Talk at 8th Annual Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia Nov 2, 2012 Moscow, Russia Note that original (downloadable) .pptx file has embedded videos.

1. 8th Central and Eastern European
Software Engineering Conference
in Russia - CEE-SECR 2012
November 1 - 2, Moscow
Learning to Code in an Online
World
Ben Bederson
University of Maryland
Computer Science Dept.
Human-Computer Interaction Lab

2. What is Learning?

3. What Does Technology Offer?

4. Technology & Education

5. MOOC Popularization
Sebastian Thrun Peter Norvig

6. MOOCs Trending

7. Anatomy of a MOOC

8. Udacity

9. Why the Excitement?
 Cheaper
 Better learning
 Broader access

10. Why the Success?
 Free
 Short videos
 Focus on content, not talking head
 Built-in activities
 Community of students
 Name-brand suppliers

11. Content
Udacity (14 courses) Coursera (198 courses)
 Intro to CS  Networked life (U Penn)
 Intro to Physics  Social Network Analysis (U Mich)
 Intro to Statistics  Probablistic Graphical Models (Stanford)
 Algorithms  Neural Networks (Toronto)
 Differential Equations  Computational Investing (Georgia Tech)
 Web Development  Computer Vision (Stanford)
 Software Testing  Comp. Photography (Georgia Tech)
 Software Debugging  AI Planning (Edinburgh)
 Programming Languages  Control Mobile Robot (Georgia Tech)
 Intro to Theoretical CS  Natural Language Proc. (Columbia)
 How to Build a Startup  Computational Neuroscience (U. Wash)
 Design of Computer  Linear Algebra (Brown)
Programs  Computer Vision (Berkeley)
 Artificial Intelligence  …
 Applied Cryptography

12. Or, Roll Your Own –
https://code.google.com/p/course-builder/

13. Google CourseBuilder

14. Stanford Class2Go
https://github.com/Stanford-Online/class2go

15. Video Not The Only Online Strategy
Features:
• Learn by doing
• Did I get this?
• Learning objectives
• Exams

16. Sufficient to Teach Programming Skills?

17. Live Coding – www.codecademy.com
JavaScript
JQuery
HTML/CSS
Python
Ruby

18. Live Coding – www.khanacademy.org

19. Live Diagramming – www.pythontutor.com

20. Submit Server – marmoset.cs.umd.edu

23. Inspiration by Competition

24. Online ONLY Not The Only Strategy
 Blended learning / “Flipped” classroom
Lectures  Homework
Homework  Class work

25. Peer Learning

26. Peer Learning
SearchParty - http://search-party.appspot.com/

27. Student View

28. Student View

29. Teacher View - Queries

30. Teacher View - Words

31. Teacher View - Responses

32. Teacher View - Students

33. Does Online Learning Work?
 Three Studies

34. Does Online Learning Work?
 Three Studies
1)
Introductory Statistics classes
Blended Learning style
Compared across 6 public universities
Learning the same as in classroom
25% reduction in time spent

35. Does Online Learning Work?
 Three Studies
2)
Small liberal arts college
10 courses (biology, chemistry, economics, math,
French)
Blended Learning style
Disadvantaged students did just as well
Nearly 100% retention
Performed better than traditional classes
in all but 1 course

36. Does Online Learning Work?
 Three Studies
3) Meta Study
no difference between online & face-to-face
But, wide variability – depends on the details
Exs – meta-studies of 232 distance education studies:
 http://rer.sagepub.com/content/79/3/1243.short
 http://rer.sagepub.com/content/74/3/379.abstract

37. Does Online Learning Work?
Other studies generally show:
 no difference between online & face-to-face
But, wide variability – depends on the details
Exs – meta-studies of 100’s of distance education
studies:
 http://rer.sagepub.com/content/79/3/1243.short
 http://rer.sagepub.com/content/74/3/379.abstract

38. Are We Done?
 Retention
 Cheating
 Assessment
 Feedback
 Certification / Credentials
 Quality of course
 Effectiveness of approach

39. Suggestions
 Consider blended approaches
 Consider motivation – attrition a big problem
 Consider cheating – anonymity risky

40. Questions?
Benjamin B. Bederson
Computer Science Department
Human-Computer Interaction Lab
Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
University of Maryland
www.cs.umd.edu/~bederson
@bederson