MOOCs: My remarks about the future of education

Sebastian Thrun in one of his interviews revealed to me the whole magic of MOOCs. He suggested that once in the future we could invest in a typical MOOC course as much as we invest today in a movie. Will MOOCs be the similar revolution for universities as much as the movies revolutionized the theatre? Just imagine that we could invest $300M in a course like we invested in the Pirates of the Caribbean.

There are several trends we shouldn't overlook:

• The work week will get shorter in the future. In 1930s ingenious John Maynard Keynes imagined a 15-hour week by the 2030 thanks to the rapid raise of productivity. We are getting there.
• Technology and knowledge changes too fast. And it will change even faster in the future. What you learn today in school won't be relevant not in 20 years as it was in past century but in 3 years.
• Science and technology has became more popular in general population. People want to understand it, discuss it, and take part in it.
• There is increasing amount of knowledge we produce as a humankind. We must specialize more and more in what we are doing. But it is still important to have general overview so we can be creative and apply or combine the known.
• Travelling around the world has got cheaper and cheaper.

Given all this, it is becoming more obvious that we must change how we learn, change the system of formal education, which has been same for centuries. I believe that the continuous education is not anymore an option, it is the only solution for this fast paced world. And MOOCs, which emerged only recently, are the best tool to put it in practice.

We could finish school much sooner than it is common today and start to gain experience in the "real world" much sooner.

Imagine that you go to work when you turn 18. But unlike today with the typical 40-hours work week (in Europe, except France :-) ) you spend only three days at work. During the rest of the week you would be free to study. Not for few years, but in the rest of your life. Can you imagine how great impact this would have? 

(This carreer choice would be suitable only to limited number of professions. But it could become prevalent as we can be much more inventive how to do MOOCs. MOOCs has been here only for few years and hasn't yet reveal their full potential.)

My remarks about the MOOCs:

• You can be educated by the best of the best. Moreover, in the future we could invest 1 million dollars in a course like today we invest in a typical movie today.
• A single course can be perfected over time given valuable data from thousands of people. We can even refine the course given the performace of students after in the real world.
• Courses can be financed by companies, which can choose the skill set that is relevat for them.
• Your learning is assesed by a machine. Open book examination is more relevant today. (Yet rating e.g. essays is still a problem today. But people are inventive in this matter...)
• You get instant feedback on your achievements.
• You learn at your own pace. If you don't understand something, you can easily rewind back. There can be quizes all the time for you to know that you undestood well all the important points.
• You learn only the things which are relevant for you. You can pick a specific course you are interested in and learn only about specific topics. You don't waste your time.

Some critiques of this:

1. We loose the the physical contact with people. What about discussions? Feedback from a professor? What about the tangibility of a classroom. We loose the enriching university environment. Without Berkeley and Stanford there wouldn't be the Sillicon Valley.
2. Some courses simply cannot be tought only online.
3. Team work
4. How to keep people motivated?
5. How to asses skills of people?

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I wrote a blog post about this recently: "LIBRARIES: ARE THEY THE ANSWER FOR ISSUES OF MOOCS?". I try to suggest the model of libraries could be the solution.

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Here the physical separation from learning seems to be a real problem: some courses require work in a lab or at least access to equipment, other are mainly about discussion. Doctors cannot be trained online. Physics/electrical engineering/chemistry requires the labs while courses or classes of philosophy should be about discussions.

At first, I believe that videos of experiments are extremely underrated. Secondly, computer simulations and virtual reality tools has became much more powerful.

We can be also much more inventive. E.g. force the students to build the experiment themselves given just materials they have home. Teach control engineering with Lego Mindstorms instead of expensive lab experiments which are far from real world anyway.

That's with regard to some engineering studies I experienced. I, of course, recognize that it is impossible to do this for instance for doctors. But one can see that the set of (university) profession which requires such training is very small.

The new libraries could be also partly an answer for the real world discussions, they could provide equipment for the most basic courses.

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No doubt, team work is the core of being a part of human kind. But this can be nurtured much earlier in life. And people will be actually working getting this experience in real world.

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This argument is rather pro MOOCs than against them. For many the university is a necessary evil they must face to get the well payed job.

With MOOCs, you can study what you enjoy and what your employer needs you to do. To get a right job, the company can have very specific requirements for you to take specific courses..

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Is really assesing people at university the best way to determine how much they are prepared to do the job? Indeed, if you are successful at the university, it can imply some positives. Particularly how dedicated and motivated you are. How you can face stressful information. But, does it really say how good you are in what you are doing  (Again, I am speaking about most of the ordinary jobs.) Today, you must show your skills.

But it all comes to a mind set. People ask you: "what have you done?" You answer: "I have a diploma from Harvard!"

And now there are two types of reactions. In Europe, most people would react: "Wow, come work with us. We want you!" I have feeling that the American reaction would be more like: "Great! But really, what have you done?"

The diploma can give you an edge in your first job interview (if there is a job interview. I guess most people secure their first job long before finishing the university. The main thing university provides you are contacts and direct links to the field you want to work in. If you are good, you probably find yourself hired before you graduate. But this can change. I again address that in the other post: the new libraries could offer space to do this kind of networking). But afterwards, in your life it is your actions which will present yourself.

Conclusion

So will then MOOCs destroy higher education as we know it today? Probably not.

Let finish it with the metaphore I used in the introduction. Today there are great movies many people watch but many people still sometimes go to theatre. People watch movies every day but for the best ones they go to cinema. MOOCs are the future but it doesn't mean it is the end of universities as we know them...