Where is the future of online education?

In a year and a half later, Gong Haiyan, CEO of Jia Huan Yuan of the past century, has now joined the online education industry and once again launched the Netsun network, which is the live broadcast site after 91. On the other side, Learning and thinking school has announced that its website users have exceeded 1 million, and forecast this year's revenue will exceed 100 million yuan. Live and recorded as online education and teaching methods of two main modes, in the end which is the future of online education?

O2O, Big Data, Cloud Education, Flip Classroom, Real-time Interactions ... Live Online Education, a combination of a variety of popular concepts , is highly sought after on the one hand, yet on the other hand is facing a difficult profitability and a business model Clear and other difficulties. And as with taped-based New Oriental Online, it was Paul remote, learning and thinking Wang Xiao and other revenues such as the size of the online educational institutions, even though they have been very mature in the business model and user habits, but was what others think they are too old.

Shooting ten years grinding sword business model matures

After experiencing 2013 "Year One of Online Education", online education has matured both from the entrepreneurial case and from the investment and financing enthusiasm. At the same time, the online education has only stayed around the hot topic of online education In concept. Big Data, O2O, Cloud Education, Flip Classroom, Real-time Interaction, Mobile Learning ... Among the current online education hotwords, recording and broadcasting is not favored by the media, but this does not prevent it from being the most current online education The mainstream teaching mode.

However, the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter in the inventory of online education agencies found that those who live relatively moist organizations are based on recorded For teaching methods: listed companies, is insured distance education and the new Oriental Online revenue respectively over 400 million yuan and 200 million yuan; as a founding up to five years of learning and think of school has just announced more than 100 million users, and is expected to The annual revenue of more than 100 million yuan; for the establishment of 10 years of Huanggang School Net School, Wang Jianhong, its principal, released the rhetoric to achieve 1 billion revenue.

When it comes to why video-based online education providers are far ahead, the industry believes there are many reasons. On the one hand, the online education business mode of recording and broadcasting is very simple. To some extent, it is equivalent to the video-selling course. The most prominent feature of this business model is that the cost is fixed and the marginal cost in the near future is close to zero. On the other hand, with more than ten years of training, user habits of recording and broadcasting modes have matured, including the current distance education, the largest market in online education.

"In fact, the actual effect of the webcasting-based online course is much better than expected, taking School of Thinking as an example, most of its users come from big cities like Beijing.On the surface, the Metropolitan Training Institute The competition is very fierce. Why there is a market for cyberspace? The reason is very simple. The more big cities are, the more necessary education and training is. The higher the willingness of learners to pay, this will not be significantly different because it is online or offline. Learning and thinking a responsible person said.

Live for the rising star sought after by the earnings exam

Although the recording and broadcasting model appears to be relatively easy to copy, and the business model is clear, it is not expected to be seen by current entrepreneurs. A K12 founder of online education once told the Beijing Commercial Daily that he had initially made a video library online platform and invited the best teacher resources but later discovered that it was a big mistake. "I thought we Record all the knowledge of the chapters in all the subjects as a course supermarket, what students can choose to learn, but it is not so easy to find in the actual teaching. Later, he decided to transition to the live broadcast course.

After resigning from the CEO of Century Jiayuan, Gong Haiyan chose to do online education. She seems to prefer the live broadcast courses. Of the three online education products she has launched, 91 is mainly based on live broadcasting Online education agency.

"Online education has been around for many years, but a few years ago, based on broadband and technology limitations, has been dominated by video-on-demand recordings and these limitations are being addressed as modern technology opens up new opportunities for the development of live broadcast courses . "Gong Haiyan believes that the on-air courses are more interactive and lively than recording and broadcasting programs, and are more able to arouse students' enthusiasm for learning.

In addition, for the online education this year, "tycoons" - claimed 100 billion yuan to subvert the traditional industries of 100 education, also based on the same live broadcast courses. 100 Education says it wants to use the free strategy in Internet thinking to do online education, and when it is profitable is not on the agenda. In addition, for some other newly established live-based online education institutions, they still face the earnings model exams and currently rely on financing to survive.

For the current hot live broadcast courses, Beijing Commercial Daily reporter has had learning experience on multiple platforms. Compared with traditional recording and broadcasting, the live broadcasting platform integrates some innovative features of the Internet. For example, in the field of big data applications, teachers can get a fast paced feedback through real-time statistics and data analysis after completing a knowledge point.

Teaching effect is the king broadcast live only means

Whether it is live or recorded, now have to face the problem of low degree of completion, which is mainly recorded and recorded in the town of Anglo-Locke was particularly evident, according to industry sources, the completion of recording and broadcasting courses even less than 20%. Even in the hot MOOC industry, according to the University of Pennsylvania sample sampling of one million users of 16 courses in Coursea above, one of the three MOOC platforms, the real completion rate at the end of last year is now dropping from 6% -7% to 4% about.

As an industry practitioner doing both live and recorded live broadcasts, Oppenheimer founder Fontaine is deeply touched by these two models. He argues that even for vocational education, a self-restrained group of just self-control students, recording and broadcasting courses are still painful for learners, and even if later attempted to cut the course into short video clips, the effect is not significant Sex improved. For the future of live broadcast courses, Oppen expressed optimistic, he said from the learning effect and traditional offline training, for example, said: "Line teaching students can pretend to understand, the teacher can pretend that students understand; but in the live broadcast class, students do not Satisfaction dropped directly to the teacher caused great psychological pressure.

For now, even the online educational institutions that focus on the recording and broadcasting do not stop at the video recording level. Instead, they make some peripheral extensions based on the recording and broadcasting. Take the K12 field of Hui Institute as an example, although all of its courses come from famous middle school teachers such as Beijing Normal University High School, Tianjin Nankai Middle School and Hebei Hengshui Middle School, it introduces gamification in the teaching process, Edutainment way to enhance learner interest.

"Whether it is live or recorded, in the final analysis are just a teaching method, it is difficult to specifically say which kind is not good, and their applicable user groups, teaching areas are not the same for learners, To maximize the effectiveness of teaching is the most suitable. "Institute of Internet Education founder and chief researcher Lu Senlin said.

Beijing Commercial Daily reporter Li Lixun / text