Duolingo language learning app figured out a way to take advantage of the phenomenon of TikTok, which has over a billion monthly active users.
Duolingo has drawn 2.9 million followers to its TikTok account by creating amusing videos featuring the company mascot — an owl obsessed with the music performer Dua Lipa. In other videos, Duolingo features company staffers to promote its brand.
Overall, the Pittsburgh-based company has reached over 55 million likes, demonstrating its ability to use short videos to promote its brand.
In September 2021, Duolingo had 50,000 followers. Its strategy of featuring wacky videos using the company’s green owl mascot has resulted in an effective social strategy.
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The “Introduction to Linux” course on edX, which got over a million individuals enrolled, now has a version in Spanish.
The Linux Foundation announced its launch yesterday, “Introducción a Linux (LF-UPV-101x.” The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), a leading technical university in Spain, translated the course.
The class, a 14 weeks program, is available for enrollment. To get a certificate of completion, learners will need to pay $49.
Introduction to Linux is designed for experienced computer users who have limited or no previous exposure to Linux. It teaches tools and techniques commonly used by Linux system administrators and end-users to conduct their day-to-day work in this environment.
“Linux is under the hood of most internet servers, multimedia gadgets, and internet-connected devices. We could say that Linux runs the world in which we live, so we at Universitat Politècnica de València are very excited about the opportunity to give access to Linux knowledge to the Spanish-speaking world,” said Jose Pedro García Sabater, Vice-Rector for Planning, Academic Offering and Digital Transformation of UPV.
“Education is a great tool to increase the quality of life and generate professional growth, and it is great to see edX partners collaborate to offer content in different languages,” said Anant Agarwal, edX Founder and Chief Open Education Officer at 2U, Inc.
Coursera (COUR) increased its net loss to $145.2 million (or 35% of revenue) in 2021, compared to $68.8 million (or 22.8% of revenue) in 2020. Total revenue was $415.3 million in 2021, up 41% from $293.5 million in the prior year. Enterprise revenue (Coursera for Business) grew 70% year-over-year to $120 million.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, net loss was $47.7 million or 41.5% of revenue, compared to $26.7 million or 32.1% of revenue a year ago. In the same period, total revenue was $115.0 million, up 38% from $83.3 million a year ago.
Coursera’s financial results, announced yesterday, were negatively received by the stock market, which pushed the share price down 6.46%, until $19.70. The results did not meet Wall Street expectations, said The Associated Press.
Since it went public in April 2021, Coursera has lost over 56% of its value. Today, market capitalization is half of its IPO, $2.77 billion. In its best moment, it reached a whopping valuation of $5.8 billion.
Ken Hahn, Coursera’s CFO, said that “our outlook for 2022 anticipates revenue growth of 30% year-over-year, reflecting the long-term demand we continue to see for online learning.” The revenue outlook for the full year of 2022 is in the range of $536 to $544, with an EBITDA negative in the range of $45.5 to $51.5 million.
• Per segments, consumer revenue for the fourth quarter was $65.8 million, up 24% from a year ago on strong demand for our portfolio of entry-level Professional Certificates and continued adoption of Coursera Plus.
• Enterprise revenue for the fourth quarter was $35.9 million, up 72% from a year ago on robust growth across the business, campus, and government customers. The total number of Paid Enterprise Customers increased to 803, up 107% from a year ago.
• Degrees revenue for the fourth quarter was $13.3 million, up 43% from a year ago on the scaling of student cohorts.
L. Rafael Reif will step down as the President of MIT at the end of 2022, after ten years in the position. This week, he announced his decision in a letter to the Institute’s community, without specifying any reason. No media outlet offered any explanation behind the move.
After stepping down, Reif, 71, will take a sabbatical, then return as a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Reif said his plan to stay through December allows the MIT Corporation, the school’s governing body, to conduct a search and smooth the transition to the next president. Meanwhile, he named Professor Cynthia Barnhart as MIT’s incoming Provost, starting on Monday, March 7th.
Cynthia Barnhart will join Chancellor Melissa Nobles, Vice President for Research Maria Zuber, and Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma in guiding the academic mission of MIT.
A native of Venezuela, Reif first came to the United States to earn his doctorate in electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he learned English. His parents were Jewish refugees who fled Eastern Europe in advance of the Nazi regime.
Three of the family’s four sons would go on to earn PhDs in the United States — including one who earned a Ph.D. at MIT. Reif arrived at MIT in 1980, when he joined the faculty as an assistant professor of electrical engineering.
In 2012, he became MIT’s 17th president. Before that, he served as Provost for seven years. He was instrumental in the success of edX.org.
During his tenure, MIT’s endowment grew from $10.3 billion to $27.4 billion.
2U Inc. (NASDAQ: TWOU) — the owner of edX.org — on Wednesday reported a loss of $67.3 million in its fourth quarter of 2021, after an increase of $29.6 million on the same period in 2020.
In the same time frame, revenue increased 13% to $243.6 million. Degree program segment revenue increased 17% to $152.4 million. And alternative credential segment revenue increased 8% to $91.2 million.
Wall Street received these results well, and 2U’s stock went up 3.69% yesterday, until $17.98 per share. Overall, the stock lost 70% of its value in the last year. Market capitalization is only 1.36 billion.
For the full year of 2021, the Lanham, Maryland – based company reported a loss of $194.8 million, or $2.61 per share, with an improvement of $21.7 million. Revenue was reported as $945.7 million, increasing of 22%.
In terms of the outlook for 2022, 2U expects full-year revenue in the range of $1.05 billion to $1.09 billion, representing a growth of 13% at the midpoint. Net loss will range from $235 million to $215 million.
Christopher “Chip” Paucek, 2U’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, provided this view: “Our strong 2021 results were led by healthy revenue growth in both our degree and alternative credential business, with demand for our undergraduate offerings particularly compelling.”
“With the closing of the edX transaction in November 2021, we are laser-focused on transforming 2U into the leading global education platform company, positioned to drive powerful societal impact and superior value for all our stakeholders, by delivering learners affordable, flexible, and career-relevant online education offerings, while helping universities and businesses strengthen their institutions for the digital age.”
Paul Lalljie, 2U’s Chief Financial Officer, added, “with the addition of edX and our transition to a platform company, we have established a strategic and financial framework for achieving our mid-term goals and creating shareholder value.”
A survey conducted by Salesforce last month based on 23,000+ workers across 19 countries reveals a growing digital skills crisis.
The pandemic has accelerated this gap, addressing the need for a digital transformation. In addition, it has given businesses a unique opportunity to rethink how they connect with their employees, customers, and communities.
In the research, a total of 76% of global workers say that they feel unequipped and unprepared to operate in a digital-first world. However, only 28% of them are actively seeking skills training, according to Salesforce’s 2022 Global Digital Skills Index survey.
The survey also highlights a generational skills gap. Two-thirds of respondents say they’re unprepared for social media skills that the workplace will require over the next five years.
Only 31% feel “very equipped” for a digital-first job right now.
A recent Salesforce-commissioned RAND Europe Report estimates that 14 G20 countries could miss out on $11.5 trillion cumulative GDP growth if the skills gap isn’t addressed.
This comes as emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI, and the cloud, are amplifying businesses’ demand for specific digital skills — up to 50% in Europe and the United States, according to McKinsey.
Education professionals agree that video is essential to students’ academic experience. Moreover, video has become the preferred teaching method since it engages more than text-based content and increases students’ satisfaction and performance.
The research, titled The State of Video in Education 2022 highlights that the pandemic was a major accelerator for online and hybrid modalities. “It’s been a paradigm shift for educators,” says the research. A total of 94% of these new-to-online educators say that they will continue to use a hybrid learning model even after in-person classes resume.
Respondents of the survey say they feel comfortable using video technology. In fact, they would like to see their institution use more video. “Video has clearly become intuitive and easy to use for most educators.”
The majority of respondents reported using video to support course delivery. Among the top uses of video are:
Synchronous remote teaching and learning
Supplementary course material
Lecture capture
Completely asynchronous courses with on-demand video and/or recorded video messages
Student assignments
Virtual office hours
Personal introductions of teachers and/or students
The Open edX organization will return to an in-person annual conference after two years of virtual gatherings due to the COVID pandemic.
The 2022 Open edX Conference will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, on April 26 – 29, 2022. It will be hosted by the Nova School of Business & Economics and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).
The conference will explore, according to the organizers, “the future of work and how open technology can be leveraged to up-skill, re-skill, and deliver life-long learning to employees and students alike.”
Attendees will explore innovations and advancements in technologies and instructional design and course creation, along with new features pertaining to the Open edX platform.
The names of keynote speakers and conference presenters will determined this month.
Developers interested in speaking can submit their presentation idea. Call for Proposals — for a 45-minute breakout session, a 10-minute lightning talk, or a 90-minute or 3-hour tutorial/workshop — will be open until February 20th, 2022.
Almost one-third of all jobs worldwide — over 1 billion jobs in total — will be transformed by technology in the next decade. Millions of jobs will be displaced, but millions more will be created. Those new jobs will pay more and offer better career opportunities. The fastest-growing job categories are six times more likely to pay over $100,000 than the slowest-growing categories.
That’s the scenario forecasted on research crafted by the global consultancy firm Bain & Company on career-connected learning. The study highlights that employers are struggling to fill those jobs, and young people are struggling to access them.
Bain’s research also shows:
For example, youth unemployment in the US is near twice the total unemployment rate. Youth underemployment—which measures the number of young people who have more education than their job requires—remains high in the US, with 40% of recent college graduates qualifying as underemployed, according to Bain & Company.
Only one in five entering freshmen ultimately earn a family-sustaining wage one year after graduation.
Half of the recent graduates report feeling financially stable, and two-thirds of young people feel unfulfilled in their careers or pessimistic about the future.
Around 60% of good job postings — those that pay above a living wage and have limited vulnerability to automation — require at least a four-year degree, yet only about a quarter of jobs require the specific skills taught in those programs.
Only 28% and 21% of US Black and Hispanic adults, respectively, own a bachelor’s degree or higher, putting the majority of these populations out of the running for most good jobs.
According to Boston-based Bain, career-connected learning (CCL) is the key to making those opportunities available to students who too often find access to such jobs beyond their reach.
Well-designed CCL pathways close that gap by combining classroom learning with meaningful on-the-job work experience that leads to door-opening postsecondary degrees and credentials, according to the company.
“It’s a better, more engaging educational experience while also offering employers a sustainable, profitable way to find great talent from a deeper and more diverse talent pool,” said Abigail Smith, a leader in Bain & Company’s Social Impact Education practice.
Some countries, such as Switzerland, Australia, Germany, and Singapore, have scaled highly effective CCL systems that are both student-centered and market-driven.
They’ve rejected the false dichotomy between “academic instruction” and “career education” and built educational pathways that provide both while meeting the needs of students and employers alike.
Global education group Pearson announced this week the acquisition of certification company Credly for $200 million. Pearson, which already owned 20% of Credly (valued at $40 million), will add this company to its Workforce Skills division.
The full Credly team, including Jonathan Finkelstein, Founder and CEO of Credly, will join Pearson.
Andy Bird, Chief Executive of Pearson, said that this purchase “is another important step in accelerating our strategy in the workforce skills market.”“The growing skills gap is putting enormous pressure on the labor market, making verified credentials more essential than ever before,” he added.
Credly complements Pearson’s recent acquisition of Faethm, an AI and predictive analytics company focused on workforce trends.
Credly offers a platform for organizations to award employees and students digital credentials that verify their skills and help connect them with opportunities. Over 2,000 organizations use Credly. The company’s revenue was $13.3 million in 2021.
