A Future for Online Learning

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.--Rabindranath Tagore

Courtesy: gettingsmart.com

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - MOOC. That's not a noisy cow. It's the latest rage in American online education.

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are the new kid on the block. MOOCs have already developed both enthusiastic fans and stern critics.

A massive open online course (MOOC) is aimed at large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web.

A MOOC allows anyone with an internet connection to take college courses for free. Last year, companies such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX began partnerships with major universities and colleges to offer a wide range of courses online.

Its fans say that MOOCs are being offered as the best and brightest breakthrough since the printing press.

The critics respond saying they're reforming education for the wrong reasons.

Michael Gecan, an organizer with Industrial Areas Foundation for over 25 years and author of After America’s Midlife Crisis and Going Public, says "The creations of technology titans at prestigious universities, MOOCs are underwritten by cutting-edge investment firms in the Silicon Valley.”

Gecan believes that university presidents feel compelled to include the increasing use of online instruction as one of their core commitments.

Gecan's objection is that "the MOOC movement is built on a set of very shaky assumptions. One is the notion that education is merely the transfer of information. Another is that information can be transferred more efficiently by an online presentation than by a teacher in a classroom. A third is that one celebrity professor performing for the online masses is more effective than one hundred capable professors in front of one hundred gatherings of students. All of these assumptions are untested."

Not quite accurate. Education by MOOCs is not “merely a transfer of information.” Saying it is doesn’t make it so.

Second, education is “transferred more efficiently” by outstanding teachers reaching more students.

Third, “one celebrity professor performing for online masses” is more effective than hundreds of dullards delivering the equivalent of sleeping pills to their classes.

"MOOCs are controversial," says Cliff Smart, President of Missouri State University. "Nationally, some faculty see them as a means to trim staff or as a betrayal of the face-to-face Socratic method of teaching."

On the positive side, comments Smart, "Others are more supportive, arguing that higher education has out-priced itself; students graduate with staggering debt; and it’s possible that within a few years employers focused on job skills will consider MOOC certificates like academic degrees."

The secret to the continued success of MOOCs will be their use of outstanding teachers captivating the full attention of students, presenting truly outstanding lectures, and making the programs available for student review.

This potential for MOOCs has been a favourite prospect of mine for many years. It started three or four decades ago while viewing a number of educational films produced by the BBC.

The presentations were on topics that might have been terribly boring from other presenters, but the speakers and the BBC made the film series into the most interesting learning experiences anyone could wish for.

At the time, I thought "This is the future of education.” It has taken years for a number of leading universities to come to the same conclusion.

Leading universities like Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created wildly successful MOOCs, featuring outstanding faculty and programs in courses that draw tens of thousands of students from around the world.

The future of learning needs fine tuning, but MOOCs are its beacon.

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com