L'éthique des Moocs

A MOOC Delusion: Why Visions to Educate the World Are Absurd - WorldWise The following is a guest post by Ghanashyam Sharma, an assistant professor in writing and rhetoric at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. —————————————————————————————— As The Chronicle recently reported, perhaps the most prominent motivation among professors at prestigious universities for teaching massively open online courses, or MOOCs, is “altruism—a desire to increase access to higher education worldwide.” In itself, the desire to increase access to quality education for millions across the world is a laudable one. After seven years of being within American academe, first as a graduate student and now as an instructor, I share that desire. But I don’t share the delusion that seems to be the basis for the excitement over MOOCs among my colleagues here in the United States. Let me explain why I used such a strong word as “delusion” with the help of a brief personal story. There has been some conversation about this in venues like The Chronicle. Return to Top

MOOC's and the McDonaldization of Global Higher Education - WorldWise We’ve been treated to a rash of stories about how new technological models for higher education raise questions about the viability of the traditional campus. After all, why invest in an elaborate physical plant when virtual education can effectively expand your reach exponentially? This is of particular interest for global education and multinational universities, as the expense and difficulty of establishing foreign educational outposts may make virtual options seem even more attractive. At this point, though, it’s hard to see how massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, can be the silver bullet to developing globally engaged students or institutions. To be clear and to set aside a straw-man argument, we don’t believe that MOOC’s were established with global engagement in mind. However, they have become popular in overseas markets (for example, 61.5 percent of Coursera’s enrollments come from outside the United States). What do we mean by global engagement? Return to Top

MOOCs may eye the world market, but does the world want them? Online higher education is increasingly hailed as a chance for educators in the developed world to expand access and quality across the globe. Yet it may not be quite so easy. Not only does much of the world not have broadband or speak English, but American-made educational material may be unfit for and unwanted in developing countries, according to academics who have worked for years on online distance education and with open educational resources, or OER. Their experience raises questions about a utopian vision. Some educators worry a one-way transfer of educational materials from the rich north to the poor south will amount to a wave of “intellectual neo-colonialism.” Lani Gunawardena is the co-author of a forthcoming book on global culture and online education. The African Virtual University was created based on work the World Bank began in 1995 to provide education in sub-Saharan African. “People got up and said, ‘Well, is this one course to rule them all? Online Learning Cultures