Monday, February 27, 2012

Unimpressed with our OpenLectures.sg

I just made a quick visit to openlectures.sg. I had emailed my daughter about this promising site earlier after reading it in today's papers.

To be fair to them, I only have time to look at three lectures. The first two videos on Economics, and the first lecture of their Chemistry series.

One word: Unimpressed. They can't even speak properly. Very distracting. Completely unfamiliar with effective communications 101, much less teaching. Perhaps they can take a leaf from Khan Academy, the closest and more established site I can compare them to.

Many of our school teachers can do much better. Why don't we get the best of them to grace these sessions instead? These talented young people can set up and market them better than the school teachers as they are more familiar with the target audience.

Update:
I have discovered their YouTube channel and found a guy who is quite good after going through several less sterling ones. Unfortunately I am denied the courtesy of crediting him with his name. Comms 101, you are on video, the audience may not be familiar with you; it would be a good idea to always write your name on the board before you continue.

At this point, I think the quality of the site is patchy. Some of the clips I have seen and I wouldn't like to highlight them here, I think you are better off just reading your text or reference books.

Suggestion: Rope in some of the media guys from the polytechnics. You will be surprised what tremendous value they can bring to the effort, otherwise keep it simple like Sal Khan.

4 comments:

  1. You don't seem to appreciate that these people do it for free, out of the goodness of their heart. Instead of encouragement, you're quick to condemn like a typical ungrateful Singaporean.

    How many of those who 'can do better' are willing to do this with the conviction to help the underprivileged?

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  2. Yes, you are so critical but you forget that these are students! Would you volunteer your time to do it for free? If not, stop being so cynical.

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  3. Today I read about this site and really appreciated . Thanks to these students who really took pain to start this. My daughter just started JC1 this year and teachers are running to finish chapters. This site is surely going to help her. Please appreciate the effort these youngsters are putting.
    Anonymous

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  4. You a lazy ass dude thinking you are some corporate hotshot talking about comms 101 like u own the subject. These people, some of whom I know, actually make the effort to go out there and do something, rather than sit behind a computer criticizing others to get more blog hits

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