Altius Education Announces Helix Platform

Paul Friedman, CEO of Altius Education, debuted Helix, a next gen higher learning platform, at the ASU Education Innovation Summit (#eisummit) today.
Altius has been extending access to quality higher education as a transfer institution for several years but Paul was frustrated by the quality of online learning.  Looking at trends Paul could see that by 2014 a majority of U.S. college students will take at least part of the education online—that’s 22 million, double what it was last year.
Altius was using Moodle but found it socially isolating, rigid, and detached.  When Paul looks at the randomness of what is taught, how it’s taught, and the learning environment, he decided he wanted to “control the stack” to offer a great education.
Helix, the new platform Altius announced today, engages through storytelling.  To the end possible stories are based on personal interest.  The platform features competency-based adaptation.  The academic philosophy is based on Dweck’s growth mindset and leverages collaborative learning.
“It’s an adaptive personalized approach but it’s not self-study,” Paul said about Helix, “People needs dates and deadlines.”
In addition to providing feedback to students and faculty, Helix provides feedback to the university on communication, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, information literacy (what Paul calls horizontal competencies).
Foundational courses will be available on Helix in August.