This seemed inevitable, no?

I’d love to see long term usage data on MOOCs. They had so much promise though I don’t know anyone who uses them post-LLM though it could be I live in a bubble.

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ghaff 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not sure how much it has to do with LLMs.

It feels more like it was sort of a fad thing and, especially once any certification value essentially fell off the back of the truck (and therefore no one really willing to pay)--much less any real value delivered to people who weren't already autodidacts--it sort of faded away.

From where I was at the time Linkedin Learning (or whatever it was called) was a sometimes vaguely useful company benefit for random stuff but I'm not sure to what degree anyone even tracked who used it.

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XenophileJKO 5 days ago | parent [-]

I think what killed all MOOC learning was that they ALL saw this giant TAM for corporate training and thought.. we have to get into that market.

That is what hollowed out the value.. all the incentives are inverse to building long term value.

Everything becomes check box driven product development to close the next "big deal" and then no development is done to really enhance the core of the system or the core value to the learner. It becauses now it morphs into can we show value to the clients/decision makers/learning admins?

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ghaff 5 days ago | parent [-]

I largely disagree. If you look at the people involved (and what they said at the time), I think there was a legitimate "We can rethink higher education" which obviously didn't happen for a variety of reasons.

It mostly morphed to corporate training and courses for people who already had Masters degrees.

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XenophileJKO 5 days ago | parent [-]

I'm defining "why" it morphed.

	▲	ghaff 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Because it wasn't making any money.

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throwawaysleep 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One of the challenges is that few people are genuinely interested in a comprehensive view of a topic. Most of the time, I want just enough to get to the next step and get rid of a problem.

I never wish to learn about Docker. I want to know enough to get my containers running. In a pre-LLM world, I did take a course on Docker. I have learned my last bit of Docker in an LLM world.

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HPsquared 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

LLMs could be a boost to MOOCs because you can use them as a tutor to help with the material. People tend to have trouble finishing MOOCs, and it can be frustrating to get stuck on a particular aspect without much instructor support. Anything that makes it more interactive could help with both of those. I think LLMs are a great complement to MOOCs.

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brobdingnagians 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use Udemy courses all the time; great for compliance, game engine training, and insightful training of soft skills. Good instructors have insight and comprehensive coverage that questioning LLMs do not have.

	▲	Y_Y 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		[flagged]

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Xenoamorphous 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

LLMs typically still require some interactivity, no? Much easier to watch some videos in many cases.

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jillesvangurp 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

All forms of education boil down to people putting in the time to engage their brain with the subject matter. Most organized education is based on coercing, peer pressure, or social pressure to get students in situations where they kind of have to engage e.g. in order to pass exams, or other exercises, or by being forced to listen to a teacher for a few hours in a class room.

Online education is not that different. You basically put in the time watching the videos and doing the homework and tests. The test and certificate become the goal.

Self study whether powered by LLMs or by good old books or whatever source of information, basically relies more on things like curiosity and discipline. Some people do this naturally.

The nice thing about LLMs is that they adapt to your curiosity and that it is easy to dumb down stuff to the point where you can understand things. Lots of people engage with LLMs this way. Some do that to feed their confirmation bias, some do it to satisfy their curiosity. Whatever the motivation, the net result is that you learn.

I think LLMs are still severely underused in education. We romanticize the engaged, wise, teacher that works their ass off to get students to see the light. But the reality is that a lot of teachers have to juggle a lot of not so interested students. Some of them aren't that great at the job to begin with. Burnouts are quite common among teachers. And there are a lot of students that fall through the cracks of the education system. I think there's some room there for creative teachers to lighten their workloads and free up more time to engage with students that need it.

I saw a teacher manually checking a students work on the train a few days ago. Nice red pen. Very old school work. She probably had dozens of such tests to review. I imagine you get quite efficient at it after a few decades. But feeding a pdf to chat GPT probably would generate a very thorough evaluation in seconds given some good criteria. She could probably cut a few hours of her day. There are all sorts of ways to leverage LLMs to help teachers or students here. Also plenty of ways for students to cheat. But there are ways to mitigate that.

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HPsquared 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interacting with the material is how you learn.

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mathattack 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you retain the info?

I guess it’s ok for compliance videos but I’m not sure about retention.

I write this as someone who wants online education succeed.

	▲	zozbot234 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Retention is an issue with education more generally (including the meatspace variety) but spaced-repetition systems (SRS) address it quite well. With online video, you can even prompt an LLM to provide a suggested distillation of the content into Q&A flashcards.

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cultofmetatron 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

watching a few good videos is a great way to FEEL like you're learning. just cuz you watch a 15 hour videoo course on c doesn't mean you can write c any more than watching a 2 hour video course on kung foo means you can kick like bruce lee

The best Elearning platform I've found is mathacademy. no videos. just short texts on how to solve a problem and then a bunch of problems with increasing difficulty. much more efficent if you want to actually learn a skill.

TLDR: you learn by DOING