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Like so many people, I’ve been surprised and baffled by ChatGPT. It generates coherent responses to a huge array of prompts. The technology threatens the written assignment as a means of developing and assessing the type of “21st century” skills that are (at least for now) essential in so many jobs.  The thing is this: … Continue Reading

I’ve written previously about why it’s so hard to create highly effective online learning experiences. Online learning poses big challenges to learners in developing countries, where the average completion rate of massive open online courses is well under 5% [1]. Over the past 18 months, working with a client, I’ve been prototyping and evaluating a … Continue Reading

There are over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States alone. Faced with so many choices, how do donors find the “right” nonprofit to support? Might there be better and more efficient ways for donors to identify organizations that are doing great work on causes that they care about? Market design theory provides some … Continue Reading

There’s strong evidence that new markets can be invented that anchor financial incentives to public goods. In some cases, markets can achieve public goods more efficiently than top-down approaches. It’s worth contemplating whether new market-like mechanisms could create incentives to spur innovations that increase the quality and drive down the cost of online learning. Existing … Continue Reading

Key Points There are many different components that must come together to create high-quality online learning. Overall quality can be modeled as the product of the quality of each of these components. Huge gains in overall quality can be achieved through incremental improvements to the individual components. Major breakthroughs in online learning could happen through … Continue Reading

Online learning linked to smart contracts could be a proving ground for automated outcomes-based funding.

One of my goals in 2021 was to read 52 books. Having reached that milestone, it’s a bit of a relief to pause and reflect. When I set out on this journey, I saw it as a way to be more intentional about my time. Looking back on the year, I’m grateful for the experience, … Continue Reading

Reading up on the Futures Forum EdTech Tools Competition has prompted me to think about the best ways that different organizations can contribute to the field of learning engineering, and in particular, a more vibrant and open education research ecosystem. I’ve come to appreciate that this is a complex, multi-faceted problem. This post is my … Continue Reading

Learning as Roadtripping Imagine that you decide to take a day trip with your family. Everyone gets excited, you pack up the car, pile in, and start driving. Then you drive in circles all day, return home at night, and proudly announce “we just drove for eight hours!” This is basically what we do all … Continue Reading

The path that learners take into a learning experience is an overlooked yet critical aspect of their journey. We all know how much first impressions matter. They may matter even more in online experiences; more than half of people depart an average web page within 15 seconds. I want to take a closer look at … Continue Reading