On the 25th Of July 2024, 2U announced that it was poised for growth, while it also declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. According to the Wall Street Journal, 2U inc had “….taken private in a deal that will wipe out more than half of its $945 million debt”. 2U’s share price crashed and then the share price rose. There was some speculation about a “short squeeze“.
I’m not a stock market expert. I’ll leave that to Phil Hill. But I am intrigued in the confidence that Paul (CEO of 2U) exudes in their press release.
“Today marks an important milestone for 2U. New capital and a healthier balance sheet will enable us to continue our long-standing mission,”
Paul Lalljie, Chief Executive Officer of 2U.
While the company was going private in the US, it also advertised for 12 Positions in Cape Town.
Consensus On LinkedIn was that its “founders, from the very start, were clearly interested in benefitting financially. They grew it to a size that netted them a satisfactory financial return, and cashed out. Business as usual”. Or that the winners” here were two of the wealthiest institutions on the planet.”
These activities reminded me again about my MOOC / EdX experience. And I thought it would be good to jog my (and other readers memory), about how cMOOCs became xMOOCs (with EdX doing the business) and then how 2U took the model further.
The term “MOOC” was coined by Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander. It was used to refer to a course developed by Stephen Downes and George Siemens entitled “Connectivism and Connectivity Knowledge”. Entry to the course cost in person students, but it was free to online students.
I had been a observer of the early cMOOCs, when I was based in Pietermaritzburg. The emphasis was networking and learning from other individuals, listening to different opinions, and forming one’s own. Just when I got to Johannesburg in 2010, I enrolled in #PLENK2010, but did not follow the instructions to introduce ourselves on Moodle. But choose to write my introduction on my blog, Lindsay Jordan left a comment
For a few weeks I was on a course with people like Dave Cormier and Stephen Downs. Two founders of the DIY constructivist version of Massive, Open, Online Course (cMOOC).
At the end of 2014, I flew to Boston to attend join the EdX event. There I attended a Training Workshop on the 18th and 19th of November and then EdX Global Forum on the 20th and 21st of November.
These seemed like heady days for online learning. Barack Obama announced an EdX White House Partnership, free training courses for teachers and free certificates.
Long before Adam Habib, signed up to the xMOOC on the 26 November, 2014, which he described as “a pioneering, innovative project spearheaded by Wits, which will indeed unlock new opportunities in South Africa and through the rest of the continent“, I had been playing with the format. When I heard, via the grapevine, that Wits was going to spend As a critical educational technologist, who was familiar with the movement, had written a piece about Wits and the MOOC.
Dropped the ball
In Feb 2015, the boss left. I assumed responsibility for three other T & D projects and a process to rationalise eLSI had begun. I had initiated a video studio, had purchased video equipment from and teaching and development grant for MOOC hardware… and were on our way to producing them…when things began to go pear shaped!