A week ago Google launched an open source project called Course Builder it packages the software and technology used to build their July Class Power Searching with Google. The discussion forum for it is here. Tomorrow is the first live hangout where he will be answering questions about MOOC design and technical aspects of using Course Builder. The live hangout will is scheduled for the 26th of September.
In July, Research at Google ran a large open online course, Power Searching with Google, taught by search expert, Dan Russell. The course was successful, with 155,000 registered students. Through this experiment, we learned that Google technologies can help bring education to a global audience. So we packaged up the technology we used to build Power Searching and are providing it as an open source project called Course Builder. We want to make this technology available so that others can experiment with online learning.
The Course Builder open source project is an experimental early step for us in the world of online education. It is a snapshot of an approach we found useful and an indication of our future direction. We hope to continue development along these lines, but we wanted to make this limited code base available now, to see what early adopters will do with it, and to explore the future of learning technology. We will be hosting a community building event in the upcoming months to help more people get started using this software. edX shares in the open source vision for online learning platforms, and Google and the edX team are in discussions about open standards and technology sharing for course platforms.
Along with releasing the experimental open source code, we’ve provided documentation and forums for anyone to learn how to develop and deploy an online course like Power Searching. In addition, over the next two weeks we will provide educators the opportunity to connect with the Google team working on the code via Google Hangouts. For access to the code, documentation, user forum, and information about the Hangouts, visit the Course Builder Open Source Project Page. To see what is possible with the Course Builder technology register for Google’s next version of Power Searching. We invite you to explore this brave new world of online learning with us.
A small group of us has been working on related matters but we are far from done reviewing the relevant literature. Not having any good questions yet, I thought what harm might there be in asking for the broader community to come up with a few questions! If Norvig has answered your questions in some of his other existing material that I’ve reviewed I’ll respond with a link.
Which questions about online classes would you ask Peter Norvig?
A week ago Google launched an open source project called Course Builder it packages the software and technology used to build their July Class Power Searching with Google. The discussion forum for it is here. Tomorrow is the first live hangout where he will be answering questions about MOOC design and technical aspects of using Course Builder. The live hangout will is scheduled for the 26th of September.
A small group of us has been working on related matters but we are far from done reviewing the relevant literature. Not having any good questions yet, I thought what harm might there be in asking for the broader community to come up with a few questions! If Norvig has answered your questions in some of his other existing material that I’ve reviewed I’ll respond with a link.