Sponsored Q & A: How learning can open, expand and formalize access to quality higher education? Join our panel

Friday, November 23

2:00 p.m. BST to discuss MOOCs and more

Higher education has always been fond of their acronyms and you do not get much more prolific than the current four cards do the trick. Since its launch in December 2012 MITX Stateside at the University of Edinburgh decision to join the platform Coursera, MOOCs (or massive open online courses) were barely out of the menu of the new education . Neither observer recently just ask "Online courses not mean the end of the traditional university?"

course, the provision of education beyond high school is not a recent phenomenon. The Open University has defended ODL since 1969 -. Their original correspondence courses and nocturnal emissions of the latest research and development conducted by the Institute of Educational Technology

By definition, learning is meeting the technology and pedagogy - and universities are still exploring the balance and relationship between the two. In its 2011 slideshare, Guillermo Ramirez describes "five biggest mistakes of virtual education" the widespread use of the term ("you do not have a class of 250, with 250 being one") with an excess risk technology takes the pleasure of the educational process.

MOOC cheerleaders point to its potential to broaden access to higher education. "I see openings where MOOCs could find a useful place in the ED," says Jeff Haywood, University of Edinburgh, "which allows access disadvantaged SE courses on subjects that can not take and ... to. teachers in universities of choice for new ideas on how to teach and learn online "Like Bonnie Stewart wrote in his blog network:." This is the element that allows open participatory experiences line ... to deliver value, even for those of us who are already studying in normal schools "

But while adoption is growing so dropped out of school. An article in the Atlantic city dropout rates of 80-95% MOOCs offered by Stanford, MIT and UC Berkeley, before thinking provocative in any case, "the low success rate is an example of effectiveness of the system. "And Patrick McGhee, director of the University of East London, check warning tone:" There is a danger that MOOCs intensify rather than end a system of two-tier education in the United States States, and finally, the United Kingdom United Kingdom, with on-campus learning in elite higher education and learning as a basic offering. "

panel to be announced