Dive Brief:
- Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jonathan Freedman argues that MOOCs are here to stay because they appeal to the American view of learning as practical and commoditized.
- Freedman says MOOCs are just the latest way to bring "watered-down versions" of knowledge and culture to wide audiences, but he's not against them in all cases.
- He sees MOOCs as having a role in spreading knowledge, but not as a substitute for a genuine university, where human interaction and scholarship are paramount.
Dive Insight:
Freedman's essay is well worth reading for passages like this: "Yes, the vulgarians who run Coursera and Udacity deserve to be swept into the dustbin of history, and the fact that they seem not to have figured out how to profit from their enterprises suggests that they'll soon be hoist by their own capitalist petard. When they are, the real action can begin. As the history professor Jonathan Rees puts it, the fast-approaching post-corporate-MOOC world 'will almost certainly be a period of real pedagogical innovation conducted by people who are more interested in actual education than they are in becoming famous or just making a quick buck.' "