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The internet is our huge network of information where we all work together to map the world and the world maps us. Not only are we discovering, we are also creating new ideas as we go. Green likens this process of learning the looking at a zoomed out version of a map where you can only see the outline of a beach but that inspires you to want to look closer.

He also points out that YouTube videos have a bad reputation but that the millions of viewers create a community in the comments section by asking tough questions and challenging each other.

Lastly, he reminds us that the internet makes learning an experience that all ages can share. You are never too old to learn. The internet can reteach old concepts or introduce new ones to people who may have felt that they lost their learning communities after high school and college.

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I think what we need to look at is we need to look at learning as the product of educational self-organization. If you allow the educational process to self-organize, then learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen. It's about letting it happen. The teacher sets the process in motion and then she stands back in awe and watches as learning happens.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud TedTalk

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I have always loved baking, but find it very challenging to work from scratch or even alter things recipes without messing them up completely. This guide has visualized for me where I may be going wrong when I make things such as pancakes, cupcakes, and even cookies. I will keep this pinned for future reference so I don't make mistakes in the future! I don't want to be wasteful or make anything super unappetizing.

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YouTube: An emerging tool in anatomy education

If more courses customized videos to teach students as a supplement to class material, they could be a useful tool to enhancing learning. People find it helpful for learning anatomy which could be the first indication for many subjects both elementary and college level. This is not only a convenient method for learning but also is proving to be very effective.

Jaffar, A. A. (2012). YouTube: An emerging tool in anatomy education. Anatomical Sciences Education, 5(3), 158-164.

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Allowed to pause, rewind, and replay their educator rather than feeling the pressure of wasting their time. This reminds me of Social Inhibition a theory which states that the presence of others actually decreases individuals ability to perform when the task is unfamiliar or cognitively challenging. Given that when you are learning new material you have obviously not mastered it, it can be nerve racking to have someone proficient watching you trying to learn. This may have less of a negative impact when the teacher in online and not actively watching students learn.

Also, I found that this video explained some key ways the internet is changing how we as students learn. We are enabled to test ourselves again and again until we get problems right. The use of the internet allows us to master content rather than breeze through it and never look back. In traditional classrooms after you complete one test you move on from that material no matter what grade you received on it. As Khan points out, this leaves gaps in our foundation that we never seem to come back and fill which makes it harder to build on our knowledge in the future.

The internet gives students agency in their learning. They can learn at the speed that they need, addressing the topics that they need, answering the questions that they need answered.

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Took the tips from my pepper cutting post and a stuffed pepper recipe, and created my own stuffed peppers using the leftover cheese, burger, rice, and pepper in my apartment! It was surprisingly wonderful.

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I love stir fry but never have been ambitious enough to try and make it alone. This typically leads me to ordering out, but no more! This helpful infographic guides you through each step so there is very little room for error. I really appreciate that they lay out each ingredient and allow you to make your choices so it is customizable. Learning to cook on this internet has proved to be a cheaper and more creative than recipe books so far!

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My surprisingly successful take on banana muffins! I even added chocolate chips to some of them (:

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My fruity twist on standard french toast! With a coffee of course.

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A cost-effectiveness analysis of blended versus face-to-face delivery of evidence-based medicine to medical students

The finding from this study was very important to the question “how is the internet changing the way we learn?” It is the making the way we learn cheaper. This study demonstrated that a blended method was cheaper than a pure face-to-face teaching methods. This specific program took 3 years to pay itself off as changing to a blended set up had some initial costs that made it more expensive at first. If education could start transitioning to a cheaper medium, perhaps it would be more universally available. This could empower those who don’t see higher learning as an option to continue schooling and get higher degrees.

Maloney, S., Nicklen, P., Rivers, G., Foo, J., Ooi, Y. Y., Reeves, S., . . . Ilic, D. (2015). A cost-effectiveness analysis of blended versus face-to-face delivery of evidence-based medicine to medical students. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(7).

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This recipe took me 5 minutes to prepare, 4 hours to cook, and 15 minutes to eat. The internet has really unlocked the possibilities of my slow cooker and all of the exciting meals I can make from home.

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Why internet-based education?

The principle of learning that resonated most with me was Internet-based higher education can optimize performance. I have always felt as though certain times in the day, generally later hours, were more productive for me. I have also considered that this may be correlated with my age, but I have never read any research on this concept. It was interesting to see that Gernsbacher not only confirmed this suspicion, but pointed out the conflict of interest this creates in the classroom. If professors are typically partial to earlier lectures and students function optimally later in the day, how can both parties be expected to benefit from a face-to-face lecture that doesn't fit their bodies' internal clock.

Given this, I see the time flexibility of online courses to be crucial to their importance. I personally value the option to complete assignments at any time of the day immensely. Furthermore, I believe this option makes me more productive, focused, and happier to complete assignments, which in turn helps me produce better final work. I am what you would call a night owl, so when I am restricted to doing in-class assignments during morning lectures, I am likely very sleepy and unfocused.

When I use many online sources, I tend to be more engaged with the material. Online I feel as though I can look for details explaining exactly what I am confused on: I can watch videos, find diagrams, and read many different explanations until I understand the topic fully. This forces me to actually work to learn the subject until I feel comfortable with it. In contrast, when I read a textbook, no matter how hard I try to focus, I end up staring at words and not taking any of it in. The most important information is bolded, so it is easy to get in the habit of skimming and only reading vocabulary. Those habits lead to short term memorization of the material instead of deep understanding.

Article by: Professor Gernsbacher 

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The internet - teaching me to be healthier and make sure I eat breakfast every morning! 

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After watching Daphne Koller’s TED talk in Unit 3 - I can say confidently that online education works because she demonstrates all of the positive impacts it can have on students all over the world through her online program, Coursera. She discusses the many limitations to in-person-learning such as the obvious lack of quality education in many countries, the limited number of students who actually have the opportunity to attend top ranked universities, and the alarming price of many universities compared to the actual payoff of a degree. 

It is disappointing to see that many don’t have the opportunity to learn and those who do have the opportunity may not get the best education possible. This is why Koller suggests that online learning is the solution to the problem. If the main problem is accessibility, then why not take the best educators from around the world into one, easy to use, easy to access space – the internet. This means that thousands of students can be taking classes taught by the best of the best from anywhere around the world for free if they have just a computer and internet. This opens up opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people who didn’t have the money, time, or possibility to go to college. It also encourages learning past high school and college. 

What I thought was so interesting was the vast amount of information you can gain on the best forms of teaching from online classes. They saw that students were benefiting from the flexibility online teaching allowed since they weren’t confined to a one-hour lecture at any specific time. Coursera’s online classes also enable greater comprehension by incorporating mid-video check in questions to make sure the student is actually absorbing and understanding the material. 

Online courses also allow for more diversity in feedback. Students can grade themselves, they can grade each other, and teachers can look at large amounts of data to help give more useful feedback to whole classes of people. I think these online courses also work because they can create an extensive network of peers who can learn together. Online classes enable students to create study groups with people who are not only close to you, but also with people who live across the world. This student-to-student interaction is highly beneficial to their learning and enrichment gained from the course.