Is MOOC a Game Changer in Education?

Hi Guys,

MOOC or Massive Open Online Course has been in the limelight in the recent past as a major breakthrough in education. A MOOC is an online course wherein a technology firm signs up with a top notch university to provide a course to students across the globe. Though there are lot of websites doing this, Coursera has been one famous site providing MOOC. Coursera has tied up with many of the leading universities to provide courses across many streams like Engineering, Arts, Humanities, Management, etc. Recently it has come up with a concept known as ‘Signature track’ wherein the student pays a nominal fee and get certified by the providing university.

Is it a really a game changer? Well, MOOC is widely considered as higher learning platform, where learning occurs voluntarily and not by force. In real world, a student attends a college or a university. A professor frames the course, provides resources and guides students to learn the course with the help of lectures, projects and exams. In today’s integrated world, all the materials are available online. If I google Thermodynamics, I’ll get enough materials to master the subject. But, the problem is I won’t know the order or how to get into the subject. A professor facilitates that. If you have doubts, you ask the professor. You get clarified. The professor constructs it in such a way that you get the subject (Though, not many people would agree with that!). You have friends who would have different opinion. It will lead to knowledge development.

A MOOC is somewhere between a real university and the self-search. A professor records his lecture and slides and presents it to you. He gives you reference material. You have assignments, quizzes and peer evaluation. You can learn on your own. But, it would be individual learning and you can’t go back to the professor to get clarified. A MOOC cannot replace real education, but it provides you a framework to learn on your own.

Let me quote a personal example. After joining a few courses in Coursera about varied topics, I discontinued them due to lack of time or the complexity of the course. Recently I completed a course on Social Psychology. If there was no coursera, I would have had no idea on how to know about Social Psychology. Still, I might not have in depth knowledge in the subject, but I know something from the subject.

Dennis Yang, president of another famous MOOC provider Udemy says that MOOC is in the peak of Gartner Hype Cycle (see picture). It is in the peak of expectations and wild swings are expected. People say MOOC is the future of education and can spread education at a low cost. MIT Open courseware has been giving away the course materials free of cost for a long time. It hasn’t created a big learning for you can’t replicate the professors of MIT.

Garner Hype cycle - MOOC is said to be in the peak of the cycle.

Many other points are to be considered. A MOOC does not allow you to gain practical insights. It doesn’t boost peer learning (Discussion forums are not peer learning). The quizzes and evaluation might not reflect the true learning. There are few advantages too. It is easy for you to find a course you like and enrol just for the fun of knowing (If you are person like me, you will enjoy it). It enables you to connect with peers across world and get to know how they think about certain aspects. Features like Google Hangout enable people to come in and interact and enable some amount of peer learning.

Generally, lot of people join a course. But only one-tenth of people complete a course. It requires some self-motivation and commitment to stay with the course. I would say MOOC would not become a game changer in the near course of time. But, they definitely help spreading knowledge and can evolve over a period of time.

Happy Reading!

IIM Shillong Interview experience

Hi Guys,

It has quite a long time since I sat down in front of my system to blog and much long since I read other’s blog posts.

I decided to pen down my experience of attending the Group Discussion and Personal Interview for IIM Shillong.

After getting a decent CAT score of 95.4 percentile, I thought that no IIMs would call me for the next process. A few days later I received a mail from IIM-S, stating that I have been selected for GD and PI and I was excited. And I was allotted the most special day of the year for GD and PI. It was February 29, a day that comes only once in four years. The venue was Bangalore and it ended up to be my first visit to Bangalore, after two failed attempts during the previous years which were cancelled due to various reasons.

I was in the afternoon batch and I reached the venue by 1 pm (we were supposed to be there by 1.45 pm). The venue was Institute of Hotel Management and the place of interview was maintained so well. I was the third person to reach and the whole atmosphere was so nice and fear started creeping inside. Slowly other students started coming and by 1.35 all the students were assembled. There were totally 20 boys and 4 girls.

A representative from IIM Shillong introduced himself and took attendance. I prayed silently that my name should come in the beginning and it came up at around 18th position and I was quite upset. He said that professors would come up and call the students for their respective groups. He also said the process may take time and asked us to comfort ourselves and there refreshments were available nearby the waiting place. A professor came out after some time and called Karthick and I was left shell shocked as I never expected this after the attendance list. After that he called seven other guys and took us downstairs. We waited for some 5 minutes before he called us in and arranged us according to the positions.

There were 6 boys and 2 girls. I was left in the corner as I was the first. The topic was related to genetically modified crops. There was a half page write up stating its advantages, disadvantages, etc. We had to write a case study for 10 minutes. It took me some 2-3 minutes to read and then I started to write. I started writing neatly and towards the end started scribbling. However I wrote for a page and concluded it properly.

Next GD started and the time was 15 minutes. After a good initiation by a boy, another boy and a girl started pouring and they were dominating not allowing the rest to come in. I and some other boys waited and then jumped in. The dominating persons had said all they had and then they were left empty minded. 15 minutes was a huge time for a group of 8 and so all others ended contributing some good points. I chipped in with 4-5 points with some examples. Everything was good except that no one took care of the time. No one summarized the GD and it ended abruptly.

After that we were asked to wait outside and we were informed that interview time were 25 plus or minus few minutes for a candidate and the order would be the same. I came out and was speaking with two of the neighbors and it relaxed my mind completely. Some 5 minutes later, a professor came out and called my name.

I went in, greeted the professors and they asked me to sit. There were three professors and lets call them P1, P2 and P3.

P2: Introduce yourself. Before that pass your file to P3.

Me: I started introducing within a minute I was stopped.

P2: So, you call yourselves an efficient blogger?

Me: yes sir, I have been writing a blog based on …….. for the past 30 months.

P2: So, how do you called efficient? Are there any parameters?

Me: Said about rankings, communities, hits, comments, etc.

P1: you have put you are interested in photography. What type are you interested in?

Me: general photography… went on saying few things… later, thought could have given a better answer, after thinking what I really do…

P2: farmers using BT Cotton are said to commit more suicides (related to GD)…. But it is not so… even other farmers do commit… what do you think is the reason?

Me: explained using government policies, climate change, crop price, etc

P2: some farmers commit suicide so that their family will get compensation. What do u think?

Me: expressed my thoughts on government policies.

P2: asked few questions on the farms…

P1: so, do you know about banking?

Me: yes sir

P1: so, what banks do?

Me: explained deposits, loans, etc

P1: what do banks do when someone fails to repay the loan?

Me: explained about securities they get when giving loan.

P1: what is RBI? What do they do?

Me: explained they govern all the banks… banks have deposits… can take loans, etc

P1: who prints the money?

Me: RBI

P1: where is money printed? How much money is printed?

Me: at Nashik… it depends on lot of parameters such as economy, liquidity…

P1: so what is ISRO? What do they do?

Me: expanded and said about space research.

P1: government spends a lot of money on research… is there any use? Will we make any profits?

Me: said some of the possibilities of getting money…

P1: what is DRDO?

Me: explained…

P3: how do you manufacture a pencil?

Me: (luckily have seen the video on youtube)… explained…

P3: asked few questions on process planning which we haven’t studied…

Me: haven’t studied those things

P3: so, what did you study in process planning

Me: (suddenly everything went blank)

P3: so, what did you study in cost estimation?

Me: Suddenly remembered process plan and answered for that…

P3: so, how to calculate standard time?

Me: gave a half satisfying answer

P3: what are fixed and variable costs?

Me: answered with a good example…

P3: how to manufacture a gear cutting tool? Explain me the process

Me: (went blank for few secs)… said donot know

P3: what are the subjects you study now?

Me: said

P3: what is preventive and breakdown maintenance?

Me: (was in confused mood) answer idiotically for this easy question.

P1: gave a case study on products, maintenance, costs…

Me: didn’t understand and asked again…

P1: repeated more clearly

Me: answered quite well

P2: (was looking at clock… think it was 25 minutes)… Thank you Karthick. You may leave.

P3 (P1 & P2): please take some candies.

Me: thanked them, took an Alpenliebe and stood up.

P2: please close the door behind you.

I came out and everyone asked me how it was. I sat down in an empty seat and was speaking with the mates with whom I spoke before the interview. After ten minutes, I wished them good luck and came out. I was quite tired and ate a few biscuits, drank water and came out.

Overall it was a good experience.

You can find more IIM-S interview experiences at http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/78131-iim-shillong-2012-2014-gd.html

Thanks to all the people who had earlier shared their interview experiences. It helped me in a huge way to perform well.

If any of my GD mates are reading this one, thanks to you people for being so friendly and creating a great atmosphere.

All the best to other call getters who are going to attend the interviews in the coming days.

Happy Reading!!!

Current Education Standard in Government Schools!

Hi Guys,

A few days ago, I was travelling in a bus on a 3 hour journey. I was one of the last passengers to board the bus and hence had to sit in one of the few available seats. I was sitting nearby two friends and later found out that they were teachers in government school. It seems they work in different schools and became friends during a training session. They were discussing about the happenings in their respective schools. Mostly the first person spoke and second person listened.

First they were discussing about the quality of education. It seems they are really interested in teaching and their colleagues were not interested. He said that the school conducted no meetings for setting the class timetable, deciding ways to improve education. Meetings were conducted only to find out how to spend their leisure time and how to enjoy the work. They never cared about the children. The only time when the children were taken care of was when the teachers had quarrel among themselves. After a week or so, when the quarrel settles, the children were left uncared again.

They were appreciating the newly setup syllabus. Till now, I have only heard the views of the private players on the equitable education system, which they say is very poor when compared to the old standards. But, these teachers were saying that it was really good and particularly the colors and pictures created interest among the students. They were also saying, the teachers were able to learn a lot from those books (OMG – so what’s the standard of teachers?). They were complaining the stand of the new government of the education system and said Education Department should be self run like election commission (?)

One of the friends was saying that he had no guidance during his young age and hence chose a wrong field and so he is guiding his students properly. He also said that he along with a few of his bright students form a group and goes to their respective villages and creates awareness on education. A really good teacher, I thought.

After this their discussion turned into various topics on writing exams for promotion, attendance, internal conflicts. I just plugged my mobile’s headphone into my ear and became isolated for the remaining 150 minutes of the journey.

So, what do you feel right now?

Happy Reading!!!

Engineering in Tamil - An Analysis

Hi guys,

My exams were over finally. Today’s exam was tough, though I managed to do it quite well. As I said in my earlier post, we have no holidays. Our V semester classes begin on July 7 (next Wednesday).

In this post, I’m going to write about my views on the topic ‘Introducing Engineering courses in Tamil’. Our TN Government has announced that Mechanical and Civil Engineering courses will be available in Tamil from this year.

Good for the Tamil Medium students

To me it appears to be a good move. Many students study in Tamil Medium in their school life. Sudden transformation to English medium in college disturbs their study levels. For instance in my first semester, I’ve observed such students being affected. Mainly they get an inferior feeling. They would have scored more than 90 % in their school exams and still they would not be able to get good marks here. Particularly the effect of transformation is devastating in the rural students than in the urban students.

Improvement in R&D field

Researches show that learning in mother tongue increases the creativity, grasping power and understanding level of students. They say this is the main reason why Chinese and Japanese are so strong in research and technology. So introducing Engineering in Tamil will increase the chances of improvement in R&D, which is in very poor state here.

All these things suggest that Engineering in Tamil is good. But there are too many problems such as learning materials, teachers, resource people, etc.

No Resource materials

Anna University has introduced books for these courses. From the appearance of the books it seems that they are prepared according to syllabus. Generally Engineering students use more than one book for studying (at least they refer to). They give a wide idea to the students. But when it comes to book according to a syllabus, all these reference things are missing. It merely appears like a school book. Rather than introducing the courses hastily, Government must take steps to translate the resource books and then introduce courses.

Tamil or English- Confusion for students

The current system is such that students can decide whether to pursue the course in English or Tamil. This is very wrong. How can professors take class for both students at a same time? Even if concepts can be explained, the technical term varies. This is senseless. Instead separate classes should be taken. Some say will again lead to partiality. We intelligent people always think learning and speaking in English is superior. This attitude must change.

Do we have Resource people?

Do we have professors who will be able to handle classes in Tamil? Tamil is our mother tongue, but still we don’t know the exact translations for technical terms. How many of you know the terms for Power, Torque, Bending moment, stress, force, equation, etc in Tamil? (I don’t know).

Full Tamil or a mixture

Also, introducing in Tamil must be a fully fledged one. One of my friends who studied in Polytechnic College, before joining here said that they had an option of writing their exams in Tamil or English. He said he used to write in English, but lot of students used to write in a combined form (???). They used to write things in Tamil and in between if a technical term comes then the term will be written in English. This is completely insensible.

We are stepping into the path now. It will take time to improve. But the improvements must be done, or else the purpose of introducing Tamil in Engineering will be rubbish. Students must be aware of their career plans and choose wisely according to that.

Happy Reading!!!