Kendal walk - notes for Wild Show

I am in Kendal for the Walking Festival. This is a quick note for Wild Show in Exeter. They may compare with Exeter as a place to walk.

Sound is enough for radio but video needs a set. Places can have a connectkion to topic. So Arts Centre as performance space, square as public space, phone shop as tech resource. Continuing discussion here.

Continues on future shows. Not much explanation here as will take more form as radio. The Producer may think shows need an exclusive. But social media good placed to put clips, probably not easy to find.

Mode Two Learning

Following Brexit I bought a Telegraph this weekend. Turns out very interesting for learning. Online the text is limited but you can see the main point claimed  -

So-called “Moocs” (massive open online courses) were meant to transform distance learning with the power of the internet, hosting a myriad of free courses for which students might pay for .... ( just visible ) accreditation 

This is in a story about Learning Technologies Group , business section, apparently cheap for a tech stock. Recently bought Breezy.

However, no mention of Futurelearn, where 50% recently taken by Seek . This is still a MOOC platform. Selling some accreditation and some degrees. So short copurses in units, can be combined or added to. OU still has 50% and there is a clear valuation.

I am not going to get into whether the OU has made a sound move. things change. I also bought an FT ( to check out Brexit ) and found a view that stocks may be overvalued. But there is a new phase in online learning. Coursera definitely through the early stages. The tweets about Futurelearn include mention of asset stripping ( asking for a friend ) so this is different to worry that the OU is just burning money.

What I notice is that the investment is associated with HR - recruitment and training. Seek have a range of companies, not clear yet how they may relate to Coursera and FutureLearn. So this could be the future for online learning. I think MOOCs will continue. "Content Marketing" requires some content, more on this another time, only one way of looking at it.

The universities are now paying percentages on degree fees to platforms. Some worry about this. But so far they have not made their own investment. Not sure why this is. FutureLearn needed £50m . Some buildings cost £10m , a campus plan several hundred in some cases. ( Numbers a bit vague, any info welcome for future versions of this text )

Knowledge in Mode 1 & 2 is a way of looking at research, both in academic disciplines and in practical situations. Link to Researchgate. There could be "Mode Two Learning" as found online. Not sure about this, cannot find much so far. Links welcome. Just seems to be what is happening. Based on Twitter so dodgy sample. Academics prefer the campus. "HR" moves online. Public can pick and mix.

Notes on Futurelearn . Coursera

Long weekend coming up so better version maybe Monday. Thinking about the week, investment in FutureLearn turns out not to be a news story as I expected. Nothing in print Guardian or any mainstream news I can come across. Rory Caitlin Jones on BBC News business roundup for the week on about Facebook and Google as usual. My guess this story is a significant turn in moving UK unis online but maybe not of interest. Somehow there seems to be an international scene that sometimes connects with UK for a special occasion in real space. But mostly official UK just pays no attention.

Also I get different sorts of link with search on Twitter or anywhere. Links for Coursera as part of a tech investment story in USA. UK links on FuturelLearn more usually critique from academics who need to be convinced. ( So the sequence for visit / radio show around Learning Technologies could be Coursera / business case / Futurelearn / critique / LinkedIn / comments in public space , )

Links found

AngelList on Mooc market quotes Coursera CEO on "Fourth Industrial Revolution" , AI etc and skills needed.

“The future of work and learning are converging, and companies are realizing that there are a lot of jobs that are getting automated,” he said, “so finding an inexpensive but high-quality way to retrain is turning out to be a historic challenge.”

Source for much of the story a report on future MOOC market

The global MOOC market size is projected to grow from USD 3.9 billion in 2018 to USD 20.8 billion by 2023, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 40.1% during the forecast period.

Meanwhile shares in 2U Inc seem to be down from a year ago. They invested in Get Smarter. So not completely solid as a boom.

UK comment still seems to be around thinking the whole thing is a way to lose money and probably has no sound pedagogy anyway. I just made that up. Check later.