decided high-stakes test scores and a reduction grate it into the curriculum. in advance. in disciplinary action and dropouts com- Teacher training has been the prior- In its rush to get its iPad program pared with traditional classes. In terms of ity at the Houston Independent School started, the district was handing out the actual technologies used, experts say District, which is currently phasing in a devices to students before the educational tablets are proving especially efective at program that would provide each of the software was ready to be used, and with- improving reading skills, while laptops roughly 46,000 students in its 40 high out a clear strategy for integrating them help writing and research skills. schools with a laptop. Lenny Schad, the into the classroom. The superintendent The research hasn’t kept pace, how- district’s chief technology information resigned a year later, and the whole deal is ever, with how quickly educational tech- officer, says it’s a multi-year initiative now the subject of a federal investigation. nology is evolving and being implemented in each school that starts with training

10 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW principals and teachers to integrate the implementation plan for the entire dis- seek out women-only groups in their com- technology into their curricula and only trict. “What would you want that memo munity. One such program is the Women’s gradually increases the school’s reliance to say?” she asked. After a beat of silence, Coding Collective, started in 2011 as a on it. “The focus has very little to do with the room broke into laughter. In a dis- Meetup group in Boston by two women technology. The focus is on ‘What are we trict with more than 643,000 students who wanted to collaborate on an app and going to do to facilitate changing instruc- spread across more than 1,000 schools, decided to host events to bring together tion?’” explains Schad. the prospect of crafting a single approach a broader network. Now the group hosts Some smaller, more nimble districts is daunting. “Lessons learned,” Burton Web development classes that cost $25. are moving faster. Just north of San says of the bungled iPad program: “there Since its first picnic meetings, the collec- Diego, the 5,500-student, K–6 Encinitas are no quick fixes.” tive has hosted 130 events and grown to Union School District began planning its The task force will present its rec- 6,000 members from all over the world digital transition in 2009 with a goal of ommendations to the LAUSD board in who take classes in Cambridge, Massa- increasing individualized learning. After November. —Nate Berg chusetts, and online as well as attending some early pilot tests in single classes, the events and workshops. district implemented a program for the San Francisco’s CODE2040, started 2011–12 school year that provided each Industry three years ago, focuses on teaching pro- child with an iPad. Tim Baird, the dis- fessional and entrepreneurial skills to trict’s superintendent, says students have blacks and Latinos. Even though 18 per- shown marked improvements in learning Hacking cent of U.S. computer science degrees the state-required curriculum after using are awarded to members of these groups, game-based apps like ST Math, and they Diversity their representation in the tech workforce have also made more creative uses of the is just over half that level, according to iPad’s apps—for example, using iMovie to Open-access instruction, online and 2012 and 2013 data cited by CODE2040 integrate filmmaking into class projects. A in person, has introduced coding to and the Level Playing Field Institute. short documentary produced by a group new students and created welcoming At Google, only 2 percent of employees of elementary school students recently communities for people traditionally are black and 3 percent are Hispanic. won an award at the California Student underrepresented in technology. The company just awarded CODE2040 Media Festival. Baird says surveys of stu- $775,000 in grants to finance new work- dents, teachers, and parents show that ● Anyone with Internet access and a com- shops, retreats, and an online platform to student engagement is way up since the puter can learn how to write a few lines of help coders and entrepreneurs apply for iPads were introduced. code these days. Free tutorials and infor- jobs and expand their businesses. “I think sometimes you’ve got to go mation from sites like Codecademy, which Shannon Turner, a Web developer, got slow to figure it out and then sometimes has been used by more than 25 million the idea to start women-only classes when you’ve got to go fast,” he says. “This could people, ofer widespread access to instruc- she found herself outnumbered by men at have been a 10-year implementation, but tion. They might even be able to break tech events and not always taken seriously. look how much learning would have been down barriers for groups traditionally She started Hear Me Code in September lost in that time.” underrepresented in technology, includ- 2013 to teach the Python programming In the wake of its iPad fiasco, how- ing women, blacks, and Hispanics. language to a handful of women at her ever, LAUSD—more than 10 times the size of Encinitas USD—is slowing things down. The new superintendent, Ramon This open-access model does seem to help—Codecademy says C. Cortines, recently launched a task force 34 percent of its users are women, for example, nearly double the of teachers, administrators, and education percentage of female graduates from university computer science experts to draft a strategy for implement- programs in the United States. ing technology throughout the district. Recently, about 40 task force mem- bers gathered in a basement classroom This open-access model does seem kitchen table in Washington, D.C. Since at an L.A. high school to hear from a to help—Codecademy says 34 percent of then, the program has grown to 1,200 few LAUSD principals. After their pre- its users are women, for example, nearly women who signed up to take four-hour sentations, Judy Burton, the founder of double the percentage of female graduates weekend classes every few weeks and a public charter school system and the from university computer science pro- meet at informal groups during the week task force’s volunteer chairperson, told the grams in the United States. to hone their skills. principals to imagine they had a “magic It’s not uncommon for women to use Students practice Python for several wand” and could outline a technology free programs as a starting point and then months, and Turner puts in 40-hour

11 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM ONLINE LEARNING weeks developing the curriculum, men- D.C. crowd. In one of the first lessons, stu- Many students participate out of personal toring students, planning the logistics for dents learn to make a drop-down menu of interest or to help with their current work, classes, and approving new members, all 50 states that can be used to help organi- but the classes have even helped some in addition to her day job as a freelance zations make online forms for new mem- women get new jobs using their coding Web developer. The classes are free, and bers. In another, students write a program skills. At least a dozen women have gotten the group sustains its growth with volun- that scans two lists of e-mail addresses to jobs as developers since they took the free teers. More than 50 students who took the pinpoint people who attended both a film Hear Me Code class, for example. One is class have now signed up to teach others. screening and a happy hour. Sonia Hinson, who initially used Python To Turner, the problem with some One of the most successful aspects of to coördinate the eforts of her employer, online coding courses is that they don’t the program is the way it builds a com- a humanitarian aid organization, to send make the content relevant. Her curricu- munity of women who learn new skills aid to hospitals. Hinson recently took a lum allows students to write programs for and then pass them on by teaching in the new job at a tech company. tasks that seem useful, especially to the program or organizing other tech events. —Kristin Majcher

TECH FOR TEACHERS Our list of some of the most interesting oferings in the booming online education market. By Kristin Majcher Description Interesting Fact Funding CLASSDOJO Mobile app allows teachers to award points to students when they More than 35 million teachers, More than $10 million in funding participate or do well in class, and to send reports about students’ parents, and students use ClassDojo from Felicis Ventures, General behavior to parents. in 50 percent of U.S. schools. Catalyst Partners, and others.

CODE Learn-to-code class from Pluralsight, which ofers online IT and Web More than a million people have Acquired by Pluralsight in SCHOOL development classes. Students earn badges as they complete more signed up for Code School classes. January for $36 million. than 40 classes. Rivals include Treehouse and the free Codecademy.

DREAMBOX Provides math curriculum tailored to individual elementary and middle Delivers a million individualized Has raised $14.5 million in LEARNING school students using online software. Has started ofering the math math lessons per day. funding, led by Netflix CEO Reed curriculum in Spanish. Usage has doubled each year since launch. Hastings.

DUOLINGO Turns language learning into a game on its colorful free website and A 2012 study found studying on Valued at $470 million after a app. More than 90 million users have signed up, 15 to 20 million of Duolingo for 34 hours as efective as recent $45 million investment whom are active monthly users. a semester-long college class. from Google Capital and others.

KHAN Ofers more than 2,400 free video lessons for everyone from Students have accessed more than Nonprofit funded by donations ACADEMY kindergartners to people well beyond high school on topics including 440 million lessons and finished from the Bill and Melinda Gates math, science, economics, and computing. more than three billion problems. Foundation and others.

KNEWTON Provides online educators with recommendations about what Has given more than 15 billion Raised $105 million in venture individual students should study by measuring data like how long recommendations to more than nine funding from First Round, students took to answer a multiple-choice question. million students since 2008. Pearson Education, and others.

LYNDA. Helps professionals learn new skills in technology and business. Customers include state Acquired by LinkedIn in April for COM Monthly subscribers can access a library of video lessons with more governments, top ad agencies, the an estimated $1.5 billion. than 3,500 courses and more than 144,000 videos. U.S. military, Fortune 50 companies.

PEARSON Provides online curriculum and tools for teachers and students in K–12 Its software was part of the Public company with 4.9 billion and higher education. More than half a million teachers have used its unsuccessful L.A. Unified School British pounds ($7.6 billion) in classroom management system to track attendance and grading. District digital initiative. sales in 2014.

UDACITY Partners with tech companies like Google, Facebook, and AT&T to AT&T reserved 100 paid internships Raised $58 million from firms create online video courses in subjects including Web development for the top-performing students who like Andreessen Horowitz and and data analysis. For a fee, students can earn a “nanodegree.” finish the programs. Charles River Ventures.

UDEMY Provides more than 30,000 online courses in areas like computer It would take more than 6.5 million Raised $113 million from Stripes programming, languages, music, photography, and personal minutes to watch all of the Udemy Group, Norwest Venture development to more than seven million students. course videos. Partners, and others.

12 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

believe, that learning by doing trumps personalized feedback on how they are Q&A learning by listening. We believe the ulti- performing. mate experience that really makes the master is to do something, build some- This is a digital way, I guess, of re- Uber for thing, invent something, design some- creating that mentoring or coaching that thing, code something. At Udacity, we a student can have with a teacher. Education built an Uber-like platform. With Uber Our data shows that having this dedicated any normal person with a car can become human touch leads to much more pro- Sebastian Thrun, a leading figure in a driver, and with Udacity now every per- found learning efects. We couldn’t really artificial intelligence, hopes his startup son with a computer can become a global do this with computers because they are Udacity will be a digital university for a code reviewer. And the mechanics for the not smart enough yet. You not only have new kind of economy. code reviewer are the same: you’re being someone to go to when you need help but paid per code review, and you’re being also someone to hold you accountable, ● In 2012, Sebastian Thrun, an expert assessed by your students. Our global too, and that has a big impact on learning. in automation and artificial intelligence and a former tenured professor at Stan- ford University, became the cofounder Universities have become more and more exclusive … Industry and CEO of Udacity. There he is creating says the opposite: make it as cheap as possible so we can reach a rival to traditional postsecondary edu- everybody. cation: a university focused on lifelong learning, in very small portion sizes, on demand and in a mobile format. code reviewers, on average, out of a five- You told me these reviewers could be in Udacity’s recently announced “Android point possible score, get 4.8 points. They the U.S., India, Canada, anywhere. nanodegree” was created with a $4 mil- give students back a very insightful and With Uber you have to be in the same city lion investment from Google. It’s a six- detailed, human-level, expert-level review to drive a person around in your car. With to-nine-month program costing students of their work, typically within two hours, Udacity you can be in Chile and grade $200 a month and promising to teach including detailed feedback on coding someone’s work in Lebanon, and the per- them everything about programming for style, what works, what doesn’t work, son in Lebanon wouldn’t even know the Android, from the fundamentals to build- and so on. Just like Uber, we’ve made the grader happens to be in Chile. The grad- ing apps. Projects are graded by Udacity’s financials line up. The best-earning global er’s ability to stay in the network to make network of 300 global code reviewers. As code reviewer makes more than 17,000 money is directly contingent on student he explains to Business Reports senior bucks a month. I compare this to the love. So he or she is going to work really, typical part-time teacher in the U.S. who really hard to make their review extremely teaches at a college—they make about insightful. The student wants an insight- $2,000 a month. ful review; they pay us money to get the $17,000 most insightful reviews. By giving them Monthly earnings of Udacity’s top global Is this particularly applicable to teaching the power to review the grader, all the code reviewers coding? Can this translate to other incentives line up. fields as efectively? editor Nanette Byrnes, those contractors I want to be careful not to say every field, You’ve spoken often about your desire are a key part of Thrun’s current vision but in many, many fields, you learn by to democratize education, to reach a for Udacity—a departure from the more doing and not by listening. Fields we are broad audience and reach people who common MOOC (massive open online not going to engage in would be some- don’t have access to this kind of educa- course) model that the company initially thing like tennis or violin, where your own tion otherwise, but Udacity is a business. seemed to be following, in which profes- practice is absolutely fundamental. But You charge for your classes while many sors lecture and students do problems in all my life, honestly—be it math, be MOOCs are free. independently online. it finance; I’ve done some medical stud- Education should cost money because ies, I recently became a pilot and learned of the service rendered. So we decided Teaching students to master a topic, to pilot a plane—in all these studies the to have two paths. Access to our content difcult in any classroom, seems to be mechanism is quite similar: the most basically costs us nothing—it costs us like one of the biggest challenges facing effective learning environment is often 50 cents a student, and we decided to just online learning. You say your approach one where the student gets to practice give this away. If you are in central Africa works. How does it? something under the guidance of some- and you really want to get an education, We very deeply believe, very passionately one more experienced and then gets anything that is easily replicable for us

13 MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM ONLINE LEARNING we give to you for free. The reason why many features and create new ones. A we can do this without going bankrupt is Technology team of machine-learning specialists is this kind of freemium business. fine-tuning the way its algorithm deter- mines what students know, what they You have a successful partnership with Getting Fluent should study next, and what messages the Georgia Institute of Technology, but best motivate them to keep learning, some of your university tie-ups did not Can an algorithm teach us language? delivering an adaptable, personalized work out, and now you are only adding learning experience. new programs developed with private ● Since it launched in 2012, Duolingo has Duolingo feels more like a game than industry. Why do you think you couldn’t been studying every move made by the like traditional language learning. Origi- succeed with universities? 15 million–plus people who use its web- nally it would award students three hearts We chose to go to industry because we site and mobile app every month to study at the start of a 20-exercise lesson. Every believe the future of learning is lifelong foreign languages. The company is run by mistake cost the user one heart. Lose all and not just one-time. We have data technologists—it hired its first learning three, and you had to repeat the section. from the Department of Labor Statis- expert this year—and constantly tests dif- After experimenting with three, four, tics that says the average employment in ferent ideas, looking for trends in the data. and five hearts, Duolingo determined a job in 2002 was 4.6 years. We know Its current goal: helping students that four was the best motivator for new that is shrinking. We know people have become fluent. students. More advanced students did seven different careers over their life- As measured by the Common Euro- best with three and would still see that time. As a result, we needed to do two pean Framework of Reference for Lan- number. Since those experiments, the things: make the learning unit smaller guages, Duolingo can at present get company has introduced a more sophisti- than the conventional degree and make students, at best, to the point where they it fresher than a traditional degree. At can express themselves in familiar situa- the end of the Google Android nanode- tions, or the B1 level. Full mastery is three gree, we are teaching features of Android levels higher, at C2. $83 million Venture funding raised by that you can’t find anywhere else, that just No software has yet been able to get Duolingo to date launched in Android. Google is now run- students to fluency, but Duolingo believes ning a career summit where they are invit- it can achieve this goal by hiring more ing the top students from the Android learning experts and studying the data, cated strength bar that takes into account nanodegree on campus, all expenses paid, says cofounder Severin Hacker. Its lan- nuances such as the relative importance of to meet with their engineers and their guage lessons are free, but the company diferent issues. For example, it incorpo- recruiters. We are efectively building an earns money by selling $20 certificates rates the idea that getting the gender of a alternative path to employment and an attesting to student performance on a word right is not as important as getting alternative to existing credentials. 20-minute English test, the results of the word itself correct. Colleges are very focused on the ages which it says correlate with those of A year ago Duolingo began another from 17 to maybe 24, but people live 70 to more established, and expensive, options experiment with a digital coach, an owl 80 years now in many countries. For peo- including the Test of English as a For- avatar that tracks goals students set for ple in their 30s, their 40s, military people eign Language, or TOEFL. Duolingo themselves and then tells them if they coming back [to civilian work], women has raised $83 million in financing from fall of track. raising children who want to reënter the Google Capital, Union Square Ventures, “It’s thousands of little experiments we workforce, all huge factors in the work- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and run,” Hacker says. “Some are really good, force—for those people there’s no educa- others. but really it’s the combination of thou- tional venues that I know of that work in The company has already drawn from sands of things that makes the diference.” this country. There’s a huge vacuum. its constant experimentation to change The average time a student continues Universities have become more and using Duolingo has more than doubled more exclusive. In fact, they pride them- since its launch, says Hacker. selves on their exclusivity in admissions, What People Study on Duolingo Greg Smolinski, a teacher who incor- and as a result they attract the best pro- Duolingo’s top markets: porates Duolingo into introductory fessors because they want to work with German classes for seventh and eighth 1. United States: English speakers studying the best students. There’s a network efect various foreign languages graders at Seneca Valley Middle School that only works with exclusivity. Industry 2. Brazil: Portuguese speakers studying English in Pennsylvania, says some of his most says the opposite: make it as cheap as pos- 3. Mexico: Spanish speakers studying English motivated students have gotten to the sible so we can reach everybody. I think it’s 4. China: Chinese speakers studying English B1 level using the program on their own, a much better alignment. 5. Colombia: Spanish speakers studying English efectively replacing hundreds of hours of

14 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW classroom time with work done indepen- it: whereas a few years ago it was obvious from fearful parents after activist groups dently and online. that many of them were planning to sell cast the company, which had been backed Language experts are not sold on the the data, now most make absolutely clear by the Gates Foundation, as a shady idea that a program like Duolingo can that they will not do that. group looking to profit from student data. get a student to fluency. “I do not think The reason can be found in a recent Defenders say InBloom was not doing that a language platform can replicate the explosion in state legislation regulating that at all. But the backlash against the face-to-face communicative interaction the use of student data and safeguarding company is seen as one of the major fac- that is so important in language learn- its privacy and security. Responding to tors setting off the flurry of legislative ing,” says Véronique Baloup-Kovalenko, who teaches French at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut. Responding to growing parental fears, legislators in 30 states Nonetheless, Baloup-Kovalenko appreci- have passed data privacy laws. ates Duolingo’s ability to tap into students’ competitive spirit and sustain their inter- est. The company quotes her praise on its growing parental fears that hackers will activity by the states. California led the pages for educators. —Nanette Byrnes steal their children’s personally identifi- way: last fall it enacted a law that clearly able information, or that companies will restricts companies from selling student sell such data or use it to target advertis- data or using it for targeted advertising. Technology ing to kids, legislators in 30 states have The danger is that parents’ fears, passed laws dealing with the issue since which often stem from a lack of infor- the beginning of 2014. They either spell mation about how and why student Educational out procedures for collecting, storing, and data is collected and used, could lead using student data or prohibit the gather- to restrictive policies that stifle innova- Technology ing of certain types of sensitive data, like tion, says Rob Curtin, a Microsoft vet- information related to health, religion, or eran who is now the chief privacy ofcer Faces a Pivotal political afliations. at the Boston- based startup Pip Learn- Still, parents remain worried, and ing Technologies. Curtin has a reason to Privacy Moment their concerns are not unfounded. Last care: his company is building a service year Google admitted to scanning the that would securely and privately connect Student performance data can e-mail of students using its Apps for Edu- educational institutions and those who hold valuable insights for educators cation software, gathering data that could would like access to student data, includ- developing personalized learning have been used to target ads at those stu- ing parents and technology companies. programs, but some highly restrictive dents. (The company said in a subsequent “There are a ton of positive outcomes laws threaten to deprive students of the blog post that it had discontinued the that can come from sharing data,” says potential benefits. practice.) Curtin. Insights drawn from data like Online service providers like Google multi-year sets of student assessments ● Mark Pickard’s in-box is full of pitches are not explicitly regulated under the and tests, for example, could be used to from software companies. “I bet I get two 40-year-old Family Educational Rights help educators tailor instruction to indi- or three e-mails a day from somebody try- and Privacy Act, which safeguards the vidual students, he says, while overly ing to get us to use their new platform or privacy of student records. Many argue restrictive policies could prevent that by whatever it is they have,” says Pickard, an that the law should be updated to reflect closing of opportunities to share such eighth-grade science teacher who works the new class of educational software data. Curtin also sees value in enabling in Malden, Missouri. makers vying for a piece of the estimated parents, who spend billions every year Though Pickard’s been getting such $8 billion market for such products. But on supplementary education, to securely solicitations for years, there’s something although President Obama has called stu- share their child’s school data with out- diferent about the recent batch. They still dent data privacy a priority, federal prog- side specialists to create tailored instruc- promise to provide personalized experi- ress has been slow, and states are filling tion. Most of all, he says, parents need to ences for students based on information the void. know what is happening to the data and a company collects—for example, by rec- Without some clear guidelines, the how it is being used. ognizing specific problem areas or par- risk is that more education technology “There is a right way and a wrong way ticular types of learning styles and then providers could go the way of InBloom. to do this,” says Curtin. “And if we follow creating learning plans tailored to indi- A nonprofit data management and stor- the rules, we can move data around, and vidual profiles. What’s changed is how the age company launched in 2013, InBloom there are really good reasons for doing companies treat that data once they have closed its doors last year under pressure that.” —Mike Orcutt

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Most Popular MOOCs Coursera Outside Reading About: Coursera ofers more than 1,000 The number of massive open online free classes from 122 institutions and “iPads < Teachers” courses (MOOCs) is growing by the boasts more than 13.7 million student by Peg Tyre day. Here are some of the most popular accounts; it’s achieved broad popular- Bright, April 2015 courses. ity across the globe. The classes are free, but students can opt to receive a certifi- More schools are embracing technol- edX cate for a fee that varies depending on ogies that give students one-on-one About: With more than 70 institutions the course. instruction. Can they help students in including MIT, Harvard, and the Univer- low-income households get a better edu- sity of California, Berkeley, contributing Most popular course: Learning How to cation? Education journalist and author classes and 4.5 million students who’ve Learn: Powerful Mental Tools to Help Tyre discusses some of the limitations registered an account, edX is one of the You Master Tough Subjects of these new teaching methods and why best-known providers of MOOCs, ofer- schools will still need good teachers after ing more than 500 courses in all. Com- Ofered through the University of Cal- investing in technology. pletion rates range from 5 to 7 percent ifornia, San Diego, the class attracted but rise to 60 to 80 percent for students 535,498 active learners in the past year. “The Upwardly Mobile Barista” who purchase verified certificates of com- Students watch four hours of video about by Amanda Ripley pletion at a cost of $25 to $99, depending how to efectively learn new subjects and The Atlantic, May 2015 on the course. complete three hours of exercises. Then they can opt to complete another three To offset the exorbitantly high costs Most popular course: HarvardX: CS50x— hours of bonus material. The full course that keep many Starbucks workers from Introduction to Computer Science is available in English and Portuguese, finishing college, the company teamed and video subtitles are also offered in with Arizona State University to reim- More than 420,000 students are Spanish and Ukrainian. burse employees who decide to go back enrolled in Harvard University’s self- to school while working part time. In paced, entry-level computer science FutureLearn an exclusive look at the first months of class, taught by David Malan. They com- About: FutureLearn, based in the U.K., the program, Ripley follows some of the plete nine problem sets, which take from provides classes from 67 institutions in ambitious employees who took Star- 10 to 20 hours each, and complete a final various countries and had 970,000 active bucks up on the ofer and finds mixed project. students as of May. It has ofered more results. than 190 classes so far and has 19 courses Canvas Network running currently. How We Learn: The Surprising About: Canvas Network ofers more than Truth About When, Where, and 300 courses from 160 institutions. As Most popular course: Understanding Why It Happens of June, it had 68,800 students actively IELTS by Benedict Carey taking 66 classes, with another 20 about Random House, September 2014 to start. Four hundred thirty thousand stu- dents from more than 150 countries An award-winning science reporter for Most popular course: Society, Science, joined this six-week class, which started the New York Times uncovers some sur- Survival: Lessons from AMC’s The Walk- in May. It focuses on skills to pass the prising research about how our brains ing Dead International English Language Testing take in and store information, and how System exam, a widely accepted require- some counterintuitive methods can make Of the 65,562 students who enrolled in ment for nonnative English speakers learning easier. this eight-week class sponsored by the who are starting new jobs, immigrat- University of California, Irvine, 3,783 ing, or going to universities. It is not, The End of College: Creating finished. Professors Zuzana Bic, Michael however, the FutureLearn course with the Future of Learning and the Denin, Sarah Eichhorn, and Joanne the highest rate of participation—at University of Everywhere Christopherson schooled students on least not yet. That title goes to an eight- by Kevin Carey everything from Maslow’s hierarchy of week class on England’s King Richard Riverhead Books, March 2014 needs to how infectious diseases spread III, with more than 10,000 enrollees: to the prospects for nutrition in a post- 3,336 of them completed most of the According to education researcher Carey, apocalyptic world. course. in the future a quality education will no

16 ONLINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW longer require an expensive degree from its annual CODiE awards for software an ultracompetitive college. In this book, developers. ICDLE2015: 6th International Conference on Distance Learning and Education he explains how MOOCs are sowing the October 12–13, 2015 seeds of a new type of college experience Keeping Pace with K–12 Digital Paris he calls “The University of Everywhere,” Learning: An Annual Review of http://www.icdle.org/ which future students anywhere in the Policy and Practice world will access for free. by John Watson, Larry Pape, Amy Murin, 2nd International Conference on e-Learning, e-Education, and Online Training Butch Gemin, and Lauren Vashaw September 16–18, 2015 “What Are MOOCs Good For?” Evergreen Education Group, October Novedrate, Italy by Justin Pope 2014 http://eleot.org/2015/show/home MIT Technology Review, December 2014 This report from Colorado’s Evergreen iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium Many of the world’s best colleges now Education Group gives a state-by-state November 8–11, 2015 allow anyone in the world to take a class overview of education policies and tracks Orlando, Florida with their most renowned professors for technology trends across private, public, http://www.inacol.org/symposium/ free, thanks to the “massive open online and charter schools. courses” commonly known as MOOCs. ICERI2015: 8th Annual International Conference of Education, Research and But the mere fact that anyone can take a Grade Level: Tracking Online Innovation course does not mean he or she will com- Education in the United States November 16–18, 2015 plete it, and research has shown that the by I. Elaine Allen and Jef Seaman Seville, Spain dropout rates are very high. Still, these Babson Survey Research Group and http://iated.org/iceri/ classes continue to grow. In this review, Quahog Research Group, February 2015 a former Associated Press education OEB December 2–4, 2015 reporter ticks off some of the benefits This report has tracked online learning Berlin that MOOCs do provide. in U.S. higher education for 12 years. http://www.online-educa.com/conference This edition features survey results from Learning Online: What Research 2,800 colleges about the virtual classes FETC 2016 Education Technology Conference Tells Us About Whether, When they ofer, as well as educators’ opinions January 12–15, 2016 Orlando, Florida and How about technology trends like MOOCs. http://fetc.org/Events/Education-Technology- by Barbara Means, Marianne Bakia, and Conference/Information/HOME.aspx Robert Murphy HarvardX and MITx: Two Years of Routledge, March 2014 Open Online Courses Fall 2012– BETT Summer 2014 January 20–23, 2016 In this review of research about online by Andrew Dean Ho, Isaac Chuang, Jus- London http://www.bettshow.com/ learning, the authors examine what we tin Reich, Cody Austun Coleman, Jacob know so far about how effective this Whitehill, Curtis G. Northcutt, Joseph eLearning 2016 approach is and which methods best Jay Williams, John D. Hansen, Glenn February 14–17, 2016 serve different types of students and Lopez, and Rebecca Petersen Scottsdale, Arizona subjects. Social Science Research Network, March http://www.itcnetwork.org/elearning- conference/general-information.html 2015

2014 Results from the SIIA SXSWedu Vision K–20 Survey Researchers analyze two years of data March 7–10, 2016 by MMS Education from 68 MOOCs ofered through edX, Austin, Texas Software & Information Industry Asso- the MOOC partnership between Har- http://sxswedu.com/ ciation, June 2014 vard and MIT. Learning Solutions Conference & Expo March 16–18, 2016 This report from the main trade organi- Orlando, Florida zation for education software companies Calendar http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/lscon/ analyzes the responses of 1,000 teach- content/3600/learning-solutions-2015- ers surveyed about technology trends DEVLEARN conference-expo-home in education. One main finding is that September 30–October 2, 2015 Las Vegas SITE 2016 educators expect to see more students http://www.elearningguild.com/DevLearn/ March 21–25, 2016 bringing their own devices to school. content/3900/devlearn-2015-conference- Savannah, Georgia SIIA recently announced the winners of expo-home/ http://site.aace.org/conf/

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