Proponents and practitioners of the open web also bear responsibility for the missed opportunities in higher education. In retrospect, temperamental preferences for DIY culture, relentless tinkering and experimentation, and indulging the delightful paradoxes of ill-structured problems has not served to promote the adoption of open online tools in the wider culture. Whereas innovators and early adopters tend to have a relatively high tolerance for chaos, higher education as a whole does not (and arguably cannot). Railing against the academy's failure to embrace a perceived risk can be dismal fun for many of us, but an honest appraisal of our own missteps has to be in the mix.
The focus is however mostly on the high profile xMOOC interpretations of Coursera, edX etc rather than on the more undercover collaborative MOOCs offered by networks of teachers.
The irony is worth underlining: the OpenEd community, whose major criticism of MOOCs is that they enshrine the one-way, rigid lecture format, was asked not to respond via the open web while Ng was lecturing to them over a video link.
Our increasing inability to view globalised higher education from any perspective other than that of competing nation states in a transnational system, and of universities as competing capitals inside that world-view, is highlighted by Matt Lingard’s report on the Universities UK event, Open and online learning: Making the most of Moocs and other models. Critically, Lingard highlights how MOOCs are being utilised to catalyse further marketisation of education in the global North with the on-line space being used less as a socially transformative experience, and more as a space for public/private partnership, in order to lever global labour arbitrage and strengthen the transnational power of specific corporations:
Universities have failed to recognize the pent-up demand for learning as the economy has diversified and society has become more complex and interconnected. As a consequence, the internet has contributed by creating a shadow education system where learners learn on their own and through social networks. MOOCs reflect society’s transition to a knowledge economy and reveal the inadequacy of existing university models to meet learner’s needs.
A very capitalist take on moocs and open education. Yes a lot that is significant has happened very fast. But Bezos and Gates are not universally regarded as forces for good. Money is not everything.
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Higher education has never been primarily about learning actual things or actual skills. It has always been (and I mean all the way to the first universities) about peer acceptance for the graduates and meeting the requirements of the institution for the students. That’s not to say that a lot of people don’t learn lots of useful things while attending university. But if that was enough lawyers wouldn’t need the bar, doctors wouldn’t need their residency and university teachers would not have to learn everything all over again when they start teaching a new subject.
Mills continued his conscilience by saying that he is skeptical about a lot of university instruction. But I think that is the wrong approach to take. University instruction has always been just abominable. The vast majority of classes most university students have attended throughout history were taught by drones more or less competent in their subject sometimes reading out of a textbook sometimes cracking a joke. If that really mattered how would have we ever gotten to where we are now? Massive innovation and erudition as far as the eye can see. Even those we disagree with (like the neocons and creationists for me) cannot really be accused of a lack of intelligence or erudition. We talk about the need for better historical education but some of the worst political decisions have been taken by people who studied history meticulously (and it’s no good saying “if they had only read that one paper I wrote on that issue”). We talk about the need for better science education but some of the best innovations have come out of school drop outs who flunked the foundational STEM subjects. Why on earth would we think tinkering around with instruction would make a dent in any of that?
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