Those of us who advocated for and were involved in what was a relatively niche world of online education in HE pre-COVID-19 also have to acknowledge that the quality of a proportion of it....1/
wasn’t far off the simple uploading of lecture videos to an LMS, teaching via Zoom et al and sharing of documents digitally...2/
Essentially the kinds of approaches that now many are quite rightly warning against as not bearing the hallmarks of quality online learning...3/
Let’s hope that one long-term positive of the situation is that it leads to the hallmarks of quality learning and teaching (whether in-person or online) being taken more seriously by...4/
more universities and more people involved in learning and teaching, and that educational research that has stood the test of time is more widely read, understood and used in learning design. /5
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Indicators haven’t been good for a long time - sadly and the recent news is the culmination of a business that consistently hasn’t been profitable. 2/
They have faced the same challenge of other MOOC platforms in moving from an enterprise initially focussed on free open courses into something that could be financial sustainable and profitable. 3/
Notable news in the world of online education in higher ed - Open University has announced its intention to find a buyer for its 50% stake in FutureLearn #onlinelearning#edtech#highered 1/
The other 50% is owned by SEEK - it will be interesting to observe whether a new investor will be forthcoming and whether in the short to medium term whether this will represent an upturn or a further downturn in fortunes. 2/
I wrote a thread earlier in the year about FutureLearn -
A few weeks back I wrote about MOOC platforms and about their potential future relationship with UK universities. It felt like an opportune time to do so 10 years on from the huge MOOC buzz of 2012. 1/
I spent some time looking at three of major MOOC platforms Coursera, edX and FutureLearn, because it’s hard to divorce the MOOC as an educational model from the platforms that have sprung up around them. 2/
Interesting release from 2U on current financial performance but also interestingly on future direction which appears to be coalescing under the edX brand and further developing that as marketplace platform. Job losses also look likely #onlinelearninginvestor.2u.com/news-and-event…
More on 2Us future direction - the new revenue share model is broken down with a minimum 35% that increases depending on taking marketing, support and content development services - with all these it rises to 60%. Fairly transparent proposition... 2u.com/latest/2u-unve…
Would be very interested to see what marketing actually looks like in the core bundle and how much that is really banking on the edX brand and as an existing marketplace destination.
Learning design is about designing and creating the best conditions for learning to result. It’s the design of experiences and those experiences come in different shapes and sizes. 1/
It’s about designing for people - which means it’s complex. I love this quote from Dieter Rams that speaks to this - “You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people”. 2/
The learning design process can range in its breadth and depth and we often think of it way too narrowly - you write some learning outcomes, design an assessment, create content & activities and then boom, you're done... 3/
Interesting report...some comments if I may as someone who has and continues to work in this space within universities, education more generally and with private edtech...1/
One of the actors that fails to get any kind of scrutiny is universities themselves who have complete autonomy as to the decisions they make about edtech. The silence on this and the general narrative portrays them as passive, obsequious actors with no choice...2/
There’s also a kind of historical naivety that makes the pandemic year zero for this stuff and there’s not enough time spent exploring the ‘why’ from a historical context. This isn’t simply about scope but about the narrative presented...3/