ASU Partnership with EDEX

[yb1]

sorry if this is a repost but it looks like edex is now having accredited courses. where you can do the first year of college for a fraction of the price. https://www.edx.org/gfa

I am curious on what this system will be like in a few years from now. has anyone else noticed a rapid change in online learning? I am curious on everyone's thoughts?

[cptdilbert]

It looks to be just a regular online course on the EdX platform. It follows a normal accelerated semester (8 weeks) and the cost is by credit hour ($200/credit).

Think of it like a freshman course. They just are stuffing online seats rather than in person seats to keep the costs lower. The biggest perk is you choose to pay at the end if you want the credits.

[Life Long Learning]

This looks like a great option for some! Thanks for posting.:hurray:

[Prloko]

These are great option that are coming available nowadays. The cynic in me tells me this will bubble somehow. Especially when all the adjuncts and professors start losing their jobs, the unions and the lobbyist will somehow convince State Schools to not accept these courses under the guise of "inadequate education".

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not anti-union.

[cptdilbert]

The cynic in me tells me this will bubble somehow. Especially when all the adjuncts and professors start losing their jobs, the unions and the lobbyist will somehow convince State Schools to not accept these courses under the guise of "inadequate education".

I am guessing you have never had to sit through a 300+ seat lecture lead by a grad student rather than a professor! Most schools, especially the more prestigious ones, tend to be research focused. This means the higher end of the market focuses on research and professors exist primarily to teach graduate students. While I think MOOCs will be somewhat disruptive, I don't think it will have any more impact than the correspondence courses and online courses that came before it.

Even things like Straighterline have existed longer than you would expect. A lot of the extension schools are not run out of the college they are part of, and are often closer to private companies. Look into Laureate International Universities for example. They have been around since 1999, and are actually a rebranding of a a significant portion of Sylvan Learning Systems, which has been around since 1979.

This private company is the semi-secret face behind lots of not-so-private online programs. In fact, the only online AACSB accredited business doctorate is offered through the University of Liverpool, a public school in the UK.

The asterisk though is the program is actually through Laureatte, a completely private company.

The biggest disruption to the education market will be real competency based education. CBE Network is up to 30 schools and 4 educational systems, which is a big leap over the last few years. Additionally the Department of Education is signing off on more experimental programs so that these programs qualify for financial aid. There is starting to be more and more real competency programs, which I think is the most exciting possibility for the future of education.

[sanantone]

I think the increasing dependency on adjuncts is more disruptive than anything. Being a student mentor at WGU or an instructor at APUS is more stable and pays more than being an adjunct. It's disturbing how colleges want to make the teaching profession the equivalent of being a temp employee making $9 an hour.

[cookderosa]

I love the direction technology is taking education and the disruption is probably just evolution. We didn't even have the INTERNET when I went to high school, so trying to imagine where it's headed is impossible, because you're constantly biased by what you think about education. I love it, I'm just along for the ride.

[dfrecore]

I love the changes. When I first went to college in 1988 (a large state university with 30k+ students), I hated it. Everything about it. Some teachers were great, but some absolutely sucked. Especially the calculus "professor" who was a Chinese grad student that barely spoke English, and yelled at the class when 62% of us got less than a 50% on the first exam, saying that we didn't study enough. One of the other things I really struggled with was the 18-week semester - I really, really struggled to keep my interest going for that length of time. That slow pace was truly unbearable for me. And having to go to school 2, 3 or 5 days a week was rough as well.

I actually had (and am currently having) a MUCH better experience at junior college. My current course (Organizational Theory) is only 8 weeks, one night a week, with some online as well, by a professor who worked for many years at HP and other companies, and has an actual clue about organizations. I also had a great experience at Golden Gate University (where none of the teachers was full-time, all of them had real-world experience in business, and since I was a business major, this thinking made a lot of sense). They also did 10-week sessions, as well as 4-weekend sessions which were brutal but a nice change for me.

I think the market will drive education, and we are finally getting more options, which we should. Not everyone wants to go the butt-in-seat-for-16-weeks semester route to get their units (especially when we have work experience making it very easy to pass an exam). Now, there are online courses, short terms at colleges, and CBE's. People get to pick the options that suit their abilities the best. I'm thrilled with the way things are going, and imagine that when my kids get to be college-aged, there will be even more options and flexibility in getting their degrees. This is definitely not a bubble (which means that if it burst, it would go back to the way it was 20 years ago). Not a chance.