So why now?
Why should MOOCs appear right now?
Why is it different from previous revolutions in educational technology?
Well to me, there are two trends.
The first is that information is more and
more accessible, and becoming cheaper, or even free.
For instance, via Google Maps, anyone anywhere in the world can now
access maps that just a few years ago would be considered military grade.
Through Google Books anyone anywhere in the world
can access the content of books relatively easily.
Maybe some part of it if the content is copyrighted.
MOOCs come at the right time for this.
They simply make accessible to a much wider
audience something that was so far pretty closed.
University level material, about very high level
topics, they open up the doors of universities.
Note that I said course material, not books, this is different.
Course material helps to bring someone up to speed, in some
very pointed discipline where they might not exist text book yet.
The value added by the MOOC, is that
some of this information is pre-processed by the professor.
The professor stands between all that information and
the student to help the student navigate it.
Also, the student benefits immediately from an instant study group.
And like if they go to the library to borrow a book.
Now this begs the question of why would
anyone go through the effort of taking a MOOC?
Well there are simply many reasons.
One of them is just fun, some people are just curious.
But one of them touches on the second reason why MOOCs arrive now.
Well pretty simply, it used to be that you could do a whole career in one company.
A few decades ago, that was possible but that's certainly not true anymore.
It also used to be that you could do a whole career
out of one degree, and that's becoming less and less possible now.
Essentially, in the modern professional world, you need to adapt.
More and more, what matters is the individual's ability
to navigate this new landscape by acquiring new skills.
Obviously MOOCs can help with that.
The big question that is left with MOOCs, is how to translate these new skills into
meaningful certificates, so the individual can actually leverage
this training to a new job more easily.
If you're a university professor, this is true for you as well.
You need to adapt yourself to the
revolution in your profession, that are MOOCs.
If your tenured, you actually have no incentive to do this
except if you want to do a better job when teaching.
If you are not tenured yet the reality is that you have every
disincentive to follow this evolution, and rock the boat at your own institution.
Because you are always at risk for being assessed
using older criteria that don't account for the new technologies.
Now, I need to clarify one more thing now.
To me, the fact that all this education
is distributed for free and can benefit people.
All over the world in myriads of ways, is absolutely, phenomenally great.
And it will dramatically affect society as well.
I don't want to downplay this.
But it's really important to understand that this is
purely and entirely a side effect, a nice side effect
but it is a side effect, of the main commercial
focus, which is higher education and employment in developed markets.