Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers • Hacker News Board

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#11

Post by Alex3917 » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 9:39 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #10

drcube wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete..." From the article: " For the first round of exams, programming will not be included." I don't think you can demonstrate programming competence with a 90 minute multiple choice test, so I'm interested to see how they end up tackling that challenge.

"...students wishing to pursue our official credential and be part of our job placement program should also take an additional final exam in a Pearson testing center." It sounds like the Pearson exams are in addition to the online, coding test.

Interesting, it's a little ambiguous as to whether they mean a second final exam or whether they mean in addition to the regular course. Assuming they mean a second final exam though this would be good as a clever checksum just to make sure you are who you say you are and can answer basic questions.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#12

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 10:02 PM UTC

johnohara wrote: post #3

Humble and understated announcement of what is arguably the most important part of making online education sustainable.

Not just sustainable, but perhaps more importantly, credible, for redefining education.

After all, educations need the signaling factor, and credibility is required for the signal to be effective.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#13

Post by lawnchair_larry » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 10:03 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete, so it sounds like these are actually going to be significantly less difficult. Still, I think this is a step in the right direction. Of all the online education programs out there my money is definitely on Udacity (or at least the Udacity model) to be the winner, and I think ten years from now people will recognize that this announcement was every b…

You prefer Udacity to Coursera? I thought the opposite. Udacity has a small number of courses and they are focused on a specific project. Coursera mirrors a university course and tries to broadly cover the subject.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#14

Post by stfu » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

drcube wrote: post #9

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete, so it sounds like these are actually going to be significantly less difficult. Still, I think this is a step in the right direction. Of all the online education programs out there my money is definitely on Udacity (or at least the Udacity model) to be the winner, and I think ten years from now people will recognize that this announcement was every b…

"The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete..." From the article: " For the first round of exams, programming will not be included." I don't think you can demonstrate programming competence with a 90 minute multiple choice test, so I'm interested to see how they end up tackling that challenge.

Learning for these kind of tests was always the most pointless tasks in school. It is just the same extreme-memorization, braindumping, completely forgetting about it pattern. But of cause this structure makes any kind of course super scalable.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#15

Post by EGreg » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 11:25 PM UTC

Inversion of the classroom is an idea whose time is come. In the university setting it's easier to do than in a junior high school setting. People can all learn at their own pace. And then schools will primarily do testing and accreditation.

The question is, should the lesson plans (for the overall year) be open source, or a marketplace of proprietary competition, or both?

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#16

Post by keithnoizu » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 11:36 PM UTC

I'd rather see web-cam based proctoring or a similar solution that would allow for some accreditation while letting udacity still control costs and provide a cheaper overall examination process to its end users.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#17

Post by Alex3917 » Fri, Jun 01, 2012, 11:43 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #13

Alex3917 wrote: post #7

The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete, so it sounds like these are actually going to be significantly less difficult. Still, I think this is a step in the right direction. Of all the online education programs out there my money is definitely on Udacity (or at least the Udacity model) to be the winner, and I think ten years from now people will recognize that this announcement was every b…

You prefer Udacity to Coursera? I thought the opposite. Udacity has a small number of courses and they are focused on a specific project. Coursera mirrors a university course and tries to broadly cover the subject.

I haven't actually taken an Coursera courses yet. But I generally dislike traditional university courses and I hate Java, so I probably will avoid it until I run out of Udacity courses to take.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#18

Post by artpop » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 1:57 AM UTC

evoxed wrote: post #8

I hate Pearson products with a passion (save for a few imprints and assorted acquisitions). This is a great step though for both companies, so hopefully it works out for both. Pearson's online components has included some of the worst software I've ever had to deal with– maybe thanks to this, future students will never have to deal with it again. Udacity on the other hand has been great, so it's all very exciting any…

The Pearson VUE exam driver is pretty solid (Java). But I agree, all the ColdFustion stuff Pearson does is very stinky. VUE was an acquisition I believe.

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#19

Post by mhurron » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 2:40 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #17

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You prefer Udacity to Coursera? I thought the opposite. Udacity has a small number of courses and they are focused on a specific project. Coursera mirrors a university course and tries to broadly cover the subject.

I haven't actually taken an Coursera courses yet. But I generally dislike traditional university courses and I hate Java, so I probably will avoid it until I run out of Udacity courses to take.

What does Coursera and hating Java have to do with each other?

Re: Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers

#20

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Jun 02, 2012, 2:56 AM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #19

Alex3917 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't actually taken an Coursera courses yet. But I generally dislike traditional university courses and I hate Java, so I probably will avoid it until I run out of Udacity courses to take.

What does Coursera and hating Java have to do with each other?

A bunch of their courses (including their algorithms courses) are in Java, which makes me skeptical of how good their taste is. It's a strong red flag that they're just licensing content without any understand of the actual content matter and the quality of what they're teaching. I could be wrong, but that's definitely the impression I get based on both the fact that they're using Java and the classes are structured like traditional university classes, since not only are most university classes really mediocre (at best), but it also shows that they aren't taking advantage of the power of the platform/medium. Again, another red flag for poor taste.