Udacity CEO Sebastian Thurn is rolling out online education nanodegrees for MOOCs - Silicon Valley Business Journal

abernard102@gmail.com 2014-07-06

Summary:

"Online education company Udacity last month unveiled “nanodegrees,” online classes that train people for jobs in the technology field — gigs like front-end developer or data analyst. The practical career-track online course is a departure from traditional online courses, the massive open online courses whose successes have proven to be limited. For example, of the roughly 100,000 people who registered in 2012 for some of the first MOOCs introduced at Stanford University, less than half even attended their first lectures, university president John Hennessy told the Financial Times. 'Two words are wrong in ‘MOOC’: Massive and open,' Hennessy said. Udacity, led by CEO Sebastian Thrun, aims to change that dynamic by focusing on very small and focused offerings. In its 'nanodegree' program, students pay $2,500 to spend six to 12 months learning skills for high-tech careers. 'There’s a huge skills gap. At some level, we’re trying to fill that skills gap,' said Thrun, who also is director of Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. 'We’re trying to give people a chance to find the right skills and build a pathway for them to learn the latest education in those spaces.' It’s all a part of online education growing up, and reflects a move into the professional skills market we documented back in November. Udacity has partnered in its new program with a number of large employers, including AT&T Inc. and Google Inc. The nanodegree programs will launch in the fall and focus on entry-level Web development and data analytics. Although the corporate endorsements have built some buzz, the new partners in the fledgling effort have not yet turned any credential into employment. Thrun, who launched Udacity in 2012 with co-founder David Stavens, said he’s all too familiar with the drawbacks of massive online courses."

Link:

http://m.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/07/02/why-udacity-ceo-sebastianthrun-is-rolling-out.html?r=full

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.comment oa.moocs oa.oer oa.nano oa.udacity oa.education oa.universities oa.colleges oa.hei oa.courseware

Date tagged:

07/06/2014, 07:20

Date published:

07/06/2014, 03:20