The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever
"Thrun decides that KnowLabs will build something called Udacity. The name, a mashup of audacity anduniversity, is intended to convey the boldness of both Thrun’s and his students’ ambitions. His goal is for Udacity to offer free eight-week online courses. For the next six months or more, the curriculum will focus on computer science. Eventually it will expand into other quantitative disciplines including engineering, physics, and chemistry. The idea is to create a menu of high-quality courses that can be rerun and improved with minimal involvement from the original instructor. KnowLabs will work only with top professors who are willing to put in the effort to create dynamic, interactive videos. Just as Hollywood cinematography revolutionized the way we tell stories, Thrun sees a new grammar of instruction and learning starting to emerge as he and his team create the videos and other class materials. Behind every Udacity class will be a production team, not unlike a film crew. The professor will become an actor-producer. Which makes Thrun the studio head.
He’s thinking big now. He imagines that in 10 years, job applicants will tout their Udacity degrees. In 50 years, he says, there will be only 10 institutions in the world delivering higher education and Udacity has a shot at being one of them. Thrun just has to plot the right course."
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