Rupert Murdoch Won't Be Teaching Your Children To Code After All

theodp writes: Plans for Rupert Murdoch & Co. to teach your children to code just hit a bump in the road. Murdoch's News Corp. last week announced it plans to exit the education business as it announced a $371 million write-down of the investment in its Amplify education unit, which aimed to reinvent education via digital tools, tablets and curriculum reinforced with snazzy graphics. The news may help to explain why Amplify MOOC, the entity that offered online AP Computer Science A to high school students, was re-dubbed Edhesive ("online education that sticks") a couple of months ago. Tech-backed Code.org, whose $1+ million "Gold Supporters" include the James and Kathryn Murdoch-led Quadrivium Foundation, announced a partnership with Edhesive to bring CS to schools in June, around the same time Edhesive LLC was formed.

Comments

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[Runaway1956]

I didn't want that bastard teaching kids anything at all. I don't need any immoral cutthroat bastards in the family, thank you very much.

Re:Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Any mention of the FSM is heresy! Long live the IPU!

Re:Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[Runaway1956]

Cthulhu will have IPU's soul for dinner.

Re:Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[NotDrWho]

It's only immoral if you can't explain it away as "an essential part of our free market system." (or, as it's translated into non-bullshit, "FUCK THE REST OF YOU! I'M RICH!")

Re: Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[joocemann]

It was about tax breaks, I guarantee it.

Re:Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

FSM, IPU, CTH.... sounds like the three races for some kind of Starcraft-style game.

Re:Rupert Murdoch is for cows.

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

To create a portal to the secret level, combine Wirt's Leg and a Tome of Town Portal in the Horadric Cube.

MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a life-long learner. I can't get enough of learning. I have three college degrees, a couple of diplomas from community colleges, plus some IT certs. I try to attend conferences and training sessions whenever I can to afford to, time-wise and cost-wise. I've also taken several MOOC courses.

The MOOC courses have been, by far, the worst out of all of them. It isn't the quality of the lessons or the material that's the problem. Those actually tend to be top notch. It's the social aspect of MOOCs that are absolutely awful.

Let me give you an example. I took a MOOC course about a programming language. It involved some relatively simple programming assignments, followed by a final exam. The tutorial videos were good, and the assignments were good, too, but the forums for the course were abysmal.

So many of the other forum participants were from India, China, or some African country, asking for their certificate PDF even before the course had started! I mean, the course videos, assignments and exam weren't even available yet, but these people demanded that the professor leading the course send them the certificate that they had not earned right away!

This same sort of bullshit happened once the course started. Every day I'd go into the forums to try to find other actual students to converse with, but I'd end up wading through a huge pile of these useless third world comments demanding certificates, asking for exemptions from the assignments, asking for exemptions from the exam, complaining about how deadlines fell on obscure religious holidays, demanding re-grading of assignments and exams that had been failed, and so on.

Learning isn't just about watching videos. It's about interacting with your fellow students. MOOCs should allow this on a global scale, but instead all they allow is for third worlders to try to get unearned credentials easier. Not only does this ruin the learning experience for the few legitimate students, but it helps make the credentials seem very untrustworthy in the end. I don't mention the MOOC certificates that I've earned, even the verified ones.

After these numerous bad experiences, I no longer engage in MOOCs. I'd really like to, but I just can't justify putting up with so much bullshit.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what forum moderation is for. Without it, forums are useless, even with a restricted user base. At least the forums weren't public which would have allowed spam bots. Hooray!

But uh the whole idea that learning is about interacting with other students seems to be a pretty subjective viewpoint. There are plenty of folks out there that can (and do) learn just as well, if not better, alone. Talking to anyone other than the instructor can be counterproductive for some.

The worst thing about MOOCs is the videos. Takes too long to wade through that crap. Transcript, please!

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[LaurenCates]

So many of the other forum participants were from India, China, or some African country, asking for their certificate PDF even before the course had started! I mean, the course videos, assignments and exam weren't even available yet, but these people demanded that the professor leading the course send them the certificate that they had not earned right away!

I'm not sure it's a "foreign" thing.

When I was teaching, I had one student come up to me at the start of the semester asking if I would write him a recommendation (he turned out to be of the same stripe as those you described above). Gave me no indication that he was an immigrant.

What I think you're describing is someone who needs the certificate to secure something else. They put on the overconfidence front (and generally are lousy students to boot...this young man certainly was: he needed the class to get into a "real" college and let me know that when I called him out on not only writing a lousy report but copying someone else's lousy report), but they generally want the assurance of the foregone conclusion that they're just passing the "whatever" obstacle (they take the course that's "beneath" them, whether it be going to a community college or taking a MOOC course) to get to the prize.

Beats me if that's more an immigrant thing than it is a native thing, but it's hardly unique to any culture.

Re: MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[GrantRobertson]

It wouldn't surprise me if these forum members were just a few people hired by the education industrial complex (Pearson, et al) to intentionally spoil the experience for others.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Runaway1956]

Learning isn't supposed to be "social", especially with technical subjects. Why would you need to "interact" with other students?

Apparently, you never got picked to be on a team of any sort, much less a baseball/basketball/football team.

All through school, I remember being pushed into groups, for the reason that often times cooperative group learning is more effective than banging your own single head on the book on your desk.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[QilessQi]

Actually, numerous studies have shown that social interaction is extremely important in determining successful outcomes in higher education. Here's a concise (and heavily footnoted) summary of why that is:

College Is Not A Content Delivery System: Interpersonal Interactions and Student Success

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Runaway1956]

Sophomore year of high school. Three man teams assigned to come up with projects for the science fair. Freddy, Joey and I demonstrated how temperature affects viscosity of several fluids, including Prell shampoo and some cheap brand of motor oil.

In all three years of high school biology, we were broken up into teams to turn frogs into tiny labeled pieces.

Foreign language classes, similar treatment for projects. Art classes, ditto. Literature class, a couple of times.

You, on the other hand, probably didn't graduate high school, did you?

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Also the bad people were probably brown and not Christian, and you could hear their stupid accents through their ascii characters.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

When is anything *always* a great idea?

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

All through school, I remember being pushed into groups, for the reason that often times cooperative group learning is more effective than banging your own single head on the book on your desk.

Group learning is really helpful to the people that need the help and not so helpful for those using their time to help others in the group rather than learning new things.

Here's a novel idea. The learning group is the whole class, and it is the teacher + assistants are the ones helping everyone, and to compensate the teacher + assistants, they are paid money.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Other things that are extremely important to determining successful outcomes in higher education. 1. oxygen. If you can't breathe, you won't be doing any learning while you suffocate to death.
2. energy. You know what happens when we run out of usable energy at the heat death of the universe? Learning grinds to a halt.
3. organic molecules. DNA? absolutely essential for transferring genetic material to you from your parents and creating proteins. ATP? There's that important energy thing again. Without organic molecules, all your organs would shut down. And do you know what your most important organ is? Your brain.
4. Gravity. How are you supposed to learn if you can;t even keep your pencils and paper on your desk?
5. Electromagnetism, in addition to being the force that keeps the whole earth from collapsing into a black hole, it also deflects harmful cosmic radiation away from earth's surface. You think your classes are hard now? Try taking your final in a black hole while dying of radiation exposure.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Linkreincarnate]

Depends on what you are looking for. If "successful outcome" is defined as more people graduate then of course you are going to get more people graduating when you stick them in groups with people who actually do the work and understand the material. The people to whom grades and understanding are important will carry the ones who cant cut it. If you want deep understanding and that is your definition of successful outcome I imagine that being alone helps.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[Runaway1956]

I take it then, that you have a doctoral degree in education? And, thirty years experience in the field? I don't know where you got the idea that the brightest person in a group is going to be held back. If that were so, the brightest people in the class of 20 or 30 students will also be held back by the class.

Teacher + assistants? I've never experienced such a thing. One teacher, or one professor. Assistants? WTF for?

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[QilessQi]

What part of "heavily footnoted" did you not comprehend, AC?

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[QilessQi]

You could have just said "tl;dr" and saved yourself a lot of typing.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I don't think it would have adequately captured the absurdity.

Re:MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I take it then, that you have a doctoral degree in education?

If I did, you would just believe me?

And, thirty years experience in the field?

I know plenty of people with 30+ years of experience in the field of education that don't know shit.

I don't know where you got the idea that the brightest person in a group is going to be held back.

Are you asking me where I got the idea that people who aren't challenged with what they are learning aren't actually learning anything?

If that were so, the brightest people in the class of 20 or 30 students will also be held back by the class.

If you were ever one of the brightest people in a class of 20 or 30 students, you might have experienced being bored (i.e. not challenged) by the material.

If you were never one of the kids in a learning group who totally understood the material and spent the entire time trying to explain the material to the rest of the group (i.e. you were the one receiving the help), then maybe you would be inclined to believe that group learning is only ever helpful.

Teacher + assistants? I've never experienced such a thing. One teacher, or one professor. Assistants? WTF for?

I don't know if you have have a university degree or not, but it is pretty common for professors to have assistants known as "teaching assistants" or "T.A.s". They do things like answering questions students may have about the professor's lectures, grading homework and exams, proctoring exams, etc. It seemed to me that they were usually graduate students trying to earn some extra money and something to put on their resume.

Re: MOOCs: my worst education experiences ever.

[robi5]

Your point doesn't follow. Nobody said anything negative about the utility of the social aspect, yet you draw conclusions about others. The AC might have the type of background you highlight, but if someone studies the 10th programming language for fun or work, he mostly needs technical concepts and exercises. Good forums are useful but not all courses need a lot of social interaction; also, good forums don't guarantee appropriate social interaction where it's crucial.

A writedown or a boondoggle with heads falling?

[Overzeetop]

A $371 M loss on an education program that never even got off the ground would have the GOP in the House and Senate calling for heads on platters. But if it's a big business, hey - it's a just a writedown.

And before you rank and file tea party start talking about "your money" vs "corporate money" you need to make sure that none of your 401k/IRA/retirement/investment holdings include this large cap stock (or any iteration of the S&P500) because if you do - it *is* your money.

Re:A writedown or a boondoggle with heads falling?

[gstoddart]

Well, I guess that depends ... if they get a tax break for this write down, then it's not just a write down.

If they do get a tax break, then expect a slew of corporations to start meddling in education, failing, and then taking their tax break and leaving.

If corporations are risking their own money, great. If they're just passing the buck back to the taxpayers, all they're really doing is diverting money for their own purposes.

Misread headlines

[grasshoppa]

Totally misread that initially as, "Rupert Murdoch won't be touching your children after all".

I was a bit disappointed when I reread it, not gonna lie.

Re:Misread headlines

[umghhh]

Looking at some of do-gooders one has to wonder if the world were not better if they kept making more money and being generally asshats instead. This is how far our societies came.

Re:Misread headlines

[TsuruchiBrian]

He actually will still be doing that. It is how he is able to transfuse youth into himself and achieve immortality.

Education is a hard problem

[plopez]

It has a host of psychological,political, economic, and sociological factors which cannot be addressed by technology alone. Anyone who thinks that throwing a bunch of technology at the problem and then snapping their fingers to find everything fixed overnight is, to be charitable, arrogant or stupid.

There is no magic bullet.

What, no "snazzy graphics" anymore?

[gweihir]

I must have misunderstood this "education" business completely, despite about a decade or so of teaching experience! If I had only known it was all about "snazzy graphics" and the right technology, maybe I would have been more successful at teaching!

Or not. This may be the most pathetic large-scale fail in the the history of teaching.

I'm Stunned

[Greyfox]

This is stunning news! Stunning! I am literally stunned, as I type this.

By the way, AP Pascal in a high school in upstate New York in the '80's had you programming recursive descent parsers in a Pascal environment on Apple 2 (II, //, //e, etc) computers and would have put you ahead of what most colleges were teaching in Freshman CS at the time. So, way to take a step back, nation's educational system.