Archive for the ‘Online Education’ Category
Online Education Startup Coursera Lands $16M From Kleiner & NEA, Adds John Doerr To Its Board
Posted: April 19, 2012 at 9:11 pm
It has already been a year since Peter Thiel called public attention to the bubble growing in American higher education. Yet, the cost of receiving a college degree in the U.S. has continued to grow, as student debt in the U.S. today has pushed north of $1 trillion, with the average debt per student standing at more than $25,000.
With the current fiscal trajectory of our educational system now unsustainable, an infusion of new blood has begun to enter the space, and a growing number of startups and entrepreneurs have turned their focus to upgrading educations legacy infrastructure. In turn, investors now seem ready to provide edtech companies with the type of capital that has typically been reserved for consumer businesses.
The latest example of this trend is the Mountain View-based Coursera, one of a growing set of edtech startups looking to combat the rising costs now endemic to higher education with smart, scalable, web-based solutions. Traditionally, online education has been seen as an underwhelming, ineffectual approximation of its on-campus sibling defined by micro-correspondence courses that are supplemental to the classroom experience, rather than a viable alternative.
Thats why Coursera is on a mission to bring Ivy League-caliber courses to online education for free. To help steer it down this path, the startup is today announcing that it has raised $16 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). As part of its investment, veteran investor, long-time KPCB partner, and public education reform advocate John Doerr and NEA General Partner Scott Sandell, have joined the startups board of directors.
The startup plans to use its new capital to expand its content and feature set and to continue developing partnerships with institutions in the hopes of increasing its global student body. And part of what I think defines this new set of edtech companies is the understanding that, to bring true innovation to education, issues cant be addressed from the outside. In democratizing content and in bringing historically exclusive material to the masses, for it to be most effective, this cant be something that is forced on institutions by entrepreneurs, but instead, in partnership.
Like edtechs top-funded 2tor and newly capital-flush StraighterLine, Coursera is partnering with top-tier universities to co-develop course material. Unlike 2tor, which focuses its web and mobile platforms on post-graduate education, and thus specific vocations, (and just like StraighterLine), the startup is looking to provide courses across a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, literature, history, and computer science.
The cool part about StraighterLine is that its courses are ACE Credit recommended, meaning that they can be transferred for credit at a number of degree granting institutions. Its solution acts as a great complement to community colleges and equivalent feeder programs that funnel students into four-year institutions. In our coverage last week, I noted that the one thing missing was big name institutions accepting StraighterLine credit.
Coursera, on the other hand, seems to be going directly after top-tier universities. Accompanying its funding news, the startup also announced that Princeton University, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and UPenn will be using its platform to make web-based courses available online for free. The startup believes that it is the first education platform to host content from multiple top universities in one place.
The one drawback, however, is that its courses, while emanating from respected institutions, arent offered for formal credit. Theres a chance they might offer certificates, but the startup will likely need to work this out if it has hopes of building a legitimate online university. Or making money, for that matter.
Of course, all this theoretical talk is fine, but we have yet to address what Courseras platform actually does. Currently, the startups platform includes video lectures with interactive quizzes, mastery-building interactive assignments, and collaborative community forums that encourage students to participate actively with classmates from across the globe. In other words, Courseras offers lectures that are broken down into 10 to 15 minute-long video chunks, with these interactive quizzes embedded into its lecture videos. It also enables students to complete auto-graded exercises that provide them with instant feedback.
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Online Education Startup Coursera Lands $16M From Kleiner & NEA, Adds John Doerr To Its Board
Online education panel to address Faculty Senate on Thursday
Posted: at 9:10 pm
In its first meeting of spring quarter, the Faculty Senate will hear a five-member panel including John Mitchell, special assistant to President John Hennessy for educational technology discuss online courses at Stanford.
The panelists are:
Last month, Stanford announced it was introducing new online classes, following a successful pilot last fall that drew more than 350,000 participants around the world.
A company founded by two Stanford professors, Coursera, is hosting the free online classes, including Game Theory and Cryptography. Stanford expects to launch five more free online courses next week: Automata, Computer Science 101, Compilers, Introduction to Logic and Machine Learning.
The online classes are taught by regular Stanford faculty and are highly interactive. Participants view short video clips that include live quizzes and instant feedback that allow them to quickly determine their understanding of the material and to work on problem areas. At the same time, participants help each other through online discussions similar to a comment thread on a social networking site.
Those enrolled in the free classes do not get Stanford credit for their work, but they do receive a statement of accomplishment if they successfully complete a course.
For Stanford students, online content supplements the classroom experience.
Professors teaching online courses are experimenting with a "flipped classroom," shifting classroom time from lectures to interactive activities such as solving problems, reviewing difficult material and working in teams.
The senate meeting will begin at 3:15 p.m. in Room 180 of the Law School. Discussion is limited to members of the senate, but members of the Stanford community may request to attend the meeting by contacting the Academic Secretary's Office at 723-4992 or Trish Del Pozzo at delpozzo@stanford.edu.
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Online education panel to address Faculty Senate on Thursday
Online Education Venture Lures Cash Infusion and Deals With 5 Top Universities
Posted: at 9:10 pm
April 18, 2012 1:00 pm
By JOHN MARKOFF/The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO -- An interactive online learning system created by two Stanford computer scientists plans to announce Wednesday that it has secured $16 million in venture capital and partnerships with five major universities.
The scientists, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, taught free Web-based courses through Stanford last year that reached more than 100,000 students. Now they have formed a company, Coursera, as a Web portal to distribute a broad array of interactive courses in the humanities, social sciences, physical sciences and engineering.
Besides Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, where the venture has already been offering courses, the university partners include the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
Although computer-assisted learning was pioneered at Stanford during the 1960s, and for-profit online schools like the University of Phoenix have been around for several decades, a new wave of interest in online education is taking shape.
"When we offer a professor the opportunity to reach 100,000 students, they find it remarkably appealing," Dr. Koller said.
Last fall a course in artificial intelligence taught by Sebastian Thrun, then at Stanford, and Google's director of research, Peter Norvig, attracted more than 160,000 students from 190 countries.
The free course touched off an intense debate behind the scenes at Stanford, where annual tuition is $40,050. Ultimately, the 22,000 students who finished the course received "certificates of completion" rather than Stanford credit. And Dr. Thrun, who also directs Google's X research lab, left his tenured position at Stanford and founded a private online school, Udacity.
Coursera (pronounced COR-sayr-uh), based in Mountain View, Calif., intends to announce that it has received financial backing from two of Silicon Valley's premier venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and New Enterprise Associates. The founders said they were not ready to announce a strategy for profitability, but noted that the investment gave them time to develop new ways to generate revenue.
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Online Education Venture Lures Cash Infusion and Deals With 5 Top Universities
How Audiences Respond: Online Journalism and Advocacy – Video
Posted: April 1, 2012 at 11:01 pm
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How Audiences Respond: Online Journalism and Advocacy - Video
【91VOA Learn English】Getting a Free Education, in Huge Online Classes – Video
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【91VOA Learn English】Getting a Free Education, in Huge Online Classes - Video
Smart MBA Online – Video
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Smart MBA Online - Video
Corporate Wellness Collection – Video
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Corporate Wellness Collection - Video
Using CEMadeSimple.com – Online Continuing Education for Plumbers – Video
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Using CEMadeSimple.com - Online Continuing Education for Plumbers - Video
NH bill allows teens to take online driving course
Posted: at 1:41 am
CONCORD, N.H.Teen drivers could take online driver education courses instead of attending driving school to get their driver's licenses in New Hampshire under a bill being considered by the Senate.
The Senate Transportation Committee is holding a hearing on the House-passed bill Thursday. The bill also requires teens under age 18 to receive a total of 60 hours of supervised behind-the-wheel training. Parents must provide 20 of the 60 hours of training in the vehicle. Parents also must complete an online course to prepare them to teach their children.
Teens who fail their written or road test and want to try again before turning 18 must complete a driving school course.
Supporters say the online course is less expensive than driving school and would enable more low-income teens to get training.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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NH bill allows teens to take online driving course
WUSHU SHAOLIN KUNG FU ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE – Video
Posted: March 31, 2012 at 6:29 am
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WUSHU SHAOLIN KUNG FU ONLINE DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE - Video