Critics of MOOCs are probably not wrong when they lament that the courses are going to create multiple types of instructor, but I wonder how much of their objection is driven by ego rather than reason.
Unlike a scientific experiment that can keep controls and treated samples isolated in separate test tubes, the MOOC experiment is playing out in one of the messier corners of the already messy real world: academia.
The essence of a good education is, to a large extent, the ability to recognize an important issue in a particular field of study, analyze a problem if it exists, and determine the best course of action.
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced Tuesday that it will offer an online master's degree for less than $7,000 through a partnership with Uda...
There are specific stages associated with mobile and digital disruption, and higher education is following this surprisingly consistent pattern. Indeed, we now see the new benefits arising for the consumer of education.
Gregory Nagy, a professor of classical Greek literature at Harvard, is a gentle academic of the sort who, asked about the future, will begin speaking ...
Many adult learners enrolling online for the first time may be somewhat apprehensive about online education. After all, their only experience of learning has been in traditional, face-to-face settings. Other adult learners expect it to be fun, fast, and friendly.
Learning about democracy through a free online platform from a highly respected university gives me hope for where MOOCs could take us.
If people are willing to pay $2,000 or more per credit when a course is taken within a degree-granting institution, but less than 5 percent of that for the same course stands alone, that's a pretty strong indication of where the value in the college course truly lies.
Virginia’s largest and first statewide virtual school may soon close, as the Carroll County School Board recently voted to end its partnership with ...
To watch the TV ads, one might think that earning a post-secondary degree online is easier than traditional classroom study. Certainly, it is true that one might do a lot of work in one's pajamas. But these enticements do not capture the full picture of what online students encounter.
A proposed compact among the states unveiled by educational organizations and state officials Thursday would create a kind of common market for online...
Indeed, Coursera, another commercial entity, now claims well over a million students and more than 30 institutional partners, many among the so-called elite. And not to be left behind, two existing giants, Google and Pearson, have entered the arena. So what to make of MOOCs?
Can students really be taught critical thinking, civics, and citizenship skills in a standardized format that values conformity? Will relying on MOOCs and automation in the long-term turn professors into "delivery managers" and students into automatons and passive consumers rather than citizens?
There is an exciting new development of essay-grading software. This innovation, coming courtesy of the EdX people from Harvard and MIT, may have finally closed the diminishing gap between "educational reform" and parody. The only possible response is, "Are you kidding me?"
The scores of public and non-profit private universities that have adopted online learning best practices have shown that everything from remedial algebra to Ph.D.'s in Psychology can be taught successfully online.
SAN FRANCISCO — Stanford University announced Wednesday that it is joining an initiative co-founded by Harvard and MIT to develop a computer sys...
MOOCs could be the beginning of an enormous revolution in education. Or maybe just a very glitzy but ultimately ineffectual technology. Rather than write about it from the outside. I decided to sign up for a course myself.
We seem to be at a crossroads, where costs cannot align with the public's ability and willingness to pay. Something has to give.
The bull sessions and hallway discussions of the physical college environment are replaced by online forums, social networks and video conferencing in the MOOC environment. And like reading, discussion largely boils down to a numbers game.
This week, I introduced people to the nuts and bolts behind Degree of Freedom - my one-year effort to learn everything I would from being enrolled in a liberal arts BA program in just twelve months using only free educational resources.
The New York Times declared 2012 "The Year of the MOOC." And with that pronouncement came a backlash. Well, maybe "backlash" is too strong a word, but there is no doubt that the rising chorus of voices declaring they are over MOOCs just keep getting louder.
Just like blogging disrupted journalism, tweeting disrupted news reporting, and music videos killed radio stars, in the field of education a new era of mobile video technology is disrupting centuries-old methods for teaching and learning.
With MOOCs, we have a very different entity in our midst. MOOCs are a very different kind of educational package, and they need different metrics -- metrics that we do not yet know how to construct.
With less red tape than the traditional college format, online students are able to earn credits while still working full time, maintaining families and dealing with illnesses.
