MOOCs were propagated as alternative to traditional higher education. Not just something educated people use to add to their education, but something an uneducated person with high school diploma can use to get equivalent of college. I remember reading those optimistic articles.
At that it failed. It is not cheaper education for non traditional non full time student with lack of money. They drop out faster or equally fast then non traditional students on colleges (who drop out a a lot too).
It is great free easy to use option for educated professional through. But, that was not original sell.
> Not just something educated people use to add to their education, but something an uneducated person with high school diploma can use to get equivalent of college.
It seems premature to say that it isn't provided that. You have your entire life to gain a college-level education. The primary reason that brick and mortar schooling is provided up front, in a relatively short span of time, is because it is impractical to visit that brick and mortar school on a regular basis throughout your entire life. Like the article points out, a major hurdle for a large segment of the population in accessing brick and mortar schooling is proximity to those brick and mortar schools.
Online learning has no such constraints. You can be out in the middle of nowhere and still pop into class whenever you feel like it. If it takes you 80 years to complete your college-level studies, great. To say that is a failure, only a few years after becoming available, seems to miss the point of what alternative means. If a MOOC had to be exactly like brick and mortar schooling, it wouldn't be an alternative, it would be the same thing.
Although I concede that a fatal flaw of MOOCs is that there are an infinite number of options online. While it may be impractical to visit 100 different brick and mortar schools to see who teaches a specific topic the best, online it is easy to do so and can be done in an instant. With that, there is no incentive to go through your studies only in one spot that can be tracked by a single entity. This makes it challenging from a business perspective, but not an education perspective.
>The primary reason that brick and mortar schooling is provided up front, in a relatively short span of time, is because it is impractical to visit that brick and mortar school on a regular basis throughout your entire life.
I would rather say it's because neuroplasticity is high until you're still relatively young. In later years it takes more effort to learn and retain.
At that it failed. It is not cheaper education for non traditional non full time student with lack of money. They drop out faster or equally fast then non traditional students on colleges (who drop out a a lot too).
It is great free easy to use option for educated professional through. But, that was not original sell.