The Digitization of Education: What is all the fuss about MOOC?

Have you heard the buzz around Massive Open Online Education (MOOC) over the last year? How much do you really know? From the Khan Academy videos to the water cooler talk among department colleagues who are rightfully concerned about the future of their profession, there is a tidal wave of change potentially coming to Universities. 


Information technology has changed every industry it has touched and it is currently in the nascent stages of changing academia. Ten years from now if information technology has its way, education will be far different, more immersive, and hopefully more beneficial to the masses than it is today. The division of student and professor will possibly be blurred as the conventional rules of linear lecturing will be decommissioned to an academic world that the student hasn't created, but nonetheless gets to affect through their own online learning.

I have been looking for a good article or video on MOOCs to brush up on my basic understanding of them. This one is it. Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller gives a perfect 20 minute breakdown via her TED talk. It touches on the need, promise, opportunities, and fears of MOOCs.

For a critique of the MOOC movement, see this recently published article.  The MOOC movement is not an indicator of educational evolution.