Skip to main content

Of zombies and physics - online education 1

A few years ago, maybe 5-6 years ago, I was approached by an upcoming ed-tech start up. The salesperson was aggressively trying to sell us a bundled course of 3 odd years complete with a free tab thrown in. 

As someone in L&D (and this was pre covid), I was not a great believer in online learning when depth and understanding is required. So, I asked, "What is so special about this" and the answer "We teach physics using zombies (as an example)". That statement completely put me off. 

This is a decoration versus construction fallacy. Zombies on physics are a decoration at best. There are many other, better, intuitive ways to learn physics. And there are many videos of professors teaching physics using various concepts, contraptions, demonstrations and stories. 

So, we said no, we are keen on a more classroom model for learning. And went ahead with it. For the most part, it worked for us. 

Then covid happened. I learnt the skills of virtual facilitation - delivered many hours of virtual training - I still hate it. The EO did have an online component of learning through Covid - he struggled and managed. 

Somewhere along the way, this upcoming edtech company had become a unicorn or some exotic animal and gobbled up, an offline classes center. That was some climb down for an ostensibly online platform - plus they also opened up tuition centres. 

All this is not to diss the edtech firm and many others in this space. This is to share my observation on online learnings and their possible constructs. 

Simply put, it is practically impossible to create a perfect online self learning experience that does not have human interaction.  Atleast so far - will an AI powered bot enable to make the transition - perhaps. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

No conferences

Decided not to attend any conferences this year. Atleast not the typical ones I have often ranted about here. Will be both choosy and intentional about which ones to attend.  The ones to attend are the ones put up by practitioners of a craft. The rest is marketing one way or other. 
Post a Comment
Read more

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

The power of jotting down ideas

 Long long ago, I always used to carry a small letterpad with me. To jot down ideas that might occur. Over the years, it has changed from a notepad to evernote to google keep, but the power of jotting down ideas is immense.  Small ideas go into keep.  Anything to be quickly typed goes into whatsapp as a self message.  Bigger or better formed ideas go into Google docs A few are still written, but I manage to copy them into a digital format sooner rather than later.  But the power of jotting down is immense. My google keep is an encyclopedia of ideas - most of which may never get implemented. 
Post a Comment
Read more