Ask HN: What do you think of the idea – the social network for education
14 comments
Do you think of learning management systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_learning_management_sys...), or do you think about it being open to all?
I know some of those systems has the option for fora, and my experiences with those has just been good. If you're looking for good ways to work with an open-for-all system, I suggest looking at the most used fora in e.g. mathematics and physics, and then take some ideas from there.
A problem I suppose you might encounter is that most schoolkids use this networking site just to solve their homework: At least that's what they do now. If you could somehow change that problem into a way of making them interested in learning how one solve those problems (instead of making other solve them), then you've got a great idea.
I know some of those systems has the option for fora, and my experiences with those has just been good. If you're looking for good ways to work with an open-for-all system, I suggest looking at the most used fora in e.g. mathematics and physics, and then take some ideas from there.
A problem I suppose you might encounter is that most schoolkids use this networking site just to solve their homework: At least that's what they do now. If you could somehow change that problem into a way of making them interested in learning how one solve those problems (instead of making other solve them), then you've got a great idea.
I think of it as a open-for-all online university, in the beginning at least for Russian speaking students as I have access to many Russian universities and professors who might like to participate.
Regarding the problem of schoolkids misusing the community to solve their homework, if the project is targeted for people who really want to learn something, doing so is cheating themselves. Also, for university students I believe the effect of this problem is not so evident as in middle schools.
Regarding the problem of schoolkids misusing the community to solve their homework, if the project is targeted for people who really want to learn something, doing so is cheating themselves. Also, for university students I believe the effect of this problem is not so evident as in middle schools.
Well, if you're backed up by professors, then this sounds promising.
What I would start with if I was working with this issue, is how to present the information for the students in the best way. At least for me, linear algebra and physics becomes way simpler with good visualisations/videos. If you could somehow make it easier for professors to present the content well, then you have a good start for a good website. So, all in all: Find out what makes people learn the easiest - I'm pretty sure there are some studies out there elaborating the way to teach students. If you make this way of teaching students easy to do on your website, I'm pretty sure that this idea might work out well.
What I would start with if I was working with this issue, is how to present the information for the students in the best way. At least for me, linear algebra and physics becomes way simpler with good visualisations/videos. If you could somehow make it easier for professors to present the content well, then you have a good start for a good website. So, all in all: Find out what makes people learn the easiest - I'm pretty sure there are some studies out there elaborating the way to teach students. If you make this way of teaching students easy to do on your website, I'm pretty sure that this idea might work out well.
Good point, will think on that.
Perhaps build in some kind of game dynamic that encourages discussion and analytical thinking rather than straightforward solutions?
I've been thinking about this in terms of my own (7-year-old) educational website: http://eMusicTheory.com -- interactive online drills for music theory students/teachers.
The entire experience would be much more interesting for students if they could compete with friends (like with apps on facebook, for example), but I'm not sure making yet another FB app is a good idea here, plus you'd be stuck competing with other music theory students.
My half-baked idea is a central educational social networking site in which you could earn education points by achieving scores on lots of different member sites, not just mine... so a music theory whizkid might use their stats/achievements/reputation/karma/whatever to compete with their math nerd friend, even though they're focusing on entirely different specialties. There'd have to be rough equivalency in the effort involved to achieve points on different sites, but that's not a big hurdle (and weighting could be adjusted automatically based on students' relative speed of advancement.. if students tend to go tearing through achievements on a given site, the value of its points would be reduced in the global stats).
I'll dig through some of the sites linked above when I have time, but at the moment nothing seems to match up with this concept.
Is this a good idea? (Is there anything out there heading in this direction? I don't have the time to develop it myself currently, though I'd happily offer tons of advice).
The entire experience would be much more interesting for students if they could compete with friends (like with apps on facebook, for example), but I'm not sure making yet another FB app is a good idea here, plus you'd be stuck competing with other music theory students.
My half-baked idea is a central educational social networking site in which you could earn education points by achieving scores on lots of different member sites, not just mine... so a music theory whizkid might use their stats/achievements/reputation/karma/whatever to compete with their math nerd friend, even though they're focusing on entirely different specialties. There'd have to be rough equivalency in the effort involved to achieve points on different sites, but that's not a big hurdle (and weighting could be adjusted automatically based on students' relative speed of advancement.. if students tend to go tearing through achievements on a given site, the value of its points would be reduced in the global stats).
I'll dig through some of the sites linked above when I have time, but at the moment nothing seems to match up with this concept.
Is this a good idea? (Is there anything out there heading in this direction? I don't have the time to develop it myself currently, though I'd happily offer tons of advice).
It's worth looking at what OpenCourseWare are doing, as well as university-centric networks like the British Open University's OpenLearn.
I co-founded an educational social network called Elgg.net in 2004 (which later became Eduspaces.net when Elgg's scope grew from education into an open source social networking platform for all), and I've been watching this space carefully. There have been quite a few services which have been and gone that have followed the model you've outlined, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to build something that works.
The biggest deal, in my opinion, is always this: find a way to make it work for the first user. Build it around existing educational resources, or tools for an individual to learn, and then let the community enhance that initial offering. Otherwise you've got one hell of an uphill battle ahead of you. (Pertinent examples include Flickr and Delicious which both allow you to store and share resources, but are so much more when millions of people are also participating.)
I co-founded an educational social network called Elgg.net in 2004 (which later became Eduspaces.net when Elgg's scope grew from education into an open source social networking platform for all), and I've been watching this space carefully. There have been quite a few services which have been and gone that have followed the model you've outlined, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to build something that works.
The biggest deal, in my opinion, is always this: find a way to make it work for the first user. Build it around existing educational resources, or tools for an individual to learn, and then let the community enhance that initial offering. Otherwise you've got one hell of an uphill battle ahead of you. (Pertinent examples include Flickr and Delicious which both allow you to store and share resources, but are so much more when millions of people are also participating.)
Yeah, you're right, the biggest problem is to make users interested from the beginning. That's why I'm not going to build it from scratch. My partner built a unique educational website with great content on programming, algorithms, networks and computer architecture. That content could be a starting point.
NB: I should have mentioned that I've moved on from Elgg and EduSpaces, and am not able to speak for either project.
We are building this very thing at www.nixty.com. Benwerd, I'm familiar with Elgg and have actually consulted with Harold Jarche a few times (several years ago). If either of you are interested, then I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Please send me an email at glen at nixty dot com.
I can't speak for Harold - although we've spoken, he's never directly been involved with Elgg or me - but I'd love to. I'll drop you an email now.
I've built a website to do that! It's called Curious Reef http://curiousreef.com/ and I launched it a few months ago. People have been steadily learning a variety of subjects together since then.
The most active class so far is MIT's OCW 6.00, Intro to Computer Science: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...
There are others learning Vim, SICP, bash, etc. I'm also experimenting with a guitar class.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the site. My goals when designing the site were exactly as you have described above.
The most active class so far is MIT's OCW 6.00, Intro to Computer Science: http://curiousreef.com/class/mit-opencourseware-600-introduc...
There are others learning Vim, SICP, bash, etc. I'm also experimenting with a guitar class.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the site. My goals when designing the site were exactly as you have described above.
Seems very promising. I like the slogan – "explanatory social learning".
How many users do you have at this moment?
Have you contacted content owners to ask them for permission to place the videos directly on your website? It'd be awesome if you can do so.
How many users do you have at this moment?
Have you contacted content owners to ask them for permission to place the videos directly on your website? It'd be awesome if you can do so.
Thanks, there's over 1200 registered users, but I wouldn't quote that as active users. The site got redditted when it launched and there's some people who signed up initially and haven't been back. I don't have a number for active users off the top of my head, but there's always someone submitting homework, writing a comment, or starting a discussion every day.
I haven't looked into hosting content yet. I feel that others do that pretty well already, but it would be more convenient to have it all in one place. What type of content do you think would be most beneficial to be hosted on Curious Reef? Embedded videos, PDFs, etc? Or are you thinking of something like replicating the content of all of OCW's classes?
I haven't looked into hosting content yet. I feel that others do that pretty well already, but it would be more convenient to have it all in one place. What type of content do you think would be most beneficial to be hosted on Curious Reef? Embedded videos, PDFs, etc? Or are you thinking of something like replicating the content of all of OCW's classes?
Maybe not hosting content yourself, but embed it somehow into your website.
I'm leading a project doing exactly this, building an open source social learning platform on Drupal. You can check it out at http://eduglu.com. I made my second release yesterday - http://kyle.mathews2000.com/blog/2010/06/01/second-release-e...
Things are early on still so if you wanted to pitch in, you could be a lot of help.
Things are early on still so if you wanted to pitch in, you could be a lot of help.
Thanks for suggestion, will definitely look at it.
Thank everyone for participation. Did some more research and found out two interesting projects:
http://smart.fm – a next generation learning platform from Japan featuring personalized learning techniques.
http://grockit.com – a social learning tool to help students prepare for SAT, GMAT, etc. With elements of a social game.
http://smart.fm – a next generation learning platform from Japan featuring personalized learning techniques.
http://grockit.com – a social learning tool to help students prepare for SAT, GMAT, etc. With elements of a social game.
I thought about this too, wrote about this a little bit here. Social Network was just one aspect of my idea.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1351871
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353756
Don't have money to work on it, right now. :(
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1351871
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353756
Don't have money to work on it, right now. :(
Yes, Classroom.tv.
Based in Palo Alto, we are an early-stage Stanford startup. Contact me if you want to meet ([email protected]).
There's http://curiousreef.com/ (formerly Crunch Course).
We just released Student Revolt which adds a social network to existing courses. You can see a screencast of how it works on the home page.
http://www.studentrevolt.com/
http://www.studentrevolt.com/
In France we have beebac, it's a great website, very useful. (url : http://www.beebac.com). I'm not sure about the US-friendly educational social networks..
A very interesting project, will look at it.
Have a look at http://www.supercoolschool.com/
Is it what you were thinking about?
Is it what you were thinking about?
Thanks, that seems interesting. But it is only a platform for creating online educational communities, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm more thinking of a service that is a combination of great educational content with an active community, that help a student throughout the learning process.
It's not a bad idea; might be tough to monetize
Moodle.com
I'm thinking of an idea of a social networking education website. Many online educational projects such as Youtube EDU, iTunes U or Academic Earth have great content but lack social networking features. I believe the "social" part is very important in the process of learning things when you can interact with classmates and instructors, ask questions and get answers. So that not only you can browse and watch education materials, but also the community will play an important role in the learning process.
Do you know any websites that already offer these features?
There are good examples of the execution of this idea for particular areas like italki.com for english learning or www.jamplay.com for guitar playing. But I'm thinking bigger, so it'd be for fundamental university disciplines like computer science or mathematics.
I don't want to build another useless social network, I'm more on the way to research what is already available, how existent solutions can be enhanced.