Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
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Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
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Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#2Closing sentence: If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear, but I am afraid that we have let the genie out of the bottle.
Don't bother reading it.
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#3Many in Europe are eyeing it as a possible opening. If U.S. academia implodes over its teaching-related parts (tuition/etc.), perhaps accelerated by MOOCs, will it take the research dominance of U.S. academia down with it, too?
As least in Scandinavia, we don't feel MOOCs are a huge threat to us, because there is no tuition, so there is no real financial reason for students to prefer MOOCs. Maybe some will out of personal preference, and some might take some extra MOOC courses as enrichment, but it seems unlikely that most students will choose to forgo a university degree. Therefore they will probably damage U.S. academia but not ours.
If so, is this an opening for Europe to take over world leadership in academic research, through a mixture of internal cultivation and hiring away distressed American faculty? The recent addition of English-language degree programs (and increasing internal use of English) removes some of the practical problems that used to be in the way of doing so.
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#4Books accomplish pretty much the same thing as moocs, yet the academy survived the invention of the printing press. I'm sure moocs will have their place, but I think fears about the destruction of academia are a little exaggerated.
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#5Closing sentence: If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear, but I am afraid that we have let the genie out of the bottle. Don't bother reading it.
I'm confused, are you actually advocating only reading things you agree with? Or is this last line supposed to be indicative in some negative way of the overall quality of the article?
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#6Many in Europe are eyeing it as a possible opening. If U.S. academia implodes over its teaching-related parts (tuition/etc.), perhaps accelerated by MOOCs, will it take the research dominance of U.S. academia down with it, too? As least in Scandinavia, we don't feel MOOCs are a huge threat to us, because there is no tuition, so there is no real financial reason for students to prefer MOOCs. Maybe some will out of per…
I hope this doesn't come across as defensive, or as some form of national pride ... but I'm not sure I agree. If MOOCs deliver on the promise of delivering more education to more people, then the lower cost of obtaining said education should produce more, not fewer, researchers.
Of course, if this comes to pass, then the same would be true for every country with ubiquitous access to the internet. In such a case, the proverbial rising tide would lift all boats equally :)
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#7Closing sentence: If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and make MOOCs disappear, but I am afraid that we have let the genie out of the bottle. Don't bother reading it.
I'm confused, are you actually advocating only reading things you agree with? Or is this last line supposed to be indicative in some negative way of the overall quality of the article?
It shows that the author is only interested in preventing the free market from cutting into his position.
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#8I took a class on Coursera. In that particular instance, I found no value in the online discussions (which seemed often pretty off-topic), and mainly I just watched the videos. I don't know how common this is for Coursera classes, but it left me with the impression that they might not need to be "classes" at all: just make educational television programs (or YouTube videos, or DVDs, or whatever).
This spring I am participating in the MIT Media Lab class on Learning Creative Learning, which is running online in parallel with an on-campus class. Between the combination of live videos from campus, readings, relevant online discussions, and assigned activities that we share with others in the class, to me, this class feels much more vibrant and engaging than my Coursera experience.
If future of MOOCs is more like this Media Lab class, then I'm looking forward to it. If it's more like Coursera, then I'd just as soon read a book in many cases.
But do either of these topple the existing world of academia? Coursera, sadly, might be a fine replacement for huge standard classes in which students are lectured at, and a Media Lab-style class could probably be a good replacement for many other classes.
I think though that the students need to take the classes more seriously for it to really work out. It seems to me that students are more likely to make a reasonable attempt at learning if they are paying tuition and risking getting bad grades on their record at a physical school than they are in a free online class which offers no particular negative response if they just totally blow it off. While we see huge numbers of people registering for MOOCs, it appears that a much smaller number of people actually complete the classes in any meaningful way.
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#9Many in Europe are eyeing it as a possible opening. If U.S. academia implodes over its teaching-related parts (tuition/etc.), perhaps accelerated by MOOCs, will it take the research dominance of U.S. academia down with it, too? As least in Scandinavia, we don't feel MOOCs are a huge threat to us, because there is no tuition, so there is no real financial reason for students to prefer MOOCs. Maybe some will out of per…
I hope this doesn't come across as defensive, or as some form of national pride ... but I'm not sure I agree. If MOOCs deliver on the promise of delivering more education to more people, then the lower cost of obtaining said education should produce more, not fewer, researchers. Of course, if this comes to pass, then the same would be true for every country with ubiquitous access to the internet. In such a case, the…
> If MOOCs deliver on the promise of delivering more
> education to more people
Re: Will MOOCs Destroy Academia?
#10Many in Europe are eyeing it as a possible opening. If U.S. academia implodes over its teaching-related parts (tuition/etc.), perhaps accelerated by MOOCs, will it take the research dominance of U.S. academia down with it, too? As least in Scandinavia, we don't feel MOOCs are a huge threat to us, because there is no tuition, so there is no real financial reason for students to prefer MOOCs. Maybe some will out of per…
American non-academic here. Frankly, it would be absurd for this plan to fail.