Thursday 1 November 2012

'Throwaway' MOOCs

For a while now, I've been signing up to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and not really participating all that much. I'm a MOOC dropout!
I recently blogged some of my concerns, and feel a little better about myself by seeing @AJCann express some of his thoughts on his blog :-).

My latest strange thought processes about MOOCs presented itself when reading Alan's blog post. That is;


What is the mindset towards MOOCs doing to the wider views on our Education system? 

More specifically, I'm concerned that I'm not alone in treating these MOOCs with a somewhat throwaway mindset (not that I'm saying Alan takes this view, of course), and wonder if there would be further consequences that would seep out from our view of MOOCs to our general view of Education? OK perhaps this question is thinking more about the lay person, or the student, rather than many of the readers of this blog, but nevertheless, such close ties between the hype of MOOCs and the revolution of education could easily see cross-fertilisation in this sense.

Could this devalue our Education?
Is there any link at all?


I'd like to hear a psychologists perspective on this (and your's of course)....

Image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Flickr User DeepLifeQuotes


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This work by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

3 comments:

  1. I think you're right, MOOCs are somewhat "throwaway" in the that connection between the learner and the teacher/provider is much looser than in traditional educational models.

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  2. I agree Pete. I know that Law have a MOOC unit so i will find out a bit more on that. Although suspect it's compulsory. I sometimes find I have a bit of a throw away attitude when it comes to online seminars/ events too. I might drop in and out of them. Although that of course is a benefit at times as it offers flexibility. A virtual 'think with your feet'! :)

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    Replies
    1. Nice one Nav.
      Yeah they are flexible and there are many great things about them. I guess I'm just concerned the thinking towards our formal education is 'polluted' (for want of a better word) by them.

      P

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