Opinion: GUEST COLUMN: edX is freeing education

This could revolutionize the way we learn

May 4, 2012

This Wednesday, MIT President Susan Hockfield and Harvard President Drew Faust announced the edX platform for online education. I have been taking the pilot edX course 6.002x this semester, but it wasnt until I saw these two women speak that I realized just how big this initiative could be. 6.002x is already an incredible technological achievement that accurately replicates an introductory Course VI class on the Internet. After the announcement this Wednesday, this revolutionary online experience of MIT classes made the leap to become a multi-institutional platform that could transform the delivery of education worldwide.

edX is not the first foray into online education. Last fall, Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun opened up his introductory AI class to thousands of students around the world. He then left the university to found Udacity, which offers a series of CS courses. There is also Coursera, a company started by Stanford professors, which has already partnered with Princeton, UMich, and UPenn to offer courses ranging from Mythology to Cryptography. However, these two products are both creations of for-profit companies. Perhaps the one resource most closely aligned with edX is the non-profit Khan Academy, started by Salman Khan 98 (commencement speaker for the class of 2012!). By staying non-profit, edX can honestly claim to make an MIT or Harvard education available to anyone with the will to pursue it.

The current model for post-secondary education is far from ideal and is often inefficient. Most course material is distributed only during lecture, which is limited in both time and place. The material remains largely unchanged from semester to semester and can even worsen if a weaker professor makes changes to a class. Similar classes use similar material from institution to institution, yet it is disconnected rather than synthesized into one best-in-class course. Most significantly, this education is limited to the select group of students admitted to colleges around the world. In many cases, this group represents only the students with the support and resources to win the college admissions game, despite ongoing efforts to the contrary.

What is stopping us from bringing the worlds best education out of the ivory tower and into the commons? One might propose that it is infeasible to teach all the worlds population at once. However, technology has made this a trivial obstacle. Lectures can be recorded with incredible fidelity and streamed to any connected machine in the world. Books, tutorials, and problem set solutions can all be served up on the web. Scripts can be written to generate unique homework problems and grade them in real time. Web applications are as dynamic as anything written for the desktop. The technology we have built over the last few decades not only makes online education feasible, it makes it the next logical step in improving the way we learn.

The other, more sinister, objection is that only the select group admitted into the worlds best institution deserves its education. If edX advances to the point where there is no distinguishable difference between an online education and a brick and mortar education, it may be that an online certification gains the same significance as an MIT degree. Laws of supply and demand tell us that a saturated market dilutes the value of each individual unit. However, it may be time to consider an entirely new paradigm for education. Rather than treating college degrees as credentials for future employment, lets treat them as foundations of knowledge that transcend any piece of paper. Let everyone have access to the same training, and let people be judged by the merit of their work rather than by the name of an institution.

This, of course, is a radical change. Colleges and universities around the world will need to rebrand themselves as something other than gatekeepers of education. Students might no longer need to proceed through the educational system in lockstep grade levels, but instead learn new things as soon as they are ready for them. Education might no longer be limited to a set curriculum of courses taken over four years, but could become a lifetime of learning in all kinds of different fields. Most importantly, education may finally become a resource as freely available as air or sunlight. And education deserves to be an open resource. The knowledge steadily accumulated by years and years of experimenting, failing, discovering, and learning belongs to all people.

Traces of the revolt against the current model of education can be seen around the world. In the U.S., primary and secondary educators desperately search for a better solution. The value of college is questioned in the face of tuition costs rising faster than inflation and federal loans being cut by the government. Successful entrepreneurs, such as Peter Thiel, are paying MIT students $100,000 to drop out to pursue their true ambitions. Successful students, such as my roommate, are leaving MIT to become successful entrepreneurs on their own. Perhaps the traditional four-year college experience is no longer necessary in our modern society. Perhaps there is room for a new way of thinking.

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GUEST COLUMN: edX is freeing education

Online education is not new. The University of Phoenix started its online degree program in 1989. Four million college students took at least one online class during the fall of 2007.

But, over the past few months, something has changed. The elite, pace-setting universities have embraced the Internet. Not long ago, online courses were interesting experiments. Now online activity is at the core of how these schools envision their futures.

This week, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology committed $60 million to offer free online courses from both universities. Two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, have formed a company, Coursera, which offers interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and engineering. Their partners include Stanford, Michigan, Penn and Princeton. Many other elite universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, are moving aggressively online. President John Hennessy of Stanford summed up the emerging view in an article by Ken Auletta in The New Yorker, "There's a tsunami coming."

What happened to the newspaper and magazine business is about to happen to higher education: a rescrambling around the Web.

Many of us view the coming change with trepidation. Will online learning diminish the face-to-face community that is the heart of the college experience? Will it elevate functional courses in business and marginalize subjects that are harder to digest in an online format, like philosophy? Will fast online browsing replace deep reading?

If a few star professors can lecture to millions, what happens to the rest of the faculty? Will academic standards be as rigorous? What happens to the students who don't have enough intrinsic motivation to stay glued to their laptop hour after hour? How much communication is lost gesture, mood, eye contact when you are not actually in a room with a passionate teacher and students?

The doubts are justified, but there are more reasons to feel optimistic. In the first place, online learning will give millions of students access to the world's best teachers. Already, hundreds of thousands of students have taken accounting classes from Norman Nemrow of Brigham Young University, robotics classes from Sebastian Thrun of Stanford and physics from Walter Lewin of MIT.

Online learning could extend the influence of U.S. universities around the world. India alone hopes to build tens of thousands of colleges over the next decade. Curricula from U.S. schools could permeate those institutions.

Research into online learning suggests that it is roughly as effective as classroom learning. It's easier to tailor a learning experience to an individual student's pace and preferences. Online learning seems especially useful in language and remedial education.

The most important and paradoxical fact shaping the future of online learning is this: A brain is not a computer. We are not blank hard drives waiting to be filled with data. People learn from people they love and remember the things that arouse emotion. If you think about how learning actually happens, you can discern many different processes. There is absorbing information. There is reflecting upon information as you reread it and think about it. There is scrambling information as you test it in discussion or try to mesh it with contradictory information. Finally there is synthesis, as you try to organize what you have learned into an argument or a paper.

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Viewpoints: Elite universities envision their future with online courses

Originally published May 4, 2012 at 11:10 PM | Page modified May 4, 2012 at 6:01 PM

Online education is not new. The University of Phoenix started its online degree program in 1989. Four million college students took at least one online class during the fall of 2007.

But, over the past few months, something has changed. The elite, pace-setting universities have embraced the Internet. Not long ago, online courses were interesting experiments. Now online activity is at the core of how these schools envision their futures.

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have committed $60 million to offer free online courses from both universities. Two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, have formed a company, Coursera, which offers interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics and engineering. Their partners include Stanford, Michigan, Penn and Princeton. Many other elite universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, are moving aggressively online. President John Hennessy of Stanford summed up the emerging view in an article by Ken Auletta in The New Yorker, "There's a tsunami coming."

What happened to the newspaper and magazine business is about to happen to higher education: a rescrambling around the Web.

Many of us view the coming change with trepidation. Will online learning diminish the face-to-face community that is the heart of the college experience? Will it elevate functional courses in business and marginalize subjects that are harder to digest in an online format, like philosophy? Will fast online browsing replace deep reading?

If a few star professors can lecture to millions, what happens to the rest of the faculty? Will academic standards be as rigorous? What happens to the students who don't have enough intrinsic motivation to stay glued to their laptop hour after hour? How much communication is lost gesture, mood, eye contact when you are not actually in a room with a passionate teacher and students?

The doubts are justified, but there are more reasons to feel optimistic. In the first place, online learning will give millions of students access to the world's best teachers. Already, hundreds of thousands of students have taken accounting classes from Norman Nemrow of Brigham Young University, robotics classes from Sebastian Thrun of Stanford and physics from Walter Lewin of MIT.

Online learning could extend the influence of U.S. universities around the world. India alone hopes to build tens of thousands of colleges over the next decade. Curricula from U.S. schools could permeate those institutions.

Research into online learning suggests that it is roughly as effective as classroom learning. It's easier to tailor a learning experience to an individual student's pace and preferences. Online learning seems especially useful in language and remedial education.

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Brace for the online education tsunami

MIAMI, May 4, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Dade Medical College launches its new online campus as the college continues to expand its offerings of specialized allied healthcare and nursing education programs for the community.

The college launched their new Bachelor's of Science Degree in Nursing (BSN) program and their Associate of Science Degree in Medical Billing and Coding program to their online education students on Monday, April 30.

The college's Bachelor's of Science Degree in Nursing comes at a time when many healthcare institutions are requiring more advanced degrees from their nursing staff. "The best part about offering our BSN program is our ability to address a driving industry need and further help the community by offering the working healthcare professional the flexibility and convenience of earning their advance degree online," says Enrique J. Lopez, Dade Medical College's Dean of Continuing and Online Education. "And with major reform set to take place in 2014 when all hospitals will be required to switch to electronic medical/health records, the Medical Billing and Coding program will be essential to finding and hiring qualified coding specialists," continues Lopez.

Online classes will be taught by the same fully-licensed and certified faculty currently teaching the accredited, on-ground programs at the college. The students' computers will serve as their virtual classroom as they interact with their instructor and fellow students in completing their course work, assignments and examinations. Special metrics will be used to ensure and measure class participation and attendance, two key factors in maintaining a quality program and producing the outcome-based results the college is known for.

"In order to meet our mission of giving access to a quality, outcome-based education to each and everyone, we felt it was important to enhance our program offerings and grow into the online education revolution," says Ernesto Perez, President & CEO of Dade Medical College. "It's the wave of the future and as our tag line reads, at Dade Medical College, your future begins today!"

About Dade Medical CollegeWith close to 400 full-time employees staffing Dade Medical College's six Florida campuses and corporate office, the school features a fully-licensed and certified faculty whose commitment to excellence in education are unmatched by other area colleges and institutions. A majority of the faculty and administrative staff originates locally, with many having been educated at other prestigious local and national institutions. The college offers Associate of Science and Bachelor's degrees in nursing and Associate of Science degrees in other programs such as radiology, diagnostic cardiac sonography, medical billing and coding and more. Classes start every four weeks. Online course offerings also available.

Dade Medical College is accredited by the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools, the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology (Miami and Hollywood Campuses) and is licensed by the Florida Commission for Independent Education. Dade Medical College has also been approved by the Florida Board of Nursing and the Florida Board of Massage and is a member of the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges and the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association.

For more information, visit http://www.DadeMedical.edu, like them on http://www.facebook.com/DadeMedicalCollegeor call 305.644.1171.

Media Contact: Elizabeth Martinez Dade Medical College, 786-374-4997, liz@dademedical.edu

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

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Dade Medical College Launches New School of Online Education

With a quiet fountain bubbling in the corner and a few more adornments, the MyMindEmbody studio will offer those interested in either pilates or yoga a peaceful place outside of the gym at Embody Fitness to enjoy these classes.

The idea for the studio was developed by Embody general manager Katie Paris who wanted a relaxing space for the classes as well as a larger space.

When we were first at the Kingwood Athletic Club, the pilates and yoga classes were in a very small area, so when we decided to start hosting these classes, we all wanted to hold them in its own space, Paris said.

Embody, which is located at 1574 Kingwood Drive, is celebrating the opening of the new studio May 12 with pilates and yoga class demonstrations being held intermittently throughout the event which runs from 9 a.m. until noon.

The MyMindEmbody studio features several reformer pilates machines which allow for participants to go through a range of different exercises.

The studio also has a spacious area in front of the reformer pilates machines to allow for numerous mats for the yoga class. The studio will also offer a hot yoga class during the week.

A lot of the people who take yoga and pilates class are not typically gym people. With the new studio, those who do not like the gym atmosphere or are looking to relax with these classes will have a quiet space and do not have to step in the gym if they do not want to, Jo Elaine Philips with Embody said.

There are still a few additions Embody is working to put together before the grand opening including a couple of other pieces of furniture and draperies which will hang from the ceiling to add to the zen feeling of the MyMindEmbody studio.

The pilates classes are taught by instructors Sandy Brady and Rhoni Marple Kirshner while Carol Lloyd will teach yoga.

We are very excited to start our classes in the studio and hope more people will come to check out our classes and see what all we have to offer, Paris added.

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Embody Fitness opens yoga, pilates studio

Ontario Evelyn Burton turned 96 April 25, and the water aerobics group at the Ontario Aquatic Center planned to celebrate with her that day but had to wait until April 27 because she went golfing on her birthday instead.

Most people hope to be half as active as Burton when they turn 96, but she doesnt let age slow her down.

Burton, who has resided in Ontario since 1945 and is a widow, still lives at her home and gets out in the yard. She does have a son who checks up on her, but she said she isnt dependent on anyone and still gets out and drives on her own.

Along with water aerobics, in which she takes part three to four days a week, she also regularly bowls, which she has done for more than 20 years, and golfs, sometimes both in the same day.

I feel water aerobics does the most good, that some stuff is just easier in the water, Burton said.

To keep her mind active she is a regular bridge club player, Burton said.

She said church also keeps her busy, and she is an avid traveler.

Evelyn should be a role model for senior fitness and for everyone, Kathy Daly, Ontario Recreation Department director, said.

Daly said water aerobics is good exercise because the water cushions the joints, and people have a better range of motion in the water.

Several other members of the water aerobics group are 80 years of age and older, and one is 90 years old.

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Age no barrier for 96-year-old Ontario woman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpk3J2E2fu4

02-05-2012 05:24 , Azizi Childhood, Food Cooking Excercise, Hasb e Haal

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Azizi Childhood, Food Cooking Excercise, Hasb e Haal - By TVMuzika - Video

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A total of 21 horses have been entered for Saturday's Kentucky Derby, one more than the maximum allowed field of 20.

The entry box closed Wednesday morning, with the draw to determine post positions set for later in the afternoon. The field is limited to the top 20 horses based on earnings in graded stakes races.

Leading the way is Bodemeister, the dominant winner of the Arkansas Derby and one of two horses in the field trained by Bob Baffert. He also has Liaison.

Todd Pletcher also will saddle two - Wood Memorial winner Gemologist and Risen Star winner El Padrino.

Michael Matz, who won the 2006 Derby with Barbaro, trains Fountain of Youth winner Union Rags.

Optimizer will be the record 45th Derby starter for trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time winner of the race. The colt got into the field when Mark Valeski was withdrawn from consideration Tuesday.

The 21st horse on the earnings list is My Adonis, an also eligible who would need a defection to get into the 1 1/4-mile race.

Other entries for the 138th Derby are Withers winner Alpha, San Felipe winner Creative Cause, UAE Derby winner Daddy Long Legs, Sunland Derby winner Daddy Nose Best, Illinois Derby winner Done Talking, Blue Grass winner Dullahan, Gotham winner Hansen, and Santa Anita Derby winner I'll Have Another.

The rest of the entries are Tampa Bay Derby winner Prospective, Rousing Sermon, Sabercat, Florida Derby winner Take Charge Indy, Bay Shore winner Trinniberg, and Spiral Stakes winner Went the Day Well.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Kentucky Derby has 21 horses entered, 1 above max

I had the pleasure of visiting William Broad at the Times today. He kindly gave me the tour, and showed me the Pulitzer wall, which he was on for a group prize in 1986. We even had some hang time in the cafeteria to chat about neuroscience, yoga injuries, the wacky yoga scene, human nature, and other top secret undercover stories.

I was most impressed by his actual desk, which was buried under piles of wacky science books and stacks of papers. Couldn't have been staged better. The office has walls of books, giving off the vibe that only paper books can: peaceful space for clarity, endless information luring original thought and creativity. The whole place is super-expansive by design and feeling, idyllic for focused streams of consciousness. My one complaint: no non-dairy milk options in the cafeteria! Let's get almond milk over to the Times people!

There are fish bowl gardens set up for external viewing but not to be entered. I've always wondered about these outdoor/indoor spaces with restrictions. My old apartment building also had a nice glassed-in nature area permitting no visitors for viewing or reflection; only the gardener was allowed in, on occasion, to pull weeds.

I have a big soft spot for the Times and massive respect for its tornado power. Lizette Alvarez gave me a huge and powerful gift. She sent me a general email through my website last year asking if she could interview me for an article on yoga. Now I read the paper, I had seen the small articles they publish weekly on yoga in the Stretch column hidden on a lower part of a page, and was grateful they had decided it was my turn. After she had hung around for a few days, I asked her if she had everything she needed. She said she spoke with her editor and decided to turn my story into a cover story. I was beyond nervous and excited, but more nervous.

Rebel Yoga was the most emailed and viewed article in the whole paper for a while, and burst open a small flood of other pieces on yoga. Yoga was officially here to stay, and now it didn't need its guru anymore.

Most of you, if you keep up with my ongoings, know that I invited William to have a public chat at the SOHO Apple store for the launch of Yoga Cures. (Have a listen to the podcast!) I thought a conversation would be more interesting than just me up there blabbing about my book and how awesome yoga is to a crowd of people who probably, hopefully, already practice yoga.

William has some serious yoga-people-haters, steaming about the topics covered in his book, The Science of Yoga, The Risks and the Rewards, where he actually concludes -- if you take the time to read the book and not headlines -- that the rewards outweigh the risks. I have had my fair share of yoga-people-haters over time too, so I have a soft spot for William there. I've learned that if you don't have anyone opposing your work, if you don't have anyone thinking "man that should be me, I could do that, I should have thought of that, or they must have teams of people doing it for them," your work simply isn't reaching enough people to be relevant.

To twist Mr. Broad's yoga-people-haters in a bind, S.O.Y carries no actual opinions about yoga. Getting to know Mr. Broad, his actual opinion is that yoga is wonderful, powerful stuff that everyone should practice with ease. He is so passionate when he speaks about his home practice and his physical limitations and the incredible benefits of stress relief, clarity, creativity and focus.

S.O.Y. reads comparatively to Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, telling the windy tale of the history of yoga, the scandals through the times, and a lot of the not-so-talked-about topics that have gone down through past and modern history of yoga. You know, the stuff that no one likes to talk about. Insert yoga-community backlash, a movement of people actually coming out and speaking out about their negative experiences with yoga, pushy teachers, power-hungry gurus, and the scandals go on and on. He even has a bunch of stuff on me in there! And not so much to my surprise, he criticizes some of the marketing claims of my first book, Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, which were out of my hands and against my wishes at the time. That's another can of worms and a piece of my own history. On the metabolism issue however, if you have a listen to the podcast, a Strala regular inquired about her boost in metabolism and newly-acquired muscle mass that she has put on since her regularity at the studio. Confirmed by an actual doctor at the talk, another Strala regular: Added muscle mass does increase metabolic rate. So it all depends on how you practice. Yoga has massive benefits when you practice with ease.

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Tara Stiles: Scandal, Controversy, and the Future of Yoga

Cat Cow 1

Cat Cow 2

Marichyasana C variation 1

Marichyasana C variation 2

In this second part of a series, Irene Leong offers four yoga steps for the upper body, as demonstrated by mYoga instructor Angel Ng.

Cat Cow 1 Start with the easy pose. Sit comfortably in your seat, close your eyes, take a deep breath and relax. Place your hands by your side on the seat, with palms facing down. Straighten your arms and engage the muscles. Bend your body forward until the head touches the knees. Inhale slowly as you arch your spine upwards and lift your chin and head back. Then slowly exhale as you round your back, bring your chin to the chest, and the head to the knees. Repeat three times.

Cat Cow 2 Still sitting comfortably in your seat, cross your arms and use your hands to palm the shoulders. Then follow the breathing process in Cat Cow 1. Repeat three times. This step aims to improve the flexibility of the spine.

Marichyasana C variation 1 Slide out of the seat a little, leaving some space between your back and the seat. Place your feet firmly on the ground, aligned to the hips. Keep your spine straight. Lift your arms up as you inhale to lengthen the front part of your body, and fold your body halfway forward as you exhale.

Marichyasana C variation 2 Still in the same variation, after putting your hands down, continue by placing your right leg over your left thigh. Place your right hand behind your back while the left hand pulls the left knee. Lift and lengthen your lower spine as you inhale, and twist your body to the right as you exhale. Look over the right shoulder and do a gentle twist of the spine. Repeat for the other leg.

Next week: Four yoga steps for the lower body.

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Yoga steps for the upper body