Udacity is developing quickly, with two announcements last week that signal the direction it is taking.
Firstly five new "premiere" courses have been added:
- Introduction to Physics: Landmarks in Physics - the basics of physics "on location in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK", learned "through answering some of the discipline’s major questions from over the last 2000 years";
- Introduction to Statistics: Making Decisions Based on Data Statistics - "extracting meaning from data" learning "techniques for visualizing relationships in data" and for "understanding the relationships using mathematics";
- Logic and Discrete Mathematics: Foundations of Computing - the basics of Boolean algebra and discrete mathematics with an emphasis on their connections with computer science;
- Software Testing: How to Make Software Fail - "how to catch bugs and break software" discovering "different testing methods that will help ... build better software";
- Algorithms: Crunching Social Networks - "an introduction to the design and analysis of algorithms that enable you to discover how individuals are connected".
All start on 25 June.
Secondly, in partnership with Pearson's testing company VUE, students will be able to sit secure exams at one of 4000 centers worldwide in 165+ countries, the aim being to make success on a Udacity course count towards a qualification that is recognised by employers.
Note that in May 2012 VUE acquired another big (or bigger) testing company Certiport (which has 12,000 authorised testing centres and which runs the certification processes for industry-accredited training programmes such as those provided by Adobe, Autodesk, CompTIA, and Microsoft). So expect the number of centres where Udacity students can get tested to increase further.
According to Udacity's announcement "There will be a nominal fee required to take the exams, which will offset the cost of physical testing centers and staff."
The tie-up is a good example of deciding sensibly when to do things yourself (i.e. making and running courses), and when to work with others who already have capability alongside a very large scale operation (as in Pearson's case), that you can draw upon. On the other hand, if (and that is a big if) a way could be found to deliver uncheatable tests straight to a learner's desktop, then that would strip out the additional layer of complexity that running tests through someone else's systems and facilities will inevitably involve.
PS - I am gradually making progress in and enjoying my Udacity CS101 "introduction to computer science" course. I will report on this soon, drawing out the design and other differences between CS101 and the prototype AI course I did last year. In other news, I'm really pleased to learn that Riga-based Gundega Dekena (who wrote this Fortnightly Mailing guest contribution that compares three of last year's "Stanford" online computer science courses) is now working for Udacity as the course manager for the Programming a Robotic Car course.
Linus Torvalds on why the Raspberry Pi is important
This week's New Scientist has an interesting interview - login required - with Linus Torvalds, the initiator and leading light in the creation of the Linux operating system that powers the Web and sits at the heart of Android.
Torvalds makes a couple of interesting points - emphasis added below - about the Raspberry Pi and about why open source software matters so much for the coming "Internet of things".
Q. What about Raspberry Pi, a Linux-based computer costing $25? Will that change things?
A. What's interesting about Raspberry Pi is that it's so cheap almost anybody can buy it as a throwaway - throwaway in the very good sense that it could get people involved in computers who otherwise wouldn't be. For a lot of people, it will be a toy gathering dust, but if 1 per cent of the people who buy it are introduced to computers and embedded programs, that's huge. It can get people into the mindset of using a computer to do everyday jobs that even five years ago it would have been ridiculous to use a computer for because they were big and expensive. With Pi, you can say, I wouldn't use a real computer for this, but maybe it can control my water heater.
Q. Is a future where homes are run by computer only possible with open source? If Raspberry Pi had to run Windows, would it be too expensive?
A. Yes. Open source is a very powerful way to try something new. The thing about trying something new is that 999 out of 1000 cases will fail. Having this, easy entry into trying something new means having one case where it works is very good. Raspberry Pi is a way to allow experimentation on an even smaller scale because you have the hardware, too. When you aim for that price you can't afford not to use a free, open operating system.
For some other views see Donald Clark's Raspberry Pi: 7 reasons why it won't work, Google's Eric Schmidt applauds the $35 Raspberry Pi computer, and Mark Johnson's
Posted on 08/06/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Udacity: 1) new courses and 2) secure exams run by Pearson
Udacity is developing quickly, with two announcements last week that signal the direction it is taking.
Firstly five new "premiere" courses have been added:
All start on 25 June.
Secondly, in partnership with Pearson's testing company VUE, students will be able to sit secure exams at one of 4000 centers worldwide in 165+ countries, the aim being to make success on a Udacity course count towards a qualification that is recognised by employers.
Note that in May 2012 VUE acquired another big (or bigger) testing company Certiport (which has 12,000 authorised testing centres and which runs the certification processes for industry-accredited training programmes such as those provided by Adobe, Autodesk, CompTIA, and Microsoft). So expect the number of centres where Udacity students can get tested to increase further.
According to Udacity's announcement "There will be a nominal fee required to take the exams, which will offset the cost of physical testing centers and staff."
The tie-up is a good example of deciding sensibly when to do things yourself (i.e. making and running courses), and when to work with others who already have capability alongside a very large scale operation (as in Pearson's case), that you can draw upon. On the other hand, if (and that is a big if) a way could be found to deliver uncheatable tests straight to a learner's desktop, then that would strip out the additional layer of complexity that running tests through someone else's systems and facilities will inevitably involve.
PS - I am gradually making progress in and enjoying my Udacity CS101 "introduction to computer science" course. I will report on this soon, drawing out the design and other differences between CS101 and the prototype AI course I did last year. In other news, I'm really pleased to learn that Riga-based Gundega Dekena (who wrote this Fortnightly Mailing guest contribution that compares three of last year's "Stanford" online computer science courses) is now working for Udacity as the course manager for the Programming a Robotic Car course.
Posted on 03/06/2012 in Moocs, News and comment | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Achieving a breakthrough in adult learning with technology
Between January and May 2012 I had the luck to have worked with Adrian Perry, Clive Shepherd, and Dick Moore researching and writing the report Scaling up - Achieving a breakthrough in adult learning with technology [PDF, 53 pages] for the Ufi Charitable Trust. The Trust will be open for Stage 1 applications for funding on 2 July 2012.
Continue reading "Achieving a breakthrough in adult learning with technology" »
Posted on 03/06/2012 in Resources | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Snippets from 19 May to 3 June
Here in one place are some largely unfiltered snippets from my FriendFeed "stream" (about 2 posts per day) for the period 19 May to 3 June 2012.
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Posted on 03/06/2012 in News and comment, Nothing to do with online learning | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Scaling up: a hindsight-laden reflection on the launch of the Ufi Charitable Trust
The Ufi Charitable Trust launched on Wednesday of this week. The Trust has an endowment of ~£50m. Its mission is to "to achieve a step change in learning and employability for all adults in the UK, through the adoption of 21st century technologies".
The original University for Industry (Ufi) has played a varying part in my working life for the last 15 years. So attending the launch of the independent charitable trust that is now Ufi got me thinking about the origins of the organisation and about whether well over £1.5 billion of public funding could have been better used.
Continue reading "Scaling up: a hindsight-laden reflection on the launch of the Ufi Charitable Trust" »
Posted on 25/05/2012 in News and comment | Permalink | Comments (8)
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Both episodes of Dylan Wiliam's "The Classroom Experiment" now available
Very good to see that both episodes of Dylan Wiliam's 2010 BBC documentary (docudrama?) about improving learning methods in secondary school are now available on YouTube, where I hope they will stay.
Bear in mind that these two one-hour programmes will have derived from many many hours of video, and that there will surely have been pressure to produce "good TV". [Added 21/5/2012] See also the helpful notes on the two programmes from David Jennings that are referenced in the comment below; and if you are interested in the theory underpinning Dylan Wiliam's approach, it is worth reading his and Paul Black's Inside the Black Box - Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Posted on 20/05/2012 in Resources | Permalink | Comments (1)
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Some compulsory viewing/listening for leaders in post-compulsory education? Though don't bulldoze your campuses.
Below is a six minute talk by Sir John Daniel, who headed the Open University between 1990 and 2001, and who therefore knows a lot about large-scale distance learning.
Based on work by Tony Bates, Daniel's carefully summarises three key developments in online learning, focusing on the US.
In short:
Posted on 18/05/2012 in Moocs, Resources | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Snippets May 2 to May 18 2012
Here in one place are some largely unfiltered snippets from my FriendFeed "stream" (about 2 posts per day) for the period 2 to 18 May 2012. (Updated: 20151201)
Continue reading "Snippets May 2 to May 18 2012" »
Posted on 18/05/2012 in Resources | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Clayton Wright's June - December 2012 Educational Technology and Education Conferences listing
Clayton Wright - source
The 27th edition of Clayton Wright's superb conference listing [1.1 MB DOC] contains, according to Clayton "events such as 'Learning and Teaching', 'Innovation in e-Learning', 'Online Teaching', 'Distance Learning Administration', 'The World Open Educational Resources Congress', 'Mobile Health', and 'Realizing Dreams'".
He continues:
"Those seeking to improve the development and delivery of e-learning courses may find a few of the suggestions in this publication helpful: http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/2011/11/developing-and-reviewing-online-courses-items-for-consideration/. And those working in countries with weak economies may want to refer to a discussion about distance education (http://repository.alt.ac.uk/2115/) or open educational resources http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1185/2161."
Posted on 17/05/2012 in Resources | Permalink | Comments (0)
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