Get the latest tech news
Why Is the EdTech Industry So Damn Soft?
If you depend on a massive base of learners, most of whom are unserious, that puts hard constraints on how you teach. You have to employ ineffective learning strategies that do not repel unserious students.
∗ ∗ ∗To some extent, I think we can trace the softness back to the expectation that online learning should be free or ridiculously cheap. Effective learning feels like a sweaty, exhausting workout with a personal trainer, and you have to come back and do that at least several hours each week. You’ve put yourself in a position where the only game you can play is convincing your users they’ve managed to learn things despite putting in little to no work (for instance, by cherry-picking the simplest cases of each topic and letting students move on despite poor performance on prerequisite material).
Or read this on Hacker News