MOOCs undermine the public higher education sector

By Irene Ogrizek. “Nothing about our current Industrial Age education system, with its silo'd knowledge and emphasis on professionalism, is designed for adaptation to rapid change, interactive thinking, iterative process, or collaborative methodologies, all informed by deeply humanistic and social attention to such major issues as intellectual property, security, privacy, freedom, and even the definition of the ‘self’. Everyday life and everyday work brings most of us into constant contact with these issues. And education? Hardly at all.”
This is our current and sorry state of education according to Cathy N Davidson, professor of English and interdisciplinary studies at Duke University. She makes these assertions in an article intended to calm the storm swirling around MOOCs – massive open online courses – and the threat they pose to universities. Read more...