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

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

#191

Post by henvic »

whimsicalism wrote: post #66
henvic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame how academy ends up being unaccessible for many people, even though they receive a lot of endowments... while there are a lot of ways to make them more accessible! Like: online courses... or... What about the white elephant in the room? The cost of social events and Ivy League athletes/sports. I don't have anything against those, but if I were in a position of power in one academic entity, I'd definitely…

You don't need to do anything regarding Ivy League sports to be involved with the academy, how is this relevant?

I think you either misread what I wrote. The relevance is the that such activities have been driving up the tuition costs, so attending or not, they've a cost on the student.

Usually this extra cost is not explicit, though, as nowadays most students have to get a loan to attend university. This wasn't always the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnMCbSB_T4Q

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

#192

Post by ryosuke »

itsbenweeks wrote: post #117
ecshafer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno, giving people who might not be able to afford a masters otherwise or aren’t able to move away for two years an opportunity to get half a masters degree from home seems like a pretty big deal to me.

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

#193

Post by xtiansimon »

benrbray wrote: post #6
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…

I tried to use edX for the first time recently to take a "food science" course, but was disappointed to see that they've resorted to the same dark patterns as Coursera and others, such as: * Removing your access to course materials when the class is done, and disallowing access to past versions of the class. * Pressuring you into joining as many courses as possible, due to fear of missing out. When you visit the site…

> “Breaking courses into useless 2-minute chunks and constant unhelpful quizzes.“

In my previous experience this was determined by the instructor(s). Is this no longer the case? (Somehow determined by the platform?)

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

#194

Post by loughnane »

wrycoder wrote: post #110
loughnane wrote: post #103

This is a huge bummer. edX was the prime example I would hold up when people said "remote learning is terrible". Several of the courses I took on there ranked among some of the best classes I've ever taken, in-person or otherwise. I agree with another commenter in that I had hoped it would persist since 1) education is ostensibly the business of Harvard and MIT and 2) Their pockets are deep enough to think long-term.…

"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.…

I read it. Honestly that just feels like momentum. I’d be surprised if in two years the product was recognizable

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

#195

Post by jrochkind1 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #165
itsbenweeks wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Has anyone actually transferred from a Micro-Master to a real masters at Harvard/MIT?

Pretty crucial question!

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

#196

Post by mattferderer »

wpietri wrote: post #187
narraturgy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It seems unreasonable to hold not-for-profits to such an extreme ethical standard. They're already doing charitable work, why must they also be expected to lead the charge on unrelated social matters besides the one they chose? I agree that executives are paid too much, but I don't expect a Soup Kitchen to be posting on social media about how they are fighting against discrimination of purple elephantfolk…

Because not-for-profits, which have special legal and tax treatment on the theory they're doing good for society, are accountable for how they spend money in ways that for-profit companies aren't. I also think it's hilarious that "don't overpay executives and instead spend the money on the good you're supposed to be doing" is an "extreme ethical standard". How did the Overton Window get moved all the way to the basem…

It's not just executives though. It's all staff. It's hard for a lot of people to take rather huge pay cuts to work at a non-profit.

Very few people at non-profits are "overpaid" when compared to salaries at a similar for profit company. Non-profits also have less tools available to pay their employees, such as stocks.

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

#197

Post by kerkeslager »

Joky wrote: post #147
kerkeslager wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My previous post was a bit too glib, so here's an explanation: There's a common belief on Hacker News which verges on mental illness, that the best solution to any problem is free market capitalism. This belief is false because free market capitalism doesn't solve problems when the customer isn't the person with the problem. The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an educ…

> The problem in this case is a chicken-and-egg problem: it's hard to get money without an education, and it's hard to get an education without money. > For-profit education cannot solve the problem, because for-profit education is the problem. Have you seen school that only gets paid after you start working (and based on a percentage of your salary), for example: https://www.holbertonschool.com I like the concept in…

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about misaligned incentives. Making money isn't the only reason people want an education, but that's the only thing Holberton is going to prepare students for, because that's how Holberton makes their money.

This is reflected in what Holberton offers: if I'm understanding correctly, they offer 7 different kinds of computer programming and 0 different kinds of pre-med, elementary education, psychology, etc. While nobody would argue that these aren't necessary components of our society, they don't fit Holberton's business model--a student with an elementary ed degree doesn't walk out of Holberton and start making close to six figures with which to pay Holberton back.

There's nothing wrong with having a more focused school, of course, but realize that the way Holberton is getting around the chicken-and-egg problem I'm talking about is by picking a field of education where there isn't a chicken-and-egg problem: you don't need a degree to work in computer programming. And in fact, you don't need to take classes at Holberton: I know two different programs that will pay you to learn computer programming, instead of you paying. This has done exactly nothing to solve the problem I'm talking about: it just avoids it.

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

#198

Post by 908B64B197 »

rtpg wrote: post #183
908B64B197 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point it's pretty well known bootcamps are not a great hiring pipeline. Unless you can get "grads" at a significant discount. There's a reason Lambda is so desperate that they will "loan" you someone for a month at no costs (the VCs pay for it!). [0] [0] https://lambdaschool.com/hire-fellows

That is probably very bootcamp-dependent, I've found bootcamp grads have been very good. In particular, the fact that most grads have had "real jobs" elsewhere mean that they have good people skills/time management/actual sense of "getting things done" that vastly outweighs the skill imbalance. Hell of a lot easier to increase someone's React knowledge than it is to, like, fix how they interact with people.

> I've found bootcamp grads have been very good.

Which one? What was comp like for these new hires?

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

#199

Post by musicale »

cstejerean wrote: post #81
turadg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a dilution of the meaning of "dark pattern". darkpatterns.org which coined the term (and Wikipedia cites) says, "When you use websites and apps, you don’t read every word on every page - you skim read and make assumptions. If a company wants to trick you into doing something, they can take advantage of this by making a page look like it is saying one thing when it is in fact saying another." I don't see any o…

EdX definitely shows “Starts $TODAY” on courses with self paced start any time schedules. I know it does this and it still gets me every time by creating this false sense of urgency that I must enroll today lest I miss the opportunity.

It's the false time urgency trick, aka "today only!"

Similar to the false inventory scarcity trick "only 1 left at this price!"

Note to MIT and Harvard: when you start adopting the deceptive sales tricks of used-car salesmen and dubious infomercials, you're probably doing it wrong.

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

#200

Post by laptop-man »

aardvarkr wrote: post #172
laptop-man wrote: post #158

I have a friend who works for 2u. the bootcamps just pump out bad devs. everything is taught way to fast, everything is glossed over, they are expected to learn the majority on the own

Tbh what do you expect from a 3 month intro to web dev? You have 12 weeks so you spend a week learning HTML, a week learning JS, then CSS, SQL, etc. With that in mind, of course it’s pumping out bad devs, just like every other boot camp. I wish it were different but that’s what happens. What’s worse is they charge over $10K for the pleasure.

theirs almost no focus either. html, css, js, react, mysql, Mongo, various apis, jquery, and there's more. I'd be surprised if any were hirable after the class
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