Dive Summary:
- Bonnie Stewart, a PhD student at the University of Prince Edward Island, writes for The Guardian, arguing that massive open online course (MOOC) critics should focus less on buzzwords and apocalyptic predictions and more on the larger conversation about what is happening in academia.
- She stresses that MOOCs do not inherently need to replace human teachers with robotic grading systems and instruction resources.
- In her experience, Stewart says that MOOCs have worked to "build sites for participatory conversation and networking around emergent technologies, practices, and ideas."
From the article:
"... MOOCs will not inherently gut faculty positions in higher education. They do not have automation and robot grading built into their conceptual structure. They certainly offer the capacity for these things, if backed by scale and prestige and neoliberal values of efficiency and market niche domination: they offer the potential to look like disruptive innovation while consolidating the market interests of elite brands within higher education. Udacity's partnership with Pearson? ..."