MOOC:

The New Revolution in Education is Here Host: Hi everyone. It is a pleasure to have you join us today as we talk about a new form

of learningMOOC. This year, the world of education saw a revolution with the development of MOOC. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. According to the New York Times, Coursera, one of the leading MOOC providers, reached a million users within the first four months. MOOCs are different from traditional college courses in that they are free or low-cost, online and open to anyone just as the name implies. 370,000 students were enrolled in the first official class offered by EdX, a MOOC provider founded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The growing usage of MOOCs has many advantages that will impact the world on both personal and societal levels. With MOOC provider websites growing faster than Facebook in membership, MOOC as a popular form of learning will transform the world, starting from more educated individuals and extending to the wider society. First of all, the offering of MOOCs benefits both postsecondary institutions and students. Since MOOCs are free or low-cost, students can obtain a great education with minimal cost. Although accreditation still remains a problem for MOOC companies, Ms. Koller, the co-founder of Coursera, thinks that MOOCs will gain increasing recognition from institutions and more schools will be giving credits for MOOC courses. In fact, a college in Los Angeles has recently agreed to give credits for students who complete any of the two approved MOOCs from Coursera taught by professors from University of Pennsylvania, according to the New York Times. From an institutions perspective, giving credits for MOOCs can lift some of the tuition burden off of its current and prospective students,

enticing more students to enroll in the institution. An increase in accreditation of MOOCs is going to draw more students, who would not have otherwise been able to afford a degree, to residential postsecondary institutions. The other advantage of MOOCs is that a less- prominent university or a community college can offer its students a world-class education for a one-time licensing fee that is comparatively insignificant. Its students become better educated and potentially more successful in their future careers. In turn, the brand image of the school improves and the schools endowment grows. It is really a win-win for both the students and the postsecondary institutions that are partnering with MOOC-providing companies. In addition, MOOCs can help students by connecting them to a global social network. Intuitively, one may think that by not having classrooms, MOOC students will not get individual attention and interactive opportunities. However, MOOC providers have set up many tools such as Google Hangouts, discussion forums and Facebook pages where students can interact and help each other. The professors also browse these pages regularly to answer good questions. Today we have with us a current student from the University of Notre Dame, who have personally taken MOOCs, to share with us her experience. Guest: Thank you for having me here. My name is Lydia Dansen and I have taken courses A Crash Course on Creativity and Technology Entrepreneurship through Stanford Univesitys Venture Lab last semester. I can testify to how MOOCs allow students to build connections with an even more diverse group than they can at a regular college. For the Technology Entrepreneurship course I took, students had to form teams of up to five people to

complete the group assignments. My group consisted of a regional financial manager at Xerox, a business professor from India, an experienced consultant from Germany, another business professional living in Australia and myself, a freshman at the University of Notre Dame. I would never have encountered such a diverse group of professionals if I took this course on a college campus. Working with them, I was able to learn more about how to put together a high quality business plan than I would if I had worked with other college students. Host: Wow, that sounds like a very enriching experience indeed. Thank you for sharing it

with us, Lydia. Through MOOCs, students are able to construct valuable social connections and this gives the MOOC-takers who do not have a degree an employment advantage. For college- aged students who have clear career paths in mind and do not want to involve themselves in the extracurricular and research opportunities available in a traditional college, MOOCs may be a great alternative that will provide these students with great educations and global connections. The benefits of MOOCs exceed the individual level and help the society as a whole by making top-notch education available to the mass public. Demographics research done by EdX reveals that around 30% of the students who performed well in its first official MOOC offering did not have a bachelors degree and that around 50% of the students who completed the course were 26 or older. These statistics show how people who have not had the privilege to receive a solid education or who are not at the college-age are still dedicated to learning. MOOCs make high-quality education accessible to people of all ages

and all socioeconomic backgrounds provided they have access to a computer and the internet. Because of MOOCs, increasingly more people are becoming more knowledgeable. As people become more educated, they become more productive in the workplace as they have more tools with which to solve problems. By improving the overall education level of the population, MOOCs are increasing productivity in the world. Thus, they are changing the world for the better. This large-scale societal impact gives MOOCs the ability to transform the world. Notwithstanding, MOOCs as a new form of learning still has issues to be addressed. One major technical difficulty MOOCs face is unlimited online enrollment. While traditional courses enforce a limit on enrollment, a single MOOC can attract over 15,000 students to take the course at the same time according to Inside Higher Ed, making MOOCs harder to manage than traditional courses. For example, it is very difficult to administer regular exams with free response questions on them. Since the courses are taken online, the proctoring of exams to prevent cheating is a tricky one. This means that grades are hard to assign. However, MOOCs as a concept is still at its development stage. I believe that with the constant technological advancements, these technical issues will be resolved. In conclusion, MOOCs are going to positively change the world. While taking online courses cannot substitute a residential college experience that includes extracurricular and leadership opportunities, a MOOC experience has significant advantages compared to many traditional courses in terms of quality of education, affordability and building global connections. By making top-notch education accessible to more people, MOOCs provide more educated individuals and more productive workers to the society. The world will, in turn, see increased development and innovations in all fields.

 Works Cited

Kolowich, Steve. "The MOOC Surviors." Inside Higher Ed. N.p., 12 Sept. 2012. Web. 16 Feb. 2013. Lewin, Tamar. "Students Rush to Web Classes, But Profits May Be Much Later." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 06 Jan. 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2013. Pappano, Laura. "The Year of the MOOC." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 02 Nov. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.