WebProNews

Tag: Online Learning

  • Prosus Buying Stack Overflow for $1.8 Billion

    Prosus Buying Stack Overflow for $1.8 Billion

    Prosus has announced it is buying Stack Overflow for $1.8 billion, as it increases its focus on the online learning market.

    Prosus is a consumer internet group that has investments in the online classifieds, education technology, food delivery and payments and fintech markets. The company is the largest shareholder of Tencent Holdings, the Chinese company behind some of the biggest games, including Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Call of Duty: Mobile and Ring of Elysium.

    Prosus appears to be making a major move in the online education market with the acquisition of Stack Overflow. Stack Overflow is one of the top 50 websites in the world, with an extremely active user base. In fact, 85% of the site’s community visits every week to access the 52+ million questions and answers, most about programming and development.

    “We are delighted to be welcoming Stack Overflow to the Prosus family as we increasingly focus on the future of workplace learning,” Larry Illg, CEO of EdTech at Prosus, said. “Learning of any kind typically begins with a question and their platform is critically important for global developers when they have questions about their work. There is an opportunity to connect more deeply with their community through our other education platforms to further fulfill their learning needs.

    “With enduring skills shortages and ever-evolving needs within technology organizations, technology training has emerged as the largest and fastest growing segment of corporate learning and development,” Illg continued. “As an operator of businesses across 90+ countries, we understand the needs of technologists and developers, particularly in high-growth markets. In addition to further scaling its community in the markets we know well, we want to help Stack Overflow Teams to expand within enterprises to address an underserved opportunity to transform their technology learning and collaboration.”

    “We are excited to be joining the Prosus family, which catapults us into a new phase of growth and allows us to expand and accelerate Stack Overflow’s impact around the world,” Stack Overflow’s CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, said. “Prosus’s expertise growing and nurturing communities, especially in a global context, will make our public platform even more invaluable in helping developers and technologists learn and grow. Given Prosus’s focus on the future of the workplace, their partnership will allow our market leading SaaS collaboration product, Stack Overflow for Teams, to reach thousands more global enterprises, allowing them to accelerate product innovation and increase productivity by unlocking institutional knowledge.”

    The deal is expected to close in Q3 2021.

  • DreamBox CEO: Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids

    DreamBox CEO: Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids

    “We’ve got to be intentional about subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators to make sure that parents and teachers don’t think they’re martyring their kids just by adding technology to their learning experience,” says DreamBox Learning CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson. “A Harvard study that we published proved that it was efficacious. If kids used DreamBox for just five lessons a week, that’s less than one hour, they could get a 60 percent increase in their learning.”

    Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of DreamBox Learning, discusses how DreamBox is now used by one out of every ten schools because it is proven to enhance learning:

    There’s An Acceleration In Schools Going 100% Online

    We have a goal to unlock the learning potential in every child regardless of what zip code they’re in. We think the way to do that is to personalize the learning experience so that it’s engaging, it’s effective, and it’s highly personalized. We developed an intelligent adaptive learning engine that was pioneered in 2006 to actually track how kids are thinking. It matches the curriculum to exactly where they were so it would never be too difficult or too easy. It would always be engaging and kids would struggle productively and learn and master skills.

    We really didn’t know what to expect (related to schools closing), we just knew we had to embrace change. Schools were asked to change and parents were asked to change and we changed too. So we opened up our platform for free through the end of the school year just to make sure that parents and teachers didn’t have to worry about mathematics. We saw over two million kids join the platform in less than six weeks. That’s great growth but it also means it strained the organization. When you grow that fast i like to say you get stretch marks, so we’re managing through our stretch marks. That means that we have a lot more students and a lot more volume to manage in a much smaller piece of time. 

    We thought we would get some relief as schools would go back to school in live classrooms. What we’re finding now in the last couple weeks is that there’s an acceleration in the the number of schools and districts that have decided to remain in a distance 100 percent online learning mode.

    Teachers Cannot Be Replaced By Technology

    The (technology gap) is a big concern and challenge and I would say an opportunity for everyone involved in blended learning. At DreamBox, we never believed and don’t believe that teachers can be replaced by technology. We have developed a technology that was designed to complement the live instruction, to complement the art and the magic that happens in a live classroom. We think that there are things that technology can do better. Technology can understand what each individual child is doing moment by moment and then can tee up predictive insights to a teacher so that they know what they can do and how they can change their live instruction. 

    Over the time of COVID, we think that the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown larger because there are some kids that are permanently disconnected. They don’t have access to broadband and they don’t have devices. We need coordinated strategy, national, state, and local strategy, to make sure that these disconnected kids are connected and they can leverage innovative learning technologies that complement what they get in the classroom.

    Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids

    One of the adaptations that we actually made during the time of COVID was we added a capability in the platform that will allow teachers to send notes to kids. I don’t think that all technologies are the same. There’s no monolithic online learning experience. Many kids are not experiencing a positive online learning experience. We’re thrilled that at DreamBox, our kids are engaged. They think they’re playing a game but they’re actually engaged in rigorous meaningful deep thinking mathematics. That’s why they love it and that’s why parents trust it. 

    We saw exponential growth in the number of parents who actually signed up for DreamBox as well. Parents need relief. Children need engaged reliable learning experiences. I think it’s incumbent upon companies like DreamBox to open themselves up to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators. A Harvard study that we published proved that it was efficacious. If kids used DreamBox for just five lessons a week, that’s less than one hour, they could get a 60 percent increase in their learning. 

    On the other side, in terms of student privacy, Common Sense Media has given us their highest rating. These are hard goals but we’ve got to be intentional about subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of third-party evaluators to make sure that parents and teachers don’t think they’re martyring their kids just by adding technology to their learning experience.

    DreamBox CEO Jessie Woolley-Wilson: Adding Technology To Learning Is Not Martyring Your Kids
  • 2U CEO: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    2U CEO: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    “This is a paradigm-shifting moment for higher ed,” says 2U CEO Chip Paucek. “You have to be intentional about it. You can do something that’s great, that students love, that’s totally engaging, and that also creates the right long-term outcome for the student. But you have to flip the classroom. Then when you go to class you’re in a really robust discussion with your fellow classmates, with your instructor, you are learning at a deeper level.”

    Chip Paucek, co-founder and CEO of 2U, discusses how the pandemic has led to a paradigm shift to engaging high-quality online learning for higher education:

    The Whole Flipped Classroom Notion Is Key To Our Success

    We started the company twelve years ago. We’ve been doing this much longer than what most schools have done online learning. I would say doing online learning well is not only possible it’s very obvious. Not only does it not have to be worse than campus instruction, something the President just said, it actually could be better. I think we’ve proven it over 12 years. You have to be intentional about it. When you do you can do something that’s great, that students love, that’s totally engaging, and that also creates the right long-term outcome for the student. But you have to flip the classroom. 

    You have to actually give students high-quality content for them to consume on their own time. A single 2U course has more video content than a season of Game of Thrones. Then when you go to class you’re in a really robust discussion with your fellow classmates, with your instructor, learning at a deeper level. That whole flipped classroom notion has been key to our success. We just passed 225,000 students so we’re doing this at a scale that most people haven’t. We hit 800,000 live classes inception to date. 

    The Great Institutions Have Embraced Online Learning

    We build a comprehensive program for a university partner that incorporates high-quality video content, interactive content, and a lot of readings. Books are still really good by the way. When you get the student from the interactive lesson into their live class it’s not just 90 minutes having somebody talk to you. You’re actually fully engaged from a pedagogy standpoint. You need to engage students. Then it’s not just when class ends you have to support students and bring them together in a way that is very possible online. 

    We did a survey with Gallup that showed 92 percent of our students said they would do it all over again. Honestly, this isn’t new. I feel like we’re all sitting here talking about it as if we all just discovered the internet. I started the company 12 years ago and you can really do something great if you just put your will towards it. We’ve got great schools from all over the world including Yale, Harvard, Syracuse, and Berkeley. They’re great institutions that have embraced it and are doing it really really well. 

    We Just Experienced A Forced Wave Of Remote Instruction

    What we all just experienced in the spring was sort of a forced wave of remote instruction that wasn’t very good but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be great. You really can do something great right if you put your mind to it. It takes real resources and that’s one of the things we’re advising our schools is to invest in high-quality online and really do something great for your students on a go-forward basis.

    It’s not easy to do this. I feel like the schools are in a real bind. None of us expected the NBA to have to cancel all of its games. Nobody’s been through this before. I feel like people that are continually dinging higher-ed forget that this is the single best path of social mobility on the planet. I got a Pell Grant to attend George Washington and it completely changed my life. So it’s not easy but it can be done. 

    This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    Take our Simmons University arrangement which we announced a couple of months ago, we’re bringing them fully online for the fall, every single course, all 300 courses, and then offering that program to the world in a fully online version that’ll be at about 50 percent of the campus price. 

    Also, take our Amherst relationship. Amherst College we just announced last week is going online. Think about the prestige of that great liberal arts institution going online. This is a paradigm-shifting moment for higher ed. There is no doubt. You’re going to need to do it if you’re a university president or a provost. We’ve spoken to more university presidents and provost’s in the last four months than we had in our previous 12 years.

    2U CEO Chip Paucek: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed
  • Professor Teaches Students How To Create Their Own Google

    Professor Teaches Students How To Create Their Own Google

    Sebastian Thrun, an ex Stanford professor decided in January to give up his tenure at the school and reach out for larger audiences. Specializing in machine learning and robotics, Thrun is excited to leave the constraints of formal education and become a key player in a new online university called Udacity.

    The professor believes in reaching the people who truly have an aptitude for his material rather than just those who have the financial means. His goal is to reach students all over the World. Also, the professor would like to cover a wider range of topics than he could offer at Stanford.

    Udacity:

    We believe university-level education can be both high quality and low cost. Using the economics of the Internet, we’ve connected some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students in almost every country on Earth.

    Starting on February 20th Udacity will begin online learning offering two classes:

    CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE
    Learn programming in seven weeks. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!

    CS 373: PROGRAMMING A ROBOTIC CAR
    In seven weeks you’ll learn how to program all the major systems of a robotic car, by the leader of Google and Stanford’s autonomous driving teams.