MOOCsTrainingTomorrowsWorkforce-Sept2013

 

Excerpt:

But existing MOOC providers like Udacity and Coursera aren’t the only ones using free online education to prepare people for jobs. The Muse, a career advice and job search site, recently launched Muse University, which trains students in subjects like landing a promotion and management 101. Aquent, a Boston-based staffing company for digital marketing professionals, also recently launched a MOOC platform of its own called Aquent Gymnasium. Its first class, Coding for Designers, launched in July, and so far, more than 8,000 students have enrolled. The goal of that class, says Andrew Miller, program director of Aquent Gymnasium, is to help designers trained in the print medium understand coding well enough that they can design for a digital medium. It’s a skill, Miller says, that Aquent’s clients were clamoring for. “Most designers can make pictures, and that’s it. Nowadays, people want designers who can produce prototypes,” he says. “We’re not trying to turn designers into developers. We’re trying to turn them into designers developers want to work with.”