Why Use a Typewriter When You Can Use a Computer?

By Carol Levander. Why is a small, highly ranked residential university like Rice — a school that prides itself on a small student/faculty ratio and that has, according to the Princeton Review, the happiest students — elbow deep in developing MOOCS? This is the question that I inevitably get asked the minute I mention Rice’s partnerships with Coursera and Edx. And it’s a logical question, for at first glance the MOOC world, with its global delivery, open enrollment, and high attrition rates seems to be at dramatic odds with the highly selective residential four-year learning ecosystem that schools like Rice deliver to the small number of students who are accepted each year. Read more...