Group items tagged

It’s early in the life of Google Drive, but Gmail has so many users that I think a lot of them will switch, or at least add Google Drive to their digital tools. Google Drive is a new player in file syncing, but the user base and integration of Google Docs gives Google’s new service an edge. Factor in the cheaper storage upgrade pricing and Google Drive is a better fit for users that need more than 5GB of storage. Dropbox still has an edge thanks to iPhone and iPad apps, but Google promises that Google Drive for the iPhone and iPad is just weeks away. With both services offering free storage, there’s no reason not to try both. Stream your music from Dropbox and store your documents and images in Google Drive. You get 10GB for free that way.

writing happens across long lengths of time, in little pockets of thinking, and that the little notes and ideas one may jot down at random times throughout a day are just as significant as those moments of longer, sustained writing. In a way, then, the iPad encouraged me as a writer to capture my thoughts in a succinct way and let them percolate for a while until I had time to expand, abandon, or adapt them later at my computer.

Granted, there are no papers to grade, and assignments aren’t free-form, but how does one professor handle so many students? We had four teaching assistants, and my initial plan was that they would spend a lot of time on the discussion forum, answering questions. One night in the early days, I was on the forum at 2 a.m. when I saw a student ask a question, and I was typing my answer when I discovered that another student had typed an answer before I could. It was in the right direction, but not quite there, so I thought I could modify it, but then some other student jumped in with the right answer. It was fascinating to see how quickly students were helping each other. All we had to do was go in and say that it was a good answer. I actually instructed the T.A.’s not to answer so quickly, to let students work for an hour or two, and by and large they find the answers.

Most students who register for MOOCs don’t complete the course. Of the 154,763 who registered for “Circuits and Electronics,” fewer than half even got as far as looking at the first problem set, and only 7,157 passed the course. What do you make of that?

EdX operates under an honor code, with no way to verify that the student who registered is the one doing the work. Is that likely to change? It’s quite possible employers would be happy with an honor certificate. We’re looking at various methods of proctoring. We have talked about people going to centers to take exams. There are also companies that use the cameras inside a laptop or iPad to watch you and everything else that’s happening in the room while you take an exam, and that may be more scalable.