Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Coursera Brings Everything You Need To Code Into Its Virtual Classrooms - JARED NEWMAN, Fast Company

Tucked inside one of Coursera's 1,500 online classes, there's a multiple choice quiz that's not like the others. Instead of just asking questions and expecting answers, each challenge includes a text box with a "Run" button next to it. Here, you're expected to enter the appropriate code in the SQL programming language, so you can grab the database information you need to make the correct choice. Essentially, Coursera has condensed an entire coding environment into a series of boxes on a web page. The hope is that computer science and data science classes will become much more interactive, with the ability to play with your own code in the middle of a reading assignment, video lecture, or quiz. "We want to help learners learn by doing," says Tom Willerer, Coursera's chief product officer. "We want people to apply and practice what they're learning in the readings and the lectures, not just sit passively." https://www.fastcompany.com/3064213/coursera-brings-everything-you-need-to-code-into-its-virtual-classrooms