Sebastian Thrun Pivots Udacity Toward Vocational Education

lpress writes "Udacity CEO and MOOC super star Sebastian Thrun has decided to scale back his original ambition of providing a free college education for everyone and focus on (lifelong) vocational education. A pilot test of Udacity material in for-credit courses at San Jose State University was discouraging, so Udacity is developing an AT&T-sponsored masters degree at Georgia Tech and training material for developers. If employers like this emphasis, it might be a bigger threat to the academic status quo than offering traditional college courses."

Comments

I think that's a wasted opportunity

[Dr. Spork]

I looked through the links now and I'm getting this subtext that Thun is sick of dealing with the bullshit that comes from trying to work within the framework of established universities and their entrenched faculties. The idea of moving into vocational education and forgetting the whole "get college credit" model really might be more dangerous to the educational establishment, and Thun really does seem to be hoping for their demise. (I'm guessing he sat through some rather ugly meetings with department heads and university administrators.) But I'm disappointed by this. If the way that university education dies is by vocational courses cutting off their air (=money) supply, something of great value will be lost, something that could have been transitioned without too much violence into a MOOC-style model. Because let's face it, vocational courses can help you in your job, but they don't exactly fill you with wonder and culture and insight, the way that well-crafted university courses can. Well, probably, "proper" college courses are bound to become MOOCs anyway, even if Thun won't be the one to do it. And if this is done right, the wonder, culture and insight that these courses can bestow will reach far more people than they reach now. But I don't think that there is any guarantee that this will be done right. It can also turn out canned, contrived, shallow, proprietary and generic. Insofar as I thought that Thun was trying to do it right, I consider this a victory for the bastards.

Re:I think that's a wasted opportunity

[artor3]

I looked through the links now and I'm getting this subtext that Thun is sick of dealing with the bullshit that comes from trying to work within the framework of established universities and their entrenched faculties

That's not what the article says at all. The schools did a pilot program, and of the students taking the course on Udacity, only 50% passed, compared to ~75% of the classroom students.

I'd love for Udacity to succeed too, but you've got to accept reality. As of right now, Udacity isn't as effective as a traditional classroom. Now, it's not useless -- 50% passing is still a lot of people getting an education.

Perhaps this just comes down to people learning in different ways: for some people, face-to-face interaction with teacher and classmates is essential to their progress. For others, they learn best from individual study. The second group can excel with MOOCs. But traditional classrooms will remain for the first group. Both groups end up winning -- the second because they have cheap and easy access to education, and the first because the reduced demand for classroom seats will drive down prices.

Re:I think that's a wasted opportunity

[qbzzt]

I think (I was never in one) that the first tier universities allow even undergrads to interact with the world experts and do research under their direction (see http://web.mit.edu/urop/). This is a non-scalable function, which MOOCs can't do.

This is the reason MITx is such a good idea for MIT - it doesn't eat into their customer base, but that of lesser universities.

Re:Not at all true

[Anonymous Coward]

There is plenty of supply to fill those demands, at the right price. Demand for skilled labor without the willingness to pay for it doesn't count.