Is MOOC more than just a buzzword?

With MIT topping the world university rankings, MOOCs are back in the headlines. This buzzword needs interrogation, says Bonnie Stewart, or risk acting as a Trojan horse for the sector
When I first pitched my blog series, Postcards from the Participatory, I intended it to be a collection of narratives exploring Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) from the inside. I was engaged in the almost year-long #change11 MOOC, and I wanted to explore how the experience intersected with – and departed from – my teaching and learning within university walls. I thought the series might share a few stories about the resonances and challenges of participatory education, and explore the implications of distributed learning networks for conventional higher education. Basically, I thought it was time for higher education to start thinking about MOOCs.