MOOCs may still be dead, but with the coronavirus shutdowns, online education has suddenly taken on the leading role Tran once spoke of. Now, educators around the world are putting their classes online, just as universities did in 2012, partnering with Coursera, a Udacity competitor that promised to make Ivy League-level education accessible to all.
s that teachers will want to return to face-to-face classes as soon as possible. The current crisis has already highlighted the uneven access of students to online lectures and materials. However, teachers have acquired new skills that they can use in the future, for example, when schools in small communities are closed or when adverse weather conditions occur.
Who will make money from this is not yet clear. Coursera guatemala number data does not take money from universities, while the number of students studying the science of well-being, English as a second language and the coronavirus itself is growing. Schools are buying subscriptions to Zoom. But the real winners may be big textbook publishers like Pearson, which have already promoted online learning and now want to be rewarded for it.
Smart thermometers
Technology that uses big data to predict virus outbreaks also has a chance of success. Smart thermometer maker Kinsa sold location and temperature data to commercial clients like Clorox so they could plan their advertising spend. It was a way to make money, not a revolution. At the time, Kinsa said it was safe to share anonymous data, but privacy advocates were concerned about collecting such personal information.
Suddenly, this data became valuable to a wider audience. Kinsa released a nationwide “health map” that shows areas with high temperatures in large numbers of residents, indicating an outbreak of the coronavirus.
Kinsa is just one example. Let’s go back to 2012. That was the last year that Google Flu Trends, a tool for predicting the severity of the flu season based on search queries, was taken seriously by public health authorities. Wired called it an “epic fail” after the 2012-2013 flu season was grossly overestimated. The same thing happened again the following year. But fast forward to 2020, and Google has figured prominently in Donald Trump’s coronavirus strategy. It includes supporting web platforms that connect Americans with COVID-19 tests and public health resources.
The history of online learning suggest
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