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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

#31

Post by nosianu »

sokoloff wrote: post #16
hashhar wrote: post #7

I'm sad that all education endeavours eventually turn for-profit and then the goals get misaligned. Produce as many courses at as minimum cost as possible. Enroll as many people as possible without regards for completion percentage. Create an economy where random people are incentivised to create courses and then the course quality tanks. I wish this turns out differently. Even Udemy and Coursera have become commeric…

Udemy and Coursera were entirely commercial from their start, were they not?

Originally Coursera only wanted money for the - for the vast majority of people useless - verified completion certificate. You had access to all course content including all the tests and could access course content long after the course had ended. So if you did not see any value in that "verified certificate" there was no reason to pay anything. You got a free certificate either way.

I saved all certificates I ever got from edX and from Coursera as PDFs to remember which courses I took. They actually look quite fancy.

- Example certificate that was free at the time: https://i.imgur.com/XFX05gx.png

- The course was part of a series, which these days is available here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhu-data-science#co...

- Here is an R-Markdown document I created for another of the courses in that series, which used peer assessment where we had to evaluate each others results: https://rpubs.com/Noseshine/74191

At the start everything was free, including all these exercises, all the assessments, and even the certificates. I knew it would not last and used the opportunity, over three years of heavy course taking, over 50 completed courses. I did not have much to spend at the time, I could definitely not have spend the current amounts.

I took over a dozen courses on Coursera alone, medicine and statistics, it was good. I just checked my (long unused) login just now, they only list two courses under completed and "forgot" the other well over a dozen others. Good thing I saved those completion certificates, although there probably is little use in remembering what courses I took - either I remember what I learned or I don't.

.

Just for fun, this was one of my favorite courses, great professor too, great content: https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience Don't know if it still is as complete, at the time it was almost 25 hours of videos alone, never mind all the reading and all the tests and exercises. It wasn't complicated though, you just had to invest the time but not nearly as much brain as for other "STEM sciency" courses.

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

#32

Post by benrbray »

ArtWomb wrote: post #18
benrbray wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not surprised a cooking class doesn't lend itself to an easy online port! But the lecture content from Harvard's Science and Cooking with El Bulli's Ferran Adria is still as you mention freely available online for all to enjoy. I recently had a free week pass to Masterclass. And though I found the content more entertaining than enlightening (How to be a Boss with Anna Wintour). There is something to be said about edu…

Those are actually exactly the lectures I watched before attempting to join the very disappointing EdX course by the same professors :).

The lectures on YouTube were evening lectures meant to summarize each week of class, but the actual in-person students learned more about the actual chemistry involved, and did guided experiments to test different properties of food. I was hoping the EdX course by the same professors would give me an approximation that experience, but I was really disappointed. Technically there's a lot of good information still there, but the main problems were that the lectures were split into 2-minute chunks and the EdX UI constantly gets in the way of actually absorbing the content. I decided to buy a couple books on the topic instead.

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

#33

Post by wodenokoto »

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. I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I'm listening while doing dishes etc.

I disagree. If you’re doing dishes you are not taking a college level course. One of the best things about digital courses is that you don’t have to spend an hour zoning out to a professor talking and then spend a day doing exercises, but the two can be intertwined and knowledge can be cemented.

Of course it can be done terribly. But the best online courses I’ve taken have split things up into small chunks with relevant exercises.

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

#34

Post by benrbray »

maayank wrote: post #17
benrbray wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I'm listening while doing dishes etc. That's actually one of my favorite things when taking online courses...

That's cool, do what works for you! I just wish I had the option to disable the quizzes/breaks and see it all in one go. I personally like to watch talks / lectures while I'm doing dishes, but I can't click on the quizzes with my soapy hands.

I'm frustrated that tools that are meant to be empowering actually prevent people from customizing the course content to suit their own learning style / constraints.

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

#35

Post by odessacubbage »

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…

>useless 2-minute chunks this is what keeps turning me off of moocs tbh. so many seem like they're designed specifically for people with no attention span... and no one else.

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

#36

Post by kobiguru »

I am so happy that NPTEL NOC[1] and NPTEl Lectures [2] and Swayam[3] exists. These are indian government funded Moocs on almost everything engineering

[1] https://nptel.ac.in/noc/noc_course.html [2] https://nptel.ac.in/course.html [3] https://swayam.gov.in/explorer

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

#37

Post by lmohseni »

wodenokoto wrote: post #33
benrbray wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I really just want to hear the lecturer speak for 20-30 minutes at a time uninterrupted, especially if I'm listening while doing dishes etc. I disagree. If you’re doing dishes you are not taking a college level course. One of the best things about digital courses is that you don’t have to spend an hour zoning out to a professor talking an…

> 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.

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

#38

Post by montroser »

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…

As someone who has spent many, many hours deep in the guts of the edX codebase, this news does not bother me.

For what it does, the codebase is extremely sprawling, with layers upon layers of abandoned architectural directions. A lot of code for not a ton of functionality, and very basic functionality at that.

Of course that all is secondary to the actual success it has found, and good for the the project for making it happen. But, if this move ends up being a catalyst for investing in alternatives, that will not make me sad.

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

#39

Post by rossdavidh »

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 the Internet has really made much difference in how well it works. For a few people, it could be significant, especially if they are in a remote location and don't have the option of attending in person, and have an iron will to remain motivated when not in a school environment. It is not what most students need, does not give the networking bonus that is a big part of MIT and Harvard's value, and is not going to be the future of education.

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

#40

Post by chaosbutters314 »

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…

why is food science in quotes? you wouldnt put physics course in quotes. As someone that works as an engineer in the food industry, our work is just as rigorous as other fields. When working with vendors that support different domains, they always get excited to work with us since we have some of the craziest and most challenging problems that are not straight forward. While the work we do may not be critical to saving the world and solving some critical problem, it does make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
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