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Accenture to Acquire Udacity

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Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#71

Post by ghaff »

geodel wrote: post #36
ghaff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole ex-MOOC and other online learning landscape has basically turned into (and mostly always was) continuing professional education. It's nice that there are still some options out there like OCW but it's mostly been a pretty dismal failure from the perspective of really transforming anything.

This is part of that list where at one point computer were supposed to totally transform learning in school. We know it didn't happen. Them mobile/smartphone were supposed to transform learning on the go that also didn't happen. But worry not, now personalized AI agents will totally transform learning. There will be individualized lectures for every students. No more lack of attention from teachers be bottleneck in l…

Yeah. And it's not like broadcast university lectures and some rudimentary echoes of in-person grading systems are some pinnacle of providing effective education. There's nothing wrong with video lectures--I take LinkedIn classes at work from time to time for certain topics--but it's usually because something appeals to an immediate need and being visual is at least useful.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#72

Post by ghaff »

sizeofchar wrote: post #12
beoberha wrote: post #6

This is unfortunate to see. I remember when these alt-Ed startups were all the rage and there was a genuine belief that we were on the cusp of a paradigm shift in how we learned. Would love to hear some success stories if anyone has any!

I completed the CompSci X-Series of MITx on edX, and Software Engineering for IaaS, from BerkeleyX. They were so awesome that I can only think they phased them out because it was such a bargain. Practically, the courses allowed me to change career and to be well positioned.

Well, you're probably at least sortof right. Once the bloom went off the MOOC rose, edX got sold off to an EdTech company. In general, universities decided that shoveling money and effort into the MOOC pit didn't do a lot to further their mission. MIT mostly continues OCW as sort of a sideline. I don't know how many resources actually go into it at this point.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#73

Post by ghaff »

hilux wrote: post #50

The collapse in value of OPMs and EdTechs is something to behold: Byju's, Coursera, 2U, Udacity ... I don't understand it.

Because they mostly turned out to be something that professionals, often already with multiple degrees, were willing to dabble in for free. They didn't really alter the education landscape in any significant way--in part because any certificates weren't really valued by companies.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#74

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

freedomben wrote: post #21
iamleppert wrote: post #14

I paid over $1,000 for one of their “nanodegree” programs. After it ended, they had the nerve to lock all the content, including all my notes and submissions as well as course content like videos and such. I highly recommend anyone avoid them.

Yep, I'm done paying for DRM locked content. For courses, Udemy is hit or miss unfortunately. I wish there was an explicit way to tell before buying the course whether it allowed downloading the material (including the videos).

All Udemy and udacity material is downloadable on the high seas.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#75

Post by freedomben »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #74
freedomben wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm done paying for DRM locked content. For courses, Udemy is hit or miss unfortunately. I wish there was an explicit way to tell before buying the course whether it allowed downloading the material (including the videos).

All Udemy and udacity material is downloadable on the high seas.

Indeed, this is where these companies seem to desperately want us to go. I do hope something changes but we're heading in the absolute wrong direction with things like Google's Chrome attestation garbage.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#76

Post by georgeplusplus »

I did the The Full Stack Nanodegree from Udacity around 2015 and took one advanced C++ programming course back around 2018. I learned so much from those two and the content was challenging immersive and the feedback in the community was helpful.

The difference when I took the course in 2018 was apparent to me the quality change in the community, the grader and code reviews were non-existent, however the class mates were still engaging.

It saddens me to see a big faceless corp buying this out. I think out of all the online learning platforms, Coursera, Udemy, MIT edx, Udacity had the best product by far. Its weird to see that with COVID and distance learning becoming essential that they did not blow up as a big thing.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#77

Post by ghaff »

MattGaiser wrote: post #54
Apocryphon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of all the hyped fads on HN a decade ago, MOOCs have fallen even harder than drone startups. What happened to disrupting the overpriced hollow credentialism of higher education?

MOOCs kind of demonstrated that it isn't so hollow, even if just as a filtering function for capable people. Anyone can get the curriculum taught at MIT or Yale now and yet there has been no massive upskilling in the world, nor are there tons of people who attribute MOOCs for tremendous success. Even the ads for the MOOCs now are competing more with DeVry Or U of Phoenix instead of any serious institute of higher edu…

A lot of people assumed that once you provided a way to bypass the admission and tuition gates, there was no reason they too couldn't be as successful as the average Stanford or MIT grad. In practice, it had very little impact.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#78

Post by taskforcegemini »

freedomben wrote: post #21
iamleppert wrote: post #14

I paid over $1,000 for one of their “nanodegree” programs. After it ended, they had the nerve to lock all the content, including all my notes and submissions as well as course content like videos and such. I highly recommend anyone avoid them.

Yep, I'm done paying for DRM locked content. For courses, Udemy is hit or miss unfortunately. I wish there was an explicit way to tell before buying the course whether it allowed downloading the material (including the videos).

I was paying for another site monthly where there was an "inofficial" way to download videos. Stopped my subscription when they updated the site and downloading didn't work anymore

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#79

Post by user_7832 »

hilux wrote: post #50

The collapse in value of OPMs and EdTechs is something to behold: Byju's, Coursera, 2U, Udacity ... I don't understand it.

Don't know much about the others but Byju's is nothing like Coursera or edX. Both of the latter two have a much better reputation. Byju's is unfortunately known for predatory practices.

Re: Accenture to Acquire Udacity

#80

Post by frakkingcylons »

gnicholas wrote: post #38
frakkingcylons wrote: post #18

I am so grateful to Udacity and the CS 101 course. I had tried to learn programming at least three times using different resources. Each time I struggled with basic concepts and it seemed like I'd just never figure it out. Then in 2012, I tried the CS 101 course and finally everything just fell into place. Obviously it just taught me the basics, but I came out of that course with the feeling that I could keep at it a…

That's a great story! What do you think it was about the course that made it click for you?

It’s been so long that I’m on fuzzy on some details. I felt like the explanations of these concepts were really effective:

- basic data structures like maps and arrays

- encapsulating logic in functions and showing how you can compose them to do cool things. Recursion clicked for the first time.

The overarching project was to make a web crawler and I thought that was super interesting. Of course you’re making a toy version but there was enough substance there to keep me engaged. I still think web crawling is fascinating and made a crawler in rust a couple years ago (which was obviously still super basic by real standards).

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