Thursday, March 07, 2013

Oh, MOOCs! I wish I knew how to quit you.

I feel like a broken record or maybe an animated gif. Maybe the MOOC cheerleading  will settle down, I think--and then Thomas Friedman. You know--the MOOC cheerleading piece that Historiann rightly took down in her post yesterday.

I've exhausted just about all the reasons I can think of--and Jonathan Rees has (more elegantly) covered the rest--but here is another one:

What about employers? There's a compelling little graphic over at CHE titled "Employers Prefer All Types of Colleges--Except Online."  Public flagships rate first.  Online universities rank dead last. Heck, they aren't even in the same quadrant.

Now, MOOCs are not the University of Rising Mythical Bird or other for-profits, but except in technical fields, where the appeal of having computer geniuses rise through the MOOC ranks based on sheer talent makes some sense, are employers likely to hire MOOC-certified people who have badges instead of degrees? In this job market?

Is Stanford going to hire its Coursera grads to work at the university in the B.A.-level jobs it has open?

If you want to see any of those posts, here are some:

On MOOCs as "in-person lecture to 35 students BAD, video lecture to 14,000 students GOOD"

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/11/wapo-things-to-learn-from-mooc-pedagogy.html

On MOOCs as a mechanism to sell textbooks: 
http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/09/can-moocs-sell-textbooks-king-gillette.html

On MOOCs as creating a two-tier educational system, or Eloi and Morlocks: 
Would little Charles and Alexandra Wealthyname be headed for a MOOC, or is that just for the rest of us?

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/05/come-revolution-university-could.html (With a bonus appearance starring Thomas Friedman's special brand of cheerleading).

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/05/nicholas-lemann-on-higher-ed.html

On MOOCs, credit, and high-status brand dilution:
http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-bother-calling-it-college-at-all.html

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/05/mooc-roundup.html

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2011/12/automated-learning-mitx-and-online.html


On professors as glorified tutors--"handmaidens to greatness"--in the MOOC model: 

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/05/more-questions-on-moocs.html (This one features Head MOOC Cheerleader David Brooks. He and Friedman ought to form a double act and take it on the road.)

http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2013/01/random-bullets-of-recommitting-to.html

On MOOC economics, or what will happen when MOOCs replace the gen ed courses that pay for all those fancy lab courses: 
http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2012/11/mooconomics-and-health-care-model.html

And one from 2011, touchingly (it seems now) called "Ever hear of a MOOC?"
http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2011/10/ever-hear-of-mooc.html

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:30 PM

    OT but I cannot figure out how to e-mail you.

    From the article: "In the end, the quadroon-plaçage myth is an Anglo-American (mis)interpretation
    of a French-Caribbean phenomenon."

    Journal of Social History is in Project Muse. The relevant issue is still embargoed in JSTOR (I think) but it is in PM.

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  2. Anonymous4:18 PM

    More OT: It seems that whole thing is the invention of uptight English speaking travelers, freaked out to see interracial relationships. These couples could not marry legally so they were common law. Historical record does not show men as being rich or women as being kept.

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  3. I wasn't doubting what you said, profacero, and will go to the article in Project Muse (we have it here, I think). I was just expressing surprise that GW Cable, among others, seemed so convinced about it.

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  4. Anonymous11:15 PM

    ...I know you're not doubting, I'm just enthused that someone else knows something about it. Cable, yes, it is weird, and Aslakson does not reference him. I have never read a full Cable novel and I clearly should; the more I look at it this allegedly Cuban novel published in N.Y. looks like some sort of mixture of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Grandissimes, etc. Besides Cable and Faulkner, what other American novels reference placage?

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  5. Anonymous10:05 AM

    And: more Moocs: http://freethoughtblogs.com/physioprof/2013/03/06/massive-on-line-open-course-mooc-based-higher-education-is-a-class-warfare-scam/

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  6. Anonymous11:42 AM

    I'm glad you've tackled the MOOC fiasco so I can stop foaming at the mouth. So many reasons they're offensive to the higher education goal of teaching critical thinking, historical perspective, and problem solving.

    Why not massive online flash card festivals? Let's give credit for those, too. In fact, let's stop having degrees. They're obsolete.

    Grrrr.

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