"at the end of the day they aren't better than normal lectures and are actually a bit worse"
True, however I see the value in replacing horrible lectures. I haven't seen a MOOC with truly awful video lectures, yet.
However I personally attended classes where both the prof and the TA for all practical purposes didn't speak English. Given a well written syllabus and a non-MOOC lecture series like the MIT OCW calculus where you can search and skip around and pick the lecture to match your syllabus, you don't really need an English speaking prof or TA...
"if they plan to replace colleges" higher ed was originally an aspirational good where the smart and non-rich aspired to hang out with the rich. I don't think allowing any idiot to watch videos for free is quite the same business model.
Also I think it weird that most of the people discussing MOOC credentialing have clearly never heard of technical certificates. You can always identify the "insider techies" vs the "outsiders" by how people who don't know what the acronym CCNA stand for are mystified by how credentialing could happen, in contrast to the guys who got their CCNA in the 90s consider it merely business as usual and roll their eyes... another "future is already here, just not evenly distributed". Its hard to believe around a decade ago I was doing CCNA and CCNP tests online at prometric or whatever it was called. I see no particular reason prometric or whoever cannot offer a 32 test package where you get a BSCS equiv if you pass them all. If you eliminate the education and stick to training, thus eliminating the liberal arts classes, and skip the "see spot run" intro classes, a BSCS training equivalent is probably more like 10 to 15 tests not 32.
One big problem is Cisco tests used to be something like $250 and that kind of credentialing cost is rapidly approaching old fashioned school tuition.
True, however I see the value in replacing horrible lectures. I haven't seen a MOOC with truly awful video lectures, yet.
However I personally attended classes where both the prof and the TA for all practical purposes didn't speak English. Given a well written syllabus and a non-MOOC lecture series like the MIT OCW calculus where you can search and skip around and pick the lecture to match your syllabus, you don't really need an English speaking prof or TA...
"if they plan to replace colleges" higher ed was originally an aspirational good where the smart and non-rich aspired to hang out with the rich. I don't think allowing any idiot to watch videos for free is quite the same business model.
Also I think it weird that most of the people discussing MOOC credentialing have clearly never heard of technical certificates. You can always identify the "insider techies" vs the "outsiders" by how people who don't know what the acronym CCNA stand for are mystified by how credentialing could happen, in contrast to the guys who got their CCNA in the 90s consider it merely business as usual and roll their eyes... another "future is already here, just not evenly distributed". Its hard to believe around a decade ago I was doing CCNA and CCNP tests online at prometric or whatever it was called. I see no particular reason prometric or whoever cannot offer a 32 test package where you get a BSCS equiv if you pass them all. If you eliminate the education and stick to training, thus eliminating the liberal arts classes, and skip the "see spot run" intro classes, a BSCS training equivalent is probably more like 10 to 15 tests not 32.
One big problem is Cisco tests used to be something like $250 and that kind of credentialing cost is rapidly approaching old fashioned school tuition.