The future of education looks a lot like TikTok and Twitter

The future of education looks a lot like TikTok and Twitter(superduperserious.substack.com)

23 points by rjkeck2 4 years ago | 22 comments

bavent 4 years ago |

They discuss the importance of engagement, something CS50 gets right - so how does that have anything to do with short-form content? I think the beauty of things like CS50 is the engagement, but also the longer format of it. A lot of shit just can’t be broken down into a tweet or a 10-second video. I wouldn’t call anything that I’ve seen from TikTok “engaging” - the videos are over before my attention span has time to decide whether to focus on it or not

rjkeck2 4 years ago | |

There’s one example of short-form in this entire article. In fact, right after mentioning CS50, I started discussing cohort-based, long-form content (Maven, Skillshare, and Superpeer). There’s no binary “short-form is the only way” here.

neosat 4 years ago |

It doesn't. In fact, to the contrary, these forms of communication don't lend themselves to certain types of topics and deeper thinking critical for education (read Neil Postman's Amusing ourselves to death for a great exposition). True, they have an important place in education and I'm excited for the changes they can bring, but they are only a small piece of what the future of education will look like.

hn_throwaway_99 4 years ago |

I feel like in 50 years we'll look back and realize that the loss of frequent, face-to-face, in-person human contact has caused immeasurable damage, along the lines of how we've realized highly processed foods and have caused a health and obesity epidemic. But I suppose it will get worse before it gets better.

tablespoon 4 years ago | |

> I feel like in 50 years we'll look back and realize that the loss of frequent, face-to-face, in-person human contact has caused immeasurable damage, along the lines of how we've realized highly processed foods and have caused a health and obesity epidemic. But I suppose it will get worse before it gets better.

Or it could just stay worse, even after the realization. There are all kinds of people who realize something they do is hurting or even killing them, and keep doing it anyway.

crumpled 4 years ago | |

I think most people have the same feeling. People are doing a lot of social calculus right now.

windows2020 4 years ago |

The year is 3000. Your lawyer, trained by entertainers and TikTok clips, fails to stay focused because the courtroom isn't gamified. You're suing your bootcamp accredited doctor for malpractice. Too bad exams were eliminated.

OK, that's a take on one end of a spectrum. The article does have some valuable examples. I'm excited that things are evolving. But, sometimes, learning is tough, requires perseverance and offers no quick reward... perhaps similar to the challenges it may be applied against.

hericium 4 years ago | |

3000 seems very generous. Look how fast the dumbing down pointed out by the movie Idiocracy is progressing. It was supposed to be 500 years...

disqard 4 years ago |

The breathless fanboyism in this piece really hurts it, and made me unable to read through to the end.

If this were written 10 years ago, when MOOCs were the poster child for "technology will solve everything including thoroughly non-technology-centric human problems", it might be forgivable. Right now, this is kinda like evangelizing Zuckerberg's "Metaverse", in a 100% serious vein. If it were written a different way, I might have mistaken it for satire.

With no discussion of prior failures in Education Technology, with not even a nod to the challenges that permeate any meaningful progress in this space, the writing came across like it was a "39 minute write", not a "39 minute read".

For those interested in a more balanced and nuanced take, I urge you to skim some posts from Kentaro Toyama's blog:

https://ict4djester.org/

rjkeck2 4 years ago |

This is what I get for trying out a clickbaity headline for once…the majority of the article is about cohort-based platforms like Maven and immersive tools like Replit. I give one short-form example because I do think it has a place in education going forward but if you read the whole article you’d see there’s more than that there.

civilized 4 years ago |

No. It doesn't.

lifeplusplus 4 years ago |

people learn differently and some topics are better suited to certain mediums, but personally I learn best by very concise lesson with interactions (Q/A) sprinkled everywhere, (think of regular conversation), then do concentrated reading/analysis own my own but be able to reach out to an expert with questions at anytime and asking highly articulated questions and get very in depth and unambiguous answers

rjkeck2 4 years ago | |

Have you tried something like Superpeer before? I think 1:1 instruction is going to continue to grow as a space as there are quite a few people who feel the same as you!

cultofmetatron 4 years ago |

that sounds terrifying

FooBarBizBazz 4 years ago | |

Tell me about it.

Ibn Khaldun predicted this.

fontenot-jon 4 years ago |

if that were true, education systems have deteriorated significantly, and the only people left to correct the insanity dont understand technology, or how to rebuild education systems.

tik, and twit are emnarassing platforms, worse to mimic