Thank you for reading my post and commenting. I find your remarks very interesting. Specifically: “who endures intellectual difficulty and risks being mistaken without the rewards of diploma or certificate?” I think this is a great question. I sometimes wonder: Is it idealistic, “arrogant” or both to think of education and learning in these terms (i.e., learning for the sake of learning)? For people who already have a degree, acquiring additional knowledge through less traditional venues might be one thing. For someone who has no formal education things could (understandably) be very different. All reasons are valid and commendable and I would never dare judge any of this anyways.

I guess what I do “resent” somewhat the intense focus on testing and the “vending machine” mentality (and this could be a media bias for covering only these types of initiatives.) As you say, “we’ve given up even imagining let alone believing […] that every unique idea need not be monetized and marketed.” That is so right. We can barely think about intrinsic motivation being a factor in our choices. I watched a YouTube video about Coursera over the weekend and, at some point, the speaker says, referring to credits/certificates: “Students were getting something meaningful for their investment of time and effort.” I was very surprised to hear the word “meaningful.” I think the word “practical” or “tangible”… would have worked better for me.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FvJ6jMGHU&feature=youtu.be&a

Anyways, thank you for your thought-provoking comments.

Nice blog. I expect the MOOC label will be adopted by many delivery structures that may stray a long way from spirit of the (what else can we call them?) connectivist MOOCs. The current attention is fleeting and driven by the brand power of the big institutions’ names being associated with MOOCs. Domesticated MOOCs are built on standards of delivery and assessment that is commonly understandable. The originals require effort to figure out. They represent models of education that are hard to explain in short essays and refuse to throw off hard or quantifiable results that are associated with education.

I mean, who endures intellectual difficulty and risks being mistaken without the rewards of diploma or certificate? Who goes to school to learn how to think–we all can think can’t we? How can anything of value emerge from something that is free to participants? MOOCs represent a concept of value that we’ve given up even imagining let alone believing: that there are common values; that every unique idea need not be monetized and marketed, or that real change can occur without looking like a replica of what we know doesn’t work but this time it will.

Thanks for the blog, very thoughtful.

From my perspective, I am a bit cautious about the hype for xMOOCs. I agree with the problems that can be problematic in the future.
However, I would like to address on of them. Finding financial model. As an example of Udacity – it has found a revenue model, taking example from open source model. They want to become apart from free online university also a kind of recruiting organization. From the alumni of the first artificial intelligence classes one thousand best students were send an invitation to provide their CVs which were then attached to the professors recommendation and send to over a dozen head-hunters/recruiters agencies. As I learned in US a person who is successfully recommending a future employee can earn 10%-30% of that person’s annual earning (correctly if I’m wrong). That’s a fair way of financing a free university I think.

If you are interested you can read the blog post here: http://www.krollab.pl/2012/07/degree-at-stanford-harvard-mit-lets.html

Agree with you that MOOCs could use a bit more structure for the learner. As self-directed as I can be there are times when I’d really like help or to offer help. Social learning suggests working with others and there’s no ban on personally connecting to others in the MOOC rules but I think time constraints don’t allow the luxury of building relationships. Even extended MOOCs like Change 11 seemed fractionated and I wonder if this isn’t our habits as participants developed over years of bracketed learning moments in the form of classes that limits our ability to build and nurture contacts?

Is there any reason why MOOCs or any educational experience can’t be a continuous process that spans at least the time it takes to establish solid contacts? Or would this just freeze into norms and stale conversations without constant turn-over?

And (dangerous ground here) MOOCs may simply not be everyone’s cup of tea. Especially in a society like Canada or the US where the public schools serve up texture-less brain-sop. If some effort isn’t put back into the K to 12 system, there won’t be any demand for MOOCs, or any other version of higher education.

Laurie, I think you’ve hit on one of the key weaknesses of the MOOC model in and of itself–lack of formalized structure for the learner and directed social engagement. But you’ve also identified one of the critical potentials of the connectivist model of MOOCs that Siemens and others propose. As I understand it, even the /organization/ of learning can (and, indeed, should) be “open”. This facilitates–if not forces–learner-directed structuring, organization, and application. This, theoretically, could lead to greater meaningfulness through personalization.

But, while I applaud your intent to self-organize useful learning communities to focus or even amplify the power of the Coursera MOOC, I worry that you are the minority, and most learners will flounder without direct guidance.

This is just one of many important questions that need to be answered by MOOC researchers and practitioners.