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Stephen Downes

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Though numbers have declined dramatically from last summer's peak of enthusiasm for Stanford's massive Artificial Intelligence course, membership is still large enough to crash servers and there is still a great deal of enthusiasm for the work. Seb Schmoller looks at what can be learned from the course so far in this article. What's interesting is how personal the courses seem to be, even though the scale by definition precludes any great measure of personal interaction. "If the AI course is anything to go by, what Stanford University has solved, with its short quirky and quiz-laden videos, is a way to give learners the feeling that they are receiving personal tuition, with plenty of scope alongside this for peer interaction." It's like a blend of the best from Khan Academy with our MOOCs. Schmoller writes, "the underlying model feels right; what is more, it feels replicable for different academic levels and for different disciplines." But can other institutions get the numbers to make the courses work?

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Apr 26, 2024 1:12 p.m.

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