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MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

news.mit.edu

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Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#111

Post by itsbenweeks »

I was originally worried at how dishonest seemed to faculty and TAs who have spent years creating many textbooks' worth of content for edX. Something akin to MIT Press selling their catalog to Elsevier or Pearson wouldn't be tolerated by the faculty. But, in the press release they do mention that MIT faculty can opt-out and operate in a MIT-only instance & fork of the Open edX platform:

"MIT will continue to offer courses to learners worldwide via edX, as well as on a new platform now known as MITx Online. MIT’s Office of Digital Learning will build and operate MITx Online as a new world-facing platform, based on Open edX, that MIT is creating for MITx MOOCs.

MIT faculty may choose to continue to offer their courses through the new edX after the transaction is completed, or move them to MITx Online."

With that in mind, it seems that Open edX development will be under a new non-profit held by MIT and Harvard. I hope this new non-profit will be less at odds with itself in respect to maintaining openness while creating profitable pay2play courses.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#112

Post by shkkmo »

itsoktocry wrote: post #51
lmohseni wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re doing dishes you are not taking a college level course. Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture 2 or 3 or even more times. Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture when I'm going for a run. Sometimes I like to listen while I'm doing chores. Seems presumptuous to say I'm "not taking the course" when we know that learning styles vary so much between individuals.

> Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture 2 or 3 or even more times. YouTube has a ton of lectures, for free, that you can view and/or listen to in this manner. But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to what they are trying to achieve with remote learning, and isn't the use case they should be catering to.

> But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to what they are trying to achieve.

They are trying to exclude large swathes of the population?

It is extremely common for people with ADD to focus better when they keep the part of their brain that distracts them busy. In college I folded origami in lectures so that my brain wouldn't go off on tangents that would lead to me tuning out significant sections of the lecture.

Some people combat the tangents by being busy, and some people embrace the tangents (which can be valuable for understanding) by listening to lectures multiple times.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#113

Post by tehjoker »

whimsicalism wrote: post #99
cbozeman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yeah, don't expect a unicorn to come around and "disrupt" education. The easiest way to get a bright-eyed SV entrepreneur to try to take something on is to tell them, "That industry is non-disruptable."

Well people have been saying that for decades around education, so my intuition is that this represents decades of bright-eyed failure.

The people most in need of education have the least money. Monetize that. Education is a public good that requires social subsidy and personal interaction.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#115

Post by willyg123 »

brutus1213 wrote: post #4

This seems like terrible news :( After the focus on monetization of platforms such as udemy and coursera, edx seemed to give me a sliver of hope that education will be open. Given the immense trust funds held by Harvard and MIT, I had hoped money would not be a factor and these institutions would be able to develop their platform in the open. I'd like to add .. non-profit does not mean free to end users. There are ma…

> (highly paid execs...)

EDX's IRS Form 990 for 2020 shows five executive making over $800k [1]

[1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/460...

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#116

Post by nverno »

itsbenweeks wrote: post #111

I was originally worried at how dishonest seemed to faculty and TAs who have spent years creating many textbooks' worth of content for edX. Something akin to MIT Press selling their catalog to Elsevier or Pearson wouldn't be tolerated by the faculty. But, in the press release they do mention that MIT faculty can opt-out and operate in a MIT-only instance & fork of the Open edX platform: "MIT will continue to offer co…

MIT is the gold standard of education. Most of their computing classes already give you full access to all the course materials, videos, labs, readings, handouts, etc. directly from the course page. These direct resources are far better than typical edX/Coursera courses.

The same is not generally true of Harvard courses (with a few exceptions like cs50), which hide all materials behind paywalls.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#117

Post by itsbenweeks »

ecshafer wrote: post #22
jrochkind1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had never heard the phrase "micromasters". Wikipedia suggests it is unique to EdX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroMasters

They are basically graduate certificates, which are a normal university thing. You take 3-5 graduate courses, they give you a certificate saying that you did this, you give them money. Not a full blown masters, thus the micromasters branding, but it can open the door to changing a career or entering a specialization.

Its even less than that. This micro masters is sold as an entry point for a full-fledged masters program. The order of operations is something like:

1. Complete the micromasters courses at your speed.

2. Get a passing grade in a proctored exam.

3. Get accepted to a masters program with 1/2 of your credits taken care of.

4. Finish the masters degree on-campus.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#118

Post by whimsicalism »

tehjoker wrote: post #113
whimsicalism wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well people have been saying that for decades around education, so my intuition is that this represents decades of bright-eyed failure.

The people most in need of education have the least money. Monetize that. Education is a public good that requires social subsidy and personal interaction.

Monetize not having money? Pray tell your easy solution.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#119

Post by dgs_sgd »

rossdavidh wrote: post #39

Hypothesis: MIT and Harvard had enough experience in distance learning by now to realize that it is NOT going to be the wave of the future in education. They don't want to exactly say this out loud and take flak for it, so they're just unloading this (for significant $$) primarily in order to refocus on in-person education, since they've realized that distance learning has been around for decades and nothing about th…

I don't agree that the Internet hasn't made much difference in how well distance learning works, but I agree with a weaker version of your hypothesis applied to educating young people. An indispensable feature of their university experience is building personal and professional connections that will last a lifetime, and that can't be built through distance learning.

On the other hand, distance learning makes a huge impact on mature learners. Whether they need to "reskill" to improve their job prospects, or simply cannot attend a university in person because they juggle many adult responsibilities, innovations and improvements in distance learning is extremely important to them and is beneficial to society. I also think this group is often ignored/pushed to the side in these debates.

Re: MIT and Harvard agree to transfer edX to ed-tech firm 2U

#120

Post by itsoktocry »

shkkmo wrote: post #112
itsoktocry wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes I like to listen to a lecture 2 or 3 or even more times. YouTube has a ton of lectures, for free, that you can view and/or listen to in this manner. But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to what they are trying to achieve with remote learning, and isn't the use case they should be catering to.

> But doing dishes during a lecture seems antithetical to what they are trying to achieve. They are trying to exclude large swathes of the population? It is extremely common for people with ADD to focus better when they keep the part of their brain that distracts them busy. In college I folded origami in lectures so that my brain wouldn't go off on tangents that would lead to me tuning out significant sections of the…

>It is extremely common for people with ADD to focus better when they keep the part of their brain that distracts them busy.

They should cater to those people as opposed to other people for whom bite-sized learning works better? When did we become a society that expects everyone else to cater to our specific needs? No one is being "excluded".

If that's the way you need to learn, fantastic. There are options out there for you. It wasn't that long ago when none of this existed.

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