Skip to main content

RIP: MOOC materials; the coronavirus effect

Coronavirus (Covid 19 caused by SARS-CoV-2) pandemic and lockdown disrupted lives and market in a completely unexpected manner. One market that seen a spike during lockdown is MOOC and online education.

What I realized of late is that many of these MOOC materials are not suitable for remote viewing. I have taken a couple of courses in random pseudonyms in Coursera and also another one in my real name in PadhAI conducted by IIT faculties. Most of these materials were recorded in a way as if they teach in physical classrooms. Because of that reason, they're very tiring to watch; they lack some basic video editing. Compare that to animated education videos posted to YouTube.

One exception to this MOOC material is MIT 6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning (I'm yet to watch them all though)

Classical teaching jobs are in danger

These days schools are starting up online classes that follow materials similar to these MOOCs. Students are finding hard to follow them as they're used to YouTube videos. So, based on feedback, schools started to switch to a readymade library of videos. This in turn poses danger to many teaching jobs.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mrs. Sujatha, Marriage, and Misunderstandings

I recently watched an interview featuring Mrs. Sujatha on the Aval Vikatan YouTube channel, and I couldn’t help but write this post in response. In the video, she indirectly expresses regret about her relationship with the late writer Sujatha, implying that they lacked the kind of emotional bonding that today’s couples supposedly enjoy (?!). She also mentions that he would get angry at home, in contrast to his calm public persona. She suggests that they didn’t talk much—ironically, I vividly remember Sujatha’s own writing about the relationship between actress Shobha and Balu Mahendra, in which he quoted something his wife had said! Toward the end of the interview, she talks about the wealth and royalties he left behind, suggesting that material things don’t matter. ( It’s ironic—men spend their entire lives working to build wealth and security for their wives and families. ) What struck me even more was the comment section. Most of the viewers seemed critical of writer Sujatha, e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Stampede and the "Dirty" "Dark" Crowd

Actor Ajith Kumar’s recent interview has sparked quite a few conversations on social media. The part that caught my attention, was his take on crowds. About 30 years ago, when I first joined a college in Madurai after growing up in other places, I experienced a few cultural shocks. Perhaps these weren’t unique to Madurai, but that’s where I first noticed them. One major thing that stood out was the behavior of crowds. For instance, if you suddenly see people rushing to board a bus, chances are there’s a pickpocket in action. During one of Madurai's annual festivals, I noticed some young men carrying water bags — not to distribute water, but to spill it on women, often on their chests. Shockingly, this was almost normalized; parents would quietly tolerate it to avoid public embarrassment, walking a little farther behind the crowd. When some women happened to witness this, they would just shoo the boys away instead of confronting them. The crowd, in such cases, became a kind of...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Overrated Tamil Culture

Since the COVID period, I developed an interest in exploring old books from the 1700s to the 1900s through Google Books. I first focused on the celebrated Protestant missionary Ringeltaube, but over time, my curiosity expanded toward understanding the demographics and social practices of that era. In Tamil Nadu, what is often celebrated as "Tamil Culture" revolves around the practice of monogamy, known locally as à®’à®°ுவனுக்கு à®’à®°ுத்தி — meaning one woman for one man. Some even compare this tradition with practices in other states, claiming Tamil culture is especially unique. This sense of pride is particularly strong around Madurai, where people often refer to themselves as “pure Tamil” when compared with neighboring regions like Kanyakumari, whose people they call Malayalis. What’s striking, though, is that this proud image doesn’t always align with historical accounts. A book published in 1885 (I’ve chosen not to mention its title or link to avoid stirring controversy) ma...
Post a Comment
Read more