MIT should have done much, much, more than it has with MITx, according to Dan Butin. What do you think? 

MIT could have done so much more. They should have done so much more. In fact, I want to suggest that there is indeed a real revolution in the making, but it has little to do with the size or scope of such MOOCs. Rather, what MITx has stumbled into is the opportunity to create a never-tiring, self-regulating, self-improving system that supports learning through formative on-demand feedback. Formative "just in time" feedback (rather than summative "end of course" testing) is the holy grail for learning theorists because it turns unidirectional teaching concerned mainly with delivering knowledge into a recursive guide and springboard for learning. If MIT had done that, they would have changed just about everything about how we think about higher education. But let's take it a step at a time.

Serena Golden took an introductory economics class from StraighterLine in order to compare that really inexpensive, no-instructor, all on line class to more traditional offerings at more established institutions. She has written a three-part paper on the experience, with lots of interviews with experts and descriptions of her class experience. Her report might not shake you up, but will will make you think about academic planning and academic programs (and budgets).

One interviewee whose name you will know is Carol Twigg of the National Center for Academic Transrormation (NCAT). Golden finishes her third and final report with a summation from Twigg about StraighterLine's product:

“Within the universe of institutions,” Twigg said, “there are high-quality courses and mediocre courses and really lousy courses…. [StraighterLine] is well within the sort of mediocre and above, because of the oversight that’s gone into it.”

“I think it’s certainly a viable option within the panoply of higher education offerings,” she concluded. “How’s that for a lukewarm endorsement?” She paused, laughing.

“It’s as good as the other stuff.”

The "other stuff," of course, is what our institutions do now for lots more money.

We all know by now that with the higher ed realm leadership of Mark Milliron, the Gates Foundation is investing big in our future. Here's an interview with the person who is directing the educational technology push to be announced yet this fall, in partnership with EDUCAUSE and others:

Q: You’ve teamed with Educause, the college IT group, to start a program called Next Gen Learning Challenges. Describe the project.

A: What we envision is a multiyear, multiwave program, where every six to 12 months we issue a new set of challenges. And we’ll issue a set of challenges this fall around shared open-core courseware, around learning analytics, around blended learning, and around new, deeper forms of learning and engagement using interactive technologies. There’s a big gap between R&D and high-impact solutions at scale. We’re trying to participate in some of the effort to help those most promising solutions get across that chasm.

 

Q: What are the big challenges you see in online education?

A: Breaking down this division between online education and education. Increasingly, we’re bringing digital assets and digital experiences into the traditional classroom or at home. One of the big challenges is the reunification, if you will, of online learning with offline learning. And creating these blended contexts, which, based on the U.S. Department of Education meta-study and other work, seem to be the place where it’s not an either or, it’s trying to figure out how to do the best of both.

Secondly, given some of he conversations in Washington and other places around for-profit education, there’s a real danger that we overlap the actions of the bad actors in the for-profit sector with all of the for-profit sector, and overlap all the for-profit sector with all of online learning in general and all strategies that might be different and innovative. There’s a real risk that in looking at some bad actions within the for-profit sector, that we take a step backwards from some of the innovative strategies that institutions are using.

Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man 'Academy'"

Salman Khan is a 33-year-old who makes lecture videos in his hole studio/closet. His lecture on "Cancer" is embedded in this post, below.

Mr. Khan calls his collection of videos "Khan Academy," and he lists himself as founder and faculty. That means he teaches every subject, and he has produced 1,400 lectures since he started in 2006. Now he records one to five lectures per day.

The lo-fi videos seem to work for students, many of whom have written glowing testimonials or even donated a few bucks via a PayPal link. The free videos have drawn hundreds of thousands of views, making them more popular than the lectures by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, famous for making course materials free, or any other traditional institution online, according to the leaders of YouTube's education section.