Computer Support Blog

Online discussions, chat rooms, and forums can be frustrating to see sometimes.  Due the anonymity of the Internet, these discussions often break out into arguments, name-calling, and a place of offensive anonymous statements. However, Clivir is a cool product that aims to create a more productive forum of online discussion.  Clivir is website that hosts many online discussion boards, but this cool product organizes its discussion sections into “classrooms”.  Clivir is a community dedicated to learning above all else.  Clivir’s organizes its “classrooms” by subject and category.  There are sections on the website for art, entertainment, business, computer technology, writing, disease, food, current events and more.  Each of these sections has several of Clivir’s “classrooms” inside it, where Clivir users post structured information meant to inform and educate.  Unlike typical discussion forums, which tend to be a free for all with some limited moderation, Clivir classrooms require users to post complete “classes”.  Each class must have citations and sources for the material it teaches.  Clivir moderates each classroom to ensure that classes live up to the website’s standards.  If a user has trouble accessing classrooms on Clivir, that person should get in touch with a remote computer support service and acquire help.  Read more »

Many education-based tech startups are trying to offer online courses and content directly to students through their own brand and website.  While these companies do occasionally collaborate with certain universities for course content, 2U CEO Chip Paucek is a cool person in technology believes in a different path for online education. Paucek wants to provide universities the tools and resources they need to create their own online degree programs.  Rather than offer online education directly, 2U works with schools to help them provide online classes and degrees to their students through a university’s own site and with a school’s own branding.   Paucek and his company concern themselves with forming complete courses and programs that fit into a genuine degree track rather than offering piecemeal educational content or single classes.  Paucek wants to help colleges utilize online classes to increase their reach and produce substantive courses that are in line with a college’s traditional offerings.  Because of this, Paucek doesn’t market 2U towards the public or students, but rather at universities themselves.  2U provides both technology and consulting to help colleges integrate large-scale online programs into their infrastructure quickly and efficiently. Read more »