International Impact of MOOCs Still Up in the Air - US News - 0 views
www.usnews.com/...t-of-moocs-still-up-in-the-air
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shared by Sasha Thackaberry on 07 Jul 14
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While the number of students taking MOOCs has exploded in the past few years, experts are divided on what impact the courses have had on international education opportunities.
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Advocates and creators of massive open online courses – the free courses open to anyone with an Internet connection – have high hopes for how the classes can help those hungry for a U.S.-style education.
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Most MOOC participants already have degrees and live in developed countries. "These online classes aren't really reaching the poor," Wildavsky says. "They aren't reaching the uneducated.
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"Courses requiring extremely specialized or expert knowledge grant people access to ideas and concepts that they might not ever encounter otherwise," Curtis Bonk, an education professor at Indiana University, said via email. "With such new learning opportunities, one’s sense of self or identity as a learner is enhanced.
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"It's easy to deflate the over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized the advent of MOOCs," Wildavsky wrote in a recent article. "But the developing world has much to gain from this new educational era."