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

I believe I speak for all of Slashdot when I say

[Anonymous Coward]

Yaaaaaaaayyy, Microsoft! Thank you for caring about the education of students and professionals in the USA, and around the world! Can't wait to sign up for a bunch of these top notch classes. It's where I want to go today! WOO-HOO!!!!

Or not.

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

[cb88]

The question is does this partnership hinge on the exclusion of better solutions and technologies... If not who cares if it does then we have a problem.

Re:This is good

[theodp]

Yes, as edX notes, this is an anomaly, but it isn't really clear to me what prompted the decision. Are they opening up edX to all corporations and vocational training? Do they feel PowerPoint is the future of open source-based education frameworks? Was any money or other consideration involved? ...

Re:This is good

[goarilla]

Yes, as edX notes, this is an anomaly, but it isn't really clear to me what prompted the decision

Money !

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.

Re:This is good

[mean pun]

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.

I fail to see the problem. Of course Microsoft gets something out of this deal. So? Brand awareness and market share are just as important for many of the academic partners,why do you think they are offering these MOOC courses?

Every edX course has to be evaluated on its own merits anyway. What is wrong with Microsoft offering a C# language course next to Java and Python courses from other sources?

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.

You are of course entitled to your own opinion, but I rate edX much higher than Coursera and Udacity. Better platform, and generally much better courses. And Udacity is in practice not free.

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

Then you're also in favour of demolishing the William Gates building at several universities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... I suppose? Purity is very nice, but in the real world some compromises are necessary now and then.

Re:This is good

[nukenerd]

Microsoft are losing ground to Google, Amazon Web Services etc ... so they've decided a free course is the best way to get people using their product

Ah, the old .. market share = competence argument. I guess Linux is the single most worst desktop operating system ever built.

What did the GP statement have to do with competence? As for market share, then Rolls Royces and top-end BMWs must be the worse cars you can buy.

A teacher cannot be a billboard.

By that logic, nobody should be teaching mechanics how to repair a Subaru, cuz.. y know all mechanics should know how every single car works.

Yes, in principle they should. Car mechanics should be able, and do, move between different dealerships. They soon pick up the differences. (I have been a manager at one and have seen it.)

I know that universities and their courses have been debased in recent years, but it should not be a universitiy's place to be vendor specific. I did an engineering degree course without any vendor specific-ness whatsoever, including eg how gas turbines worked. We learned to do the fluid flow and thermodynamic calculations. Subsequently, in my job as a marine engineer, I was sent by my employer to a course at Rolls-Royce specifically on running and repairing Olympus gas tubines. It was meant mainly for skilled mechanics and was not what I would describe as university level stuff.

Re:This is good

[nukenerd]

Then you're also in favour of demolishing the William Gates building at several universities

No, but I'd take his f#@king name off the wall.

Re:This is good

[ChunderDownunder]

Which Google are embracing in Angular as per today's story.

Getting a team of half a dozen or so to do a mooc is way cheaper than a 3 day training course.

Re:This is good

[Half-pint HAL]

Then you're also in favour of demolishing the William Gates building at several universities

No, but I'd take his f#@king name off the wall.

Hear, hear.

Remember when you celebrate "philanthropy" that you're celebrating the guys who insisted that their name be splashed across everything done with their money. Real charity asks nothing in return, or at most asks for a building to be named after someone else. If I was a billionaire funding a university CS building, I'd ask for it to be named after Grace Hopper.

Re:This is good

[Half-pint HAL]

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

Ah, the old .. market share = competence argument. I guess Linux is the single most worst desktop operating system ever built.

It's nothing to do with how good or bad Azure or its competitors are -- all I said is that Microsoft are not currently doing in a commercially strong position in the cloud marketplace, and they want to change that.

A teacher cannot be a billboard.

By that logic, nobody should be teaching mechanics how to repair a Subaru, cuz.. y know all mechanics should know how every single car works.

You people are deluded. People *want* to learn about/get trained on MS products, because the entire fucking world uses them. Like GP said, I'm glad if even a handful of people get trained and improve their life by finding better jobs. If you want to offer them something better, put your money where your mouth is.

There is a big difference between teaching and training. You teach someone about how cars work and how to repair them. You train someone in using Subaru's engine management system. (Of course, in many teaching courses, you simultaneously train in the use of particular technologies or techniques, but that is only because you need a concrete environment for practise.)

edX (and Coursera) is supposed to be a teaching platform, but there was never any money in that. Udacity claimed to be teaching, but was to all intents and purposes a training platform from day one. It was no surprise that it very quickly started offering vendor-specific sponsor (training) courses, but I'm disappointed that edX are following suit.

Teaching vs training is not just a problem in online education -- CS departments the world over are under constant pressure to train students in industry standard tools so that new employees can hit the ground running, rather than having to be sent on training courses for their employers' choice of tools. You would not teach a two-year diploma in Subaru maintenance -- the Subaru garage would expect to have to train new staff, but if they can find someone with Subaru experience, so much the better!

And the problem extends beyond universities, because in computing more than most fields, you need constant training to keep up with new technologies, and employers are loathe to do that. They expect people to come in with the training already, which means people are now expected to use their own time and money throughout their career just to keep their jobs. By supporting this, edX are actually threatening their own revenue streams, as they already have a "training" business in the form of edX Professional Education, an all-paid-for brand which they're trying to sell to employers, and the existence of free training courses on the teaching site dilutes the apparent value of these.

Ballmer is slated to teach

[jpellino]

jumping jacks 101.

Re:Ballmer is slated to teach

[Bob_Who]

jumping jacks 101.

...and Chair Vaulting

Familiar

[LeadSongDog]

What was that thing about embrace, extend, ...?

Should they also note this is an advertisement.

[Anonymous Coward]

My SO is a civil engineer. She needs to maintain educational credits to keep her license. What this really means is that a whole bunch of manufacturers put together some pitches for their products, paid some fees to the government to get them accredited and now they go around 'teaching' people. No one is learning how to improve as an engineer or learning anything that validates the continuation of their license. They are learning about vendor lock-in and kick-backs though.

This is exactly what this feels like. It's not education in the sense that the goal is to strengthen the person as a programmer but it's not just an ad. Aducation?

Re:Sure

[godrik]

I am a university professor and I do not think it is going to worsen it.

Those that don't have other access to higher education will certainly learn from it.
Those who have access to higher education now have a new type of resources that they can use to learn.

Those that will skip classes and say "I'll watch the video the week before the exam" or "I don't need to learn it, there is a video about it" will certainly suffer from MOOCs. But clearly they weren't ready to put the effort necessary in learning the material, so they were not going to learn.

Re:I believe I speak for all of Slashdot when I sa

[bondsbw]

I believe I speak for all of Slashdot ...

Or not.

Glad you figured that out.

I've done 3 or 4 cources on edx.

[jimbob6]

I've done 3 or 4 courses on edx. It's a great platform if your interested in the intrinsic value of education. Not so great if you are looking to improve your job prospects. The certificates they offer are pretty much worthless. If Microsoft wants to put a few of there product training courses on their; what's the problem? The way the site is structured, there's not really a degree path that requires them so if you don't want to, just don't take them.

Re:I've done 3 or 4 cources on edx.

[simplypeachy]

I tried to do their free "Introduction to Linux" course, and got as far as the second section. Before I finished it I was overwhelmed by the navel-gazing and felt it should be renamed to "Indoctrination to Linux". I tell you what, though. I sure do know that Linux powers millions of devices from hobby horses to fridge magnets to spaceships! There are millions of devices using Linux, all under the power of some head penguin wearing a mortarboard.

In all seriousness I do have a good attention span, I can grit my teeth and labour past the bullshit and as a Windows monkey I genuinely wanted to try this approach. I just couldn't hack it.

note to self: stop punning when you start the sentence with "in all seriousness".

Re:Sure-and just how will you view this?

[ebusinessmedia1]

There is not sufficient bandwidth in most parts of the world to view these lessons. How does one view these lessons in rural India, China, etc. etc.? There ALREADY EXISTS at least one (maybe more) educational video platform technology that virtually eliminates bandwidth constraints, but those have not been able to get the time of day from the MOOCs, Foundations and companies like MSFT- as the latter have been concentrating on glossy PR and partnerships who have yet to figure out how to reach people who have limited bandwidth constrains. Imagine being able to store 100 hours of video instruction on a 4 Gbyte cell phone SIM card, or transmitting articulated video seamlessly over 56 kbyte. That's what is possible, today - but the company that has build this tech cannot get the time of day. (btw, they are in stealth at the moment)

One Framework to bind them in the darkness ..

[DougPaulson]

In the Land of Ubersoft where the Dark Lord lie.
One Framework to rule them all, One Cloud Platform to find them,
One API to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

Re:Sure-and just how will you view this?

[dave562]

If a person is living an area of the world that lacks the bandwidth to view online videos, are they really the kind of person who will be accessing content about how to build and deploy multi-tier applications into a IaaS stack?

Re:Sure

[cashman73]

Serious question. If someone were to put their participation in a MOOC course on their resume, would an HR department or hiring manager actually take them seriously and believe that they had obtained valuable skills from that participation? Especially given the ridiculously low pass rate of many MOOCs.