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And that's why we set objectives high, and we never set objectives in the way that they would prevent teachers [from using] their own capacity to broaden education.  We only talk about the objectives, not the methods of education.  Because teachers, if they have high-level education, should be given leeway enough to use their own innovation capacity.

The first course carrying the name MOOC was offered in 2008, so this is new phenomenon. Second, the pedagogical style of the early courses, which we shall call cMOOCs, was based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking. This is quite distinct from the xMOOCs now being developed by elite US institutions that follow a more behaviourist approach. Third, the few academic studies of MOOCs are about the earlier offerings because there has been no time for systematic research on the crop of 2012 xMOOCs. Analysis of the latter has to be based on a large volume of press articles and blogs. Fourth, commentary on MOOCs includes thinly disguised promotional material by commercial interests (e.g. Koller, 2012) and articles by practitioners whose perspective is their own MOOC courses.

The term MOOC originated in Canada. Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander coined the acronym to describe an open online course at the University of Manitoba designed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The course, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, was presented to 25 fee-paying students on campus and 2,300 other students from the general public who took the online class free of charge (Wikipedia, 2012a).

Can xMOOCs make money?

The new law signed today by the Governor ensures that parents and the general public can assess how schools across New York are performing. The law requires school districts and BOCES to fully disclose their evaluation results to the public and require requires the State Education Department to post and make widely available important data that will allow the public to analyze and compare how schools are performing. School districts and BOCES will also be required to notify and fully disclose to parents and legal guardians the final specific ratings and composite evaluation scores of the teachers and principals to which their student is assigned.

At SUNY, which has 468,000 students at 64 campuses, the Coursera partnership is tied to Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher’s announcement this year of Open SUNY, an online effort to enroll 100,000 new students and make it possible for a quarter of them to earn a degree in three years.

“We hope this will help public universities do more with the less they’re getting in state support,” Dr. Koller said.

Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another.

Students served as instructors to their classmates, and together they worked toward learning goals more effectively than if they had been provided with the answer by the instructor.

Half a million American children take classes online, with a significant group, like the Weldies, getting all their schooling from virtual public schools.

Florida Virtual School, the largest Internet public school in the country, more than 50,000 students are taking courses this year

About 90,000 children get their education from one of 185 such schools nationwide.

“It’s a cheap education, not because it benefits the students,” said Karen Aronowitz, president of the teachers’ union in Miami, where 7,000 high school students were assigned to study online in computer labs this year because there were not enough teachers to comply with state class-size caps. “This is being proposed for even your youngest students,” Ms. Aronowitz said. “Because it’s good for the kids? No. This is all about cheap.”

But administrators insisted that their chief motive was to enhance student learning, not save money in a year when the 108,000-student district is braced for cuts of $100 million and hundreds of jobs. “What the online environment does is continue to provide rich offerings and delivery systems to our students with these resource challenges,” said Irving Hamer, the deputy superintendent.

Teachers’ unions and others say much of the push for online courses, like vouchers and charter schools, is intended to channel taxpayers’ money into the private sector. “What they want is to substitute technology for teachers,” said Alex Molnar, professor of education policy at Arizona State University. In Idaho, Gov. C. L. Otter and the elected superintendent of public instruction, Tom Luna, both Republicans, promoted giving students laptops and requiring online courses. The State Legislature, pressed by critics who said the online mandate would cost teachers jobs, rejected it, but Mr. Luna said in an interview that he would propose it this summer through the State Board of Education, which supports him. “I have no doubt we’ll get a robust rule through them,” he said. Four online courses is “going to be the starting number.”

Growing public concern about student-data privacy is prompting fresh scrutiny of the ways technology vendors handle children's educational information—and opening the gates for a flood of new questions and worries from advocates and school officials.

"We're just scratching the surface with our understanding of how the education sector is gathering and looking to monetize student information," said Joel R. Reidenberg, a law professor at Fordham University, in New York, and Princeton University. "We as a society need to have a very clear discussion about how we want to protect the privacy of our children in this environment."

But many are concerned that the horse is already out of the barn. Last month, for example, Education Week

The course allows students to meet requirements by exercising how they want, when they want. They are required to work out hard for 30 minutes four times a week and report to their teachers by e-mail. Parents must certify that the students did the workouts.

Still, some committed online educators remain unconvinced. Tim Snyder, the executive director of Colorado Online Learning, which offers more than 50 online courses to Colorado schools, included physical education with studio art, marching band and the laboratory sciences as subjects best left to brick-and-mortar schools. "These are still better experienced in a hands-on setting," Dr. Snyder said. But online gym has prospered. That has been possible in part because physical education itself has evolved. Once a highly regimented class centered on team sports and competition, physical education now emphasizes healthy living and personal fitness, topics some see as eminently suited for independent Internet study.

Even the course's author, Brenda Corbin, who writes curriculums for the Minneapolis district, was dismissive at first. "I refused to be a part of it," Ms. Corbin said of her initial reaction a year ago, when Ms. Braaten and district administrators approached her about writing the physical education course. "How do you know they're really working out?" Ms. Corbin said she asked. But she later changed her mind. "I was uninformed about what you can do over the computer," she said.

This research would suggest that computer conferencing has considerable potential to create a community of inquiry for educational purposes.

As school districts across the country have faced budget gaps, they’ve been forced to cut back. Schools are eliminating programs and cutting teaching jobs and salaries – it’s clear that the U.S. public education system is facing problems. But Wozniak thinks that school systems have not “adapted to children’s needs,” and that computers could help to fill these gaps. Additionally, they could help schools save money. “If you had 30 teachers in a class with 30 students, they’d all get individual attention and be moving at their own paces,” Wozniak said. “So I think someday a computer could possibly be a teacher.”

“School in itself is pretty much a restrictive force on creativity,” he said. “When you come to class, you do the exact same pages in the book, the same hours as everyone else in the class. You don’t go off in your own little directions. This is not the way of the future.”

New technologies are beginning to mimic the capabilities of humans more than ever before. While technology and education experts agree that teachers won’t be replaced by robots anytime soon, computers have helped schools to make strides in student progress and achievement over the past few years. Tools like interactive online education platforms and online courses have demonstrated success, while also helping school districts save money. But to pinpoint successful educational technology, interactivity is key.

Figure 1Six types of parent involvementType 1:ParentingAssist families with parenting skills, family support, understanding child and adolescent development, and setting home conditions to support learning at each age and grade level. Assist schools in understanding families' backgrounds, cultures, and goals for children.Type 2:CommunicatingCommunicate with families about school programs and student progress. Create two-way communication between school and home.Type 3:VolunteeringImprove recruitment, training, activities, and schedules to involve families as volunteers and as audiences at the school. Enable educators to work with volunteers who support students and the school.Type 4:Learning at HomeInvolve families with their children in academic learning at home, including homework, goal setting, and other curriculum-related activities. Encourage teachers to design homework that enables students to share and discuss interesting tasks with parents.Type 5:Decision MakingInclude families as participants in school decisions, governance, and advocacy activities through school councils and improvement teams, committees, and parent organizations.Type 6:Collaborating with the CommunityCoordinate resources and services for families, students, and the school with community groups, including businesses, agencies, cultural and civic organizations, and colleges and universities. Enable all to contribute service to the community.

original target audience,

adult online students

students who attend fully online