To MOOC or not to MOOC? That is the question

I have been very skeptical about the government (in Michigan at least) pushing for online courses as a substitute to fully-funding public education. The way this effort is being lobbied in the legislature, you can almost see the profit making corporations hovering like vultures before they settle down to eat the spoils. The profit-making aspect of online education is as bad of an idea as Charter Schools are; they take a public good and turn it into a profit making institution. Any economist worth its salt can tell you that a public institution is more efficient and effective than any profit based institution. But effectiveness and efficiency is not what is being sold by our State government and our electorate, more leaning toward ignorance and ambivalence, believe it. 


But I had an epiphany last night, while doing my evening routine of scanning through online newspapers, and while my 11 year old son working online through edmodo.org as part of doing his school work (all the while thinking, I’m sure, of how to best to beat some of his X-Box games) and while my wife, who will be laid off from her job, was going though online training in an effort to retrain herself for a new job. I came to the conclusion that a MOOC-like instructional support for students K-12 is what our public schools need. If we could only capture a fraction of the interest and addiction that kids display to video games like “Call to Duty,” for a MOOC-like instructional support, they could be doing college level work by middle school.

What is a MOOC, you ask? A MOOC ( Massive Open Online Course) is the first step toward the transformation of our upper-level educational system; the future way of higher learning not only for Colleges and Universities, but also for the Trades, Continuing Education, and Corporate training. It is the future of education being started today. Did you know that anybody can go and take just about any college class for free! And, I'm not talking about classes from “questionable”profit organizations like Phoenix University or Baker College.  I am talking courses from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, as well as public institutions like University of Michigan, San Jose State, Berkley, UCLA, etc. You can learn to your heart’s content and not pay a dime (well there may be some nominal fee of $10 – to - $50 bucks for a certificate or other things, but it is a long way from the semester tuition you would have to pay).

Of course, there is a catch, as Rumpelstiltskin indicates in the TV show ONCE Upon a Time: “All magic comes with a price.” In this case, the catch is that the MOOC system is so new and growing so fast that no one has figured out how to link a college degree with learning. You can get certificates of course completion and some employers accept that as training for some cases. Some Universities will accept the coursework for a degree and they charge a fee –much less than the normal tuition. But for what I envision, that is not a problem.

My vision is having a MOOC-like system not to replace our current K-12 education, but to supplement it. Although there may be some cases where school requirements could be met through MOOC, but the greatest value is the complementary and supplementary support that a MOOC-like system would give to the kids. Not only can it consist of standard tutorials, but I see it also evolving into game-like approach that would use game programs akin to the X-Box and PS4 games that addict kids into their game world. Imagine kids addicted to learning!

This is a great opportunity for an entrepreneur; development of game like educational materials. Also it is a great opportunity for PhD-level academic research: How and why are kids addicted to these games and how do we best adopt it to a K-12 learning environment. I think we still need a classroom because there is other valuable learning from teachers, but in our fast paced world the kids and the teachers need some help.