More on MOOC’s

Samhain                                                                Winter Moon

My comment to this NYT’s article:

I have taken and completed four MOOC’s. And, yes, I have a degree(s).

32,000 enrolled in my last course. It lasted 10 weeks and let’s go with the 4% completion. That’s 1,200 students who completed the class, more than would fit the largest lecture hall course in the U.S., one with teachers and teacher’s aides.

That MOOC’s have not delivered on the dream of widely distributed high quality education says little. They’re barely two years old. How long did it take for the current bricks and mortar campus to become normative? And, that was a long time ago.

The MOOC’s are an excellent tool, but that’s all they are. There is not yet a coherent enough catalog of courses for the equivalent of a college major (except perhaps in computer related courses).

This tool will be used to build the educational system of the future, I’m sure of it. Will they be the only tool? No, but the high quality of the MOOC’s I’ve taken, two from U. Penn, one from Wesleyan and one from Hong Kong University have shown me the potential they have for excellence. It will be the excellence they deliver, combined with some clustering of students, mentoring, use of MOOCs in already existing educational systems and as yet undreamed of support apparatus that will deliver them more broadly.

And, it will happen.