Social + MOOCs + HComp = SMOOCH --- Computing Comes to Education

Google Tech Talk February 1, 2013 (more info below) Presented by Ben Bederson. ABSTRACT This past year has been an exciting one for online education. The widespread awareness of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offers the potential that technology-based education has been promising for decades. But tremendous hurdles remain - both for online only students as well as those attending traditional "residential" universities. In this talk, I will look at a range of problems facing online and offline education today and how, despite their success, today's MOOCs really attack just the low-hanging fruit. To reach their potential, including considering how they are used within traditional universities, we need to go beyond free video with integrated Q&A and forums. I will describe some of my work (and others') in human computation and social participation, while considering the context of traditional universities, to look at what we need to do reach the potential that online education has to offer. Benjamin B. Bederson is a Professor of Computer Science and a past director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and iSchool at the University of Maryland. An ACM Distinguished Scientist, his research is on human computation, mobile device interfaces, interaction strategies, digital libraries, and online education. He is also Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Zumobi, a premium mobile app network as well as Co-founder and Technical Director of the International Children's Digital Library (www.childrenslibrary.org).