Gadgetory

Clint korver has been teaching entrepreneurship at Stanford for four years but now thanks to the web his classes aren't confined to one room and they can enroll 17,000 students or more got students from all over the world Korver is part of a growing number of professors at respected universities teaching massive open online courses or MOOCs which students can take on the internet often for free it's a lot of online education you're seeing the video of the professor you're taking multiple choice tests that's the most boring parts of the educational experience so Korver decided to work with novo ed an online education platform that emphasizes student collaboration and teamwork in this transition from brick-and-mortar to online learning you shouldn't strip away the social experiential or collaborative aspect of learning Nova heads co-founder says that's the key to Student Success if you look at massive open online courses the completion rate is typically low in single digits I novo at the completion rates are significantly higher typically two times or three times the normal novo ed students range from teens in Ghana to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs aspecto via a recent Spanish course attracted a hundred thousand students from around the world students select their courses watch recorded classes and team up on group projects depending on the structure of the team sometimes the students meet in person sometimes they use google hangout or skype and sometimes they just use you know email communication their work is graded by a computer fellow students or a teaching team once they complete the class students receive certificates that can be added to their resumes and online profiles Stanford has spawned several other MOOC providers that have attracted millions of users including the popular Coursera and Udacity but these courses haven't always made the grade San Jose State University suspended its collaboration with Udacity after more than half the students failed the online classes democratizing access is not equivalent to democratizing success something Nova wed hopes to change with its team spirit in palo alto california I'm Sumi das cnet.com for CBS News