Can Anyone Catch Khan Academy? 190
waderoush writes "Even as name-brand universities like MIT and Harvard rush to put more courses on the Web, they're vying with an explosion of new online learning resources like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, Dabble, Skillshare, and, of course, Khan Academy. With 3,200 videos on YouTube and 4 million unique visitors a month, Sal Khan's increasingly entertaining creation is the competitor that traditional universities need to beat if they want to have a role in inspiring the next generation of leaders and thinkers. Lately Khan's organization has been snapping up some of YouTube's most creative educational-video producers, including 'Doodling in Math Class' creator Vi Hart and Smarthistory founders Beth Harris and Steven Zucker. Universities are investing millions in software for 'massive online open courses' or MOOCs, but unless they can figure out how to make their material fun as well as instructive, Khan may have an insurmountable lead."
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a related article about the above-mentioned Coursera, and how they plan to make money off of free courses. A contract the company signed with the University of Michigan suggests they aren't quite sure yet.
Udemy, (Score:2, Informative)
My Kindle just lit-up with an ad from this company. 2 online courses for Excel at $35 (instead of 200). I was tempted to click "buy" however I know nothing about this company. I don't just hand money to random corps.
Don't forget Teaching Company (Score:5, Informative)
I've been buying their product since the 90s when they were called "The Great Teachers" company. I took advantage of their once or twice-a-year sales to clear the warehouse. A customer can buy an entire course (~50 hours) for about the same cost as a month of cable. I learned more about history, language, philosophy from those audiocassettes than 5 years of actual college.