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The article discusses the online learning website Coursera, which was founded by Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller in an attempt to provide free online courses. The services are offered to and taken by students from around world, and Ng and Koller believe that their method is changing traditional standards for lecturing by forcing students to be interactive and engaged during the lecture. Topics include how Coursera will ultimately earn revenue, the economic benefit of online education for top-level universities, and a list of other free online education programs, including EDX, the Minerva Project, and Udacity

"Professors might be surprised by what the data tell them. Eric Mazur, a professor of physics at Harvard, drew murmurs from the crowd-which mostly consisted of Harvard and MIT faculty members-when he showed research indicating that students at a lecture have brain activity roughly equivalent to when they watch television." - this doesn't seem to surprising. There are some other interesting ideas mentioned like "Maybe we could have 100 people register for a seminar," Mr. Rabkin said. The students could work through the first 12 weeks independently and online, "and that teacher can finish the seminar five different times in the course of a 15-week semester, spending the last three weeks with each of those groups of 20."

I agree with this brain activity finding. Students constantly come to me and say "I understand what you are saying in class but when you ask me questions outside of class I do not know what to do." They are not paying attention. Even when I teach to the test, the results from online questions are equivalent (I need to check this formally). This has forced me to rely more on solving open ended problems in groups and getting students to write their own answers. So my principles class is turning into a first year problem solving seminar!

Liberal arts colleges explore uses of 'blended' online learning

An interesting position paper from some of the largest universities in the country on online collaboration, MOOCs and educational technology companies.

"San Jose State University on Tuesday announced a deal with Udacity, a major MOOC player, to create a pilot program of three online, entry-level courses that will cost students $150 to take and lead to university-awarded academic credits if passed. San Jose State professors will teach the courses while Udacity contributes the platform and staff support, including mentors who will help track and encourage students' progress."

"My concern is that in most cases the online initiatives are not being done in a way that incorporates the online education into the educational mission of the institution - it is a financial, not educational advance."

"But thus far little attention has been paid to the quality of MOOCs. Quality in online learning can be defined in many ways: quality of content, quality of design, quality of instructional delivery, and, ultimately, quality of outcomes."

More relevant to the Massively Open Online Community courses (MOOCs) being piloted in higher education, a team of researchers from that replacing a physics teacher with lectures from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist nearly doubled test scores [PDF] http://www.um.es/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c538d7e7-52a4-4f9a-93c7-92ac04c80b06&groupId=115466 

Wow! We did this at the same time!!!! Yep, credit is currency and it will generate the change.....If a students comes in with MOOC and AP credit what happens?