By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Online university skips class to be more accessible
Hari Sreenivasan, PBS, 2014/09/15
The show in a nutshell (transcript is below video): "Almost all of online education today is still based on the credit hour and the course. We don’t have any courses, and we don’t have any credit hours, but we have 120 competencies, and you can master those as fast as you like, or as slow. More...
U.S. online-education company Udacity raises $35 mln for 'nanodegrees'
U.S. online-education company Udacity said Wednesday it had raised $35 million and was offering its first "nanodegree" course, which aims to teach a skill but at a fraction of the cost of a college degree.
The credential aims to provide a way for students to prove they have mastered some sort of skill, such as data analysis or programming, without the time commitment or expense of getting a traditional college degree.
Built with AT&T Inc, the degree in web development will start at around $1,200, said Udacity, based in Mountain View, California. Udacity's biggest market is the United States, followed by India, the United Kingdom and Germany. More...