{"id":929,"date":"2013-11-05T04:04:17","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T02:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.free.fr\/blog\/?p=929"},"modified":"2013-12-08T05:35:55","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T03:35:55","slug":"moocs-are-a-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/2013\/11\/05\/moocs-are-a-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"MOOCs are a hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jumpassociates.com\/ideas\/authors\/bio?uid=3\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.jumpassociates.com\/ideas\/authors\/bio?uid=3', 'Dev Patnaik']);\" title=\"Dev Patnaik - Jump Associates\">Dev Patnaik<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.berkeleyideas.com\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.berkeleyideas.com\/', 'Uncharted']);\" title=\"Uncharted\"  target=\"_blank\">Uncharted<\/a>, and I believe he is probably right.<\/p>Big institutions (elite schools) have no idea how to deal with PR,\u00a0 so MOOCs is a good way to increase their influence : <a href=\"http:\/\/themagnetisalwayson.com\/moocs-as-capital-biased-technological-change\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/themagnetisalwayson.com\/moocs-as-capital-biased-technological-change\/', 'it matters for the teachers only']);\" title=\"Moocs as a capital-biased technological change - The Magnet Is Always On\"  target=\"_blank\">it matters for the teachers only<\/a>.<br \/>\n<!--more-->Ok, I might sound like a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/97\/05\/18\/reviews\/pynchon-luddite.html\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/97\/05\/18\/reviews\/pynchon-luddite.html', 'Luddite']);\" title=\"Is It OK To Be A Luddite ? - Thomas Pynchon (1984) - NYTimes\"  target=\"_blank\">Luddite<\/a>, but studying in class has several (silent yet essential) implications:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Selection by the school (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Signalling_theory\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Signalling_theory', 'signalling theory']);\" title=\"Signalling theory - Wikipedia\"  target=\"_blank\">signalling theory<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Building a network (how many people enrolling a MBA say it&#8217;s worthless, except for the network)<\/li>\n<li>Argumentative learning : you confronting your ideas with other people is essential in the learning process<\/li>\n<li>The focus you have to give has its importance to fight procrastination<\/li>\n<li>If it was not working, why would we have small batch of student?<\/li>\n<li>If you want to learn by yourself, you can read a book, it&#8217;s much more efficient ! (why would you need video ?)<\/li>\n<li>Hey ! Why Wikipedia wouldn&#8217;t be enough ?<\/li>\n<\/ul><p>Of course, there a some extraordinary stories such as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/15\/magazine\/the-boy-genius-of-ulan-bator.html\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/15\/magazine\/the-boy-genius-of-ulan-bator.html', 'the genius from Ulan-Bator']);\" title=\"The boy genius from Ulan Bator - NYTimes\"  target=\"_blank\">the genius from Ulan-Bator<\/a> \u00bb, but similar stories happened before the MOOCS, while using just books (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Srinivasa_Ramanujan\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Srinivasa_Ramanujan', 'Ramanujan']);\" title=\"Ramanujan - Wikipedia\"  target=\"_blank\">Ramanujan<\/a> is famous for having taught himself in &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/stream\/asynopsiselemen00carrgoog#page\/n6\/mode\/2up\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/archive.org\/stream\/asynopsiselemen00carrgoog#page\/n6\/mode\/2up', 'A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics ']);\" title=\"A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics\"  target=\"_blank\">A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics <\/a>\u00bb, which is a fascinating book by the way).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlinecolleges.net\/2013\/02\/18\/the-dark-side-of-moocs\/\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.onlinecolleges.net\/2013\/02\/18\/the-dark-side-of-moocs\/', '']);\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" style=\"border: 0px none;\" alt=\"The Dark Side of MOOCs\" src=\"http:\/\/www.onlinecolleges.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Dark-Side-of-MOOCs-800.png\" width=\"550\" height=\"1599\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">courtesy of OnlineColleges.net<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The next question is : &#8220;Will technology invade classrooms ?\u00bb Some people are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/15\/magazine\/no-child-left-untableted.html\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/09\/15\/magazine\/no-child-left-untableted.html', 'pushing this forward']);\" title=\"No Child Left Untableted - NYTimes\"  target=\"_blank\">pushing this forward<\/a>, but the results <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/la-me-ipads-survey-20131202,0,2314290.story#axzz2mqmb1vdT\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/la-me-ipads-survey-20131202,0,2314290.story#axzz2mqmb1vdT', 'are not as good as expected']);\" title=\"LA Times\"  target=\"_blank\">are not as good as expected<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;said Dev Patnaik at Uncharted, and I believe he is probably right.Big institutions (elite schools) have no idea how to deal with PR,\u00a0 so MOOCs is a good way to increase their influence : it matters for the teachers only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-epistemology","category-mood","category-skepticality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1016,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions\/1016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/antoine.wojdyla.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}