A MOOC Backlash?

By Jonathan Haber. "Faculty Backlash Grows Against Online Partnerships" announces the Chronicle of Higher Education (in a section that includes several stories on schools slowing down or halting some aspect of their involvement with MOOC-related projects). Tales of MOOC skeptics and low completion rates dot the Inside Higher Ed technology pages. And stories of MOOCs in the New York Times seem to be focusing less on Friedmanian enthusiasm and more on the wary glances faculties are giving the new technology. Last summer, when I was creating a course on critical thinking (tied to the 2012 Presidential election), I did segments on Media Literacy and Information Literacy, which ended with an analysis of a specific issue that taught me to avoid confusing momentum a particular storyline was getting in the news with an actual trend. And in the case of MOOCs, the negative stories that have been appearing lately no more spell doom than all those positive stories we saw last year meant a new educational era was in the offing. Read more...