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Last semester, Sebastian Thrun, who helped build a self-driving car for Google, got together with a small group of other Stanford computer science professors. And pretty impulsively, they decided to open their Stanford classes to the world, and allow anyone, anywhere to attend online for free; take quizzes, ask questions, even get grades.
They made this announcement with almost no 1)fanfare, sending out a single email to a professional group.
Sebastian Thrun: Within hours, we had 5,000 students signup. That was on a Saturday morning. On Sunday night, we had 10,000 students.
Eventually, more than 160,000 students signed up for Thrun’s class with Peter Norvig on artificial intelligence, or A.I. Thrun: We reached many more students, Peter and I, in this one class than all other A.I. professors combined reached in the last year.
People from 190 countries signed up. Students from the Australian 2)outback, Shanghai, Africa, the Ukraine, and all over the Unites States studied together online. They took the same class Stanford students took, and they got grades. But they didn’t pay a cent and they didn’t get credit.
Jim Plummer is the dean of engineering. Jim Plummer: I think it will actually be a long time, maybe never, when actual Stanford degrees would be given for fully-online work by anyone who wished to register for the courses.
Stanford does give degrees for online work, but only to students who get through the admissions process and pay―often 40 or$50,000 for a master’s degree. But technology could push prices down.
Daphne Koller: On the long-term, I think the potential for this to revolutionize education is just tremendous.
Daphne Koller is a computer science professor at Stanford and a MacArthur Genius Fellow. She’s been working to make online education more engaging and interactive for years.
Koller: There are millions of people around the world that have access only to the poorest quality of education, or sometimes nothing at all.
Koller says technology could change that. She says it makes it possible in many subjects to teach classes with 100,000 students, as easily and almost as cheaply as a class that has just 100 students. And if you look around the world, the demand for education in places like South Africa is enormous.
Koller: In the University of Johannesburg, a few weeks ago, they had a very small number of places that were still open. And so, there were thousands of people parked outside the gates, sitting there for the gates to open, so they could be first in line to register for that limited number of 3)slots. And when the gates opened there was a 4)stampede.
Twenty people were injured and one woman was killed. Koller hopes, in the future, technology will make these kinds of tragedies preventable. In this semester, Stanford will put 17 interactive courses online for free.
Over the last six months, Sebastian Thrun has spent roughly $200,000 of his own money and lined up venture capital to create a new online institution of higher learning, independent of Stanford.
Thrun: The name is Udacity. We are committed to free online education for everybody.
Udacity is announcing two new classes today. One will teach students to build their own search engine, another how to program a self-driving car. Eventually, the founders hope to offer a full 5)slate of classes in computer science, all for free.
Thrun believes Stanford’s mission is really to attract the top 1% of students from all over the world and bring them to campus. He says Udacity’s mission is different: Free, quality education for all, anywhere. A 6)sweeping, 7)disruptive technology.
Koller: What I think is clear is that this change is…is coming. And it’s coming whether we like it or not. And so, I think the right strategy is to embrace that change.
Over the years, Stanford has launched dozens of disruptive technologies into the world. But now, administrators and professors here seem to agree it could be about to disrupt itself.
上个学期，参与谷歌无人驾驶汽车制造的塞巴斯蒂安・特伦与来自斯坦福大学的另外几位计算机科学教授聚首一堂。他们心血来潮，决定向全世界公开他们在斯坦福教授的课程，这样一来，无论何人身处何地，都可以免费在网上学习这些课程、参加测验、提问，甚至可以得到成绩。
他们只是发了一封电子邮件通知了一个专业小组，根本没有大肆宣传。
塞巴斯蒂安・特伦：几小时内，就有五千名学生登记，那时是星期六早上。到星期天晚上，登记的学生达到了一万人。
结果，超过16万学生注册了特伦和彼得・诺维格的人工智能课。
特伦：我和彼得在这一门课上接收的学生，比去年其他所有人工智能课教授接收的学生总人数要多得多。
报名参加的人来自190个国家和地区。来自澳大利亚内陆地区、上海、非洲、乌克兰以及美国各地的学生都在网上一起学习。他们上的课跟斯坦福大学的学生一样，他们也能获得成绩。然而他们没有花一分钱，也没有学分。
吉姆・普卢默是工程系的系主任。
吉姆・普卢默：我认为，想通过网络报名并完全通过网络教学得到货真价实的斯坦福大学学位还需要很长一段时间，或许根本不会发生。
斯坦福大学确实会向参加网络教学的学生授予学位，但只针对那些通过了录取程序，并且为取得硕士学位支付了4万到5万美元学费的人。但科技手段有可能降低这个价格。
达芙妮・科勒：从长远来看，我认为这个方式会对教育产生革命性的影响，并且潜力是巨大的。
达芙妮・科勒是斯坦福大学计算机科学教授，同时也是麦克阿瑟天才奖得主。她多年来一直致力于提高网络教学的参与性和互动性。
科勒：世界上有几百万人都只能接触到非常落后的教育，或者根本没有机会接受教育。
科勒说科技可以改变这一点。她说这种方式使得很多科目可以实现同时给10万学生上课，并且就跟给100名学生上课一样简单，花费也相差不多。而且如果你环顾世界，像南非这类的地方对教育的需求是巨大的。
科勒：几周前，在南非的约翰内斯堡大学，只剩下少数几个录取名额，结果好几千人就将车停在校门外，坐在那里等着学校开门，就是为了抢注那些有限的名额。当大门打开的时候，发生了踩踏事件。
事件中有20人受伤，一名妇女死亡。科勒则希望，在未来，科技可以阻止这类悲剧的发生。这个学期，斯坦福将会提供17门互动式课程的免费网络教学。
在过去六个月里，塞巴斯蒂安・特伦个人已经拿出了将近20万美元，并且获得了风险资金的支持，用于创建一所独立于斯坦福大学的新式网络高等教育机构。
特伦：这个大学的名字是“Udacity”。我们致力于为每个人提供免费的网络教育。
Udacity大学今天了两门新课。一门是教学生们怎样自己建立搜索引擎，另一门则是如何给无人驾驶汽车编写程序。创始人最终想实现的目标是提供计算机科学的全套课程，而且全部免费。
特伦相信斯坦福大学的目的在于吸引全世界真正顶尖的那百分之一学生前来就读。他说与斯坦福大学不同，Udacity的目的是提供免费优质的教育，这将是全面的颠覆性科技。
科勒：我觉得有一点可以确定的是这个变化很快会发生。不管我们喜不喜欢，它都会到来。如此一来，我觉得正确的策略就是迎接这个变化。
多年以来，斯坦福大学向世界推广了几十项颠覆性科技。但如今，管理人员和教授们似乎都认为该是它自我颠覆的时候了。翻译：小寒