So I
‘ve been dealing a lot with MOOCs lately, trying to figure out how they work, what they are, and what some good/bad examples would be. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that MOOC has reached buzzword status and it is being used well beyond what I believe the intent of the word was.
Looking at the announcement that California was looking towards MOOCs I noticed there were a few things wrong with that statement.
First let’s look at the first letter of MOOC, it stands for Massive. If the university is capping enrollment at 100 students how is that Massive? Secondly, Open usually implies free, so is charging a $150 fee really Open?
Not to say that this initiative isn’t a good idea, or that it won’t be successful, it just isn’t a MOOC. As universities look towards the MOOC-model for their online offerings I believe we have reached a point where a new term will need to be coined. It probably won’t be as buzzworthy as MOOC, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing….