Marc Bousquet on what has become known as xMOOCs (bad) and cMOOCs (good) and on how xMOOCs may make their money, for somehow they need to come up with a return on the investments made by venture capitalists. Candidates are: charging for assessment, vending tutorial services, direct tuition for certain courses, advertising. The upshot is, although not put in that way, beware!, what looks like a good deal may turn sour in the end. Administrators shlould realize this but don't: "If institutions really wanted to sustain participatory learning [in cMOOCs], they would already be doing so, for instance, by reducing lectures and high-stakes testing, investing in teaching-intensive faculty and the like. Instead, driven less by cost concerns than a desire to standardize and control both faculty and curriculum, administrations rely more than ever on lectures and tests [xMOOCs]". (peter sloep)
Via Peter B. Sloep
Marc Bousquet on what has become known as xMOOCs (bad) and cMOOCs (good) and on how xMOOCs may make their money, for somehow they need to come up with a return on the investments made by venture capitalists. Candidates are: charging for assessment, vending tutorial services, direct tuition for certain courses, advertising. The upshot is, although not put in that way, beware!, what looks like a good deal may turn sour in the end. Administrators shlould realize this but don't: "If institutions really wanted to sustain participatory learning [in cMOOCs], they would already be doing so, for instance, by reducing lectures and high-stakes testing, investing in teaching-intensive faculty and the like. Instead, driven less by cost concerns than a desire to standardize and control both faculty and curriculum, administrations rely more than ever on lectures and tests [xMOOCs]". (@pbsloep)