MOOCs

I have taken an online course before and I did enjoy it for one main reason: I learned at my own pace. It was so nice to study and learn materials whenever I wanted to and be comfortable doing it. Along with MOOCs, there are also other online lectures that I have used to help me learn things for other classes. Online lectures and classes let you pause, rewind, go faster, go slower, etc. Each person can learn at his or her own each comfortable pace with MOOCs. It is also free for people who cannot affordable an education. This is also bad news. There is a possibility that teachers could become unnecessary and people could lose their jobs if MOOCs is cheap/free and/or easily accessible. This is my main worry with it. Research has shown that MOOCs hasn't been that successful when it comes to completion rates and actual learning. I believe that MOOCs can be a helpful thing, but it will be hard to motivate people to learn who don’t really want to. That’s why I think it is better as an aid for a class. 

 This is the website I used all the time when I was in Calculus II for Science and Engineering majors. It's called Khan Academy, and it started out as one making lectures online for all different types of math and science related problems. I think I learned more from this website than I learned in my class. However, I think that if this was an online class, I would have had more difficultly completing it. If I had a question, I could always ask my teacher, but if I was online, I would have no one to help me.



Here is a picture from Khan Academy that shows how the website maps your progress and how many skills you have left to master. This is something that an online course could have to help the students pace themselves and keep up with the work.



The article, Technology Will Not Replace Teachers by Jeff and Katie Dunn on Huffpost, supports the idea that teachers aren't going anywhere. They say, "Will MOOCs or a similar online learning concept start to take over? Will we have robots for teachers?" The role of teacher plays is irreplaceable; teachers motivate and inspire students as role models, facilitators, leaders, guides, and mentors. "A computer can five information, but a teacher can lend a hand, or an ear, and discern what's necessary for a student to succeed, and to want to succeed."