edX Welcomes 'The University of Microsoft' Into Its Fold

theodp writes: "At edX," explains the upscale MOOC founded by MIT and Harvard, "we believe in offering the highest quality courses, created by schools and partners who share our commitment to excellence in teaching and learning, both online and in the classroom." You know, like Building Cloud Apps with Microsoft Azure (course trailer). On Tuesday, edX welcomed Microsoft as its first corporate member to offer MOOCs on edX.org. "Through this program," said edX, "Microsoft will offer the edX global learning community courses to acquire the core development skills needed to be successful in the cloud-first, mobile-first world." The new initiative, explained Microsoft, expands upon an existing Microsoft partnership with edX to create interactive online courses using Office Mix and PowerPoint 2013. Classes start March 31st.

Comments

This is good

[supertrooper]

I know almost everyone here will totally dis this news and make fun of it. Whatever. I welcome free education for those who can't afford it. I was lucky enough to get university education, but not everyone is that lucky. Even if 20 people learn something from these Microsoft courses, and it helps them land better jobs, I will be happy.

Re:This is good

[Half-pint HAL]

I know almost everyone here will totally dis this news and make fun of it. Whatever. I welcome free education for those who can't afford it. I was lucky enough to get university education, but not everyone is that lucky. Even if 20 people learn something from these Microsoft courses, and it helps them land better jobs, I will be happy.

It's a vendor-specific training course for a vendor-specific development/operational environment. Over the course of history, many enlightened salespeople have understood that free training courses (note: free "training courses", not free "education") improve brand awareness and market share. On the flipside, if you have a popular product anyway, you can make a lot of money by selling official training materials.

Microsoft are losing ground to Google, Amazon Web Services etc in the cloud computing market, so they've decided a free course is the best way to get people using their product. And they picked as their provider a company that has a list of many thousands of students, but who are themselves playing second fiddle to their competitors -- ie. Coursera and Udacity.

I do not believe in the corporate sponsorship of education. A teacher cannot be a billboard.