David Joyner recently wrote about his experience of creating a course with an AI avatar. He mentioned the advantages of being able to quickly and easily update course videos using AI rather than having to go to the recording studio and re-record and edit sections of videos. He also mentioned the drawbacks of uncontrolled use of AI to mimic real people. Having taken over 200 online courses, I decided to try Foundations of Generative AI. I wanted to compare the experience from a learner’s perspe

Confession: I used to think critical thinking meant being skeptical of everything. Question every headline, every claim, every source. Look beyond the face value. But critical thinking is structured evaluation, and knowing when to accept a good argument is as much a part of it as knowing when to reject a bad one. The people I know who are actually good at this are calmer, not louder. That’s what makes picking a course tricky. Two courses called “critical thinking” can teach almost nothing in c

Coursera has published its first quarterly report of 2022. Here are the essential numbers.

Both Coursera and Udemy started 2025 with new CEOs. Greg Hart took over at Coursera in February. Hugo Sarrazin started at Udemy in March. Less than a month into the job, both CEOs were in conversations to sell their companies. On April 8, Hart and Sarrazin met for the first time at ASU+GSV. The rest, as they say, is history. In my 5,000-word analysis of Coursera’s acquisition of Udemy, I called the deal rushed. Two new CEOs, both less than a year into the job, merging two public companies. I w