Saturday, July 20, 2013

Udacity On Pause at San Jose State

Udacity.com came on with a rush with high profile plans to aid education.  But it seems San Jose plans to take a breather on its association:
After six months of high-profile experimentation, San Jose State University plans to “pause” its work with Udacity, a company that promises to deliver low-cost, high-quality online education to the masses.
It might be low cost, but online education and classroom education are not the same things.  With the classroom as the standard, online is more akin to time with a librarian.  A very good learning experience, if done right, but different.  I suspect most online education is not unlike being alone in a library.  In any event, education is the one area where there is almost no valid and reliable studies because the money flows most to scammers.  Education, like medicine, could be fixed, but with "social engineering" the goal, the means will remain hijacked by ideologues, and the easily scammed, like Bill Gates.

EdX and Udacity, along with Coursera, are part of a trio of closely watched MOOC start-ups. MOOCs are not-for-credit, free online courses. The three startups are also branching out into other teaching and business models.

I bet they are.  There is one that brought the West from the "dark ages" to the enlightenment.  It would do well now.  But it would take deregulation and de-subsidizing education to achieve.  Just have the students pay the instructors directly.

Feel free to forward to three friends.