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0 pointspavs15y ago0 comments

Matt. I would love to see Google do some full scale investment in Accredited Online Higher Education.

I know Google made Donations to Khan Academy. But in my view Khan Academy solves (at least in its current format) only somewhat partial problem. There is a huge potential on what can be achieved in Online Education.

Hypothetical Online Google University can:

- Liberate Higher Education from the grasp of the lucky few.

- Anyone can spend any amount of time to learn on a subject/class/course online, wake up the next morning walk up to an "Exam Center" and give exam to pass the course (with a reasonable fee).

- "Socialize" education in the sense that teachers and students from all over the world can communicate in "forum/chat/discussion" to help each other to study and learn.

- Ability to setup "meetups" to form study groups IRL.

- Study materials can be wiki-fied. With only verified expert on the field can contribute, with diffs to see what has been recently changed. No more waiting for book revisions.

I know there are some genuine limitations to this concept and some problems to be solved, before it can be viable replacement of what can only be classified as "clusterfuck" that is the present education system. But if any company can help the ball rolling, I honestly believe Google can be the only one. If I had the money I would drop everything I have today and jump in to this.

We need to liberate higher education from its artificial barriers.

Hopefully, you will read this and take this in to consideration and discuss it with whoever is concerned.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

Matt_Cutts15y ago· 2 in thread

I think there's a couple parts: 1) digitizing the curriculum, which might include video, and 2) everything else.

I think Google would be great at the first one. I'm not sure how good we'd be at the second part, but I totally agree this is an important problem. My dad was a physics professor for 30+ years, so I've seen a lot of issues with the current model. I have to think there are ways to educate people better than we do it now. You can't tell me that in 20 years we'll still be using the same practices to educate people that we do now.

pavsOP15y ago

Yes there are some genuine problems with the idea, but nothing in the realm of impossibility IMO. It will need a reasonable amount of investment and time.

The thing about education system is that everyone knows its a problem and everyone knows it needs to be fixed but no one wants to be the first to jump in to it (I don't think Khan Academy counts).

I think the first effort is important and whoever does it first needs to set an example for everyone else to follow.

deyan15y ago

pavs, that was a very interesting set of suggestions. are you interested in this space? if so, would love to get in touch as I am thinking of doing something in it for my next venture.

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