Stop polarising the MOOCs debate - University World News - 3 views
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And thus – for MOOC lovers and MOOCs haters alike – an important rhetorical point we should all be emphasising, in every conversation: in the complex, changing world in which we live, advanced learning is necessary. Not a luxury. It deserves the public support of other necessities. Advanced education is far too important to price out of the market for all but the global 1%.
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If the question is, "is higher education worth it?" we know from the massive enrolment in online courses that the answer is a resounding "yes". It is also significant that world history courses are enrolling as many students as Python's open source software. People want higher learning.
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The academic conversation on MOOCs is starting to polarise in exactly the talking-past-one-another way that so many complex conversations evolve: with very smart points on either side, but not a lot of recognition that the validity of certain key points on one side does not undermine the validity of certain key points on the other. I regret this flattening of online learning into a simple binary of 'politically and financially motivated greed' on the one hand and 'an opportunity to find out more about learning' on the other. Some of both in different situations can be true.
