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Commentary on: "MOOCs and The Change of Higher Education" by Stefan Popenici

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By Rory McGreal August 21, 2013 - 3:45pm

 Thanks to Luis Guadamarra for pointing out this article.

Comments on "MOOCs and The Change of Higher Education" by Stefan Popeneci

http://popenici.com/2013/08/21/shmoocs/?goback=.gde_2842637_member_267471107#!

I believe this is a good article about the MOOC phenomenon, particularly his criticisms of adminstrators supporting MOOCs but not knowing how to press "Like" on Facebook.  I also liked his support for educators and educational researchers, but this is needed in traditional education enviroments as much as in MOOCs.
Although I believe that he is making a "straw dog" argument (No one is saying that MOOCs are a "silver bullet" as a solution for education.) His cautions are worth considering. I particularly like this quote:
"Questions remain unanswered, but the overall discussion provides in the current context a more nuanced analysis and possible solutions."
MOOCs are not "the answer". Traditional education is not the perfect form either. There is no business case for MOOCs yet. Other than subsidies from government, there is no business case for traditional education either. For the most part, private universities depend on public subsidies as do public institutions. We need more nuanced analysis and understanding of the requirements for quality, cost-effective online learning and online assessment and accreditation. But to do this we need to experiment, different types of MOOCs as well as other forms of online learning can provide us with research questions and answers to these questions.