
MITx is a game changer for higher education - michaeltwofish
http://www.masmithers.com/2011/12/20/early-thoughts-on-mitx/
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tzs
Isaac Asimov, in 1988, gave an interview in which he talked about how this
kind of thing would change education. If you didn't know that this was from
1988, you might think it was from last week--that's how well he nailed it:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJAIERgWhZQ>

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melling
From the age of dinosaurs? Gosh am I old. I like how the interviewer asks
about learning baseball. After "Moneyball", we now having additional
interesting problems from which kids can learn. Build your fantasy teams and
run the probabilities.

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fvryan
MIT OpenCourseware is already amazing, can't wait to see how MITx turns out.

One great teacher can dramatically change a students trajectory. Platforms
like MITx can help those teachers reach huge numbers of students.

Also interested to see how interaction among the students in the course will
work.

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a_m_kelly
As someone who works in higher education, I'm most excited about this:

"...operate on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to
make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational
institutions."

In my opinion, today's course management systems go from pretty bad to worse.
In using blackboard, moodle, and another platform called itslearning, these
platforms suffer from major usability issues. I'm really looking forward to
using a CMS I don't hate, students don't mind using, and which man be can
modified at an institutional level. This could I think be the part of this
announcement that has the biggest impact: helping to make online learning
easier for everyone at a variety of institutions across the globe.

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juanre
This is a real game changer for those of us outside the US. My kids are 11 and
13 now. This looks like a huge opportunity growing for them. It will no longer
matter that they will be far from a world-class university.

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muyuu
I would totally hire people who could prove the knowledge and dedication
necessary for the work at hand, wherever they come from and whether or not
they could afford to go to a big-name University from the 1st world or not.

This free education trend is a game changer for kids in formerly "safe" rich
countries, and I see it as unstoppable.

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m_for_monkey
_"[...]it appears from the FAQ page that it will be possible to undertake the
open course and then pay a “modest” fee to demonstrate mastery of the subject
matter and be credentialled with an MIT award."_

Not true. For the "modest fee" they'll give an _MITx_ certificate. The FAQ
clearly states this: <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219>

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Mvandenbergh
I guess the value of that will depend on how those certificates are perceived.
If you're hiring a coder who is entirely self taught, and you see a few of
these certificates in the kind of basic CS areas that are often lacking among
entirely self taught programmers, it might sway a hiring decision a bit one
way or the other.

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aik
Very interesting. This is potentially one of the most disruptive moves I've
seen come out of a university in a long time.

The size of impact that this has on higher education is fully dependent upon
how successful their credentialing scheme is implemented and executed. Very
curious to see how this unfolds.

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andrewparker
If you're crediting MIT in your comment, then I feel your credit is misplaced.
MIT is reacting to Stanford successfully completing a semester of a very
similar initiative. MIT's initiative is incredibly generous, and looks
awesome, but I think it's reactionary to Stanford's ___-class.org work.

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viscanti
This seems like a natural extension of MIT's OCW which has been going for 10
years now. It may be influenced by Stanford's recent clases, but "reactionary"
is a bit of a stretch. MIT has been giving away free classes online for a long
time, adding credentials seems like an obvious extension of that, and one that
would have likely happened regardless of what Stanford does.

~~~
aik
I agree. And I agree it seems like a natural extension, however it's not the
idea that's impressive, the action itself is impressive. There are a lot of
forces that make this step incredibly difficult for universities, hence why it
has taken so long.

Naturally they have to be very cautious of how they market and execute on any
alternative credentialing system, both due to the new system being in
competition with the traditional, and to ensure the branding will (or can) not
tarnish their name.

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mpercy
Interesting that (from the MITx FAQ) they will provide the classes free of
charge but will charge for certification. Has a thread of similarity to an
open-source business model. :)

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Mvandenbergh
It's always a good business model move to make your revenue from something
that can't be pirated or copied. No-one's going to be torrenting the
certificates, after all.

