article thumbnail

Could Remixing Old MOOCs Give New Life to Free Online Education?

Edsurge

It’s common these days to hear that free online mega-courses, called MOOCs, failed to deliver on their promise of educating the masses. Now, one of the first professors to try out MOOCs says he has a way to reuse bits and pieces of the courses created during that craze in a way that might deliver on the initial promise.

MOOC 165
article thumbnail

US Edtech Funding Already Nears $1 Billion in First Half of 2019

Edsurge

Knewton, an adaptive learning engine that became a digital courseware company, was reportedly bought by Wiley for way less than it raised. The next edtech company to go public isn’t yet known, but multiple investors said they consider Coursera, the top fundraiser of 2019 so far, a strong candidate.

EdTech 162
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Fewer Deals, More Money: U.S. Edtech Funding Rebounds With $1.2 Billion in 2017

Edsurge

MOOC companies typically account for the bump in the “Post-Secondary” category, but aside from Coursera’s $64 million Series D round, few other companies focused in higher education scored a large deal. In these cases their deals are placed in the “All other” category.) Source: EdSurge. Source: EdSurge Private Equity’s Presence.

EdTech 119
article thumbnail

How ‘Learning Engineering’ Hopes to Speed Up Education

Edsurge

Large-scale online courses called MOOCs (massive open online courses), for instance, were touted as possible low-cost replacements for residential colleges , but proved to have completion rates of less than 10%. After all, many high-tech ideas for remaking higher education have made splashy headlines but fail to deliver.

Education 218
article thumbnail

The Business of 'Ed-Tech Trends'

Hack Education

Knewton (adaptive learning): $182.3 ” (Its MOOC competitor edX also announced this year that many of its courses would no longer be free.) Vive la MOOC révolution. Zuoyebang (tutoring): $585 million. 17zuoye (tutoring): $585 million. EverFi (“critical skills” training): $251 million. And its CEO stepped down.

Trends 96
article thumbnail

Machine Teaching, Machine Learning, and the History of the Future of Public Education

Hack Education

MOOCs were going to change everything. My favorite ludicrous claim remains that of Knewton’s CEO who told NPR in 2015 that his company was a “mind reading robot tutor in the sky.” The Internet was going to change everything. The Macintosh computer was going to change everything. And on and on and on. ”).

Knewton 63
article thumbnail

Education Technology and the Power of Platforms

Hack Education

” And I wondered at the time if that would be the outcome for MOOCs. 2012, you will recall, was “ the year of the MOOC.”) ” MOOCs looked – for a short while, at least – like they were going to pivot to become LMSes. Instead, they’ve re-branded as job training sites.