By Bonnie Stewart. Understanding MOOCs as a battle between marketization and traditional higher education blocks us from envisioning other viable futures for higher education. In the ongoing buzz and backlash around MOOCs (massive open online courses) clogging higher education news these days, the narratives are hardening. Dialogue around change in higher education increasingly centres on the illusion of a simple divide: the business model of disruption vs. the status quo of college, idealized. One side heralds revolution and increased democratic access to education: a glorious future, largely defined in corporate terms. The other side, unswayed by business jargon, defends its historical territory by painting MOOCs as corporate behemoths of privatization and bad online pedagogy.There’s truth on both sides. But taken up as the two poles of a binary horizon, these narratives stifle vision. They incline us to understand the big picture around MOOCs – and whatever follows MOOCs in the flavor of the month parade – as one of marketization vs. traditional institutional education, full-stop. That binary stands in the way of envisioning viable alternate futures for higher education. Read more...
