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.