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Coursera joins a raft of ambitious online projects aimed at making higher education more accessible and affordable. Many of these ventures, however, simply post entire lectures on the web, with no interactive component. Others strive to create brand-new universities from scratch.
Founders Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng say Coursera will be different because professors from top schools will teach under their university’s name and will adapt their most popular courses for the web, embedding assignments and exams into video lectures, answering questions from students on online forums — even, perhaps, hosting office hours via videoconference.
This sounds like worth keeping an eye on. It seems like it could go a long way towards disrupting the traditional educational model. In case you were wondering which schools, here you go: Stanford, Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan. Not a bad list.
Police shoot, kill armed man at Berkeley: Yesterday, Berkeley campus police shot a man named Christopher Nathen Elliot Travis, who had transferred to the university during the fall semester. Travis was witnessed placing a handgun into a backpack on his way to a computer lab at the Haas School of Business, and was subsequently confronted by the police. He reportedly drew the gun, and when he refused to drop his weapon, an officer fired multiple shots, hitting and incapacitating him. He was taken to Highland Hospital, where he died from his injuries last night. Authorities have said that there is “absolutely no evidence” of this being anything but an isolated incident. source
Ironically, it was on the same day that millions of Californians took part in a statewide earthquake drill.
Forbearance and consciousness of how one’s actions may affect others should always be a strong consideration. We celebrate the exchange of ideas through the freedoms we share as a nation, but intelligent debate is based on mutual respect. Freedom of speech is not properly exercised without taking responsibility for its impact. Taking that responsibility does not negate the freedom, it brings an enhanced humanity to it.A letter by UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, and two Vice Chancellors • Condemning the UC Berkeley College Republicans and their “Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” which priced its confections on a sliding scale based on race and gender. It’s intended as a criticism of a bill awaiting signature by Gov. Jerry Brown, which would allows UCs to consider race, gender and ethnicity in their admissions process. We couldn’t agree more with those arguing this is an ineffective means to have a debate, is absurdly reductive, and seems designed to spark the kind of discord that kills any chance of nuanced discussion — in short, it’s a bad idea all around. We will say this, though: Berkeley’s reputation as a haven of free speech needs an inclusiveness for all types of speech to be credible. The BCR has a compelling argument that the administration is telling them in what way they should speak, despite the fact their message, while no doubt horribly offensive to many, isn’t really violent or existentially threatening to the student body. We’re not so crazy about that. (h/t bsig) source (via • follow)
And Downlo’s is quite excellent as well. Each in their own way tears apart the controversial project from an analytical perspective.
(Source: shortformblog)
The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset. But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.UC Berkeley College Republicans president Shawn Lewis • Discussing his group’s reasoning for having a bake sale where people paid different prices based on their race and gender. The pricing scale’s kinda like this: $2 for whites, $1.50 for Asians, $1 for Latinos, $0.75 for Blacks and $0.25 for Native Americans — with a discount of 25 cents for women of all races. As you might guess, this bake sale, scheduled for Tuesday, is flaring up emotions quicker than a character in the movie “PCU.” It’s not the first time it’s been tried — a couple of other schools have tried the idea, and it’s been shut down at least once. What do you think? Does this seem disrespectful and worth getting angry over, or is there a valid point here? (h/t ProducerMatthew) source (via • follow)
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